Glee Mini-Recap: Episode 112 – Mattress

Sue Sylvester Jane LynchJust a quick aside before we begin: I kept saying “leave off the last ‘s’ for savings!” to myself while writing this. Ok, Glee time!

It’s yearbook photo time, and The Lynch had her tearducts removed for the occasion. Apparently the Glee club doesn’t get a photo (Sue’s doing, natch). The Glee club has, historically, had their yearbook photo defaced every year, so the kids are ok with remaining anonymous.

But not Will! Noooo sir. He goes to Figgins, who demands $1,000 to let their photo in.

Great, maybe they can have another bake sale or car wash or something, maybe there can be singing or we could find another minority group to mock (Santana could sell tacos at lunch!).

Wow, lots of voiceovers this week. Let’s see. Rachel is really into posing for photos in preparation for becoming a star and thus has joined like every single club, Rushmore-style, so that she’s in as many photos as possible. She’s also hellbent on getting the Glee club a photo in the yearbook and plays the gay-dads-with-close-ties-to-the-ACLU card to try to do it.

Quinn misses being a Cheerio and wants back in. OMG SHOW! In and out, in and out. You quit, you join, you get kicked out, you don’t show up, you’re fired, you’re back, you’re hired, one or the other, you pick this one, but sneak into that one — when Glee becomes a board game, it’s going to be very easy for The Parker Brothers to conceptualize.

rachel-ren-club

Terri doesn’t want Will paying for a quarter-page ad (which somehow costs more than a quarter of what a full-page ad costs but whatever why do I know this) so he sneaks Figgins the money and then gets far too excited about it when he tells the kids that they only have room for a photo of two team captains, so they’ll have to vote. Everyone votes for Rachel (including Rachel) because no one wants their photo in the yearbook.

voting-for-pres

Ken schedules his wedding to Emma on the same day as sectionals so that she can’t go to sectionals. Will is all, “Hey Emma, what’s up with that?” and she tells him that she’s defo marrying Ken, end of story. That’s also coincidentally the beginning of the story and the middle of the story because we still have no idea why exactly this relationship is happening, these people need their own season on A Shot at Love or something.  I mean, Ken as a husband for Emma? At best Ken would be a good mover-of-objects or something. Like he could move all of Emma’s objects into Will’s house and move Will’s wife and her objects into the sanatorium.

That’s right! Nothing will stop her from marrying Ken! Even if Will finds out that his wife is actually a psychotic manipulative craft-hoarding twat who’s been faking her pregnancy, or even if Will were to notice that his marriage seems to be a total disaster from the writer’s room complicated … where was I? YES!

Will tasks Rachel with finding a co-captain, but everyone else is busy washing their hair. She snags Finn with a triumphant leadership speech she learned from either Tyra or Gypsy probs, and he agrees to be in the picture with her.

Then she sings “Smile” by Lily Allen to teach him how to… smile. I like this song a lot, so I approve of this musical number. They’re acting all cute together too… wow that guy really skulks around doesn’t he? How am I only noticing Finn’s utter lack of grace now, 12 episodes in? (I totally just set up a really amazing Will-not-knowing-Terri-is-pregnant joke there, didn’t I?) No wonder his twitter username is “frankenteen.”

Later he gets accosted in the locker room by football meatheads who try to draw on his face in preparation for his yearbook photo. Wow I really don’t miss high school.

face-markers

Wait can we just talk for a second? Why the hell does anyone care if someone draws on their photo? It’s not YOUR yearbook that someone else is drawing on, it’s on their own. What the eff? Sorry, digression over. If everyone whose picture I drew on felt that personally offended by it … anyhoo.

So uh, naturally Finn doesn’t show up for photos. Rachel is about to run out crying when she gives herself a mirror pep talk like Stuart Smalley and totally nails the photo on her own. SMIZE, RACHEL!

rachel-pep-talkThe photographer has to leave though, he has a casting session for a commercial to do. Because Rachel cannot only cry on cue but can also read minds, she suggests he forego the casting and instead just hire the entire cast of GLEE, a great new show on Fox Wednesday nights at 9.

She informs the kids that they’ll be in a commercial which will make them stars, and then no one will EVER draw Hitler mustaches on their yearbook photos again. What’s the ad for? Mattresses! I have a feeling this is not going to be the star vehicle Rachel thinks it’ll be, but it worked for the Bananas in Pajamas.

jump-mattresses

So, mattress commercial shoot! Rachel suggests that the Glee club perform a number instead of reading a silly ol’ script, so they perform Van Halen’s “Jump,” in jammies on giant mattresses. Not gonna lie, that was awesome (although I was slightly concerned about THE FETUS IN QUINN’S GODFORSAKEN STOMACH FOR CHRISSAKE).

I wanna jump on a bed right now!

And then… finally… the moment I’ve personally been waiting all season for…

Will finds out that Terri isn’t actually pregnant at all!!!!

Seriously, how many drinks for this?

Only took TWELVE EPISODES. He’s looking for his pocket square and instead finds one of her fake baby bumps. He calls her out and she keeps denying it up until he pushes her against the wall and lifts up her shirt. Seriously, dude? This is your wife, how the fuck did you not know?!? I wish they’d done a musical montage with him trying to lift up her shirt and her backing away, like a “Halo/Don’t Stand (So Close to Me)” mashup.

She gets very scary looking in this part like it’s a real show about feelings.

domestic-violence-was-almost-on-my-teeveeNaturally she blames it on him and the Glee Club. They have a really intense, real, awful argument. She fesses up her steal-Quinn’s-baby plan and all of her lies. Will storms out; Terri is left alone; we go to the commercial break. Wow. That was very well-written. No snark from me.

“I loved you Terri. I really loved you.” – Will (oh burrrrn!)

Will goes to the school and finds a stack of mattresses with a note attached thanking the Glee club for their hard work.

These don’t look nearly as nice as the ones they were jumping around on, btdubs.

Riese Sidenote: At this moment, I yelled to Alex OMG I WISH CARLY WERE HERE SO WE COULD SAY “OH, HE’S GONNA SLEEP ON THE MATTRESS OBVIOUSLY TO SHOW OFF OUR EXTREME SHOW-PLOT-PREDICTING TALENTS.”

He is confused but happy to have found a place to sleep. Glad they didn’t do a commercial for bowling balls! Hey-o! Jokes!

will-sleeps-alone-tonight

Sue is at the TV station shooting another Sue’s Corner segment — which I wish had their own online web-series like Subtle Sexuality — when she sees the mattress ad on the teevee. The next day Quinn asks Sue to be in the Cheerios yearbook photo but is turned down.

“You’re too busy chasing tail and loading your hair with enormous amounts of product. I mean today it just looks like you put lard in it!” – Sue (to Will)

Later Figgins and Sue are are telling Will that the Glee kids are disqualified from sectionals because they were in the ad. And since Will slept there they can’t return all of the mattresses. This is silly. Under pressure to explain his IRRESPONSIBLE MATTRESS PAWNING, Will reveals that he’s thinking of leaving Terri.

Figgins tells him that Glee club is over. The Lynch is way too happy about that, as you can imagine, because she has no heart, but however can still do no wrong. Anyhoo, she should know by now that Glee never gets shut down for good, is the show called “Cheerios” no it’s not. Is the show called Honey Nat Queerios? No, unfortunately also.

lynch-diaryQuinn shows up in Sue’s office in her Cheerios uniform to prove that her uniform still fits (how?!?) (is she also faking her pregnancy?) (wtf) and she should be able to be in the Cheerios’ photo.

She blackmails Sue into letting the Glee kids have a full page yearbook ad and letting her back onto Cheerios by threatening to tell Figgins that Sue gave the Cheerios gifts all the time. Yeah Quinn! This scene was crazy awesome, like when Tina stood up to Bette for the first time, except without the sex afterward, which is probs ’cause Quinn’s No #1 relationship is with God.

Quinn tells Sue that she actually doesn’t want to be back on the stupid Cheerios since Sue’s a crazy Nazi and storms out. Woo!

q-and-sue

Will talks to Emma about the Glee kids, and she tells him to stop worrying about that and focus on his own life and divorce. Wait, who said anything about a divorce? Um, he really needs to divorce that crazy bitch.

Will tells the Glee kids that since he accepted the mattress by sleeping on it in a pit of despair, he will quit the club and let them continue on to sectionals without them. Oh, it’s that simple? Ok! Super. He gives them a moving speech and they all get gussied up for their yearbook photo, which means: montage. You guys know how I feel about a good montage. We end on the football players defacing the entire Glee club photo. Like, they messed up everyone’s face and changed “Glee Club” to “Geek Club.” Hm. They’re… thorough?

yearbook-photo-glee

Overall I have to say this episode was pretty good. A lot better than the past few, by far. I think I would have appreciated most of this episode a lot more had the rest of this season not been so weird and uneven and repetitive but it was good, with some great moments (Terri and Will’s fight… damn!). The final Glee of 2009 airs this coming Wednesday, and then it’s on hiatus until the spring, so let’s hope everyone can keep it in their pants and not quit between now and then, and that no one comes back preggers.

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carlytron

lots of pizazz.

Carly has written 48 articles for us.

13 Comments

  1. I love glee but i dont like quinn but it was quite nice when Quinn told Sue that she doesn’t want to be back on the Cheerios anymore cause Sue’s a mean chearleading coach. i am hoping that the over cherrios will find that they have had enough. I love the song Smile! It rocks!! I cant wait to hear that.

    Also with the glee club being over, Glee is afficiouly over. I hate sue. I hope she calms down. Why does she hate the Glee club and will so much? I hate her in the show but in real life shes such a softie. What a coincedence…

    And I feel sorry for will with the baby thing. Terri should of told him when she found out she wasnt pregnat. Also Will already told his parents.. How is this going to work out. They should just appologise to eachother to get it over and done with. I wanna see more of the kids not the adults..

    Anways i think this is one of the worse episodes. Its complicated. way to complicated. To top this story up, Ep 9- wheeles is the best glee video of all time!

  2. This week was the first time I ever actually watched glee. I showed up to my friends apartment and in the background they were playing the matress commercial scene and I was like, “OH MY GOD IS THIS A MATRESS COMMERCIAL? THIS IS AMAZING!” He then told me that it was glee, I was still amazed, and we proceeded to watch the rest.

    • This was the first episode my dad watched too. After we went for drinks on his birthday, he played the first thing on my DVR, which was this episode. Maybe it was the Jack & soda or his David Lee Roth appreciation, but HE WAS SO INTO IT. He now wants to watch EVERY EPISODE on my DVR, which is kinda sweet in a “my dad is cool” way, but also kinda ridiculous ’cause, hello, I have other shit to watch/do and have already seen every episode of Glee.

      ALSO I can’t hate Terri, even though she’s awful and I know she’s awful, but because she’s also the sweet teacher on Boston Public, and a random A.D.A. on The Practice, and the sex addict from Nip/Tuck, and LJ’s mom on Prison Break, and Tami’s sister on Friday Night Lights, and I’ve watched all of these at some point and just can’t hate her.

  3. Is it odd that I watch Glee, yet I still read the recaps?
    Am I missing the whole point of a ‘recap’? Are they not for ppl who haven’t seen the show/ep.? I find myself getting happy/excited just reading about the events that I have already seen. Is it that good? Is Autostraddle that good? All I know for sure is..I have never wanted to jump on my bed so badly.

      • Yeah, think of it as a great alternative for that friend who won’t stop talking during the show. Sure, they may be full of witty remarks, but you want to watch the show. Supplement your watching with this, and you have the best of both worlds!

  4. Hahahaa, this was really funny. “(although I was slightly concerned about THE FETUS IN QUINN’S GODFORSAKEN STOMACH FOR CHRISSAKE).” I was so concerned during this scene too!! Also, Quinn talks about being “back on the squad” and I’m like- is anyone listening to this crazy preggers chick? She wants to do back flips with a baby inside of her. That’s not very smart Quinny. Bad poor decision making for a mother to be!!

  5. hi glee
    fantastic voice great talent best shot my favorite movie and i like to
    sing during my high school cool cast and enjoy my favorite fan

    connie liang your fan

  6. I couldn’t get into the mattress ad bit ‘cos I kept thinking that there was no way the shop would be able to afford the rights to use that song even if they did pay the cast in mattresses. For some reason I have no problems accepting the multitude of more glaring implausibilities .. but that mattress ad thing made me say “that’s just stupid” out loud when there was no-one else there. So it clearly bothered me.

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