Glee 217 Recap: Night of Neglecting Viewers Expecting a Good Show, Lesbian Action

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Kurt & Blaine in complementary pea coats have brought their adorable selves down to school for world’s most bizarrely conceived “fundraiser,” probably because they follow Sunshine on Twitter. Kurt misses his friends, Blaine observes in the cutest voice possible. But before Kurt can get too wistful, it’s Kissathophasky, emerging like the beast he is from the bowels of the building. Kartoshpshaky has taken a break from “pumping iron” (really who says that? the Terminator?) to regulate the “fairy dust” he hears Kurt & Blaine are spreading all over the hallway. Okay, if you want to blame contagious fairy dust for your case of the gays, Kartopskgay, then go for it.

Blaine: “You can live whatever lie you want, but don’t pretend that the three of us don’t really know what’s going on here.”

(Kartosskyphy is jealous of Blaine because he also wants to roll in the hay with Kurt Hummel, knew about Lance Bass before you did, etc.)

Then a pushing fight begins which is interrupted by Santana — who, by the way, has a dead muskrat on her shoulders but I cannot get mad at her blood-red dress — who gets all super Santanaish up in his face saying whatever he does is her bizness ’cause he got that slushie all up in her grill and she does not mean the kind you make hamburgers on, she means the other kind.

I have not fingerblasted anyone in this entire episode. IN THIS ENTIRE EPISODE. WHAT ABOUT MY IDENTITY?!

“I think I can take a couple of queers and a girl,” says Karstarterosky. Little does he know it’s actually three queers. Also sexual orientation and gender identity are not the same thing. Santana will have none of this:

BEST SCENE OF THE EPISODE.

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Sunshine, however, in the tradition of being a total peripheral unnecessary character who wasn’t even in Spring Awakening but is super-cute and a great singer, has announced on Twitter that she’s not going to the concert. Therefore her 637 followers, who I’m certain all resided in the Lima Metro Area, are untying their shoes and taking off their hats and settling in for a rerun of Dr. Quinn Medicine Woman.

Finn says, “whether there’s 6 or 6,000 people out there, we have to give it our all,” which I’d argue is definitely not true.

Sue’s Evil Hecklers are in the audience yelling at Tina when she heads out there to do her thing which is sort of a mystical lighting situation that seems perfect for like, people having sex on opium. It sucks that she’s booed off because I feel bad for Tina and also because I genuinely wanted to see the rest of her performance.

Quinn passes out taffy like Little Red Riding Hood, reminding them to vote Quinn for Prom Queen, which might be the only element of this episode that ties into anything else that’ll ever happen, ever.

Someone has the munchies

The hecklers, silenced by the sound of their own fillings cracking open, witness MIKE DANCING. YAY! Mike Cheng is gonna do his badass best to get me to like Bubble Toes half as much as I did for about 3 months in 2003, a feeling which has since faded — ay! not faded! — burned out completely. GOD I HATE THIS SONG. I feel like this performance maybe should’ve been about “songs that were totally overplayed and irritating, repackaged.”

Step it Up 5: Thousands Cheer with Gene Kelly and Mike Cheng

My re-package would’ve included Brittany in this dance number, but maybe she’s playing Scrabulous. There are some clips from Mike’s performance in this video:

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Now we have a little PSA from The Creators of Glee about how internet hecklers/trolls are losers. I hope this works in the same way that having all these gay characters turned all the children gay.

Jacob (yes I had to look up his name on IMDb): “Technology has allowed us to be brutally cruel without suffering any consequences. In the past if i wanted to tell someone they sucked, I’d have to say it to their face, which would generally result in my ass getting kicked.”

This is tricky, and I kinda like it — rolling out the idea that these internet bullies are just the humans getting bullied every day? When you ask yourself “who are these angry, angry mean terrible people saying terrible disgusting vile things on the internet all day for no reason?” Maybe it’s people who are already mad at the world for shitting on them all their lives. It’s people who, as you may have predicted, honestly wouldn’t ever say this shit to your face, because your face is precisely what scares the shit out of them.

This episode is mostly meta, it’d seem.

Holly:“We’re constantly bombarded with these images of people who are richer than us and happier than us and have more interesting sex than us and it makes us feel terrible–”
Becky: “Preach!”
Holly: “You know, we tear them down to make us feel better ourselves. And we don’t stop with the people who are on TV or who are in magazines, we do it to everybody. We think that because it’s done anonymously, there are no ramifications. But there are ramifications, guys, because it makes you comfortable with insensitivity. Do you know that one of the girls you heckled tonight has been crying for an hour?”
Azimio: “You’re saying you never ragged on anybody?”
Holly: “Oh of course I did! I spent three years sending hate mail to Debbie Gibson until she wrote me back and said the stress of my letters was giving her alopecia and then I felt terrible because I realized it was just my jealousy that she could fill a mall with her adoring fans. You guys are great kids. Some of those insults were RAD — but just think how about how you could uplift the world if you turn some of those barbs into roses. I mean, intermission is almost over, why don’t you get back in there and turn some of that jeering into cheering?”

OMG this is exactly what I said to Perez Hilton. Rather than cheer or smoke up with Sandy, they all head home to play on 4Chan.

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Suddenly it’s raining on the set. “It’s raining!” Rachel tells Mercedes, who is sulking in her Sports Utility Vehicle, where Rachel has gone to retrieve her and bring her back to “save the show.”

Mercedes: “I just don’t get it. Why are you a bigger star than me? You always get the big solos, the best songs, the moments in the sun. Why is it never me?”
Rachel: “I don’t know, I mean you’re just as good of a singer as I am.”
Mercedes: “Yeah, and everyone actually LIKES me.”
Rachel: “That’s your problem! Because I would rather be a star than be liked. And I’m not saying that it’s healthy and I’m not saying that it’s better than being loved but there’s nothing — nothing — that I wouldn’t do for the chance to be in the spotlight.”
Mercedes: “I just really wanted that closing spot.”
Rachel: “Well if you want that closing spot, then go in there and take it from me.”

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Holly Holiday wastes our time with a solo, Sue yells at the gay guy from Central Casting, and then Mercedes says she’ll sing.

It looks like Christmas. Seriously. It looks like Christmas with the colors:

That’s Heather Morris saying YOU GO GIRL in a secret Heather Morris language only spoken by people who manage to make “whip your hair” a legitimately sexy dance move.

Also Mercedes has somehow procured an entire gospel choir from that little clown car/SUV of hers. Expensive benefit. Where’s George Clooney. Rachel is standing backstage with her hand at her breastbone, feeling upset because Mercedes is so good, duh, probably Finn is gonna like her too now.

At the end they get the money they need for whatever, which wraps up this little plot device and our evening.

“That song and the weed I smoked prior — it gave me a change of heart,” said Sandy. Me too, me too!

“I miss The Arts, I really do,” says Sandy. Us too, Pink Panther Dagger Sliceshot Caped Banditgay, us too.

via gleekstorm.tumblr.com

Well! That was fun. Please return next week, in which the entire Glee episode will be dedicated to The Macarena. You know what I just thought of? Even though saying that Kelly Clarkson is a lesbian is like a 75% lie because I really have no idea, wouldn’t it be cool if she was a lesbian and she came out on this show and they had a Kelly Clarkson episode and Santana and Brittany sang “Moment Like This” to each other. Think about it.

Look at this gif, isn’t it cute?

via rachelbarbraberry.tumblr.com

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Riese

Riese is the 41-year-old Co-Founder of Autostraddle.com as well as an award-winning writer, video-maker, LGBTQ+ Marketing consultant and aspiring cyber-performance artist who grew up in Michigan, lost her mind in New York and now lives in Los Angeles. Her work has appeared in nine books, magazines including Marie Claire and Curve, and all over the web including Nylon, Queerty, Nerve, Bitch, Emily Books and Jezebel. She had a very popular personal blog once upon a time, and then she recapped The L Word, and then she had the idea to make this place, and now here we all are! In 2016, she was nominated for a GLAAD Award for Outstanding Digital Journalism. She's Jewish and has a cute dog named Carol. Follow her on twitter and instagram.

Riese has written 3184 articles for us.

44 Comments

  1. Ah. It seems like I’m the only one who stays up till 1 on the night of 4:20 to read a recap of an episode that I didn’t particularly enjoy.

    enjoyed the recap, though. missed these.

  2. Riese,

    One of the things that bugged me about this episode was that it served as a reminder that Glee’s “good episodes” seem to occur purely by chance. I feel like the writers don’t entirely understand how to pull off fancy writing conventions like “meaningful character development” or “plots”, and if they do they obviously don’t put much weight into them.

    Also, episodes like this make me wonder what straight people see in this show. I keep watching at this point 70% because the Brittana story line resonated with me on such a deep and profound level (was that only 1.5 months ago? It feels so far away) and 20% for Darren Criss. I suppose I also stand by it because I want to believe “it gets better” just like Dan Savage says, but somewhere in the back of my mind there is a voice screaming “it will only get worse”.

    I want this show to get better though! I want to like the characters, and I want to be invested in the story lines! It’s not like the show has a lack of potentially good characters, it’s just that it’s become so heavily reliant on the gimmick of the week that there is no possibility for anything meaningful to happen.

    At least we’ll always have Santana and Brittany.

    • “you are gonna get a lot of comments from people who like dots” – person copyediting this recap

      • a very prescient comment.

        however, too bad the person didn’t catch that you kept saying – braniacs instead of brainiacs. right? they’re like smart and stuff, not bran muffin eaters?

    • I have been wondering this since like, the first episode she was in. She was kickass but then again wholly unnecessary.

    • I don’t understand that character either. Every time she comes on screen I get the sudden urge to go take a nap.

    • Her Adele cover made me so, so angry. But I’m biased – I’m secretly praying that Santanna will do an Adele cover if Brittanna falls through.

  3. ok, so I’m probably not understanding this or something, and am gonna end up looking like a huge idiot, but… when Will is writing on the white board, he writes 5,000x.25=20,000. Shouldn’t it be 20,000x.25=$5000? Like, I get what he was trying to show, but isn’t this equation not equal at all?? I feel like Spanish teachers are supposed to at least understand basic math.

    p.s. Riese, please don’t ever stop writing/making these :)

    • I KNOW RIGHT I KNOW RIGHT I just kept staring at that being like………. that is incorrect. 5000x.25 is 1250. He wanted to divide.

      • Goshdarn it! I kept doing and re-doing the math over and over thinking–am I crazy!!! That drove me nuts!

    • Musicians can’t do math, duh.

      Honestly, I have no idea where that stereotype came from… because, even as a music major, I wanted to smack him for not doing that correctly.

      Maybe we should just blame the director….

    • I know, right? I could hardly believe my eyes! You would think at least SOMEONE on the set that day would have been like “oh hey, wait a minute…”

    • It should have been 5,000/.25=20,000. How did no one NO ONE notice this, all the way from it being written on the board to my television?

  4. ‘She should have a fisting war with SamRo inside Lindsay Lohan’s uterus’

    The visual.

    /I’m on the floor.

    Seriously though…SamRo’s hands seem to be quite something. When people (i.e. homophobic/gender-expression-phobic people) say she’s a man/guy I’m like, have you SEEN her hands/fingers? Well, if not, do so, then get back to me.
    Exhibit A: http://grazia.ninemsn.com.au/img/blogs/celebtracker/Blogs_CelebTracker_Ronson_Sept8.jpg

    Also, Miss Holiday should incorporate LiLo (since she did in Spanish class) into her education…for Santana.

    I agree that the episode was overall pretty crap though. Mom loved Charice.

  5. @carly, he was figuring out how much saltwater taffy they’d have to sell if it was 25 cents a piece. So because they need 5000 dollars, they have to sell 20000 pieces of saltwater taffy. It was a weird equation though.

    Anyway. This recap kind of fails. From the beginning you’ve had this negative mindset, and all you’re doing is looking for flaws. You’re not really recapping the episode properly – you’re just trying to be funny by mocking the show. Some nice one-liners, sure, but it’s kind of irritating.

    • Well. If people want a play by play of the episode they can just… watch the episode?

      There might be some mocking in there, but there are also some pretty valid criticisms.

    • I think this is funny because I don’t think there’s, like, a certain way to recap things, ya know? It’s Something Weird That Happens on the Internet, I don’t know if there’s really an improper way to accomplish it

      • my other favorite part of the internet is how like unlike anything else in the world, if you don’t like something, you can just not read it. you know? AMIRITE

  6. I freaking LOVE Gleecaps!

    This episode really sucked but I did love the scene with Santana, Blaine, and Kurt.

    GAYLESBALL ftw! :D

  7. Razorblades in Santana’s hair was the ONLY good thing about this episode. Also, one of my BFFs is obsessed with Charice (omg did you know that she’s probably a baby lesbian!?!?), so I felt the obligation to watch it for that too.

    So disappointed with the League of Doom. Brilliant opening, but they were just so lame. Their “plans” reminded me of when Artie and Kurt decided to sing in the library to be “so bad”, but since these were supposedly evil adults, it was even more pathetic.

  8. “Did the writers forget that there are straight people watching this show and you can’t tell the jokes you can only tell around your gay friends.”
    that’s exactly what i was thinking as i flinched at that whole exchange.

    also, who thought it would be a good idea for gwyneth, who can sort of sing i guess, to sing adele. i mean really. i actually want to know. maybe they only ever listen to their adele album on shitty apple headphones so they don’t realize how incredible her voice is.

    thanks for an awesome recap, riese. this is pretty much exactly how i felt about this filler episode.

  9. “I know, it doesn’t make any sense. Just wait for the gospel choir.”
    Best line. Hands down.

  10. Sandy has been dealing marijuana for basically the entire series. Will bought some from him and planted it in Finn’s locker in order to blackmail him to be in glee club, because he needed a strong male lead (who could “keep up with [Rachel] vocally”) despite the fact that he already had Artie and Kurt who are both better singers than Finn. He also sold to Puck when they were doing a bake sale to raise money for a bus that could accommodate Artie’s wheelchair, I believe.

    I liked that they finally acknowledged that Mercedes is a better singer than Rachel, since I have pretty much always been yelling “why is everybody acting like Rachel is a better singer than Mercedes!?” at my TV whenever Glee is on. Although now that they have, they are going to move on and keep doing exactly the same thing, it felt gratifying in the moment. (Seriously, Mercedes completely overpowered Rachel during their diva-off, just like Rachel does every single time she sings with Finn.)

  11. This episode blew but I ain’t mad at the recap. Thanks, Riese.

    I love Santana. If she doesn’t kiss a girl before this season is out I will sit down and I will write a letter. I mean it.

  12. turning tables really wasn’t that bad. i thought it was ok. the episode was ok. everything about glee is only ok. where is the epic awesomeness? where are the plot lines that they keep dropping? maybe if i smoke sum bud this whole season will make sense in some twisted way.

  13. I need to watch the episode before I read this. The fact that I haven’t seen it yet probably says a lot about how much I care about Glee right now.

  14. I just accidentally read some spoilers for some things that happen later, that’s what I get for looking at too many Glee tumblrs. Stay away, friends, stay away. I like surprises.

    Anyway this was the second time today I’ve seen To Wong Foo mentioned in reference to Glee, isn’t it weird when things like that happen?

  15. This episode was really boring. Santana’s line about the razorblades in her hair was the best. I’ve had Turning Tables stuck in my head since I watched this episode and I had to listen to Adele’s album 5 times to prevent Gwyneth’s “version” from getting stuck in there. I hate when Glee just recreates tracks like that. At least make it a little different, please? It’s annoying.

  16. I just watched this and the “joke” about Sandy introducing himself as “predatory gay” hurt my brain with its pointlessness. Why, Glee, why?

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