Glee/Headscratchers/Season Generic

Discuss any issues with Glee's that don't fit nicely into Episode or Character boxes here. Also, if you can move any of this page out to those others, do it!

Characters, Season 1 by Episode, Season 2 by Episode, Season 3 by Episode.

Female solo trouble

• Why did they do a whole episode about how unfair it was to have the kids compete for solos (via auditions) because that would make it seem like Will was "playing favorites? Isn't that what he always does by giving Finn and Rachel all the solos? If anything holding auditions is more fair because then atleast everyone gets a chance as opposed to automatically giving Finn and Rachel every solo because...(?)
  • And Shue also did a big dramatic speech about how they were going to win as a team and how noone deserved to get more attention than anyone else but then, in that very same episode, gave Finn and Rachel a duet...wtf?
  • My guess, sloppy writing/ They Just Didn't Care. This show has a bad habit of focusing more on setting up dramatic moments without thinking about rather or not they make sense or actually fit into the story.
• Why does Will make attempts to spread out the female solos and everyone complains about Rachel hogging them all, but no one bats an eyelash as every single male solo goes to the oh-so-talented Finn?
  • I knowwwww, right? I'm still ticked about Rachel dismissing Artie's talent, when not only is he a much better singer than Finn, but looks a hell of a lot more dignified wheelchair dancing than Finn does spazzing out two beats behind everyone else. And now that they've got Puck and the other jocks, there's really no excuse. And I LOVE Finn, I just don't like putting the other characters down to make him look better.
    • Lately though Artie, Mercedes, and Tina have all gotten greater focus in the club's chorale numbers with Finn and Rachel largely being reduced to singing songs on their own during rehearsals or outside of club entirely. Maybe Will actually learned something in "Throwdown."
    • There's also the fact that most of the boys in the group simply don't seem to care about getting solos as much as the girls and Kurt do - and the fact that Finn isn't as pushy, vocal or arrogant in his assumption that most of the male lead parts will go to him as Rachel is in her assumption that most of the female lead parts will go to her (even when Schue starts giving all the male leads to Jesse in "Laryngitis", Finn just gets sulky and passive-aggressive, he doesn't march into the choir room with duct tape over his mouth). So the other boys have less to fight against.
• In "The Rhodes Not Taken", Finn objects to Mr. Schuester giving April the lead for "Don't Stop Believing", claiming it was Rachel's. When in actuality, it's been Quinn's since the second episode.
  • Anyone else notice in that episode that during "Last Name", NOBODY BUT APRIL IS SINGING AT ALL?!
    • You forget that Will is completely enamored with April.
    • As is pretty much everyone who watches Glee, probably.
      • No, not really.
  • Um, wasn't that the point?
  • Yes, they are singing. If you listen to the recording of "Last Name" you can hear everyone singing backing vocals on the chorus. The point of the song IS that April is dominating it, and that no one is really doing much except her, but they ARE singing.
    • But isn't that just the case with almost EVERY song involving Rachel as a soloist anyway?
    • Particularly the first time they sang Don't Stop Believin', in which Rachel completely overpowered everybody else (including Finn, despite the fact that it was supposed to be a duet) and didn't even attempt to match the tone of the music? Rachel's awful handling of that song is why I will always belive that their original cover of Don't Stop Believin' is one of the worst songs they've ever done, and I thank whatever gods there be that they had her sing less of that song when they took it to Regionals so she couldn't screw it up again.
      • Finn not being able to keep up with Rachel vocally Despite what we were told is not her fault. Saying she handed the song awfully because of Finn's actual lack of talent isn't fair.
• Why does Will keep giving solos to only a few people? In fact, why does he choose songs that have one huge solo that's almost the whole song? It seems that every other episode so far has it where there's solo trouble.
  • Again since "Throwdown" this seems to have changed, although the songs are still essentially long solos or duets with backing vocals he seems to spread those solos out a little more than he used to.
• So, wait--Glee is the bottom of the food chain, yet the jazz band and pianist have nothing better to do than to play at all of their rehearsals?
  • Who the hell is the pianist anyway? Is he even a teacher or a staff member? Is he just a friend Will brought in on a favor?
    • This was lampshaded by Rachel in 'Theatricality' apparently, his name is Brad, and 'he sort of just hangs around'.
  • Admittedly it was never stated that they were the only group at the bottom of the food chain.
  • The addition of the school's most popular athletic crowd joining probably shot the group pretty far up the social ladder.
    • Not so much - in "Mash-Up," even the popular kids, like Quinn, Finn and Puck, were getting slushies to the face just for being in Glee Club. It's implied that Finn and Quinn lost some popularity when the rest of the school found out Quinn was pregnant, but that doesn't explain Puck getting slushied.
    • Puck got slushied because he had just quit the football team in favour of Glee and was walking down the hall with Rachel Berry wrapped around his arm. That's not dropping down the social ladder, that's gracefully pirouetting off the ladder.
      • Puck only symbolically quit the football team; after Finn talked to the coach, he didn't actually kick anyone off the team. So, really, it was just because of his association with Rachel that he got slushied. Thanks, Rachel.
  • Also Artie is in the Jazz Band, so of course they would help him out. Band Brotherhood runs deep.
    • He does have pull there.

Continuity

• Is it just me, or does Glee have continuity issues? In the first few episodes, Will doesn't know Emma likes him, but when she announces she's marrying Ken he acts disappointed in a way indicating that he has feelings for her too. There's other examples, but that's the one that sticks out in my mind the most.
  • Willful obliviousness is one of Will's character traits; the fact that he acts as though there's nothing between him and Emma doesn't mean that there isn't anything there. That notwithstanding, there are several episodes that explicitly show something stronger developing between Will and Emma until Ken calls her on it and gets her to start dating him.
  • Also, Will at the time was happily married. He was trying to maintain a professional relationship by simply ignoring any chemistry.

• In the third episode, Kurt claims that his dad let him have his own car basically on the condition that he stop acting so gay. This seems completely out of character for the man we're introduced to just one episode later.
  • Being gay doesn't mean you have to have a hope chest full of tiaras. I think Burt's main concern is that Kurt is going to get hurt. He also probably didn't like that Kurt was basically lying to him.
  • Just because Kurt's father is accepting of Kurt being gay, doesn't mean he likes it, and it certainly doesn't mean he's comfortable with some of the more ... overly flamboyant aspects of Kurt's character. He is trying really hard to accept his son for who he is, but ultimately it is still something that makes him uncomfortable. Also, while he is okay with his son being gay, there are ways of expressing gayness without being Camp Gay -- see Invisible to Gaydar. Nevertheless, Kurt and his father also get Character Development (possibly bordering on Characterization Marches On) since that episode. Whereas Kurt was perfectly happy to lie to his dad about the condition of having the car, and his dad seems to be a lot more disapproving of Kurt's gayness, in Ballads we clearly see Kurt deliberately choosing not to do certain things which would hurt his father even though they are extremely important to him -- ie throwing the ending of Defying Gravity -- and in return his father talks to him and explains how he feels about the phone call instead of acting gruffly and uncommunicative as in the first couple of episodes.
    • In the most recent episode (Theatricality), Kurt's dad has obviously changed his attitude about Kurt's homosexuality - he stands up for Kurt against Finn in a Crowning Moment of Awesome.
    • I read a fanfic that gave a good explanation. Mercedes explained what happened, offered to pay for the damages, and asked Burt why Kurt couldn't have his car back, mentioning what Kurt said about him finding the hope chest of tiaras. Burt explained that he was scared at the idea of people throwing things at Kurt's car, especially while Kurt was inside it, and that, this time, it was Mercedes, who wouldn't hurt Kurt, but next time, it could be someone who had darker intentions. He acknowledged that it wasn't exactly fair but that, as a father, he had to do certain things to help control his fears of Kurt being hurt. Kurt either lied to soothe Mercedes's guilt or was genuinely mistaken about the reason; I don't remember which. Granted, it was a fanfic, but I thought the author did a good job of giving a plausible, in-character explanation for the changes in canon.
    • I think Burt is simply a case of Characterization Marches On. The Burt we've seen is one who spoils and supports his son. The only time he didn't give into Kurt's whims was when Kurt wanted him to stop dating Carole. Even when Kurt was planning to miss their annual Friday dinner, Burt didn't threaten to ground him or outright forbid him from blowing it off. He simply argued, said he was disappointed, and left it at that. This Burt wouldn't take Kurt's car away because of a chest full of tiaras. In fact, he'd probably be the one who bought them and the chest.

• Speaking of Kurt's car -- it's been more or less established that everyone in ND is no older than a sophomore in S1 and a junior in S2. Doing a cursory check of Ohio's driving laws, the oldest age at which you can get a permit is 15 and 6 months, and while below the age of seventeen, you're not allowed to drive without a family member in the car. And yet... Kurt has his own car at the beginning of S1. That he uses to drive ND to Vocal Adrenaline's rehearsal. As a sophomore. What the hell, show?
  • Kurt's age appears to have been retconned; it's hardly uncommon for that to happen to information established in the first few episodes of a series to suit plot demands as a show develops a better sense of its characters and what it wants to do with them.
  • It's possible Kurt is technically the owner of the car, but Burt doesn't allow him to drive it until he reaches age. Yes, I'm saying Kurt is driving the car illegally and behind his father's back. When Mercedes broke the windows (And was quickly forgiven) Burt knew what Kurt has been doing and took the car.
  • Some states allow students to get a school driving permit at 14 so they can get to school and to related activities.

• Where the hell is Quinn living now? She got kicked out so she's staying with Finn except Finn can't stand to be in the same room with her - is she still living in his basement?
  • This was solved in Laryngitis; Quinn is currently living with Puck.
  • And now Mercedes. All of which actually makes sense. Finn and Puck both wanted to prove they could be fathers (established as canon) and so offered her a place to stay. Since Finn was her first choice, she went to him first.
    • And now back home because Quinn had her baby and her mom kicked out her husband for cheating as of the Season 1 finale.
• Now we have it with Brittany and Artie. A lot must take place offscreen because apparently he was supposed to want her back at some point between 2.04 and 2.06. This was never hinted at until the 'This is what you missed' in 2.06. I'm seriously getting to the point where I feel this show has Negative Continuity unless stated otherwise.

• If I remember correctly, in the very first episode of Glee Rachel says that her fathers had their sperm mixed and used artificial insimination to have Rachel. Later on when Shelby appears, I think it was explained that Shelby gave Rachel up for adoption so she could continue her career. If Rachel's dialogue about being born through AI is true, that would mean that Shelby agreed to have their sperm implanted in her. This doesn't make since at all, considering that Shelby wanted to continue her career. Am I missing something, or is this just a writing mistake?
  • She did it, because she'd be paid enough to get to New York. =]

Pregnancies (Terri and Quinn Issues)

Is there any real reason that Terri started, then continued, lying about her pregnancy?

• From what I can tell, Terri didn't tell Will when she found out that she had a hysterical pregnancy only because she didn't have the heart to do so when he was so excited about having a kid. Okay, maybe that makes sense in that moment, but afterward, why would she continue to lie until she became pretty much stuck with somehow faking an entire pregnancy (which is just not possible)? Why didn't she come clean earlier or at least pretend to miscarry? (Yes, she's a Dumb Blonde and kind of crazy, but what's her motivation?)
  • Terri tells her sister that Will already has one foot out the door (which isn't actually true, but Terri seems to have some abandonment issues) and that the baby is the only thing keeping him around.
    • In episode 12, it's made all the more clear that she did it out of severe abandonment issues.
      • Not to mention as time goes on, the lie kinda keeps building on top of itself. Maybe it would have been easy to pass it off early on but a month or two in after everything she'd done... that makes it kinda hard to simply say "Sorry, I lied! It's a fake. What do you want for dinner?" Terri, for all her flaws, loves or at least wants Will... and seeing him break is more than she can stand. So the more jazzed he gets about the matter, the harder it is to reveal the truth until something inevitably... something happens and reality sets in.
    • Well, she at least tried to get pregnant for real at first, but she probably tried for too long and too late. Also, "hysterical pregnancy" has a psychological element, so while it doesn't justify in a logical level, it showed that she would act like that.
  • After re-watching the episodes on DVD, it made more sense. Soon after Terri found out about her hysterical pregnancy, she was panicking while asking her sister how she should go about telling Will. Her sister told her to keep up the act, because it could ruin her marriage otherwise. Later, Sue told her that Will was already having an affair with Emma at school, and that she needs to become a nurse to keep a close eye on him, else her marriage crumble to pieces. Her sister, Sue, and her severe personality disorder caused her to be misinformed, and acting irrationally. If anything she's a woobie to me.

Kurt and Rachel's College Woes

Why are Kurt and Rachel putting all their hopes and dreams into getting accepted at NYADA, a prestigious but extremely picky art college, without even considering other options? In Ohio alone, Ohio State, Kent State, and the University of Akron all have well-renown theater departments, and those are just the public schools. It might not be the best of the best, but anyone who has gone through the college admission process can tell you not to put all your eggs in one basket; you should always have a second or even third choice.

• Well Rachel is CLEARLY a perfectionist. If NYADA is the best place for her to go, then that is where she MUST go. For as much as she seems to prepare for everything, she almost certainly has alternate schools in mind, she just isn't interested in actually attending any of them as that isn't the goal.

I don't understand why Kurt doesn't have any credits for his NYADA application. Even if you can't count his time in football, he was still part of two successcul glee clubs, helped the Cheerios win their last championship, and if he can put class president on his application, he could put down his skills as a trained mechanic as well.

Miscellaneous

• This annoys me because the show is supposed to be about a group of misfits yet with the exception of Rachel and sometimes Kurt, almost every episode focuses on the popular kids (who actually outnumber the misfits 7-6 if you still count Quinn as popular)
  • See below. Most of the popular kids in the glee club are now unpopular. At least Quinn, Finn, and Puck all are, and their friends' popularity may have fallen as well.
• Well, perhaps not originally but as of 'Sectionals', they seem to. Everyone but the football players, Quinn, and Rachel end up on a group call and talk rather casually among themselves. Brittany not withstanding but she's always pretty naively candid. :)

They live in Ohio, right?

• Where's the snow? Assuming that the show is in December they should be getting snow, or at least cold weather by now. And even if its not, the show is at least into October/November and they wouldn't be wearing shorts/short skirts anymore.
  • It's filmed in California, by Californians who don't think about that kind of thing. Seriously, though, the Glee time line is progressing VERY slowly compared to the real world. Sectionals hasn't happened yet, which it definitely would have by December (which is halfway through the school year). I'm starting to wonder if they'll get to Nationals this season.
    • I live 12 miles from Ohio and an hour from Lima. After the second week in November, short sleeves and short pants are only for the hardy and the foolish.
    • How do you figure? I wasn't in choir when I was in high school, but virtually all the vocal music competitions our school's show choir performed in were in the spring and those were all small competitions on the scale of sectionals. A national high school choir competition might very well take place in the summer, although I wouldn't be surprised if Season 1 only goes through regionals.
  • Double up on the California bit - if the writers are native, snow might be this mythical thing they hear about from people in Boston and see in movies. It's entirely possible for some people to never even have seen snow. Even this native New Englander, after living in Phoenix for a few years, ends up getting caught off guard whenever flying home into a snow storm. Besides, fake snow is pretty fake-y looking.
    • It Just Bugs me, a (Northern) California troper, that the "lol no snow in CA" keeps getting brought up. Sure there's snow: in the mountains! Just about every college student here takes the weekend in January to go skiing/snowboarding.
    • Yes, but here's a difference between seeing the manufactured 3 inches of well-taken care of snow at a ski slope and 3 inches falling from the sky and accumulating on the ground. We're not saying that lulz Cali's are warm, we're saying that they (generally) don't have the experience to handle a natural snow fall or visualized what it might be like. Or in general, just act differently due to habit and acclimation. What might be unbearably cold for a warm weather state (say... 60 degrees) is probably still shorts and t-shirt weather for a cold weather state. And vice versa (120 degrees for a warm weather state is different for those from a cold weather state).
  • I happen to live in Ohio about an hour and a half away from their town, Lima. It hasn't snowed here yet and it usually doesn't until late December, sometimes after Christmas. Also many people are still wearing skirts and the like.
  • There's also the fact that it is very, very hard and expensive to shoot in cold weather, let alone snow. The Canadian show "Trailer Park Boys" was shot in Nova Scotia and fans constantly complained that there was no snow in November, but it just wasn't in the budget to shoot in the winter. And then when they did shoot in winter for a Christmas episode, there was no snow and they had to bring in fake stuff! "Corner Gas" frequently had the same issues. Hence, it's rare to see anything but establishing shots of winter wonderlands in television shows.
    • It's also very expensive and difficult (not to mention bad for the environment) to create fake snow for filming purposes - it used to be done with truckloads of salt, though now finely shredded paper is more common.
  • We in Ohio have a saying about the weather; "Don't like it? Just wait a few minutes" as the weather is odd, to say the least (any one else remember that 60F day in Decemeber maybe ten years ago?)

Traits from the beginning

Whatever happened to some of the character traits and stuff shown in the first few episodes? Like Finn's extreme ejaculation problem, or Pucks milf loving ways, and whatever happened with the celibacy club? Or... the fact that Will actually works as a Spanish Teacher?

• • Finn hasn't had a lot of sex recently and Quinn presumably got kicked out of the celibacy club, what with the pregnancy and all. Puck's trying to be a one-woman man; I assume that'll collapse at some point. Will's actual job has pretty much been ignored and now plays no role in the series.
    • If you recall Finn had that problem BECAUSE he's never had sex and is constantly surrounded by hot girls. And Puck's hasn't been faithful to Quinn if you haven't forgot his flings with Santana, and the fact that Will is a spanish teacher's ignored completely is exactly why I brought it up.
    • Exactly how much time should we spend focusing on Finn's ejaculatory issues? Enough plotlines on that point and it gets more than a little creepy; they covered the "issue," it served its purpose, it's time to move on. Puck's thing with Santana came before he was actually "with" Quinn; she was still carrying on with the fatherhood lie and "trying out" Puck as a father figure. And you asked what happened to Will's role as a Spanish teacher. The writers happened: there's no reason to spend any time on Will's day job. We have other things to worry about now.
    • But it was a serious problem with him. He couldn't even kiss girls. They never showed him getting over this, it just stopped. Even just an idle handwave like being a parent has set his mind on other things would be better than NOTHING.
      • He can kiss girls, he kissed Quinn all the time. The problem was the fact that he got too turned on when he was making out with someone, which didn't happen between Sectionals and the Power of Madonna.
      • Turns into a Chekov's gun in the recent episode, so it wasn't completely forgotten.

Spring Break?

• Wait, I'm confused, Jesse was gone during spring break? Does that mean spring break happened already? Because that can't be right, Quinn's birth was due by then and she barely even shows.
  • She shows enough, her clothing choice just makes it seem like she doesn't. Her due date was "around" Spring Break, and with two-three episodes left in the season, it's clear they're just going to say she was a bit late, in time to give delivery in (most likely) the finale.
    • Let me stress this once more, one episode explicitly states that she is DUE by Spring break. When it's that close to birthday time, you shouldn't be squinting to see the baby bump. If it was that close to the expectancy then she shouldn't be singing and dancing and putting on corsets for madonna routines.
  • Jesse went back to his old school after the "Run, Joey, Run" debacle. His school probably has their spring break earlier than McKinley High has theirs.
    • Since he was in the Glee numbers and in the hallways during "Dream On", I think he's still at McKinley. He probably just took off some time to be with his friends during their spring break. He's a senior who's finished college applications, he can get away with it.
  • There have been people who were pregnant but you couldn't see a sign of a baby bump on them, admittedly with a fit teenager like Quinn this probably wouldn't happen, but always a possibility.

Song censoring

Okay, so in "Bad Romance," I noticed that "I'm a free bitch, baby" was changed to "I'm a freak, baby." I don't understand, why can't they swear? The word "bitch" was used earlier in the very same episode! It made the song sound kind of awkward and it sort of gets in the way of other good songs (with just some swearing using words they've used in dialogue), so why do they censor the songs only?

• Easy, the songs are put onto iTunes, meaning anyone can download it, including little kids, but the show airs later in the night and with an age warning, meaning they can get away with language on the actual show. iTunes, however, is different. Also, I'm pretty sure the use of "freak" was to drive the message of the episode further, especially when you consider the confrontation at the end of the episode.
  • Not very logically sound. You have to pay money to download a song off iTunes, and a little kid wouldn't be doing that without the parent. But anybody can watch a show on Fox for free.
    • The songs also get played on the radio. Good enough now?
    • Actually, no. Minor swearing in songs on the radio is really common. And it's a moot point anyway, because the Glee cast doesn't get radio play to begin with.
    • Actually, while you do have to pay money to download off iTunes, in most cases young children have gift cards put on the account so they have a set amount of money rather then buying songs all willy-nilly. We don't give young kids enough computer cred.
• The altered lyrics would seem to make a lot of sense in-universe, actually. Remember that these are high school kids, subject to that level of censorship. Early on they got a list of "approved" songs, and they were "all either about Jesus or balloons," or something to that effect. Even getting approval for a broader range, they still almost certainly would have been forced to alter the lyrics when they performed the songs.
  • Not necessarily. If a school can justify reading the works of Chaucer uncensored, there's no reason why a school vocal group can't sing a song in its original form. High school productions of Grease include the mentions of smoking cigarettes and pregnancy plotline, and well as retaining the explicit lyrics that most of the audience will be familiar with from the film rather than the Bowdlerised version for elementary school. It's not as though the glee club are singing something like Nine Inch Nails' "Closer" uncensored.
  • Come on. Realistically speaking, they're not going to let the kids sing "I'm a free bitch, baby" during a high school production, even if they do let them read Chaucer.
  • Truth in Television I am in choir at school, and every week we have some time set aside in class for us to get up in front of the class to sing a song of our choice (and usually it's pop songs and other songs they've done on the show) and even though many students swear in everyday conversation in the class, if anyone sings a line in the song they choose that contains a swear word, drug reference, etc. they would get at least a disapproving look from the teacher.

Finn in "Laryngitis"

Before the "Jessie's Girl" sequence, Finn is sitting in the doctor's office with Rachel. For the sake of the plot, I understand that he needed to be there, but why would a sick teenager go see the doctor with her not-boyfriend, as opposed to her parents? Does Finn carry around Rachel's health insurance information all of a sudden?

• Easy - her dads were at the same place they always are when they aren't onscreen that prevents them from having any contact with their daughter.
• Also, it's not that uncommon for friends to go to the hospital in support of their other friends, sans parents. Perhaps Rachel didn't want her dads to also worry that she might lose her voice, so she asked Finn to come instead.
• OR they were talking with the doctor in private, before he came back with Rachel, and were getting the papers ready to go back home(Plus, they gave their little girl a moment with Finn

Next Year

Nationals take place the year after Sectionals and Regionals. How does this work when the Seniors who participated in Regionals graduate? How is that fair? In Glee, they pretty much do two song preformances a week at minimum, and towards the end of season 1 they set up a completely new set two or three times hardly a week before Regionals, one of them starting less than a day before the competition, so is it so impossible for them to have two competitions per semester, or a fall competition, a late winter competition, and a late spring competition?

• From how I understand, Nationals is actually a few months after Regionals (in real world time anyway). Not that it matters because the Glee club isn't going to Nationals. So... what exactly is it that bugs you about this?
  • I was (and still am) under the impression that Nationals was part of the next school year. Whether or not New Directions goes is irrelevant to the problem of Nationals taking place after the best (usually the best and/or most practiced, at least) members of the clubs that passed Regionals have graduated. All of the competition clubs I've seen in real life, and the one I've been in, had their highest-level competitions at the end of the same school year in which they had their lowest-level competitions.
    • Then why are you under the impression that it happens differently in Glee?
      • Will told the kids to take the summer off, giving the misleading impression that Regionals happened at the end of the year. And since the episode aired when most schools would be getting out, it just cemented that impression. There are probably a few more weeks for them, during which Nationals would occur at some time.
        • He told them to take the summer off and not have to worry about practicing and all of that because New Directions isn't going to Nationals. They have nothing to practice or worry about until next year's Sectionals.
    • I got the impression that the back nine were supposed to pick up not too long after the fall finale (and certainly not the four months it was between episodes). While Journey takes was aired in early June, it probably took place in late March / early April. This is based on Quinn giving birth about a month premature (I think that's what was said, correct me if I'm wrong). That would give the winner of Regionals ample time to prepare for Nationals, which probably take place in late June.
• Confirmed as of "Original Song". Regionals takes place in March, but last year the show happened to end much later (hence why Quinn was pregnant so long).

Why are all the Glee kids only from one grade?

• Why don't any seniors, freshmen or sophomores join? Surely there must be at least another student who isn't a junior that likes to sing.
  • Because they don't want to deal with being foced to split up the group once the senior one is supposed to graduate.
  • I am with the OP. I also don't think it makes much sense that the head cheerleader, and the quarterback, who are also (at least at the start of the series) the most popular kids in school would only be in their sophomore year. Jesse is the only character who is said to be older than everyone in New Directions (he's a senior in Season 1) and this is most likely so that he could be easily dismissed when his involvement with Rachel and the whole Shelby plotline reached its end. Furthermore it would be far more interesting to have characters steadily graduating and joining the Glee club as the series progressed than to refresh the entire cast (with the exception, presumably, of the teachers) for the start of Season 4, which looks likely as all of New Direction will be graduating at the same time.
  • Are they actually all in one grade? I know a couple of their ages got retconned as the show progressed but I don't think it's ever been explicitly stated that they're all in the same grade. RM mentioned possibly graduating *some* characters at the end of next season, so one can presume that maybe there's at least some kids in junior year right now and some in sophomore year. That said, I do agree that it's rather ridiculous that the head cheerleader and the star quarterback were both either freshmen or sophomores during S1.
  • They are, actually, all in one grade. All of ND was at junior prom.
    • That's irrelevant, ND was the music since the DJ bailed.
      • Word of God states that Tina is a Junior in Season 3.
      • And so's Blaine now. These retcons are getting annoying, and they don't even make sense.
      • It makes perfect sense. No really it actually does; Blaine turned out to be a Breakout Character and with Finn, Rachel, and Kurt leaving the show, the writers decided to use him as a safety net. Tina is the most undeveloped of all the main characters. And Artie has a good singing voice and can rap.
      • Just because it makes sense doesn't change the fact that it's a blatant retcon.

Money is tight/no object.

• It's getting to a kind of crazy level now where the value of money or it's availability seesaws as the plot demands. Right at the start the Glee club kids go off to hire their own seriously expensive director, and the issue of raising the cash to pay for it doesn't seem a big deal. Then we swing the other way to a school that can't afford a wheelchair bus or ramps for disabled access. Quinn's baby appointment and so on are "so expensive", but replacing the tires on all the VA Choirs 4x4s can be covered by a quick afternoon being hit on by Terri. Sue's $17,000 exhaust repair bill just vanished along with Gwynth Paltrow at the end of the episode and then in the latest episode (2x10) all the insanely expensive secret santa christmas presents followed up by the one Santa delivered for Brittney! The relative value of money on Glee is starting to bug me a little.
  • While I can see where you're coming from, most of your example have an explanation. To hire the expensive director, they had to resort to lacing their fundraiser cupcakes with pot. Obviously, that probably wasn't an option when they needed the bus. Also, the kids raised the money for the director themselves, the bus and ramps are something the school would have to pay for, and Sue was intentionally monopolizing the budget. I got the implication that Finn and Puck worked at Sheets-'n-Things for much longer than we were actually shown (hardest to explain). While the original secret Santa gifts were probably a little overboard, the re-walker can be explained by Beiste basically being Sue, but nice. She's successful, and probably doesn't have to worry about money. It still swings more than it should, but not all the way to the extremes.
    • You've got that backwards, they stated nothing about the cost of the director. The pot thing was for the wheelchair accessible bus.
  • Also as of "The Sue Sylvester Shuffle", the recording of Will at the end noted that the remainder of Sue's budget for the year was given to Glee. Given how ridiculous Sue's budget was, this should be waaay more than what Glee needs.
    • No, the next episode they came up with some excuse as to why they don't have Sue's budget. Hence the benefit concert and agreeing to perform at prom. Although where'd they find the money to hire Jesse as a show choir consultant I don't know.
      • Jesse wanted back into Rachel's life. He did it for free.

Glee Rehearsal Time

• This is more Fridge Logic than a complaint; when does the Glee club rehearse? Being an extracurricular club, you'd assume it's probably after school, but every time the door to the choir room is open, you can see a consistent stream of students walking past it. If it was just a couple every now and again it might be able to pass as being after school, but it's constant. The same thing happened when Kurt was teaching Burt and Finn to dance, which was almost certainly not during school hours. So I guess my real question is: Why are all these students hanging around for so long after school?
  • In my high school, choir, band, and orchestra were considered classes as well as extracurricular activities and had class periods for rehearsal. (Except for the marching band, which rehearsed right after school.)
  • They probably go down to the choir room or theater during study hall, free period, early leave, or whatever/whenever it is they have some free time, which is probably when the smaller cast scenes take place. The full cast scenes would be after school.
    • I get that that's when school clubs meet. My question is about why there is always steady student traffic outside their doors. You'd think that most of the students would have better places to be than wandering aimlessly past the choir room.
  • They're all Sue's spies.
  • Glee isn't the only club, and we usually see the beginning or end of a meeting. The halls of a school are pretty well-populated for a good twenty minutes before school and 5/10 minutes after.
  • At my school, a lot of kids can't go home for a couple hours after school ends for one reason or another. I used to be among them. Most kids here don't care about homework, so if you have to wait so long, walking around the school is better than nothing.

Minor thing- Why do the cheerios wear their uniforms everywhere, including in class and glee club?

• • Likely as a parody of cartoons and tv shows where the same happens. Like in Daria, where the quarterback and cheerleaders where their uniforms even when shopping on the weekend.
  • If you're a cheerleader, you'd want everyone to know.
  • In my high school the cheerleaders' uniforms were exempt from the usual dress code. Most of the cheerleaders wore their uniforms to class so they could have the shortest skirts around.
  • Sue believes in loyalty and that if you are a Cheerio, you must live and breathe the Cheerios. She makes it mandatory to wear the uniform everywhere.
  • In my high school, cheerleaders (and dance team) had practice every day, so most of them wore to school what they were going to have to wear for practice. No one practiced in full costume/uniform, so this was usually a leotard with jeans (for dance team at least, which I was on -- I don't remember what cheerleaders wore), but if we'd had to practice in uniform that's what we'd have worn to school. I also remember wearing my costume for the play to school every day during Hell Week (aka Tech Week, where you're in rehearsal until at least 10pm every day for a week to smooth out the stage kinks) so while I did notice this, it didn't seem out of place.

Why Will hired Jesse?

Every suggestion/observation that Jesse makes is outright ignored or Will goes to great lengths to do the opposite: "Finn can't sing/dance"(Which everyone else agrees) and Will puts him in the main duet. "VA finds their best singer and does their numbers around him/her" although he ends up choosing Rachel, he also choose Finn, which is a big middle finger to Santana, Mercedes and Kurt. "Too controversial" again, Finn and Rachel, who he knows have a history between them. "Too Lazy/Unrehearsed" And he goes and makes songs/choreography at the last time.

• • Oh, I agree...except with Finn singing in Nationals, the explanation could be that Finn was the one who wrote "Pretending." It seems fair that he would get a solo since basically, the Glee club was in dire straits and everyone else was too busy frolicking around New York to write a song. Also, I hope that when ND finally wins Nationals, they do it with a number they've actually rehearsed that has awesome "Valerie"-style dancing. And a lead singer who is not Finn.
    • My main problem with that is how everyone kept saying that Finn singing a duet with Rachel was a good luck charm and their only chance of winning, when every other time they had won, it was Rachel with a solo, the Sam/Quinn duet, Santana's solo and the group numbers. The only time they went with a Finn/Rachel duet(Faithfully in the past regionals) they LOST.
  • They even lampshaded it on the show, in 'Funeral'. Finn said that he and Rachel 'killed it' last year at Regionals and Quinn answered 'Yeah, you killed us. We lost.'
• The main problem here has nothing to do with Finn's skills. The problem is that Will thought it would be a good idea to hire the previous year's chief villain complete with negative personal history (with the two leads), to be an advisor. Jesse then proceeds to openly offer nothing but sabotage and criticism, all but twirling his moustache and cackling madly, while Will inexplicably acts as if nothing is wrong.
  • Even then, Jesse's criticisms were completely valid(If biased to favor Rachel). Even if Finn was the bestest singer that the world had have in the whole history of forever, the matter is that Will goes to great lengths to do the opposite of what Jesse advices, and ends up going against his own words
  • He should never have hired him in the first place as it was a massive conflict of interest. All his criticisms were nonsense. If a performer comes on stage and brings the house down, you don't ask her "how much did you practice?" unless you're looking for a reason to exclude her. Additionally, why would you choose someone who used to be in a relationship with (and is actively trying to win back) your lead to judge auditions that include that lead? And just for the cherry on top, the auditions also include his main romantic rival for that same lead. What a surprise it must have been to Will that Rachel came out on top! OHNOESFINN! aside, he should never have been in the position in the first place. He had a very clear agenda to give Rachel the lead and every one of his criticisms was to that end.

What was the total song count for season 2?

• season 2 they said would have less songs that season 1 so I was curious what the total song count ended up as for both seasons. One of the things they are saying for season 3 is again that they'll have less songs per episode but that probably won't last.

The Football Team

• Maybe it's because I am British and don't get how important football is in the US, but why do the football team socially rule the roost in Season One, when the only game they won the entire season was because the Glee club helped them out and they had Kurt as a kicker? Seems to me like they're a bunch of losers too. Yeah, Glee isn't popular either, but why not the hockey team or something?
  • Yeah, it's because you're British. In America, athletes, even in high school, are admired. It doesn't matter if they're good or not. It's mainly because everyone watches the games, not just people associated with the school but people from the neighborhood, or if it's a small town and that's the only high school, the whole town revolves around the team. Since they're on the team, their names are always mentioned, so everyone knows them and eventually they become popular. There's also the fact that athletes are little more attractive than other people and in high school that matters too. At McKinley High School it seems like the football team is popular because they are stronger than the other kids and can earn their power over them because they can just throw them in the dumpster or beat them up.
    • That's *some* American high schools - it really depends on the high school dynamic. And in any case, Karofsky WAS on the hockey team. He also plays football.

So, did Brittany end up sleeping with Kurt or what? I'm confused.

• No. They didn't. There's nothing anywhere in the series that implies it was even remotely a possibility (Burt? Was playing along with something he patently knew to be Kurt faking heteronormativity for his own reasons), so nothing to be confused about at all.

So, when does the school choir use the choir room?

• Think about it. The Glee club basically hogs the choir room all day and night. So when does the school choir actually use the choir room? Does the school even have a choir?
  • I'm pretty sure Glee uses the choir room before and after school and during lunch. Choir/chorus is usually an actual class (not always -- it was a class my freshman and sophomore years, a club my junior year, and a class my senior year), so they'd only need it during class periods. It's also fully possible that no, the school doesn't have a choir. Choir rooms are built a certain way, so if the school has had a choir at any point, they would have a choir room that might not necessarily be in use and might not be usable as a regular classroom.

The Justin Bieber Expierience

• Whatever happened to that? Not the Justin Bieber thing, the band itself. Sam left yeah but what about Arite? And Finn and Blaine are in a smaller group with Puck and Mike now. What does that mean when Sam comes back? Is the band that got put together for Hot For Teacher still the Expirience?

How has Will not been fired yet?

• Seriously. He sang Don't Stand So Close To Me to a student. He gave them his personal number and encouraged them to call when they need a ride. He cast himself as Rocky in a student production of Rocky Horror (where he'd be pretending to have sex with the same student who was in love with him a few episodes prior.) He constantly brings up is personal life in front of his students. He took it upon himself to talk to them about sex. I am a teacher and our district doesn't even allow us to break up fights, so we can't be accused of touching a student. He has flown over the appropriate student/teacher interactions line.
  • This. I went to a Catholic school, so the rules were a little looser - teachers could (and did) hug students they were particularly close to, just not during class hours, and most students had one teacher they considered an adult confidant of sorts. But seriously, Will? Way over that line. I'm not even sure he could see the line if he turned around. I'm creeped out, and I've had a couple of teachers that were basically parental figures in my life. How is this considered acceptable?'
  • It's funny. I just saw a news report on a teacher that was arrested for doing many of the same things to his students. The only thing Will didn't do that this teacher did was showing them a website called Hot Women with Abs or some such crap.

Why does everyone hate them?

• Seriously, they are all super attractive and they can SING. My school would be falling all over most of them. So does everyone hate them because they sing show tunes? Or is it because they know they wont date anyone other then their fellow Glee Clubers?
• Simply, they hate Rachel because she is bossy and annoying, or they hate Kurt because he is gay and Finn because he is trying to be different. These are really the only established 'hated' people of the group.

Is this show big enough to have individual episode recaps?

• This seems like it would clean up the front page

Total Inconsistency with the topic of Bullying

• This has been one of the main things that has bothered me about this show. Bullying of some characters is treated as heinous while other character is played for laughs. Considering the show has had Cerebus Syndrome, that's fine, but the problem is you can't do them both at the same time. You can't have it both ways. Season 2 had Kurt transfer to another school because Homophobia bullying was so bad, but then Pun gets beat up by the entire football team and that's treated as a joke. Santanna gets ridiculed after being forced out the closet by Finn and we need to feel sorry for her, but majority of her assholeness to her fellow glee members are played for humor (or outright swept under the rug like setting a piano on fire on school grounds.)