Glee/Headscratchers/Season Place Holder

This page holds all the info from the first cut of a Season 1 page. This information should all be duplicated in one of the following pages.

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

When people are happy with those pages and we release them in some easy find format, with nice links from the (by then) unlocked central JBM Glee page, then this should be deleted.

Discuss any issues with Glee's first season here.

Sectionals

• I don't understand why they needed a new number for sectionals. They've done HOW MANY big numbers? Why couldn't they do Keep Holding On or True Colors or Lean on Me or even Push It or Last Name? Doing Keep Holding On or True Colors or adapting one of the others would have been much easier than thinking of a whole NEW number...
  • The real answer, of course, is that it was much more dramatic. If I had to come up with some silly Fan Wank explanation, I would point out that just about every episode we've seen so far included Will saying some version of, "Guys, we've done great so far, but sectionals is coming up in [insert painfully slow moving figure here.] We need to step it up!" So the kids are probably conditioned to think everything they've done so far is inadequate to the majesty and glory of Sectionals (TM).
  • * shrug* They do repeat Somebody to Love because it was "a real crowd pleaser." Maybe they didn't think the other songs they did were audience orientated. Most of the songs they had done were for themselves (usually with big deep end of episode messages about them as people) and the ones they performed for crowds weren't exactly the best for the situation (Push it was aimed at horny school kids, Last name was a 1 person song which they had already done one of in a Show CHOIR competition. Finn and Puck had done some of the Acafellas songs but the rest of the group hadn't and they're more boyband renditions anyway).
  • Which is more interesting from a viewer's standpoint? Watching them sing something new, or watching something you saw a month ago? They draw viewers in with new musical numbers, not having them practice singing the same songs over and over again. I wonder how the writers are going to get around this for later episodes.
  • Also, some of the big numbers seem to have taken place entirely inside a character's head, or used to represent the general feeling of the glee club without using the usual dialogue and character actions.
• Also, does it annoy anyone else that we only saw them perform two numbers (Don't Rain on My Parade and You Can't Always Get What You Want)? Aren't they supposed to do THREE?
  • Quinn mentioned that they were going to finish with Somebody to Love. Considering that we'd already seen them perform it earlier in the series, it kept the pattern of not hearing the same song twice.
• This one bugs me like crazy: they specificially had to replace "And I Am Telling You..." in the "ballad" category. On what planet is "Don't Rain On My Parade" a ballad?
• Shouldn`t the glee club still be worried about the absence of Puck? Adding Sam only brings the number up to eleven.
  • Puck's absence is only temporary.

Female solo trouble

• 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."
• 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?
• 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.
• How the hell did Rachel manage to convince everyone SHE was the best singer in glee club? Every other member outshines her in one way or another, it's true that she's a very talented singer with a pretty voice but she can't hold a candle to the set of pipes on Mercedes. Kurt is a better dancer, Artie is a better musician in general, and even Tina can hold her own against her (seriously, listen to the girl in "Proud Mary.").
  • First of all, dancing and "musicianship" don't determine how good of a singer you are. Second, I like Mercedes too but Rachel is clearly the better singer. Mercedes may have that typical oversinging belting black diva voice but that's it really. Rachel on the other hand is much more polished and varied in technique, has a better vocal tone, and can both belt and sing gently unlike Mercedes. Rachel is the best singer in the Glee Club and this is acknowledged both in and out of the show (by anyone who has working ears).
    • Exactly - Rachel has a lot more range. She can switch from stage tunes to pop to rock without missing a beat. Mercedes mostly sings R&B songs, and the songs she sings that aren't R&B are re-arranged to fit within the style. Mercedes also does the really obnoxious, typical-pop-diva thing of packing as many melismas into a song as she can, even when there were none in the original version (see: "Gold Digger"). Anyone who knows anything about singing can tell you how trite and tired that technique is.
      • Pretentious, much? I agree that Rachel is overall a better singer, but Mercedes' "really obnoxious, typical-pop-diva thing" gives her voice character and lets her stand out in the crowd, and she's easily the second-best female singer in the group. Granted, she does lampshade how her only job most of the time is to belt out towards the end of the song, so there is some self-awareness.
    • Actually Kevin McHale is widely regarded as the best singer in the cast, and even in the context of the show Rachel is shown to be not as good as she thinks. Consider the audition in "Wheels" where it was heavily implied that Kurt would have won if he hadn't intentionally thrown his solo.
    • The troper above better have proof that Kevin McHale is widely regarded as the best singer in the cast. Best male singer in the cast, probably but definitely not best overall. And Kurt would have won because he had more passion for the song. Compare the solo versions on iTunes, Lea Michele's is more typical Broadway in that she has the better technique but Chris Colfer's is considered as better because of the emotion he puts-just notice the comments. By the way, I think Kurt should have won too, even with that intentional bum note.
    • Re Kurt having more passion for the song, I believe the whole reason for that is that Chris Colfer was denied a chance to sing "Defying Gravity" in school, because it was a "girl's song." Art imitating life or an intentional act by the ep's writers, it obviously meant as much to Chris as it did to Kurt.
      • The reason Kurt didn't get the part wasn't because his audition had one bad note, it was because the note he missed was incredibly high in his range. By bombing it, he is telling Will that he is incapable of singing that note.
    • As well, considering how many solos Rachel gets, she has had so much more chance to prove herself. She sings at least one song with a verse or more to herself, and often an entire song to herself, an episode; Defying Gravity is the first song Kurt got a single solo on other than his audition.
  • But she can still hardly call herself "The Best" when it's clear that there are at least four other students that can stand up to her musically. Never mind the fact that a glee club is essentially a team and in order to win you need to gel as a whole and work together. Using a soloist or any other person to be the focus and "carry" an arrangement is seen as lack of confidence and inability to blend voices and harmonies due to a bad ear or lack of practice and will get you killed in competition. That's something she SHOULD know but still tries to throw her weight around to get what she wants. And please do not take this as a slight against Lea Michele, who is wonderfully talented young lady and a delightful person in general, but then the entire cast is talented. People seem to forget that Glee has an ensemble cast that was specifically formed to work and sound well together so it would hardly seem logical or fair to single out one performer as "The best." The point is there is no reason why the other members of the original six(in the pilot) should ever have put up with her "Do what I say because I'm the best" crap in the first place because doing so NEVER did them any good. Mercedes may have been a competing diva, but at least she had the guts to call Rachel out, even if no one supported her.
    • In sectionals, Mercedes was set to go as the soloist on the ballad, don't forget, but when the leaked set list came into play, the whole group... including Mercedes and Kurt... agreed Rachel was the go to girl to pull off something cold. The point is not that Rachel is the best singer, it is that she is the best performer. The musical numbers make this obvious.
    • On Mercedes: Am I the only one annoyed that she never seems to get anything but stereotypically "black" songs, or at least that she always sings that way. I'd love to hear her do a different style at least occasionally.
• Wait until Charice becomes part of the cast. It's gonna get worse.
• Emma is supposed to be really sweet, but the way she treats Ken really bothers me. And Will's open flirtation with her makes him seem a lot less like the nice guy, too.
  • The problem is that he borders too much "Stalker with a crush", what bothers me is how both of them are single and apparently "optionless" about love.
• Why hasn't the fake pregnancy plot been mentioned here yet? Pretty much my biggest problem with the show at the moment.
  • You're not alone at all. Although there's several things I like (probably far too much) about this show, the fake pregnancy plot line bugs me to hell and back and I really can't wait for it to be over.
  • Also Terri's missed something: She's going to need to be at most 12 months pregnant to get away with having a baby that isn't premature. Quite a BAD oversight!
    • It's physically impossible to be 12 months pregnant.
    • To be fair, its a little unclear how far apart Terri and Quinn's due dates are. There are four episodes in between them finding out. Given that Terri and Will were actively trying to conceive, she would have been aware of her cycle and noticed as soon as her period was late, and thus found out very early (at four or five weeks). Quinn on the other hand is a teenager who has only had sex once, and could have made it to six or eight weeks without realizing something was wrong. Terri can get away with being 'pregnant' for up to 42 weeks, and possibly more now that she has her gyno under the thumb. The real question is how the hell Terri intends to handle the handover, given that Will will expect to be present at the birth, and knows about Quinn's baby.
  • Quinn was stated to be around 5–6 weeks pregnant in episode 4. Terri had started wearing the 4-month belly same episode, so I'm assuming 16–17 weeks. Fairly big gap to work around if you ask me.
    • To be fair episode 11 finally told us Terri and Kendra's plan for the switch (even though it is an INCREDIBLY dumb plan if you ask me). My biggest thing is HOW Terri and Quinn lied to their men. Terri, rather then just fake a miscarriage or tell the truth decides to lie rather then say something like "It's to bad, why don't we keep trying though? Let's go have sex!". Or how Quinn makes up a ridiculous story about the hot tub rather then just having sex with Finn, waiting a week or two then telling him she's pregnant so there's no possibility of him figuring out the lie or slipping to someone that they haven't done it. Also this would solve her Puck problem since Puck wouldn't be able to figure it out immediately if he knew that Finn and Quinn had had sex too.
      • Terri faked it because she knew it was the only thing holding their marriage together, and the only reason Quinn had sex with Puck in the first place is because he got her drunk.
      • I think it's safe to conclude that the pregnancy plot has enough problems to qualify as an Idiot Plot. This is pretty unsurprising considering Terri and Kendra are idiots, but Quinn doesn't have that excuse.
  • And now it HAS been addressed. It wasn't pretty.
• "Terri, you're having my baby. I don't have the right to expect anything more from you." That line. Oh, Will.
  • What bugs me more than anything else is that after blackmailing the doctor, she uses him to keep the lie, rather than making forge a abortion or a abortion certificate of some sort.
    • Um...by abortion, do you mean miscarriage? Because I imagine telling Will she aborted the baby he was so excited about would make him even angrier than telling him the truth.
      • Sorry, I did meant miscarriage, I am Brazilian and we only have a single word for the two things (well miscarriage could be turned in lost the baby)
    • Going with the above, I'm pretty sure Will would totally stick by Terri's side were she to say she miscarried. In fact, if she just said that, she could then openly offer to adopt Quinn's baby, solving all the pregnancy drama.
    • Everybody seems to be forgetting Terri was batshit insane when it came to the baby and not exactly the brightest bulb anyway
    • And that Terri did want to tell Will the truth, but her sister convinced her that Will would leave her in a second if she wasn't pregnant anymore.
    • It really seems to me that no matter how supportive Will would be, he'd also ask Finn if they used protection/chastise Finn for not using protection. And then, Finn would mention the hot tub, and Will would awkwardly ask him what exactly he and Quinn did. And the whole Finn's the babydaddy would be over become it ever really began because Will, whether he wanted to have that conversation or not, wouldn't let Finn go on believing he'd gotten a girl pregnant when he hadn't.
• On the subject of pregnancy in the show, someone, anyone, involved with this show needs to invest in a copy of What to Expect When You Are Expecting, Discrepancies include:
  • Quinn finding out that she's having a girl at her ten week ultrasound. The earliest possible time to find out the baby's sex is maybe fifteen weeks and even then it's in no way foolproof.
  • Teri supposedly did this too but that didn't bother me because she was lying and clearly neither she and Will knew very much about the subject.
  • Quinn goes into labor, manages gets to the hospital and gives birth in the space of a song. Seriously, Rachel tells Shelby that the baby is a healthy baby girl as Vocal Adrenaline is finishing their number.
    • There was also enough time for the entire cast to get back to the competition for the award ceremony, including Mercedes who was present at the birth.
  • Quinn gives birth to an apparent four month old even though she was only around 36 weeks pregnant. At the rate this kid is growing Beth will be competing with Rachel for solos by next season.
    • This is a matter of logistics. If you want to show a baby on TV, it's -highly- unlikely that you'll be able to get a fresh out of the womb baby. This happens with any baby on TV.
  • Yes, private adoptions are easier than other types, but I have a lot of trouble that all the paperwork- minus the name on the birth certificate- was drawn up and filed in less than twenty-four hours.
  • Also within twenty-four hours Quinn is discharged from the hospital and is not only walking but dancing with out a hint of pain or discomfort.
    • What dancing was Quinn doing? The 2 numbers after the birth were "To Sir With Love" (the whole group was sitting) and "Over The Rainbow" (performed by Puck and Will in front of the whole sitting group). No dancing at the end of the ep. For that matter, we did not even see her walk.
    • As far as being discharged, nowadays, it's because they're outpatients unless there's a need for the mother or child to stay in the hospital.

Ok, let's be honest. Does this show have any likable characters?

• • Artie?
    • I second Artie, also, what do you have against Kurt?
      • While I'm a huge Kurt fan (and Artie fan, for that matter), he's no saint. Mainly, there was the makeover he gave Rachel which he said would make Finn like her more but actually pushed him further away. Also, what I don't understand is why he seems to hate Rachel for her self-centered-diva attitude, but supports the same tendencies in Mercedes...
        • Because Rachel is competition for Finn's attention, Mercedes isn't.
          • It's more than that. Rachel is essentially the female Kurt. Ok, not exactly, but they are the most similar characters on the show. She has the luxury of not only being someone Finn can be attracted to(and is, since he's dating her), but bering able to express herself without being beat up. It is so much more likely that Rachel will achieve her dreams than Kurt. Since their dreams are identical, you can see why he's so jealous of her. In Kurt's view, it's just so much easier for her. And it's gotta hurt to know that Finn likes her because this means that if Finn was gay, or Kurt was a girl, he would probably have a pretty good shot with him.
            • A lot of people now apparently think Artie is the biggest misogynist asshole of them all, after the events involving Tina and Brittany. I honestly doesn't see it as that bad, but some people get pretty venomous about it.
  • I actually like most of the characters - they've all got their flaws and moments of stupidity, but they've all got their good times too. Except for Terri.
    • Why you be hatin' on Terri?
    • She's neurotic, insane, desperate, and a bad person for lying to her husband about her pregnancy. She even tries to confront Emma after Will leaves Terri, which makes her seem even crazier. Terri has serious problems and few, if any, redeeming qualities. Why shouldn't we be hatin' on Terri again?
      • And Will having an emotional affair with another woman is okay?
      • Did you miss the long diatribe about Terri just above your post? The fact that he only just started looking elsewhere almost qualifies him as a saint.
  • Sort of the motif behind the Grey and Grey Morality of the show, is it not?
  • Their flaws are what make them endearing.
  • And that's arguably intentional.
  • Compared to the lovely people in Ryan Murphy's most famous other work, even Terri qualifies for beatification.
  • Brittany is fairly endearing; perhaps someone you might not want to spend a lot of time around but certainly the most innocent and sweet of the group.
    • "Innocent"? Hasn't it been established that she's slept with like 85% of the student body, male and female? It seems to me that she's the 3rd biggest nympho in McKinley High (Puck and Santana being numbers 1 and 2 respectively). That said, she is sweet, and endearing, if dim as a 2 watt bulb. She is hot, though.
      • What does virginity have to do with non-metaphorical innocence?
    • Besides, she's easily the biggest nympho. Brittany doesn't seem to care about gender (or species, IIRC she once mentioned making out with her cat?) while Puck is 100% straight (so far as we know, anyway) and Santana is straight for everyone but Brittany.
  • How about Ken? This Nice Guy gets stepped on big time. True, he did one vindictive act (making his players choose), but other than that his only sins are being a simple guy who's a nil in the looks department.
    • In the first episode, he wipes spit all over an extreme germophobic's door handle because she politely turned him down when he asked her on a date and told him there was someone else. This was after he'd refused to take the hint when she'd always made up excuses not to go on a date with him before, mind. You'd think he would've stopped after that, but he asks her out again the next episode, and his "Why You Should Date Me," speech includes veiled insults at her OCD ("I'll put up with your crazy,") while also implying that other people wouldn't be willing to date her because of her OCD ("...You're not going to do much better.") Attacking someone's already low self-esteem so they will agree to a date is not a Nice Guy thing to do. He later tries to sabotage Glee Club because he's jealous of Will, suggests to Terri that they have an affair, and basically proposes to Emma not because he loves her, but as a method of manipulating her into staying with him, since he knows she actually loves Will and not him. Not trying to let Emma off the hook here - she never should have agreed to go out with Ken if she wasn't into him, and she should have ended things instead of staying with him, and she certainly shouldn't have agreed to marry him. But Ken also helped manipulate into all these things despite knowing about her lack of feelings for him, so as far as him getting stepped on is concerned, he just made his bed and then had to lie in it.
  • Hello? Tina! Sure, she doesn't get much air time, but she's FANTASTIC.
    • While not as divisive as some of the more major players, some fans find Tina extremely grating for one reason or another.
      • Especially after dumping Artie for Mike, I know Artie's not perfect (taking part in Halo marathons rather than hanging out with his girlfriend, calling her "woman"), but her reasoning is incredibly shallow ("Why can we talk about things I like? Like his abs!")

How does Kurt pay for all those designer with his dad being a MECHANIC?

• • Maybe he copies the designs and makes them himself.
  • Mechanics aren't exactly poor, and his father seems to own his own shop. Kurt seems to wear the same jacket all the time, so it may just be a combination of careful saving, shopping the sales, and wearing Target t-shirts and jeans with designer jackets and accessories.
    • Between the size of his dad's shop, (seriously, in episode 9 it's huge), Kurt having a large and nice room, and his rather expensive-looking car it's pretty safe to assume Mr. Hummel isn't exactly hurting for money.
  • Maybe Kurt's mom was loaded and Hummel Senior didn't want to just become one of the idle rich when she died and left him with everything because it wouldn't be what she wanted.
    • Given what we've seen of Kurt's dad makes some sense.
      • It doesn't have to be that even; just because he 'looks' like some regular mechanic doesn't mean he is. Take a look at some real life famous 'mechanics' like Jesse James and the Teutels.
      • Two things: 1) A skilled mechanic w/ a successful shop in or near a major city can make well over $100k per year. You can buy a lot of clothes w/ that. and 2) Men's clothes really aren't that expensive (as compared to women's) so a few thousand dollars could literally buy all the clothes most men would ever need (writes the man w/ 120+ shirts)
  • I am more interested to know how the glee club could pay for those costumes.
    • Remember in episode two Principal Figgins says the Glee Club gets a part of the Cheerio's dry cleaning budget for costumes.
• In ep. 18, Pa Hummel mentions that they own a majority interest in a tire shop. A majority stake in a successful business is going to give you some cash to play with on top of any other things Hummel might be doing.

Brittany in Episode Four

• She was the one that come up with the story that Kurt was a football player. Was she trying to destroy the Glee club? Or did she actually want to help? She has being portrayed as too stupid for either story to fit the character. Plus, she looked happy with dancing...
  • Brittany is that special mix of dumb and sweet. She's smart enough to come up with a mildly believable lie, but too stupid to be genuinely mean.
  • Tina was the one who blurted out "football", Brittany just ran with it.
  • Heather Morris has said in various interviews that it wasn't until the fifth or sixth episode that Brittany really started being "a dumb blonde." Originally He Mo was brought in solely because she was such an awesome dancer and then they decided to flesh her character out a little. So, in that scene, she's not dumb because... she's not dumb yet.

Mercedes' reaction to finding out that Puck is the father of Quinn's baby, just that.

• • Maybe she thinks that Finn already knows and is staying with Quinn anyway? I hope. Otherwise...yeah. Even Quinn knows what she's doing is wrong, I have trouble believing someone on the outside would think it's okay.
  • Mercedes sees Puck as a Jerkass-she has no reason to believe he's really a Jerk with a Heart of Gold. Thus, she only sees a selfish, good-for-nothing guy who got a girl to cheat on her boyfriend and is much less qualified to be a father than Finn. Also, remember that Puck tried to steal money from Artie's short bus fund to support Quinn, while Finn did everything he could to get a job, including faking disability. Mercedes might have been right:

Mercedes: You're the baby's daddy. It takes a hell of a lot more to be a father, and that role's already been cast.

• • • It is reasonable to say that Finn looks like a better father-figure than Puck, but you are forgetting that taking care of a child would change Finn life forever, whatever dream or plan would need to put aside, while Puck would go scot free, ant that doesn't even touch the ramifications of Quinn cheating.
  • One problem with that. If she did believe fully that Puck was in fact a Jerkass, then wouldn't it be more reasonable to not believe him at all? And with the whole 'father was cast' nonsense, she didn't even know the whole story, didn't even listen to Puck's side, and she just ripped him off. Family-Unfriendly Aesop indeed.
    • Why else would Puck confess such a shameful thing?
• OMG, yes, the whole thing just pissed me off. Not only is she brazenly dismissing Puck, and blaming him, she's saying that it's right that Finn be made a father falsely, and says that for Quinn, Puck "owes her at least that much" not to get involved...so Finn gets sympathy, Puck is rebuked for "messing up Quinn's life", when there is little objectively separating the two circumstances? It takes two people to cheat. Besides, it's kind of a Family-Unfriendly Aesop to tell him to not help with his unborn child, even worse to tell him to let his best friend be connived into doing his job for him. The whole thing was complete nonsense.
• But hadn't Quinn decided that she was giving the baby she was carrying up for adoption anyway? I guess that weighed in on Mercedes' (and the rest of the club, once they found out) decision to not let Finn know that Puck was the father of the baby. Quinn doesn't want to raise the baby she's carrying now with neither Finn nor Puck - she wants to be with Finn forever (at least as of the beginning of episode 13).
• This was beyond frustrating, but I didn't think it was too far out of character for Mercedes. Mercedes is generally a very compassionate person, so she no doubt thought no further beyond the idea that biological paternity wasn't important, and doesn't want to see Finn get hurt. She was caught in the spur of the moment, and would probably have revised her opinion later.

Stuttering

Stuttering: a real disability (when it's not fake). Shyness severe enough that the shybie alters her speech patters for several years: no disability there. (And I doubt it's because shyness doesn't work that way.)

• • I don't understand what you're getting at. Are you just saying that Tina doesn't really have a disability? In that case, yes, that was the point of her scene with Artie at the end of "Wheels". Nobody who knows she's faking the stutter has claimed that it still counts as a disability.
    • The above-above troper is saying that Tina does have a problem: Shyness, in a level that she would drive people away for years, rather than deal with them.
      • Ah, now I get it. Well, yes, Tina clearly has some pretty serious issues. But extreme shyness is a psychological problem, not a physical disability. You could argue that the distinction isn't that important, but Artie obviously feels differently.
  • Was I the only one annoyed at Artie for getting so mad at Tina? I mean, she admitted to being so painfully shy that she faked a stutter so she wouldn't have to talk to people. To me, that is certainly a disability. I get that Tina was dishonest, but I still think Artie overreacted. Plus, he implies that he was only interested in her because they both had disabilities. He seemed pretty shallow to me when he dropped all his affection for her purely because she didn't have a stutter.
    • I have loathed Artie ever since this episode for that (although all the hints that he's a sexist pig since have helped sustain that loathing). Well, for that on top of the whole episode. He somehow twisted every conversation they had that episode around to her stutter even though it was obvious that she wasn't cool with that, and I was all set for the episode to end with him somehow learning a lesson about treating her that way when he'd hate it if somebody acted the same way about his disability, and then that's the ending we get instead?
      • Ditto, re: Artie bringing it up all the time. I can sympathize with his anger (a lot) but the way he treated Tina when he thought she had a condition was NOT cool.
  • He was upset because faking a disability to receive special treatment is incredibly offensive to actual disabled people. He thought that she understood what it was like for him and she didn't. She may empathize, but not really understand.
    • Yeah, because she only pretended to stutter in order to reap the social benefits and be cool. She stuttered specifically not to get special treatment.
      • That's exactly what's offensive about it, though. Granted, Tina had to overcome her shyness, but unlike Artie she had the ability to stop the discrimination that comes with having a disability. Artie doesn't have that privilege. Now, I think Artie can be a huge jerk to Tina and don't even get me started on season two, but he had every right to be upset with her in "Wheels".
  • For the record, there's something called Social Anxiety Disorder though it's hardly anything like what Tina might have. More than just shyness, this would certainly be a mental disability though this one thinks that it's little much for Glee.

Someone complaining about song in a musical show

• When a song starts up, the changed acoustics make it obvious that it was performed, recorded and mixed in a studio.
  • Three words: Rule of Cool
  • Three more words: It's a Musical.
  • Three more words: Just Bugs Me. (Really, it's more about the bad mixing, and how all ambient sound fades out. That and the painfully obvious autotuning.)
  • It really is a product of almost every musical. Most of the songs that happen indoors (and almost ALL the songs in Glee take place exclusively indoors) have no ambient sound whatsoever. Simply the music maybe the sound of tap dancing if it's employed. The characters rarely interact with their environment while singing and if they do it's something that wouldn't have much of a sound anyway (such as Will climbing on the piano bench) If there was a lot of ambient sound lurking in the background people would just complain about that.
  • Every now and then they just skip it, like the club's impromptu rendition of "Ride With Me" in "Throwdown." It was still pretty awesome.
    • Well, to me that song was more Heartwarming, I think is the first time we see the glee kids actually having fun together, or at least, is the first time it is made clear. But I wouldn't listen it without the video. =P
• Why are the mashups so damn short? They're usually some of the most awesome songs in the show and an extended cut on the album or for download would be very welcome.
  • Licensing issues?
• In Episode 10 the writers didn't address what happened with Tina and Artie. They are EVIL!
  • That's because Episode 9 was A Day in the Limelight and afterwards they had to get back to the main plot of the season.
    • And now Artie and Tina are officially together, happy now?
    • And as of the beginning of season 2, Tina broke up with Artie and got together with Other Asian Mike instead.
• What happened to the other member of Glee Club shown in the pilot singing with Sandy? Sandy got fired but there was no mention of what happened to him. Will said he was willing "to captain the Titanic Two" but it sort of turned into the Titanic One plus 11. If Mr. Schuester was looking so hard for 12 members at the start of the series you would think he'd include one of the original members.
  • That wasn't a member of the Glee Club, I think it was said that he a lead in a school play, and Rachel actually got Sandy fired because she didn't got the main part. The general impression that I had, it was there wasn't a Glee Club before, at least for sometime.
  • Will said he wanted to coach glee. Figgins asked sarcastically, "Do you want to captain the Titanic, too?" Also, the kid was probably too ashamed of being involved with Sandy (even though he didn't reciprocate) to audition for glee.
  • Actually, Figgins did say Two the number, but he wasn't talking about the members. By now the Glee Club is expected to sink hard every year.
  • Actually, Figgins said 'too' as in 'also'. He was making reference to the fact that it was an impossible task as they will fail, and Will was being a glutton for punishment. If he's willing to put his neck on the line for the kids, why doesn't he also captain the Titanc. Using the numeral '2' there doesn't make a jot of sense.
  • Erm, remember: In order for Will to have a club to steal from Sandy, Sandy must have that club in the first place. And the context makes it clear that some sort of show choir existed under Sandy Ryerson... it is, after all, him being fired that leaves Will available to create New Directions from whatever ashes were left. Will never started Glee before, because someone else was already doing it. How well is up to you, but its reasonable to assume that Rachel at least was in it... other than that, you can ask yourself What Happened to the Mouse?, but maybe its better not to wonder what happens to him... can you really see any path that doesn't involve therapy?
    • In the directors cut of the pilot it showed that the Glee Club under Sandy was "Stool Choir" where they all just sat around on stools. Tina, Mercedes, Kurt and Rachel were in it, but Artie wasn't, or at least not shown. I'm not sure about the "Where is Love" kid.

Rachel

• Rachel's gotten the most Character Development out of everyone and is not the same bitchy, self-centered diva of the pilot. Yet she is still getting the most flak out of everyone, both in the show and out. I blame Fan Dumb for what's nonfictional but did Kurt really need to humiliate her in "Wheels" like that with his "Now we all know I'm more popular" line (and why didn't Mr. Schu stop him?)? Or earlier on when all the kids were being inconsiderate towards Artie yet only Rachel gets Artie's ire. And this is turned into a Crowning Moment of Awesome by members of this very site. Am I the only one who feels for her when she mentions later on that she literally has no friends?
  • Bluelantern2814: Well, in Artie defense, the entire club acted like jerks, Rachel was the unlucky one (or the stupid one) to speak at the moment. Also, earlier she said that "her family is fully committed to take out" while it is showed in episode 3 and 10 that she does know to cook. Another thing is... I guess it is hard to be sorry about it since her problem is being too much of a Diva, while the other members have more valid issues (specially Artie).
  • Rachel's problem at the moment is that "no one likes her" (except Finn but he's a Love Interest; she's past the diva stage. I feel for the other club members (Quinn's pregnancy, etc.) but I don't think Rachel's loneliness is any less valid of an issue. As the Odd Man Out she is universally hated and isolated from the group. How is that no less valid of an issue, especially since this can lead to major depression IRL (not that I think it's gonna happen on the show)? And Rachel being the Unlucky One singled out just shows how much she's hated by everyone in the club and it's deemed a fucking Crowning Moment of Awesome? Really?
  • Rachel IS still a spoiled diva, if a mildly sympathetic one. Consider her actions in "Wheels," first there is her resentment at being forced to sit in a wheelchair for three hours a way (granted most of the cast has this reaction, but hers is the most extreme), and again when Mr. Shue is confronted with the bias of his casting and thusly hold a fair and open audition for the solo in "Defying Gravity" She accuses him of ruining her life. You feel bad for her because she has no friends, but she has no friends because her massive ego pushes people away. She's learning to control it, but that doesn't make her any less grating or insensitive.
  • My problem is that so many of her fans in real life are Special Snowflake fangirls turning her into a Possession Sue. Nobody on the show can even make a snarky comment to her without the internet filling up with "Waaa she's so abused! Just. Like. Me!!!" or "They can't give Kurt the Defying Gravity song! It doesn't matter that it fits his character better, Lea looks like Idina Menzel!!!" Also, fangirls making arguments that Rachel being disliked for being irritating and socially clueless is the same as Elphaba being discriminated against for her skin color. Or saying that Kurt asking to compete for the solo is just as rude, if not worse, than Rachel demanding the Tonight solo from Tina and storming out when she doesn't get her way. It's really no wonder that everyone hates them-I mean Rachel.
  • A lot of socially-awkward overachievers will find Rachel identifiable; I'll admit that in high school, I was basically a more introverted and lazier Rachel, though my outlet was instrumental music rather than singing. I defend her a lot, though it's less because I think Rachel is perfect (I don't, and she isn't even my favorite character) but more because the obnoxiousness and seeming-arrogance that turn her into The Scrappy for so many people are, for me, what make her such a compelling and a realistic character. Most of the people I knew in high school who were the star of this or that club/activity were Rachel's, not Tina's. As for the obnoxious fangirls thing, you could say the same about Kurt fans (he's gay and picked-on for it, so it's perfectly!! okay!! the way he manipulates Rachel and Finn to achieve his romantic ends).
  • Well said, Rachel needs character development that survives Status Quo Is God, every episode she hits her Diva reset button and ends up with a plot that doesn't make her much better. Honestly, I do want her to have friends, but I also want her to earn them. =|
    • Just to add to my point: The writers also need to put her in situations that don't revolve around her search for fame or Finn, dunno, something like, hanging out with the other Glee Kids, just to show her as a more 3-Dimensional being.
    • But Rachel doesn't have anyone else to hang out and herein lies the whole problem. And I argue that while she's still overdramatic with "ruining my life" comment, her character development does survive Status Quo Is God. She's still willing to go through with the wheelchair routine despite Artie insulting her (in earlier episodes she probably would have just quit the Glee Club because "being in a wheelchair wouldn't benefit her future career"), she brings back Quinn, and she helps Finn get a job even though it would benefit her more to stop Finn from finding a job (and subsequently Quinn would follow through on her threat and break up with him). I don't think Pilot Rachel would handle the situations the same way. Rachel started off as a pretty deplorable character who would probably sell Finn into slavery if it was to further her career but she's come a long way from that person, in my opinion. And It Just Bugs Me that this doesn't seem to be acknolwedged at all. Whew.
    • Okay, she does get Character Development, but still, does the Glee Kids know about it? She has no interests outside Glee Club (including Finn), I am surprised that she has so many outfits because I can't honestly picture she "wasting time" shopping. She might had grow as a person, but she still has to reach out to show this to her "friends".
    • My memory might be faulty but after the Glee Kids visited Vocal Adrenaline, wasn't Rachel the one to warn Mercedes about Kurt (gayintervention?) before Mercedes blew her off. Also it's hard to approach people who you know hate you and say "Hey guys, I know I was a bitch before but I changed so let's hang out together :)" which is why she purposely stands to the side and buries herself in Glee Club work because she thinks that's the only way she can be worth something to the rest of the club-as a fellow singer but not a friend. And as with the no interests thing, I think the bowling scene with Finn shows that yes Rachel does need to get a life outside of singing/dancing but she can loosen up and just hang out if someone reached out to her. I'm not saying Rachel is now a perfect angel, her Character Development is far from complete, but cut the girl some slack!
      • I cut her some slack and still give the Crowning Moment of Awesome to Artie.
      • Agreed. The Crowning Moment of Awesome was more about Artie standing up for himself than knocking Rachel down a peg.
        • Just adding something to this; this may be totally off, but the reason I don't hate Rachel (actually I quite like her as a character) is because obviously being bought up to be (also with aspirations to be) "a star" has warped her into being incredibly competitive, diva-like and determined when it comes to things like musical theater. The fact that she had been constantly bullied throughout high school (dare I say before high school- she never mentions having any friends before that), had Slushies dumped on her by Puck, had Quinn sending her abusive messages (this was shown in the pilot). Now, in my own experience of bullying (and knowing people that have been bullied in this way for years, especially people involved in singing/drama) I've found that people will end up becoming attached to their hobby that they are bullied for, in lieu of trying to form friendships as its been made clear that people can't understand their hobbies, and if you were say, bought up doing dance classes and things, you'd want to hold onto something that is a major part of your life. The treatment by the rest of the Glee club bugs me, yes- she can be incredibly selfish and will do anything to get the solos she feels she deserves, I'm not saying these are GOOD things, but the fact that after slowly beginning to learn from her mistakes, she still gets flak from the rest of the club is cruel. Kurt's "makeover" and her subsequent humiliation in front of Finn while being made to believe (by Kurt) that dressing like that and seducing him would get him to like her (which speaks for a whole load of her other issues- ones addressed bizarrely enough by Suzie Pepper- the scene in the bathroom for example which actually EXPLAINED why Rachel was like that around boys, something which people who adamantly hate her don't take into consideration- come on, the girl obviously has a lot of issues based around her image and the way she acts with people) was quite horrible to watch, and something that made me rethink my stance on Kurt's character. Yes, the two of them are going through the same issues, instead of bonding through it he made her humiliate herself, then told her the object of her affection would never like her anyway- something which she ended up accepting, whereas when she told Mercedes about the fact that her and Kurt wouldn't go anywhere she was treated like a bitch. I can understand her character getting flak from the fandom because... no character ever escapes that, people have alternate character interpretations and this is mine, but I don't understand why the writers have made her be the character that, except for Finn, appears to be hated by everyone in the glee universe?
          • Her diva-like behavior though is implied to be something that was in place long before she ever got to high school. She was more than likely singled out because she acted like a bit of a spoiled brat. When she dated Puck she did the talking constantly, and about things he wasn't particularly interested in. There were a few brief moments between them, but when the broke up and she asked to be friends Puck said it all "We weren't friends to begin with." This isn't because either of them were bad people, they were simply very different and had nothing in common (other than their faith) and very few shared interests (at least he listened to her go on about music and shows, can you really see Rachel giving a damn about football if Finn wasn't doing the talking?). She is the only daughter of two gay men (something she points out to people every chance she gets, usually to get something she wants) who have likely been encouraging her talent for music and rarely reigning in her ambitions or her more extreme behavior. Her actions seem to suggest that she is very used to getting her own way despite her lack of popularity. Everyone in the glee club was picked on for a reason, Artie was in a wheelchair, Kurt was gay, Mercedes was fat, Tina stuttered, Rachel was picked on because she was incredibly annoying to everyone around her. Rachel has shown some mild Alpha Bitch-like tendencies within Glee club and would most likely be one if she were more popular.
            • Well said, I agree with the majority of your points (however I still feel she is getting better and while at the Pilot and half-way through the series so far she probably would've used her popularity to become The Libby I would say that at this point in the series she wouldn't, although this is Glee and they do like to set Status Quo Is God in motion a lot). Although the few brief moments between her and Puck were important for both their character developments (although I have to admit we've gone back to square one with both of them since)- when he was slushied for the first time she was sympathetic and nice to him, even though he was the one who'd done it to her so many times before. So I think she has the capability of being nice, but her diva-like tendencies and selfishness prevents her from being so.
• Just posting here, that after Hairography, I will woobiefy Rachel, I still think she is annoying, but she doesn't deserve that much crap :(
• Is anyone else forgetting that at the time, Rachel was openly trying to steal Finn from Quinn and the whole reason for the makeover WAS to take Finn from Quinn. . .
  • Well, why should Rachel care about wrecking Quinn's relationship? It's strongly implied that Quinn regularly bullied Rachel pre-series, and Quinn has admitted to drawing pornographic pictures of her in the bathroom. She also confesses that if Rachel were pregnant, she (Quinn) would "torture" her for it. Rachel may be annoying, but she hardly deserves that kind of treatment. Besides, even given that neither Rachel nor Finn knew about Quinn's baby's true paternity, Rachel would see freeing Finn from the bitchy Quinn as a good deed, if only to satisfy her own ego.
• "Sectionals" has shown that some of her Character Development has paid off, as she is reluctant to take the solo away from Mercedes in the club's revised set list and agrees with Finn that Mike Brittany and Matt are probably their best dancers and should be the ones to choreograph the new routine. She also let Artie present Mr. Schue with the sectionals trophy and gleefully pushed him around with it. I'm sure time will tell that she can still be incredibly annoying, but at least she's a much nicer person than she was in the beginning. It looks like someone finally threw away the "Diva reset button."
• Could it have something to do with getting a teacher fired by falsely accusing him of sexual abuse? I know that's why I hate her.
  • Granted she was exaggerating, but she wasn't actually lying. Sandy has his hands all over that Hank boy in that scene.
• The only thing that bugs me about Rachel is that she's such a drama queen. Character Development has turned her into less of a diva which is just fine. Though, Lea Michelle is reportedly a huge diva off-stage.
• First off, I would like to state that I am subject to many surgeries, and am wheelchair bound often and most of my reactions to the way people react would be similar if not more optimistic than Artie. But there's one thing I can't accept- Rachel pushes Artie towards the edge of the stage not once, not twice BUT THREE TIMES! That's awful! Worse yet, nobody even worries that this might get him seriously injured. But even so, even if it wasn't toward the edge of the stage, having somebody shove your wheelchair across the room is just insulting. I mean, shoving somebody is standing up would be met with indignation or worse. This isn't just sensitivity to people with disabilities- this is a basic personal space issue.
  • The Glee Club, Schuester included, does have a tendency to just run up and start spinning Artie around like a toy without his permission. The character doesn't mind, but in real life that's usually not the case. In fact, it's freaking rude.
    • Yes, but sometimes it's part of the choreography for a performance, like in their first version of "Don't Stop Believing" where Artie couldn't move himself because he was playing guitar. Presumbably this is stuff that they worked out ahead of time that Artie agreed to. He's also shown that he has no problem if anyone wants to do the work for him and push his chair around at school or elsewhere.
    • Artie seems too nice to really say anything though (at least initially). He may in fact mind very much (in some cases outside of the dancing and singing) but he isn't comfortable yet to say "Hey, stop that!" or it may not be a big enough bother to him that he says anything. It's just stupid quirks he deals with from his non-wheelchair bound friends. As well, we're missing a lot of the non-verbal communication - just like you know without anything being said that situation A is okay for you to grab the hand of your friend and pull them somewhere to show them something (or whatever) while situation B isn't okay, there may be a lot of that between Artie and the others where they know "This is okay now" and "This isn't okay now". Take the scene in a recent episode where Artie and Finn are in the locker room and Beast says "Well, what are you two waiting for? Get your gear on and get out on the field!". At that point, Finn pushes Artie out of the locker room, that may be one of those situations where there's not need for a verbal; they're both clearly excited and happy, they're both going to the same place. Likewise in Throwdown when the entire club storms out; certainly, Artie might wheel himself to the stairs, but if everyone's pissed (including Artie), again, they're going to know "Well Artie's pissed and storming off with us..." and just go to grab his chair as opposed to just leaving him there. But in situations where say... he's just talking to Finn during casual conversation, the two might have enough experience with each other that Finn knows not to try to push Artie around unless Artie says something or there's some reason to.
• Does Rachel really even love her two dads? We see what, one picture of them in one of the first episodes, and then she only ever brings them up to threated suit. Combined with the way she treats Kurt (although not entirely undeserved, I'd hate him too), and her character could easily be interpreted as homophobic.
  • She probably does love her dads and she probably isn't homophobic. The one picture isn't any real sign since we never see much of the other kids parents either (with a few exceptions). Bringing them up is probably like any other kid say "Well my dad/mom is a lawyer/doctor/firefighter/senator/biker/badass and they'll beat your dad up/beat you up/sue you/is more badass than your dad!"; it's more just a childish way of threatening someone and showing that you're better. And though she may not like Kurt (or whatever), she hardly seems to have any sort of fear of gays much less discriminate against them.
• In the second season premiere, her diva tendencies might just cost the team their next competition. Great job making me hate you again, Rach'.
  • In 'Britney/Brittany', Rachel is at her most psychotic. 'I want to be the only thing that makes you happy.' for one, and then forcing Finn to choose between her and football (I think it's an easy choice: football) and rather consolidated the fact that she's INSANE. I hope that 'The Only Exception' might be signaling Character Development, but then again, this is Glee...
  • She doesn't make him choose at the end of the episode, though, which definitely DOES signal Character Development. If Status Quo Is God happened, she would bring up her issue with football again and again, but she doesn't. And I would argue sending Sunshine Corazon to a defunct crackhouse because she could potentially take away Rachel's solos is the most psychotic she's ever been.

Santana "angry stares"

This borderlines WMG, but since I don't actually have a theory I will post here. Santana is often giving "evil stares" or "death stares", specifically to Rachel, mostly notable in episode 8 during the song "Sweet Caroline" (that looked like she was jealous of Rachel), episode 9 during the song "Defying Gravity" (that just bugs me? does it means that she likes Kurt better?) and mostly notable, in the same episode she gives one to Brittany and Becky (disgust? disapproval?)

• Well, Santana was shown previously dating Puck. So, even though she broke up with him, maybe she's just jealous that he's turning his attentions to Rachel, who is supposed to be a loser.
• Okay for "Hairography", why did Santana call Puck "her man" when she dumped him in "Acafellas" for not having a big enough credit score?
  • But why show a "evil stare" in the middle of Defying Gravity? There is so many times to do it, but putting in the middle of a song, should mean something...
    • Maybe that's just her face.
  • Hey, she's still in high school. She probably doesn't know what she wants in a relationship yet, and keeps changing her mind about Puck.

Choral arrangements do not work that way! (usually)

• Most of Mr. Schuester's arrangements consist of one long solo and everyone else is stuck with oohs and aahs. In real life while arrangements have solos most groups, especially in show choirs keep the solos short, usually at the beginning of the song. The two main reasons are, one, that long solos make drama, very unnecessary drama. And two, they look really bad in competition. Most judges view long flashy solos as a way of the chorus coping out of more complicated harmonies and hiding the fact that they can't blend.
  • This. So. Much. Short solos can be two measures, and even the longer ones are a pretty short section of a song. In the show, Proud Mary is probably the closest one to a show choir song, and sadly, Carmel's (fancy moves and crazy difficulty withstanding) is closest. (Seriously, where is he buying these arrangements, because it's not from a company that sells show choir music.)
  • See above about the other person complaining about the music in the show.
  • Taken to the extreme in "Don't Rain on My Parade," where the rest of the show choir isn't even there.
  • Rule of Cool, Rule of Funny, Rule of Drama. The show never promised an accurate depiction of show choir strategies.
    • Meh. Rule of this, rule of that, can be used to justify anything. but if you are making a show based around a Glee club and their performances, then there should at least be a slight touch of realism in how those performances are done.
      • If you want realism watch a documentary, not a musical.
    • Does the MST3K Mantra apply to non-science fiction shows?
    • The MST3K Mantra applies to anything that requires Willing Suspension of Disbelief. This is a comedy-drama that requires solos. While I agree that other characters need the solos and there should be less of them, it makes for better television. So... there you go!
• Actually, this sadly does happen sometimes. In my Jazz choir, even though several singers were just as good if not better than one of the girls, she was the go-to girl for solos because the teacher was convinced that she was the best. Most of the time the teacher didn't even bother asking any of the rest of us if we would like to try out for the solo, and the rest of us would be stuck with oohs and ohs.
  • The set list at Regionals moves a little closer to what an actual show choir does. There are more solos and they're spread out among more people and grat focus is given to the choir as a whole rather than one or two singers while everyone else does backup, and in general as the season progressed the actual "performance" pieces (i.e. the numbers that are performed as an entire choir, on stage, for the purpose of possible competition) have been including more and more members of the club for solos and putting a greater emphasis on the entire choir in general, rather than just one or two soloist. "Faithfully" is still, essentially, a duet between Finn and Rachel, but yeah, sometimes you just have to DO a duet that way. "Anyway You Want It/Lovin' Touchin' Squeezin'" and "Don't Stop Believing" The Cast Showoff for the ENTIRE cast rather than just one or two of them. I wouldn't get too used to it as this was the finale, but it's a taste of how things might go in the second season, with greater emphasis on the group rather than the individuals.

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.
• One thing I noticed in "Hairography" is that, even though a major change was made in the previous episode, with Quinn staying with Finn and his mom, this was not mentioned at all. In fact, somehow Quinn is already wandering off with Puck as if she and Finn didn't have as strong of a relationship as they seemed to in the last episode (even though they seem to press "reset" at the end).
• And then there's the romance between Artie and Tina, which was barely hinted at before "Wheels", looked like it was going to become a continuing story arc, and then was never mentioned afterward.
  • Well... There wasn't actually anything hinted at it in the script itself before "Wheels," but the writers and producers told Kevin and Jenna about their characters upcoming romance well before they ever started shooting it so they ad-lib little bits on their own, such as Artie and Tina usually sitting together, having her push him around school, and being paired in several of the dance numbers together. As for not mentioning it afterward Artie and Tina simply haven't gotten the same level of focus (i.e. any at all) since "Wheels" ran, so we just don't know how it will play out yet. Both of their actors seem very sure they'll end up together though, and are certain very close in real life.
• In episode 10 Quinn is kicked out of her house and moves in with Finn while Puck tells Mercedes that he's the true dad. The next episode Quinn and Puck consider raising the baby...while no mention of these 2 pretty major facts are made?! And in episode 12 Quinn refers to baby as a bastard despite wanting just a week earlier and Mercedes still hasn't said anything!
  • The baby is a bastard - "the illegitimate offspring of unmarried parents"
• 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.
• 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.
• 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.

Hairography

Hairography (the episode).

• Almost every one of the characters pretty much had Dethroning Moments of Suck here. From Sue leaking out the setlist right after Will and her have a genuine (not that way) moment, Puck's "sexting", Rachel's epic fail "seduction" of Finn, Kurt's manipulation of Rachel, Quinn being man needy, Mercedes getting up in the middle of the deaf choir's song (as someone else put it: "Yo I'm really happy for you and I'mma let you finish, but WE normal people can sing y'all"), Santana's "your man" line...And these are all characters I liked, seriously. Anyone else seriously bothered by this episode in general in terms of characterization?
  • Will and Sue did not have a moment. Will had a moment and Sue lied to his face like she's done not only to him, but other people countless other times.
  • For Puck and Sue, those parts were really less Dethroning Moments of Suck than actually consistent with their characterization thus far. Santana hasn't had much characterization, but what little she has had definitely depicted her as an unsympathetic character.
    • I dunno, Puck seemed like he had been getting some characterization lately as someone who was willing to commit for the sake of the baby—this seemed like a really, really painful and dethroning incidence of Status Quo Is God.
  • Also the deaf choir CLEARLY didn't mind the Glee kids joining them in the song, it looks more like they were actually happy about it because they were able to teach a valuable lesson about being yourself over Hollywood showboating. Notice the first two people to join them are Mercedes and Artie, the two characters who never bothered to hide anything about themselves.
    • And Brittany was pretty close behind. It was more like they turned their practice into a jam session, rather than took over their performance. I think the kids would have told them to piss off if they had a problem with it, but actually the soloist and Mercedes seemed to be kind of flirty.
      • Plus, the rest of the Glee kids try to follow along with the sign language. They definitely weren't trying to overshadow them.
        • Of course, there's still Unfortunate Implications, that the deaf kids aren't exactly valuable on their own as a glee club, but they are good as something to Learn a Valuable Lesson from. They weren't allowed (by the writers, or whoever) to perform the song by themselves.
        • See the above statement about turning the performance into a jam session, such things actually do happen between competing glee clubs in real life (not during actual competition, mind you). If the deaf choir had a problem they would have spoken up, or their director certainly would have.
• Also, the deaf cellphone jokes were unfunny and downright insulting to deaf people. In fact, the whole treatment of the hearing impaired in Hairography was demeaning and chock filled with Unfortunate Implications.
  • The director was an asshat. The kids were really cool. Just because somebody is deaf (in one ear. SCARLET FEVER!) doesn't mean they can't be a jerk, idiotic or grate on your nerves harder than a nerve-grating record holder. I thought what they did with the kids was really well handled but also that the director part was showing a less showcased "disabled people can be arrogant annoying tools too y'know"
• What really irked me about the Kurt/Rachel dynamic in that episode was the blatant lie at the end of it that was treated as canon truth, that Rachel was just a distraction and Finn really wanted to be with Quinn and always had. This despite completely contradicting earlier episodes like when he kissed Rachel for the last time and said he didn't know what would happen in the future, just that he wanted to spend time with her now (translation: I want to be with you, but it turns out I have an obligation to fulfill that will soon make that impossible). Granted, Finn and Quinn have grown as a couple since the start, but it seemed disingenuous to imply their closeness was anything but recent.
  • Kurt didn't even know that Rachel had feelings for Finn before this episode. I think it's safe to assume he has no idea that Finn feels the same way or that they've kissed.
  • Hi, I'm dramatic irony. Pleased to meet you

Hairography (the dancing)

The whole purpose of the Hairography dancing and the episode was to distract from the bad dancing and singing. The girl's school's singing wasn't great, but it wasn't terrible (they seemed more like a choir than New Directions, which is nearly always a few long solos and backup oohs and aahs) and their dancing, if you looked at it, was really good as dancing. Then, when New Directions did their song, their dancing was better (judging by physical skill level) than most of the rest of their performances, and they totally disregarded the step up they took. I understand the lesson about a personal, heartfelt performance being better in the end, but the whole thing (combined with Rachel's makeover and the weirdly slutty clothes) just felt like a bit of grasping at straws for fanservice.

• • New Directions dancing in "Crazy in Love/Hair" is SUPPOSED to be unnatural and bad though. The point was to invoke the Crowning Moment of Funny as they did with "Push It" but from a totally different direction.
    • I know that, but the girl's school's dancing was slutty and looked like PCD, yes, but the dancing itself for the most part took talent and some skill, but Rachel was all "It's all fake they actually suck blah blah blah." It's also possible to dance while using "Hairography" without all the girls in the group wearing skimpy clothes, but somehow in both Hairograpy numbers the chicks were wearing short shorts and tank tops. The whole thing just didn't ring true for me.
      • Keep in mind that this is a school for mostly lower-class students who have had troubled lives and their director is played by Eve (who can hardly be called conservative). They originally wanted Whitney Houston, but she turned them down.
• I thought that Rachel was right, the girls were not very good but the annoyance came in when Rachel, trying to make Will feel better, points out their hairography and instead of thinking this is a bad thing Will decides to put all the guys in wigs and have them dirty dance.

The scene with the deaf kids in Hairography.

• Why does everyone think that this was a really touching scene? The only thing I could think during the whole scene was that the Glee kids were stealing the spotlight from these deaf kids who were trying as hard as they could to sing.
  • This was mentioned above under "Hairography".
    • I find this a case of positive discrimination. If the kids were simply tone deaf and singing off key, it'd be fine for people to roll their eyes and wonder why they were in a choir. However because the kids are completely deaf, suggesting that they shouldn't perhaps competing in a genre that requires the ability to detect sound, becomes immediately taboo. Even if we take the viewpoint that everyone should be free to express themselves in whatever way they see fit, regardless of disability, it still doesn't explain how one would objectively judge a deaf choir against a hearing choir with perfect pitch.

Pregancies (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 psicological 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, less 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.

Fans and their pregnancy wisdom

• Why is it that most fans seem to think Quinn's baby is made of spun sugar? "Omg, she jumped on that mattress! She's going to kill the baby!" "Omg, she's laying on her stomach, it's squished!" "Omg! She slipped and fell, she's going to miscarry!" And it's always the ones that have never been pregnant who are saying this.
  • I think that the mattress scene was the only really dangerous (it did have jumping), but yeah, that is a bit of overreaction with a bit of Genre Blindness.
    • Quinn jumping on the mattresses wasn't that dangerous, her baby bump's not big enough to inhibit her movement yet. In fact she spent most of the time lounging on the mattress while the other kids jumped. The blond doing the flips was Brittany.
  • It is kind of dangerous that Quinn was doing dangerous cheer leading stunts while pregnant (and what we've seen of the Cheerio routines has made it pretty clear that they aren't simple). However it is very annoying when some fans started complaining about her doing simple dance moves like the ones in "You Keep Me Hanging On" and "Hair/Crazy In Love". Just walking around really fast does not make you miscarry.
  • A lot of Glee's fans are high school kids. Abstinence-only sex ed only just recently lost its federal funding, and the stuff they're hearing outside of school is probably worse. So most of them don't know nearly as much about reproductive health as they probably should.

Baby needs a home

• So, Terri still wants the baby after what happened in Mattress?
  • Possible, she just lost her husband and she might think a baby would fill the void. Nevermind the fact that she doesn't really have any way of caring for a child on her own as she barely works, but Terri doesn't really seem think things like that all the way through.
    • I think that before Will left Terri, Quinn was going to give the baby to her, then maybe she won't because the baby won't have a father figure anymore and what happens to the baby is about the second 1/2 of the season.
• I bet you 50 bucks that baby is going to Shelby Corcoran, another woman unable to have kids who always dreamed of having one.
  • Sue would be another surprising (and hilarious) option.

Puck getting Quinn drunk

• The show implies that Puck deliberately got Quinn drunk to have sex with her. Why doesn't anyone realize how immoral that is? And on that note, why doesn't Quinn tell Finn or her parents this?
  • The only evidence we have of this is Quinn's word. She tells Puck that she slept with him because "[he] got [her] drunk on wine coolers and [she] was feeling fat that day". This is during the same argument where she calls Puck a Lima loser. She might have just said that to hurt him, or she might be using the fact that she'd had a drink or two to justify what she did in her own mind. We'll never know how drunk she actually was, unless they do a flashback.
    • Agreed. Let's not forget the background Quinn comes from; she's taken a chastity vow and has been taught that extramarital sex is immoral and anti-Christian, so it's probably hard for her to admit both to herself and to Puck that she actually wanted the sex. It would be in keeping with the Glee writers' position on how the abstinence movement denies female sexual desire (remember Rachel's "Girls want sex just as much as guys do" comment?) that a girl who buys into the celibacy movement would have trouble acknowledging her desire for sex and would feel obliged to frame it as the guy's idea.
    • They did a flashback, and the answer was "not very".
  • They were probably BOTH drunk.
    • Both parties being drunk doesn't disqualify it from being rape. If the other person says no and you ignore it, you can be completely blinkered, it's still a crime.
    • But there is no indication Quinn ever said "no" to the drink or the sex, just that she regretted her own actions later.
  • Given the fact that Quinn's parents are religious, I doubt they'd accept "I was drunk" as an excuse for Quinn's getting pregnant, regardless of Puck's actions.
  • If you want a more blatant case look at what Sue did to Principal Figgins (although whether or not she actually did have sex with him is unclear. She did still drug him, drag him off to a sleazy motel and use that as material for blackmail).
• The season finale showed that they were making out and Puck basically talked her into going through with sleeping with him, she did go through with it willingly.

Quinn eating the drug filled cupcakes

Surely that would be bad for the baby, so why didn't Puck stop her?

• We don't actually see her eat a cupcake, just her wiping frosting off her hands, which makes sense since she was handing them to people. The only glee club member we actually see eating them is Santana. Besides 1 cupcake with a little bit of pot won't harm a baby that much (think about how many babies have survived mothers that are heavy drinkers or actually smoked pot).
  • You're kidding me right? My friend's mother smoked pot (and took heroin) when she was pregnant with him. And you know what? Not a single birth defect, as a matter of fact he weighed in at a very healthy 9 lbs at birth and was 5 foot eight by the time he was in 7th grade. If anything the pot helped him.
  • And this is pot we're talking about, not cocaine or even alcohol. Many of the "harmful effects" of pot are exaggerated or at least debatable, and largely depend on the motivations of those conducting the studies. Not that it's a good thing to do if you're pregnant, but there's a big difference between a pregnant woman smoking/eating pot and one on hard drugs.
• What really bugged me about the cupcakes was their explanation of how they sold so many. Walk through this with me. They can't sell any cupcakes. Puck makes it so that anyone who has a cupcake wants more cupcake (not how the munchies work anyway, but oh well). Suddenly everyone wants a cupcake, even though they would have needed to eat a cupcake in the first place to "get the munchies", which they clearly weren't doing. Fridge Logic anyone?
  • Two words: free samples. Who would turn down a free cupcake?

What's going to happen to Quinn?

Is Finn still going to take care of her, even after he found out the baby wasn't his or is he going to kick her out? Is she going to move in with Puck? Is she going to live on the street?

• • That's what the second half of the season is probably for.
  • "Laryngitis" confirmed that she's living with the Puckermans now.

Baby Bump

• The visibility of Quinn's pregnancy seems to be constantly going back and forth. In the dance sequence with the girls in the Madonna episode, it wasn't even there. It's rather inconsistent.
  • Diana (who plays Quinn) said that she was definitely wearing the baby bump for that sequence, it's just that the corset the girls were wearing made it seem like it wasn't there.
    • What is a pregnant girl doing wearing a corset.
      • What is a pregnant girl doing on the Cheerios squad? What is a pregnant girl doing jumping around on mattresses? What is your statement doing with a question mark? Quinn has obviously demonstrated poor choices in her treatment of her body while pregnant (though based on an above section it really isn't that bad; as a male I have no idea). Also? She has no money and is getting no support from her parents; has she been seeing doctors who will tell her "Don't wear a corset"? None of us know. It is completely reasonable to accept her doing something this silly. Also? She's wearing a corset during a SONG AND DANCE NUMBER with an INSTANT COSTUME CHANGE. Dianna Agron isn't really pregnant.
        • No shit the actress isn't pregnant, genius. But she has been seeing doctors. This is shown to us. It's been shown that she is taking extreme cases during her pregnancy to be incredibly careful. When she became too pregnant she was thrown off the cheerios. Then she stopped doing extreme strenuous and dangerous dance moves when she got too pregnant. And during the mattress scene she was only sitting on the mattresses or basically just standing on them, she wasn't doing extreme stunts and flips on them with everyone else. hen you're seven months pregnant and you can't even fit into a pair of jeans anymore, it should be a little more than common knowledge to anyone with a set of lungs to not wear a corset.

Custody Laws

• This is less of an issue after the finale, but this has been bugging me since Quinn first said she wanted to give up the baby. Both Finn and Puck several times say they want to be fathers, want to keep the baby, and Quinn tells them they can't, because she's giving her up. CUSTODY LAWS DO NOT WORK THAT WAY. The father has to actually, legally give up his rights to the child before she can be put up for adoption. It's mentioned several times, a few times in front of adults who would know of these laws even if kids wouldn't, that Finn (and later, Puck) want to keep the baby or at least be in her life, but Quinn is never called on the fact that she can't stop them! At least not without involving a court! Gah, it bugs the crap out of me.
  • Well it's not like she was actually acting like their wanting to be fatherhood was actually legally binding or counting as official custody. It was made pretty clear that they both were well aware that Quinn is the one who had the decision.
    • But. She doesn't have the decision. Their wanting to be an actual father to the baby WAS legally binding and DOES count as official custody. That's the part that bugged me—both Quinn and the father has a right to the baby, to decide whether or not to keep it after it's born. This is never addressed except maybe in the finale? When Puck is actually given the choice? But even then it's more implied that Quinn is allowing him the option rather than Puck enacting on his own rights as the father.
  • I think the point is that Finn and Puck both wanted to raise the baby with Quinn, and Quinn has no interest in starting a family with anyone at this point in her life. It may have never occurred to either boys that becoming a single dad was an option.
  • Similarly, Shelby would not have been able to immediately take Beth. This sort of thing generally requires court appearances and during that time, the child would be placed with a foster family.
    • She could if it's a private adoption and both parents agreed to give her the baby. It's happened before. The less government involvement, the less time it takes. Of course, there's no good reason why Quinn and Puck would want to give her the baby though.
      • Perhaps because she is a stable adult who could raise the baby in a loving home? I'm sure there was more to it than what was shown (especially since there are photos of Puck being comforted by the Glee club after), but her being a healthy adult that wanted the baby and would love it was probably good enough for Quinn (and Puck seemed to want to agree with Quinn's wishes, even if he did want to raise the baby)?

Kurt

KURT.

I get that all the characters are various stereotypes, like dumb blond, evil cheer leader, school bully, and all that. But all of them have added depth, and their stereotypes are deconstructed to show us there is MORE to them than just that. But there has been nothing in the show to give us any sign that Kurt is anything more than just "the gay guy". And the way he treats Finn is creepy and revolting, trying to seduce him when he is going through an emotional crisis? He acts meaner to Rachel than Quinn ever did when she was a cheerio, but fans just suck it all up and say "Kurt's gay, so it's okay." He's the closest thing to a villain in this show below Sue right now.

• • Kurt flat-out told her that both of them were behaving inappropriately (he didn't apologize for his actions either though), as it's pretty obvious that for the moment at least Finn wants to be with Quinn and if either of them actually cared about him they should respect that and stop trying to steal him away from a fellow glee club member, and person they are supposed to be supporting through a difficult time. He doesn't make excuses for his action but at least he admits that he was wrong, and their moment at the end of the episode where they watch Finn and Quinn walk away together seems to suggest that all was forgiven between them.
    • And let's not forget how manipulative Rachel can be. Not only has she been "helping" Finn for the sake of the team (read: Finn. Quinn even lampshades it!) she asked Finn over in her new getup.
  • Also this show is pretty much fueled by "Love Makes You Dumb". Seriously, is there any romantic relationships that are "smart"?
    • This is high school. Love Makes You Dumb tends to happen to even the most rational, cold-hearted of teens.
      • As someone who is presently in high school (hooray for non-verifiable anecdotal evidence), I can testify that this is a blatant exaggeration. Considering Glee has gained a reputation for apparently deconstructing tropes, it seems rather hypocritical that it would play this one painfully straight.
      • And as someone who finished high school less than two years ago, I can testify that this is Truth in Television. Everyone's experience is different, I guess.
  • The impression I get is that Kurt wants Finn so badly that he's deluded himself into believing not only that it's possible to "turn" Finn, but that Finn would actually be better off with him than with Quinn or Rachel. (And honestly, he might be half-right.) It's not hard to understand his desperation. To a lonely teen with no experience, finding a boyfriend can seem like the key to happiness. Kurt seems to be the only openly gay kid at McKinley High, so it's not like he has a lot of other options. His actions are reprehensible, of course, but I still feel plenty of sympathy for him.
    • TL;DR: Kurt's gay so it's okay.
      • Um, no. I did not say that it was okay. I said it was understandable. There's a difference.
      • The idea that a homosexual would believe that he was able to 'turn' someone else gay carries a whole heap of Unfortunate Implications itself; it implies that Kurt believes that it is a switch on/switch off choice, rather than something you are born as.
      • Or, maybe, just maybe Kurt wanted Finn so much that he hoped that maybe Finn was just lying to himself. It's likely he knew it was a fantasy, but Kurt isn't exactly rational. I doubt Kurt seriously thought people could just switch sexualities because of the way Kurt and and his father interact. His father, before some character development, probably would have preferred Kurt had one of those on/off switches. Kurt would know better than to think he could make Finn gay. It was more "if there's even the slightest chance of him being gay, I have to find out" rather than "I know he's straight but he can change!" A rational person would probably not have suggested Rachel "slut it up" in the first place. I can attest to wishing someone you had a crush on was actually gay, but I never acted on this crush.
      • And I had the very interesting experience of meeting one young lady, going "holy shit" and falling in love with a girl for the first time in my life. It's not completely unreasonable - I don't think Kurt is hoping to "turn" Finn (this is not Twilight!) so much as hoping that Finn will have that same sort of "holy shit" moment. I adore Kurt - I think he has his issues, and I really, really love that he's being portrayed as someone believably human. Grey and Gray Morality, guys. I'm not saying he's not flawed, I'm just saying that he actually is a good person who's been put through absolute shit and that's maybe messed him up a little. I wasn't so unlike him, once. Hell, I still am. He's just desperate to be loved, and he's sixteen. Most of us are completely stupid at sixteen, god knows I was. And I for one am really looking forward to his upcoming relationship arc - I think it's going to be very, very good for Kurt to be in a healthy romantic relationship with someone and I'm really excited to see what Chris Colfer does with it. TL;DR: Kurt is not a bad person. He's made mistakes; he's young and desperate to be loved. But this doesn't mean he's evil. So seriously? Leave the guy alone, all right?
  • It is VERY odd that this day and age our beloved Kurt couldn't just... find a date on-line, I know is sort of dangerous, but to gay guys is a worth option.
    • This is a TV Show. If he ever tries online dating, all bets are it's gonna be a murderer, kidnapper, or something equally nice.
      • Probably a woman. Or, if the writers don't feel like they're offending enough of the population, a transman.
  • Also, Another Unfortunate Implications is that: Be nice to a gay guy = He will fall in love with you. * Shudders*
    • I don't see what Kurt being a gay guy has to do with that. Lots of people are attracted to kindness, me (a straight female) included.
      • I agree, but the thing about implications is that they don't actually need to be true. Kurt is over the top camp gay, is not hard to see some people buying it. There is also the fact that it looks like Finn is the only male character to be nice to him (I don't know about Artie though)
    • I think it was implied that he was infatuated with Finn before they actually knew each other, and actively cultivated a friendship in hopes that Finn would eventually return his feelings. They are in the same class, with Brittany, but since Finn was a big dumb jock and Kurt is a loser, it's unlikely they ever interacted at all before Finn joined Glee—it started out as one of those crushes where you don't know anything about the person but you like them anyway.
      • But this is how some romances happen - straight or gay. You find someone you're infatuated with and cultivate a friendship. Either it dies, it happens, or it remains just friends.
    • I'm straight, and I've ended up with be nice = fall in love (or at least, saying I was cute and so on and so forth). There's nothing wrong with that as long as one is able to handle such attraction maturely rather than (to paraphrase someone) "If they express attraction what I perceive as an unwanted advance to me, I'll get really angry and punch them a lot."
    • Though it seems pretty damn manipulative from an adult point of view to befriend someone with the intention of seducing them, it's pretty common in high school - both for straight couples and gay couples. Let's not forget that Rachel and Puck are doing the same thing, with Finn and Quinn respectively. In Kurt's defense, he's secretly aware of the fact that Finn is straight and thus can't return his feelings, and stays friends with him anyway. What makes it immature is if the infatuated one drops their new "friend" like a hot potato as soon as it becomes apparent that their crush is unrequited. (Or inversely, if the other person wants nothing to do with their friend/admirer once they find out their feelings for them are more than friendly... I had this happen to me in high school, from a guy who was probably secretly gay himself. Thus for me, Kurt scores major points for having the maturity to not do this to Mercedes.) "Befriend them" makes sense as a tactic, when you think about it, seeing as some of the best relationships evolve out of friendships, and geeky, awkward kids in particular would have trouble asking out someone they didn't already know.
• The fact that there are no other gay characters to show they might be aware that being gay doesn't automatically include Beyonce and leotards is kind of grating too. The only other gay character in the show? Sandy the pedophile. Nice.
  • Oh, and there's also Rachel's dads. .... who raised her a spoiled brat on showtunes and Barbra Streisand worship.
    • This actually a reason why I dislike her character, she is sort of a Unfortunate Implications about gay-parenting.
  • Hopefully his boyfriend won't be a stereotype.... or at least not as much of one.
    • Word of God says the boyfriend will be a 'regular guy'.
• To me Kurt's interactions with Finn didn't come across as creepy, or at least not more so than Rachel's. They actually have enough in common that they're believable as friends, even though obviously there's the Subtext of Kurt being in love with Finn and Finn not really wanting to address the issue.
• I have to talk about this someplace. I adore Kurt, but him throwing the 'Defying Gravity' audition in "Wheels" was pretty weak. Especially in light of the song being about how 'no one's going to bring me down' his dad gets one phone call (what, all that money and a place of business has no Caller ID?) saying his son is a fag (which his dad already knew), and Kurt folds like an origami weaksauce. That's Unfortunate Implications on a grand scale: for pennies a day, for the price of a single phone call, you too can bully your own gay kid into backing down.
  • Kurt wasn't throwing it for himself though, he was throwing it to protect his Dad. While he was strong enough to deal with being called a fag (he even says something to the extent of "so what? that happens all the time") his father wasn't so Kurt chose to put his Dad's needs in front of his wants. My interpretation was more "for pennies a day, for the price of a single phone call, you too can bully a straight father"
  • In addition to the above, the song is also partly about giving up your dreams in the cold light of reality, and forging new, more realistic ones from the ashes. In this respect, Kurt giving up his own dream (of singing the song in front of a large audience) to spare his father the pain that would come with it is very much in keeping with the theme. This can be seen in part of the omitted preamble to the song, which involves the lines:

Glinda: "You can have all you ever wanted..."
Elphaba: "I know. But I don't want it... no. I can't want it. Any more..."

• Everything about Kurt trying to manipulate his father and Finn's mother and then plotting to tear them apart when it didn't work out as well as he'd hoped (and by that, I mean HE didn't get anything out of it). This, in addition to how he treated Rachel with the whole makeover nonsense, makes him come off as a really manipulative and selfish person. Not very sympathetic, at least for me.
  • Possibly because he wasn't supposed to come off as sympathetic? He was supposed to be seen as manipulative and selfish?
  • Not to mention that everyone I talked to asked me if he was ALWAYS that creepy after Home. The Unfortunate Implications of having a stalkerish, selfish, manipulative guy... who happens to be the only gay character on the show? Yeah, good job, writers.
    • Really, the bonding moment at the end between Finn and Kurt's dad was nice in a quiet way, heart warming way. Then it shows Kurt STANDING RIGHT OUTSIDE FINN'S WINDOW just watching them while crying. I didn't know whether to laugh at the narm, or to freak out over just how creepy it was.
    • That would only have Unfortunate Implications if all of the straight characters were well-adjusted and virtuous. This is Glee. Kurt is by no means the worst person on the show.
      • My problem with Kurt is how the character is handled. Nobody ever calls him on his crap. He's always the poor gay guy who's life sucks (which is completely understandable, I can let that one slide) who can get away with anything because boohoo his life sucks (which is FAIL). I can't stand the character, and find him utterly unsympathetic, and what annoys me most is he's always portrayed as the innocent victim. The breaking point was when he yelled at his father for having the nerve to talk to Finn about football. How dare Burt have a common interest with someone?!? And at the end of the episode everybody's learned an important lesson... but Kurt, who acted like a selfish jerk to his father, his father's girlfriend and Finn, gets off scot-free because he's gay so it's okay. All the other characters get called on the crap they pull, but Kurt's always the poor innocent victim, which apparently is supposed to completely justify him being a manipulative, self-obsessed, borderline-delusional jerk. Finn had a point when he said that it's fine that Kurt is so different from everybody, but Kurt assumes everyone else is as flamboyant and as different as he is, and it's their fault for not being the same as him. That would seem to be ENORMOUSLY hypocritical for the token gay character. Being gay is not a get-out-of-jail-free-card for being a jerk, but Glee treats Kurt that way, and it's infuriating.
        • The scene you cite had nothing to do with him being gay really re: him being forgiven. He overreacted to the fact that one of the only people he's close to, his Dad, was spending less time with him. He admitted that, his Dad said he could see why it was hard. Hardly a shouting match for Burt having a common interest with someone. His Dad forgives him because he's his Dad and sometimes families don't have perfect dynamics, not because Kurt's gay, and Kurt barely did anything (that time) anyway. He just tried to dress differently for a bit to 'act straight' and then had a bit of a tantrum, where his Dad called him out on acting the victim.
• If we're going to go on about characters who are one-dimensional stereotypes, Kurt is hardly the worst offender. That would be Mercedes. As campy as Kurt is, he also likes football and helps his dad out at his car shop. But there is pretty much nothing about Mercedes that doesn't scream Sassy Black Woman. Tina, too, adheres pretty strictly to the stereotype of the shy, demure Asian girl.
  • Tina may be shy, but there's nothing demure about some of the high-octane Fetish Fuel outfits she wears, like that lolita-inspired number she wore in "Wheels."
  • It should also be said that one of the main themes of the show is deconstructing stereotypes to show the ways that people tend to just hide behind their labels. I think the way that all of the characters are almost closer to archetypes than stereotypes, it's set up to show high-school as a caste system, and these kids are using Glee Club to break out of it.
• In defense of Kurt, I think the whole storyline with Finn and the parents was very well done in that he got his comeuppance while remaining sympathetic. When his manipulations were all said and done, the two widowed parents got a second chance at love, Finn got a surrogate father figure, Burt got (though he'd never admit it) the jock son he always wanted, and Kurt was deservedly bit in the ass for doing it all for entirely selfish reasons that were doomed from the start (ie, seducing Finn). But then you see him watching from outside and realize that all he ever wanted was a boyfriend and to be closer to his father, showing that even he can be The Woobie under the right circumstances. Would he have done all this if he were a rational adult? Probably not. But remember we're watching teenagers here.
  • Now Finn is homeless and nobody's holding Kurt accountable for the constant sexual harassment, invasion of personal space, or general hypocrisy. Fail.
    • ... WHAT? Finn left the home at the middle of the episode, and the next scene he was perfectly clean, with different clothes. The next time we see him, he managed to get a GaGa outfit his size. (He's obviously not with Puck, Quinn, or Rachel). Either everything was solved offscreen, or he returned to his old house.
      • Also, what kind of mom would stay with her boyfriend and let her son just wander around town at night? If Finn did get kicked out, probbably both of them left and moved back in to their old house. Which probably isn't much of a loss for Finn anyway, since he didn't want to move to begin with.
        • Finn clearly states that he made the dress from the shower curtain, meaning he must have gone back at some point. It's entirely possible that he never had to leave, and Burt's "You can't live here with that attitude" was supposed to be an ultimatum, rather than a straight-up GTFO.

• Kurt's flaws, sometimes being manipulative, selfish and even vindictive are exactly what makes him avoid the Unfortunate Implications. By showing that he's not perfect, or worse yet, a Magical Queer, this makes him just like everyone else.
  • Explain to me how making the only gay guy manipulative and selfish is NOT an unfortunate implication. Because your defense sounds more like you shot yourself in the foot and said "take that."
    • (Not original poster) It's not Unfortunate Implications because, while he's the only gay character(so far) he hasn't been the only one to act this way... basically, EVERY character has had some sort of Kick the Dog moment, some more "evil" than the others. Kurt, by being like the other characters(Having both virtues and flaws) avoids the Positive Discrimination... and only gets Unfotunate Implications if you ignore everything the other characters do, and focus solely on the fact he likes guys instead of girls... which would be Unfortunate Implications of yourself...
• Alright, It seems as though one of the biggest issues here isn't that Kurt can be a manipulative bastard (which, out of all the characters, he is far from the worst) but that he never gets called for his shit. My question is, Who's going to call him on it? The only characters that really notice how he acts towards Finn, and care, are Rachel and Finn himself. Both of them do, at one point, call him out for his creepy behavior. Unfortunately Rachel doesn't have nearly enough moral high ground for her to be very effective at chastising him. Finn appears to have two modes "Nice to the point of being spineless" and "Raging to the point of being scary" neither of these modes are very good at communicating the message to layoff.
• I'm gay, and I hate the fact that Kurt is so...gay. Most of my gay friends are repulsed by Gaga and Beyonce, have no sense of fashion, and don't act like total prisses. Why can't Kurt be more than just gayer than gay? Why couldn't they make a gay character who is part of the bear community? If they really want to tear apart stereotypes, that would be perfect. For the first part of my high school life, I felt out of place because I was a hairy, masculine guy who was gay. What better dramatic plot point? Then it becomes more about personal identity instead of stereotypes.
  • Ah but perhaps they are tearing apart the deconstructed stereotypes... The past decade a lot more media ARE avoiding the gayer than gay males and making them as anti-stereotypical as possible to avoid being called out for stereotypes, and in the end isn't Glee the hotspot for stereotypes. Dumb jock= Finn, Puck. Bitchy Cheerleader= Santana, Quinn. Sassy Black woman= Mercedes. Nerd with thick glasses, braced and suspenders= Artie. I do not think there is a single character that isn't a stereotype. Even bisexuality has an implied stereotype, it seems to be implied that Santana and Brittany are together to entice boys
    • Funnily enough I have yet to see any character on the entire show who is a big masculine, hairy male... Puck, Karofsky and Burt are borderline but only barely and from the incoming new characters it doesnt seem like that is going to change.
      • I actually believe it is pretty important to the story that Kurt is a more flamboyaunt gay. In real life, you'll meet a lot of people who say things like "I don't mind gays, as long as they aren't flaming". Apparently all gay men have to be super macho and all lesbians have to be super feminine to compensate for the fact that they are homosexual. A more feminine gay man would have a harder time fitting in than a macho one, even if they are out of the closet. A big theme of the show is dealing with discrimination, and the flambouyant gays get waaaaaay more discrimination than the ones who fit their gender stereotypes better.
• It`s a small thing, but Kurts out of the blue "Really Brittany??!!!!" (after she asked if Finn could fly) really bugs me.
• I'm gonna be a dissenting voice here and say that the fandom's reaction to Kurt at times bugs me. Mainly, the idea that it's terrible to portray it as OK to be "stereotypically" gay (because it's only OK to be gay if you 'act straight'? If every gay guy was like this on the show I'd understand, but we have a sample size of one. It's very offensive to the gay teens and men actually like Kurt to say they're "not allowed.") and the idea that Kurt gets a 'free pass' because he's gay re: being manipulative in regards to Finn. I've heard a lot of, 'if Finn was a girl there'd be a restraining order', except... similar things have happened with men and women on the show. Like when Will flat out tells Emma that he won't stop pursuing her after she asks him to. Or when Finn more or less tells Rachel to break up with Jesse. And the difference is: Kurt may not have been explicitly called out, but it never went well for him, did it? Yet Rachel ended up with Finn and Will/Emma seems to be the endgame goal right now.
  • Additionally, this idea that Kurt provoking Finn to anger with regards to the "faggy" comment excuses it. Was Finn right to be angry? Absolutely! But the idea that this has anything to do with the use of homophobia as a weapon to 'teach the gay guy a lesson' is totally illogical. Likewise, the idea it justifies telling Kurt, a gay guy, as a straight guy, that he needs to stay away from straight guys because the straight guys just have to deal with so much stress because of it in "Duets" keeps being justified as fine because Kurt... er, had an obsessive crush on him once. Connecting everything bad done to Kurt to his admittedly OTT crush is getting old, and so is acting like it justifies things like treating straight guys' issues to be innately worse as OK.
• Apparently Burt wasn't the only person who didn't get what Rose's Turn was about. It's a song about a manipulative, selfish person realising that their self-centredness has cost them what they really care about it. That's why the scene is immediately followed up by Burt telling Kurt off for acting the victim. And yet people still whine and complain about that episode treating Kurt's whole attitude as being alright...

The gaylesball and Kurt's lack of interest for it

• Alright, I get it. All the characters hate Rachel, gosh she's a bitch, blah blah blah. But if Kurt's a good person, wouldn't he take any opportunity he has to make amends with the girl he humiliated in the previous episode? Rachel irritates me as much as she irritates him, but is Kurt really not going to do ANYTHING to try to make things better? And this character is supposed to be sympathetic?
  • Sometimes you just don't have any interest in making up with someone. If you grind on them long enough, even nice people will eventually decide it's not worth the effort anymore.
• Not to mention, in my experience a LGTB group in his high school would make his life easier. Who knows, it might have encouraged other cute gay boys to come out of the closet...
• Didn't Rachel tell him that she wanted to start a gaylesball because it would officially make her the most involved student at McKinley? Maybe he was offended that she was only doing it for that reason. Plus, founding an LGBT group at his school would put Kurt and his sexuality in the spotlight even more, which is something he's already decided to avoid for his dad's sake. Not that any of that excuses his rudeness.
  • Rachel's reasons might be selfish, but it was still a good idea. Not to mention that Kurt owed her after the humiliation he made her go through. After Hairography I thought that Rachel would stop talking to Kurt for a while. Not only she didn't, but he shrugged off a undeserved chance to make things better. Also... Wasn't that before he decided to hide his sexuality?
    • Make things better? This is Lima, Ohio. Remember why Kurt threw the Defying Gravity solo? He didn't want to put himself out there to the entire town as a gay guy to be mocked and insulted. What do you THINK a GSA would do? And doing it with Rachel, who he hates and who sees to attract attention for all the wrong reasons, and topped it off with the fact that she's only doing it for the chance to be in a bunch of clubs.
      • Make things better with Rachel. Remember how he got her to dress up like a slut for Finn in Hairography, knowing how Finn would react? He did an incredibly cruel thing. He doesn't have to start a GSA, but is it too much to want him at least to be civil to the girl he owes an apology to?
        • Do we have reason to think that he agrees that he owes an apology?
          • Are we still supposed to think he's a sympathetic character if he doesn't?

Kurt's pity-party over his dad bonding with Finn

• Kurt throwing a pity-party after seeing his dad bond with Finn. Now, it would be perfectly understandable if Kurt's dad was one of those Jerk Jock fathers who refused to accept his son being anything other than an athelete, but Kurt's dad was the complete opposite. He's been nothing but supportive to Kurt throughout the entire series, even threatening to sue the school for prejudice when Kurt wanted to go for the lead female's vocals. The fact that Kurt set his dad up with Finn's mom, just so he himself could get closer to Finn only made the idea of Kurt playing the victim all the more hollow.
  • Even though Burt is definitely not a Jerk Jock, I think Kurt realises that he is not Burt's ideal son, and that someone like Finn is, which is why he's upset.
    • Agreed. This is actually the one part of Kurt's storyline in "Home" that didn't bug me.
  • Because little things like that can hurt a lot and/or Kurt is over-reacting. Someone already stated on this page that while Kurt's father is loving and accepting of his son, it's apparent he's still not comfortable with the more campy aspects of Kurt's personality and it's really not that much of a stretch seeing Kurt take it so deeply, seeing his father get along with Finn to well.
  • But shouldn't Kurt try and show his father the same courtesy that Burt shows him? We know that Kurt actually enjoys playing football and knows his way around cars, so even if Burt and Finn start bonding over sports Kurt should at least make the attempt to try and share with his father in something he likes. We know that Kurt loves his father and hates seeing him hurt, but Kurt can still be incredibly self-centered and insensitive himself, but that's just par for the course, he's a teenager.
  • Kurt does get called out on the fact that he's not showing his father the same courtesy Burt is showing him by Burt. Kurt blows him off and tells him he wants to be alone and Burt leaves him alone. Kurt is flawed and his relationship with his father is a defining aspect of Kurt's character. It's dynamic. I still think Kurt is being unfair to his father and an asshole for manipulating Finn's mom and his dad, but it's not as if he gets away with either of these things. Burt and Finn both call him out at least once.
    • He should but he isn't perfect. Isn't that why (in part) it's a good show? Interesting and flawed characters rather than Marty/Mary Sues? :)
    • But the thing is the show seems to be making us side with Kurt. Which annoys me to no end, seeing as how he got this whole thing to get into Finn's pants, and horror of horrors, Finn and his dad actually GASP! get along well! How selfish of Kurt's dad to possibly show any interest in things besides Kurt. In no part of the show did it indicate that Kurt was in the wrong, all it did was do close ups of his puffy lips and diva tears.
      • I don't see the show trying to make Kurt a victim. Just flawed and pointing out how ridiculous Kurt is being. The show does more to call Kurt out on his idiocy than it does to make him a victim. Note that by the resolution of the plot, Kurt realizes he's being an asshat and makes up with his father rather than his father being "Sorry, I'll stop dating and being nice to a kid who needs a dad". For instance, Burt gave Kurt -many- opportunities to join them (pre- and post-dating). Burt mentions involving Kurt in sports and then brings up Kurt basically being unhappy/not enjoying that - as a result, Burt stopped trying to drag his son into things his son didn't like. Kurt, if anything, needs to be more accepting of his dad and trying to involve his dad in things not the other way around.
  • People are giving Kurt WAY too much credit in this one. He introduced his dad to Finn's mom(Sure, for his own selfish plans) but it's not like he forced them to date, or drugged them or anything. It's actually an example of a plan Going Horribly Right as now not only Burt is on an (apparent) serious relationship, but he's bonding with Finn in a way that Kurt knows will never bond with him.
    • Kurt not only introduced them, but also set up dinner dates between them, convinced Finn's mom to throw out her old stuff and move on, as well as giving her a make-over and pointing out her low-cut jeans to his dad. Kurt was in charge of the whole scheme.
      • Again, too much credit. Either of them could have rejected the idea, but both went along with his devious schemes. He might have influence on his own father, but there is no way in hell he could have made Finn's mom agree if he didn't not want to move on, at least on some level.
  • Original Poster here. After the most recent episode I'm still not anymore sympathetic to Kurt's situation. Now admittedly, it can't be denied that Finn crossed the line by calling Kurt's items "Faggy" but I still find it grating that the show continues to cast Kurt as the victim despite it was Kurt's own manipulations that pushed Finn over the edge in the first place. The main grating part is just that Kurt has still refused to acknowledge his own jerkassness in all of this and is continuing portrayed as the victim.
    • The problem is not that Finn was pushed over the edge, it's that when he's pushed over the edge and loses his inhibitions he automatically goes to a gay slur to get his point across. Kurt being manipulative and obsessive is completely unrelated to Finn's used of homophobic language. The two have nothing to do with each other. There's two bad situations... Kurt being obsessive AND Finn being homophobic. They're not comparable or even very connected, just both there. Both of them were victims and instigators in different things.
    • And the reaction by fandom seems to have it backwards, since all I have heard is "Kurt, why did you make Finn say such nasty things to you?"
    • It's not so much that the fandom is trying to give Finn a free pass as much as it is that Kurt's jerkassness is rarely ever addressed in these incidences and the one time it is, he refuses to even take any of it to heart.
    • Basically, strip away the bad word. Finn was calling Kurt out on Kurt stalking him. Up until that point, Finn, while not doing in the best way was at least justified. The bad word certainly crossed the line and no one is saying it should be overlooked. Turn Kurt in to a girl - would we see Kurt(ina) as sympathetic or would we see her as something less so. Or what if it were a straight guy in Kurt's shoes and Finn was a girl - again, would a guy doing all the things Kurt did be sympathetic? And on the other side, again, Finn could certainly have acted and responded in better ways. In short, both of them are bad guys in this. The only real sympathetic part comes in because Finn's probably stressed and freaked out over how fast his mom's relationship is going (which doesn't excuse him) and Kurt desperately trying to hold on to his fantasy that he can change Finn or at least make their relationship better only to watch as his actions bring everyone else crumbling down (which again, doesn't excuse him).
      • 'Turn Kurt into a girl'... oh, you mean when Rachel was obsessive about Finn and tried to get him to do things like make out with her when he had a pregnant girlfriend? And she ended up being rewarded by the narrative in a way Kurt wasn't.
      • Nah... turning Kurt into Courtney would set the double standard of "Why Finn doesn't realize Courtney is really truly in love with him and does that crap out of love??". Turning Finn into Fiona would have the same result. Basically, Kurt is a creepy stalker mostly because he's into a straight guy. OTOH stripping away the bad word doesn't work... is basically the whole reason Finn crossed the line. Burt wouldn't have been so angry i he had said something else, or if he had only complained about the decor of the room. Hell, he probably would have supported Finn. But jjst think about it: Had Finn said the N-word at a black kid, would anyone be defending him?. OTOOH, yes, they're both to blame. everything could have been avoided by "Mom, I don't wanna share a room with Kurt. He's gay and while i don't have a problem with that, i know he has a crush on me and I'm afraid this might get his hopes up or something"
        • We're defending his right to not to get harassed but we're not defending his right to say bad words. Just because we agree with some of what he says, does not agree with everything he says. Same for Kurt - we agree that, slowly, he's realizing the truth of the matter and is trying to make amends and we can and will defend that. We are not however defending his 'right' to be manipulative and stalk people whether he is male or female, whether the target is male or female. The whole point of taking away the bad word is separate those two parts in to less binary terms.
          • I keep on seeing people saying "Faggy" is a bad word. I don't see how it's so horrible. Sure, using it as a substitute for "All things gay" isn't good, but who cares? Y'all are too caught up in the Politically Correct
            • I think you need to go back and listen to Burt's speech to Finn. He explains why that word is so offensive much more eloquently than I can.
              • But I'm gay and I have nothing against it. Besides, by that logic, "dumb" is also foul as it is a term for being unable to speak, "lame" is as well due to it meaning a hinderance to the ability to walk, or just an inability to walk. "Stupid" also offends on that basis, because it applies to anyone with lower intelligence. Either go completely PC, or realize words take on more than a single meaning as time progresses. Don't forget, as well, that in the gay community, we use the term "queer" (or at least several of us), which originally meant weird or strange.
                • You do realise one not-straight person being OK with it does not suddenly make it OK in a wider context, and that queer people reclaiming terms isn't the same at all, yes?
                • With all due respect, that's like saying, "I'm a woman and I'm not offended by sexism. Clearly you are all too PC." Or "I'm black and I haven't been personally affected by racism. Clearly you are all too sensitive." Just because you don't see it as a bad word doesn't mean that it isn't considered one. Also, since Finn was deliberately using it as a slur, and not as a joke or something, it takes on the negative meaning.
                • I, having lived in two very different parts of the country (the NE and SE, specifically), have noticed that the offensiveness of the word "faggot" and all its derivatives varies from place to place. In the town I grew up in, the term is extremely offensive, on par with the worst of the racial slurs. Even typing the word just now made me extremely uncomfortable. In the areas around my college town, especially the more rural areas, the term means more or less "really uncool". I can't say how acceptable the term is in California, but I can't imagine it's looked on fondly.

"I have exactly the same vocal range as the famous 16th-century castrato Orlando di Lasso."

How does Kurt know this if standardized musical pitch scales have only been around since the 1700s, and even then there wasn't an actual standard until the early 19th century, and audio recording devices have only been around in the last couple of hundred years (even more recently when it comes to any medium with decent staying and playback quality)? If he was just bragging, you would think someone who cares enough to actually research individual castrati would know better than to use such a ridiculous boast. Was it a joke that just didn't land?

• • To top it off, Orlando di Lasso wasn't even a castrato.
    • Wasn't even a... He was talking about that Orlando de Lassus!? Wow.
  • I'm going to go out on a limb here and say that the Did Not Do the Research was on purpose. After all, the Finn getting Quinn pregnant one was.
  • I thought it was hilarious because of all those things. Fact: male singers back then were often castrati. Fact: Orlando de Lassus was (and is) a famous musician. I took it as Kurt trying to make himself sound smart and failing.

Kurt's Wounded Gazelle Gambit in Episode 20.

• I think it should be noted that Season 2 is going a long way to resolving some of these issues. In "Duets" Burt specifically takes Kurt to task about how Kurt wasn't honest with him and more-or-less sides with Finn on the issue. It goes a long way toward Kurt realizing that his similar behavior to cute new boy Sam is inappropriate. Kurt is still sympathetic, though, since the episode also highlights how lonely Kurt is in school.

If I were Kurt's dad, as soon as I got done chastising Finn for calling him a fag, I would have turned to Kurt and said:

"And you mister, what the hell is up with this room?! If Finn is gonna live here, he has as much say in how it looks as you. And where do you get off violating his privacy just for a cheap thrill? If me and his mother get married, you two are gonna be stepbrothers, and that's just nasty. Didn't we just get done talking about how you have to learn to respect others' differences too? Finn is straight. Let it go. You can find plenty of nice gay boys on Myspace. And one more thing, did I just hear you say you skipped school?! No Marc Jacobs summer collection for you!"

I mean hell, I'm gay myself and I think Kurt is stepping out of bounds with no reprimand.

• Kurt's dad is kind of oblivious, and he seems not to have heard anything prior to "this faggy blanket" (and possibly the bit about the lamp). Even if he did get the whole point of Kurt's Plan (and didn't just think that Finn was being a homophobe), not calling him on that and definitely the reason he didn't call Kurt on setting up the harem decor without Finn's input was reverse discrimination with at least a hint of nepotism.
  • Ah, the good old "My kid can do no wrong!" dilemma that blended families know all too well.
• While Kurt certainly has crossed the creepy stalker line before, he was making an effort to tone it down in this episode. I don't think he was trying to turn the room into a harem, he was just truly clueless as to what Finn would like, and he was trying to be more respectful with the privacy partition. Now he's still not innocent, but I think Kurt knows that. Chris Colfer was definitely playing him with some guilt in that scene. Plus, Burt's reaction right or wrong was very much what a real dad would do, especially not knowing the entire situation.
  • The reoccurring problem though is just like the previous episode with him throwing a hissing fit over his dad bonding with Finn, Kurt has still yet to actually acknowledge his own faults in all of this. In no way was Finn right in any of this, but just like before, Kurt's manipulations are given another free past.
  • Kurt may have had the right intentions but there's not way in heck that Kurt wouldn't know what Finn would like. Kurt's been playing stalker for some time now, he's been friends for Finn for a while, and it's Kurt's seen the sorts of interactions Finn has with other people (notably, Kurt's own dad). Kurt might not know Finn's favorite color or anything like that but there's no reason why Kurt would ever think Finn would go for what what Kurt did. To be fair, yes, a shared room is a big change so things like the privacy thing are a sign of respect. But Kurt could have also decorated his side of the room and let Finn decorate his own side.
    • Finn never showed any interest in the decor, or how the room looked, until after Kurt redecorated.
    • Um, maybe because he didn't mind it as it was?
• Presumably, we'll have to wait and see how the story develops. It's likely that after Finn defended him at the end of the episode, Kurt will come clean to his father about everything and finally get his What the Hell, Hero?.
  • Knowing this show, that'll all happen off-screen and they'll be living together as one big happy family in the next episode without ever explaining how things got that way.
  • Kurt gets What the Hell, Hero? constantly . We never see his reaction afterwards because the focus is always in another character.
    • No he doesn't. The only time I can remember was in 'Larynigitis', where Burt calls him out on his self-pity.
• I think the whole thing is the parents fault. I wrote my beef on the What The Hell Hero? part of the Glee page.
  • Agreed. All the trouble would have been avoided if they had asked Finn's opinion, or i don't know... if they had let him have his own room.
• Kurt's dad's reaction was pretty extreme. Even ignoring that Finn didn't call Kurt a fag, deciding that he and his mother couldn't live there because of one instance of homophobic language is kind of extreme. He should have, at the very least, called in Finn's mom to have a talk with her son about his behaviour.
  • He was acting on impulse. They probably talked after that.
  • Also, Burt only threw Finn out, not his mom. And it was unclear whether Burt was simply throwing Finn out of the house for the evening or permanently.
    • I thought he said, or at least strongly implied, that she and Finn were an all-or-nothing deal (he is sixteen), and his exact words were something about Homophobe-Finn not staying under his roof.
• The problem is Kurt seemed remorseful at how he had let things come apart like that after Burt's outburst. Then, the next time we see him, he apparently has decided to just go ahead and blame the whole thing on Finn. It'll be interesting to see if Burt actually did kick him out of the house. If he did, and Kurt doesn't try to stop it, it effectively makes Kurt look like he's invoking If I Can't Have You (and that's not even mentioning what it says about Finn's mom).
  • It felt more like a "time out" honestly.
• le sigh Kurt is 16 years old boy. He's not a Magnificent Bastard, he doesn't have mind controlling powers over adults, the worse he could have done is nudge his father into convincing Finn's mom to move in together, but that's as far as his influence goes, if neither of them had wanted to, it would have been the end of it. Yes, he's making mistakes, but all we saw on screen is that Finn is paranoid(justifiable) because he knows Kurt has a crush on him, Did we saw Kurt trying to watch Finn in the shower? No. Changing clothes? Nope. Spying him in any way? Nope. The only thing shown was that he tried to respect Finn's privacy, and tried to redecorate the room to something he thought Finn would like, Gone Horribly Wrong, as he has barely a understanding on how a "straight" guy's mind works, as shown in the previous episode. And he always gets called out on his behavior, but the thing is, when it happens, the other characters gets more focus, so we don't really know how he reacts after being called out. I know he's not a saint, but NONE of the characters are, and frankly others have done much worse things, and got free passes both in the show and the fandom. Puck, for example, is way more manipulative, violent and all around jerkass than him, but he gets Draco in Leather Pants treatment.
  • The room-designing thing wasn't coming purely from the goodness of his heart, even ignoring the harem decor. The money Burt gave Finn was given specifically so that Finn would feel more comfortable with the move and could personalize some of a space that Kurt had already personalized for himself. Kurt didn't ask to take the money, didn't ask to decorate, and didn't ask what Finn wanted- there would be issues there even if he was straight.
    • The "harem decor" was manlier than the stuff Kurt had before, in all honestly. And even Burt said it looked good. Kurt is not entirely blameless, but watch the episode again, and Finn doesn't show any interest in redecorating until after Kurt redecorated. Did he complain when Kurt took the money? Did he said he wanted the room to be decorated in a certain way?
      • Your mileage may vary as to whether it was manlier or not. If Kurt had gotten rid of a couple of things, it would have been downright Zeerust, and we all know how incredibly manly those old pulp sci-fi comics were. The harem/opium den decor was, how might it be put... "frou-frou"? It was lavish in a way stereotypically reserved for the idle gay rich, guys with seven wives, and no one in between. The important part, though, is that Finn got absolutely no input on it, and it turned out looking, in his opinion... see above, and the episode itself for that matter. Although you have to give Kurt credit, he wasn't lying when he said it'd make Finn's skin tone look a lot better.
      • Note that Finn had no opportunity to say anything - he was ambushed with the "We're moving in!", "You're sharing a room!", and "Here's money!" (which, if taken the wrong way, could be seen as Burt trying to buy off Finn), and then before he could do anything with the money or say anything Kurt jumps in and takes the money away from him then states what 'they'll' do. Finn (again, not that he isn't innocent in the matter), it's been established, has problems speaking up and standing for himself unless other people press him. As well, this is a someone who's lived in his own room and had his own privacy as well as a certain empty house normalcy his whole life... and now his environment is completely changing in a way he simply can't imagine. Again, yes, he could have done things better but so could have everyone else in at least getting his input in the decision making process. Basically, he's feeling helpless and doesn't know how to respond because no one will let him.
  • Simply because he's the focus of the calling in this instance doesn't excuse either one though. Both Finn and Kurt are both justified and both at fault, not the least of which is because of poor communication. It's irrelevant who is more or less at fault and trying to justify Kurt as somewhat more innocent because others have done worse is silly. The JBM is not that Kurt isn't justified or not justified; it's that people seem to be ignoring that Finn has some justification to be a little angry and we've seen Kurt do alot from beyond this one episode.
    • Hum.... no. Look at this page, the characters, WMG and the main one. Kurt is getting * all* the blame, and everyone is justifying Kurt. I agree, the three parties(Kurt, Finn and Burt) handled the situation horribly(It's even a bit of Fridge logic in that, they said the house is "twice as big" as Finn's, and yet they seem to have only two bedrooms... and one of them is the basement...). Other people doing worse stuff doesn't justify Kurt, or minimizes his actions, but it's jarring when he's the only one been demonized by the fandom. Seriously, he has even been called a "sexual predator"
      • I really don't see how his scheme to get into Finn's bedroom could be described as anything other than stalking. If this story was done with Puck and Tina in place of Kurt and Finn, nobody would be on Puck's side.
    • The difference being between Kurt and Finn in this case is that Finn was actually called out and faced the consequences for his actions. There's no reason to complain for Finn for getting away with his actions because, wait for it, he didn't. By the end of the episode he acknowledge his own prejudice and actually took steps to move past them. Nobody is trying to give Finn a free past, it's more annoyance over Kurt not acknowledging what he did wrong.
      • Basically, in regards to this subplot... Finn has been taken to task by his mom for being too clingy to the memory of his dad, Finn's mom has been taken to task by Finn for disregarding the memory of her husband, Burt has been taken to task by Kurt for his mother. Burt gave up 'guy time' with Finn because of Kurt. Finn's been chewed out by Burt. And so on. The only thing done to Kurt? Finn yells at him for having desperately ulterior motives and Finn is treated as the bad guy. All of that is the annoyance; yes, everyone is at fault but 3 out of 4 have been called out on it and given up things to make things work. Kurt? Kurt hasn't given up anything. And it's not that we're trying to say Kurt is a villain, everyone else hero/victim. It's that everyone -is- a villain and has done something wrong and it's wrong to say that someone hasn't. And it's also not that everyone isn't justified either; everyone has some justification for why they did, good and bad - Burt was protecting his son but also jumped to conclusions, Finn was bothered by his world getting turned upside down but didn't have any constructive way of handling it, Kurt was trying to mend fences but his past actions marred his efforts, Finn's mom was trying to make herself and Finn happy/have a full family but didn't talk to Finn about it.
        • Kurt does get called on his behavior when he tries his straight boy routine to try and impress his dad, but since he wasn't hurting anyone other than himself it comes across as more supportive the disapproving. Burt again called Kurt on his selfish behavior when he first started dating Finn's mom, but rather than Kurt facing the consequences of his action he chose to ignore his dad instead. People know what he's up to and tell him so, but so far he has yet to face any serious consequences for his selfishness.
        • Actually, when he was acting straight, he basically manipulated and used Brittany, even if she was only in it for sex. More aptly, she was likely made into a laughing stock because she was the only person who couldn't see exactly what Kurt was doing. The way he coldly told her to "go away", when he was talking to his dad really pissed me off, particularly because it was clearly supposed to be funny.

Kurt the Designated Victim

• So they're playing Finn as a homophobe for finally snapping after Kurt makes advances on him constantly after being told straighforwardly to stop it, then taking advantage of any situation to try to "convert" Finn, to the extent that he's manipluated their parents into moving in together and has Finn and himself sharing a bedroom - then to add insult to injury redecorates that room in a way that, sexuality stereotypes aside, Finn doesn't want to live in. Anyone who doesn't think this behaviour is at the very least fucking creepy, just imagine it's a girl and her Stalker with a Crush and see how it looks... not to mention from the flipside it plays up the kind of Depraved Homosexual stereotype that causes the "backs-to-the-wall" mentality Finn's allegedly guilty of. Plus, those cushions were pretty f... never mind.
  • OK, I think the best way to put it is this: you can call a boy who is gay out on his shit without acting like his shit is due to him being gay by using gay slurs. Finn getting angry is justifiable. Finn's reaction to being angry being to use his straight privilege to act like the real problem is Kurt being 'faggy' is not. He could have been the shittiest person in existence: still not OK to connect that to his homosexuality. He was played as a homophobe for nothing more or less than saying something homophobic. A gay guy being a dick to you doesn't give you the right to attack them for being gay, jeez.
  • Kurt was never been told to stop the advances prior to this episode. He said he didn't want to move in with Kurt, but he never said "Stop it, you're making me uncomfortable." Sure, it's clear Finn was thinking that, but part of the problem is that he was being too wishy washy to actually tell Kurt to back off. Looking uncomfortable is not rebuffing. If Finn were a girl, she'd be accused of leading Kurt on for not giving him a straight no (plus there'd be all these fangirls saying "He only does it 'cause he loooves you!") If Kurt were a girl, people would say: "Ha! Look at those silly females and their psychotic crushes. Good thing they're entirely harmless." And if they were both girls, well, people would just think it was hot. But this situation gets the reaction: "The elusive Homosexual preys on helpless teenage boy! RUN FINN RUN!" Anyways, the storyline was presented so that you're supposed to sympathize with Finn and think Kurt was out of line. Finn had the higher ground up to the point where he used hateful language. Anger is no excuse; not saying it in anger is the real test. The problem isn't that Kurt is gay, it's that Kurt was acting creepy; but Finn and his apologists are equating being gay with being a predator.
  • While I agree that Kurt is * Way* out of line, i would also like to point out, for the nth time, HE HAS NO PSYCHIC POWERS. He might have "manipulated" his dad and Finn's mom into the first date, but there is no way in hell they would have started a relationship (let alone move in together) if they had not wanted to. The "sharing a bedroom" is just as much the parents' fault as Kurt's fault (Even if he hadn't a crush, his father knows he's gay, and it's almost as bad as if they were a boy and a girl). There was a lot of pressure on Finn, but I REALLY hope this help him and he * stops* being such a damn doormat, look at the previous episodes, and he only lets "anger" overcome him when he's at his limit, other times, he just acts uncomfortable, which is not the same as saying "No". They're both wrong, and they're both guilty.
    • If Finn were a girl, we'd be calling Kurt a stalker.
      • Two words: Edward Cullen. If Finn were "Finnessa" you'd have a bunch of people saying "Omg, bitch! Can't you see he just does it because he loves you?"
        • And people with brains would be mocking those people for believing that his stalking was romantic.
          • Yeah, because the only way to show other people they're wrong, is being childish and immature. Mocking has done nothing to the fandoms that consist of this.
            • Alright, how about this: Edward Cullen's behaviour has been repeatedly labelled as 'abusive' and 'sexist' by many experts. Just because there are people with... the inclination to ignore the most problematic parts of Twilight it doesn't mean the problem is not there. Similarly, Kurt acted in a extremely clingy manner that bordered on being outright stalkerish.
              • No one is refutting either of those points. I(at least) was pointed out the double standar and how the fandom would react different(Sill broken base, but for different reasons) if the stalkering happened between a boy and a girl, and if the stalked one returned the feelings.
      • I (random other troper who was involved in a different part of the discussion) am calling Kurt a stalker, I'm just not calling him a villain. On the other hand, if Finn were "Finnessa", aside from likely having addes or responded to the "What is up with Finnessa's name?" JBM, I would be calling Kurt a stalker (and probably comparing Kurt to Puck). Just because you've got a few people who are part of a Misaimed Fandom (or a lot of people who are fans of a Misaimed Canon) doesn't mean that's what the majority think.
        • That's why it should be "Fiona"... but nevertheles, the Double Standard is, sadly, more standar than it should be, and highly depends on the gender of the people involved and how the relationship works. If Kurt/Fiona and Courtney/Finn will get a positive review if they end up as a couple, regardless of how they came to be. If they don't, it will be more neutral (Some people will call Kurt/Courtney a stalker, some will say Finn/Fiona is a dumb brick for not realizing how much the other loved her/him). Kurt/Finn is doomed from the start. He doesn't reciprocate, Kurt's a stalker. He reciprocates, Kurt "converted" Finn to "gay-sm".
  • Kurt knows Finn is straight. He knows he has no chance with Finn. He said so himself in the (much) earlier episode where he convinces Rachel to get a ridiculous makeover to win him over, and then tearfully admits that neither of them have any chance with Finn. The idea that Finn's behavior could in any way be read as "leading Kurt on" is ridiculous.
    • So far, the only thing that Finn had told him with respect of his crush on him was that he was flattered And that he already had a date for the prom, which Kurt could have interpreted as "otherwise i would go with you". He didn't rejected him, and has been consistently portrayed as acting rather nice to Kurt(something even more than how he treats Rachel or the other girls), which isn't bad on itself, but considering how the others tended to treat Kurt... he might have interpreted "being nice" as "leading on". This incident was, in fact the first time Finn expressed he was uncomfortable with him. It's also worth nothing that the previous stances of "stalkery" of the show had been played for laughs(Rachel and the Pepper girl on Will, Jacob with Rachel), or don't get the change to become too creepy, because they win, or get sidetracked (Rachel with Finn, Puck with Rachel and Mercedes), basically, all "straight" ones.
• The trouble with this whole situation is that the writers wanted to get across the message that using that word, no matter what the context, is just as horrible and as damaging as any other slur. The scene did its job in this respect but it also sucked in some of all three parties' brain power as well - not a lot, but just enough to make it all blow up in their faces.
• Putting in my 2 cents here. I think that the entire situation is kind of caused by a vicious cycle. Kurt at the beginning of the episode is definitely edging into Stalker with a Crush territory, no question about that. The problem is that when Finn talks to him, and later lashes out, it seems to Kurt like he's criticizing Kurt's personality as opposed to Kurt's behavior. Kurt then becomes very confused, but doesn't end up changing his behavior because Finn doesn't make it clear that he's uncomfortable with Kurt Stalker with a Crush tendencies, but is fine with Kurt's flamboyant personality. This causes a vicious cycle until Finn at the end of the episode makes his point clearly.
• Kurt and his victimhood with regard to his sexuality are dominating the entire show, with episode after episode focusing on it. Mercedes, Artie and Tina have yet to get long-lasting main storylines of their own, and their development is suffering for the sake of Kurt, I feel.
  • The really annoying thing is that putting such a big spotlight on Kurt just makes him less sympathetic, it`s like with watching horror movies, you see something enough you get desensitized to it... or resentful of it, another few episodes and I`ll be dissing the gays... and I came out 9 years ago (at 13).

Quinn

QUINN.

She has both Puck and Finn after her. She appears to be good friends with everyone in the Glee club. Although she cheated on her boyfriend and got pregnant, she milks the sympathy her friends give her for all its worth, not once thinking to TELL Finn, instead taking Puck out for a "test drive" to see if he would make a better father...?

I may be the only one, but I literally see nothing nice about her characterization or the way she behaves in accordance to others. Out of everyone it seems she has had the least character development- i can see they've "put her through alot" but through all of it she has just appeared to be incredibly self-centered, rude and a nasty piece of work. I don't get why people in the show like her, or why people give people like Rachel, Finn, Kurt etc abuse but fail to acknowledge that Quinn is probably the worst character when it comes to manipulation.

• "Least character development" is definitely an overstatement. One word: Mercedes.
• The worst part is that if she had simply told Finn the truth in the beginning (that she cheated on him with Puck while they were both drunk) He is such a nice guy he probably would have forgiven both of them and supported her anyway. Now however the only option seems to be either keep him in the dark forever or have him sever all ties with both Quinn and Puck once he finds out the truth. Finn has been shown to be extremely uncomfortatble with lying, he hated lying about Quinn not being pregnant, he hated lying to his mother, lying to their friends, he even hated lying to the Fabray's who he barely even knew. Since day one he has been completely miserable in the deception, only finding any sort of relief once the truth was out in the open and he no longer had to decieve anyone. They seem to be setting him up for a case of Beware the Nice Ones because nothing good can come from his finding out just how much he's been played for a sucker.
• Well said, what also bothers me, is like... the Glee Club is supporting they so much that when the truth is revealed I feel it is going to split the almost-True Companions. Also, I actually can imagine a reason (not a very justified one of course), for Quinn lie to Finn, well. She is VERY afraid that people would find out and while Finn might be a nice guy, Quinn was probably afraid that he wouldn't be able to keep it quiet, specially after her baby bump showed up, people would make question, and I doubt that even Finn would agree tosay that the baby is his.
• What I don't understand is that Quinn is so much more well-liked than Terri when, let's face it, what they're doing is pretty similar. True, she's going through a lot with the pregnancy and she's not a Dumb Blonde, but why is her character so sympathetic? Rachel gets a lot of hate for being annoying, but she's not lying to everyone while feeling no remorse for her actions.
  • Quinn is a terrified teenager who has everything to lose and nothing to gain by telling the truth. Terri, on the other hand, is a grown woman deceiving her husband for no good reason.
  • This doesn't change the fact that Quinn betrayed Finn, and shows no real signs of guilt; only self-pity. If she weren't pregnant, she'd still be bullying the other kids around, too. Plus, she's messing both Finn and Puck around by giving them both false hopes of happy fatherhood. Terri, in my opinion, is far more sympathetic. Although she's annoying, Terri isn't really a horrible person, just self-centred. She's faking a pregnancy because she doesn't want to lose her husband, and it seems as though she really wants to be a mother. Her attitude towards Quinn- coldly refusing to pay for her pregancy expenses- is probably partly routed in a deep jealousy that a high school girl is pregnant with an unwanted baby.
    • My problem with Terri is that she is self-centered to a truly ridiculous degree (in the first or second episode she complains about having to work three days a week for four hours a day, and then have to come home and cook dinner because Will is working late). She shows very little sympathy at all for Will's problems, and the few times she does almost come off as more of her feeling sorry for herself. Quinn has her own troubles, but her Pet the Dog moments actually seem genuine to me, while Terri's never seem to be benefiting anyone (including the man she says she loves) but herself.
  • A part of it is also Dianna Agron's acting, which in my personal opinion is some of the best on the show. I can't blame anybody in the slightest for disliking her though, she has some very clear faults as shown above.
• Finn found out. He didn't take it well. Expect this to be a big plot point in the rest of season one.
  • I thought the episodes in April is the continuation of season one? But also, ouch, poor Finn.
• In the pre-hiatus finale, when Rachel finally suspects that Puck is the father, she fools Quinn into spelling it out for her by mentioning the issue of genetic diseases potentially being passed down by a Jewish father- Quinn's motivation for getting Puck tested is that she's worried Terri won't still take the baby. Has the rest of the Glee club not yet worked out that Schue knows Terri faked her pregnancy? Finn, for one, clearly knows. Why would Quinn still expect Terri to take the child?
  • Because Quinn can give up the baby for adoption at an orphanage? And it'll be much harder for a baby with a genetic disease to get adopted by parents?
    • Would make sense except she specifically names Terri.
      • Yeah well Will didn't leave Terri YET.
      • Yes he did.
      • Well, I thought he left her before Emma's wedding, right? Well I didn't see "Mattress" yet (although I saw Sectionals) so I'm not sure.
• What I don't understand is that no one gets on Quinn's case for sleeping with Puck. Everyone seems to take the anti-Puck side immediately without considering, like another troper mentioned, "it takes two to cheat". While WE know that Puck "got [her] drunk on wine coolers", and that makes it sorta-kinda justifiable, none of the other Glee club members know this! All they know is that Puck is the father, but and no one seems to think less of Quinn; Mercedes even defends Quinn against Puck.
  • Just because we never see Quinn telling people that she was drunk at the time that doesn't mean she didn't. The writers don't have the time to show every single conversation that the characters have with one another.
  • Part of it may be that Puck has a reputation as a bad boy, a womanizer, and what have you as well as being fairly lackadaisical about commitments. Both may have been the bad guy but Puck was just the bigger bad guy at the moment.
• Ever since Quinn's taken up her role as "the pregnant girl," she can do no wrong. In the most recent episodes, she's been the maternal adviser, smiling beatifically while helping everyone else with their problem of the week. Sure, they wrote her into the G List plot, but why has she had such a whiplash of an attitude change? Even when she was telling off Sue, she was still at least snarky.

Do the Glee Club Kids ever talk to each other outside the club?

I just found Kurt comment about Quinn talking to him "for the first time" too odd, but somehow, too true, can we really say that they are True Companions if no one communicates?

• Well, the original six certainly seem to. Quinn was a late addition that didn't bother to make friends with the glee club kids until AFTER she was kicked out of the Cheerios.
• They have been seen hanging out together outside of the club, but the popular group still doesn't seem to hang out with the unpopular group outside the club. (Meaning Tina, Artie, Kurt, Mercedes and sometimes Rachel will hang out together, and Quinn, Santana, Mike, Matt, and Puck usually keep to their own group. Finn and Brittany are probably the only ones who are seen in both groups.) And I wouldn't expect Kurt and Quinn to be too chummy anyway, since he's considered a loser and, judging from the glare he gave her in "Ballad", he doesn't like her too much.
• 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. :)

The Women

Pretty much every guy on this show is a nice, happy-go-lucky type of guy (except maybe Sandy, but even Puck is sort of sympathetic here!) but all the women? Well we have our main villains (Sue, Terri, Kendra), Tina, who has been lying about a disability to get special treatment for years, and girls who could be likable but just come off as spoiled brats (Rachel, Quinn, Mercedes, Emma). And then there's Brittany and Santana who one episode are laughing and dancing with the glee kids, the next are treating all of them (their friend Quinn included) like they're not fit to lick their shoes.

• "Pretty much every guy on this show is a nice, happy-go-lucky type of guy"? Really? Finn is an incredibly nice guy for the most part, but he has still done some pretty selfish things, like abandoning Rachel in "Mattress." Not to mention cheating on his girlfriend twice with Rachel. One of those times he only did it in order to manipulate Rachel into coming back to glee club. But I'm sure his pregnant girlfriend would not have appreciated that very much. Also, he's a complete moron. Will isn't much smarter and he's terribly oblivious. Puck is a womanizing jerk. Kurt set Rachel up to be humiliated just because he found out she had a crush on the same guy as him. Coach Ken tried to sabotage Glee just to get back at Will. Sandy is a drug-dealing, closeted diva. All of the football players who aren't in Glee seem to be homophobic Neanderthals. Even Artie has had a couple of moments where he could have been nicer. Yes, most of these characters have at least some redeeming qualities, but so do most of the female characters you mentioned. I really don't see any gender bias here.
  • Let's not start insulting Neanderthals now.
  • Plus they had an entire episode (The Power of Madonna) that focused on the fact that the guys were treating the girls like crap.
• All women are freaking crazy. All men are really dumb. (Brittany and Sandy play for the other team.)
  • And some have gotten better. Quinn, notably, is pretty much a sweetheart.

Stop pretending Glee is still at the bottom of the food chain!

• Seriously, this retroactive use of Status Quo Is God is starting to get on my nerves. New Directions has recruited, along with the so-called "misfits", the most popular kids in the school, namely the top Cheerios and the football stars. And yet rather than improve Glee's standing, the popular kids get treated (inconsistently, I might add), as new-found losers. The above entry on "the women" even points out said inconsistency. One episode Brittany and Santana are part of the group, and are "with the losers" during the Slushi episode, the very next episodes they're at the top of the pyramid looking down at the Glee kids they're "not really a part of". Not only doesn't this make sense, not only does it screw with continuity, but it completely contradicts the show's message for the sake of artificially preserving drama. It makes it seem there is something "objectively uncool" about Glee Club that sucks "coolness" away like a black hole and makes the popular kids become unpopular...that's a complete contradiction of the show's intended Aesop. Seriously, they're afraid to get a yearbook picture because it will be defaced? Even though the club includes Puck, Mike, Brittany, Santana, Quinn, etc.? Unfortunate Implications aside from them needing the popular kids in order to be respected, it's still inconsistent that it doesn't even have an affect.
  • Oh yeah, like High School popularity isn't wildly inconsistent in real life.
    • I never said it wasn't. Just that recruiting all the popular kids should have some measurable effect on the club's "standing", and only hasn't because them gaining any ground would upset the status quo. I mean, the "Push It" performance alone should have changed things, getting a wild standing ovation from the entire student body. And yet they're still treated as the bottom of the pyramid because they do music.
      • This might be an example of Truth in Television. At my school, the school One-Act play is treated the same way that Show Choir is treated on the show. Granted, we haven't placed at competition in about 5 years, but still. For some odd reason, the musical is praised, but the one-act (which has a much lower budget. Seriously, we're forced to do public domain plays because the school won't give us the money to do anything else) is seen as "dorky" and "lame". Almost makes me hate the musical fad, and I'm a theater geek!
    • When the popular kids joined glee club they didn't bring the club up, they brought themselves down. That should be painfully obvious.
      • You're right, it is, which is exactly why I spent time mentioning it in how inconsistent things are. I know it brought them down, that's why I said it was ridiculous to treat it as a "black hole that sucks coolness away", showing the popular kids as now unpopular, but making them "popular" again whenever the plot calls for it.
    • The popular kids are officially dethroned in "Mash-Up", there are plenty of scenes where the football players in glee are harassed by the other players, and in "Wheels" they couldn't sell any cupcakes at first even though, as Puck mentions, before glee he could have sold plenty of cupcakes "on fear alone". Their unpopular status is actually pretty consistent.
  • I just have problems with that the Glee Club is at the bottom of the food chain in the first place—at my HS (which, no, was not a performing arts school), the show kids were easily at the top of the food chain for being, you know, talented and stuff. Now, the Glee kids are a lot more obnoxious, but like the above troper said, the club is objectively the uncool thing.
  • But the rest of the school doesn't give a damn about the glee club's talent. All they see is the gay kid, the fat girl, the cripple, the weird Asian girl who stutters and that really annoying one. The fact that football players and cheerleaders not only JOIN the club with all those freaks is just weird itself, there MUST be something wrong with them too so now they're free targets.
  • What makes it worse, according to Will "Glee Club used to rule this place", that was around 1993, and the yearbook photos show that in 1999 (I think) the Glee Club was already down (if not in the bottom) of the food chain, how they could fall that hard in just a few years?
    • Six years is a lifetime in high school terms. Everyone Will went to school with would have graduated by 1999, unless they got held back multiple times.
  • Also, you'd think having Will as the adviser to the club would do quite a bit for their image. There is no way he isn't one of the most popular teachers in that school, especially with the girls.
    • Just because the teacher in charge of the club is cute and cool that doesn't mean the kids aren't still dorks to be picked on.
      • Exactly. I am part of the Comic Book Club, which is run by one of the most popular teachers, but because the club itself is considered geeky it's hard to generate intrest. Same logic explains what the show choir isn't more popular.
• Additionally, after singing "Push It" the school cheered the Glee club, that may not make them popular, but still it should have meant an improvement.
• I think it's a case of You Suck.
• The answer why the Glee Club is at the bottom is simple. That's how Sue C's it. Would you dare say anything otherwise?
• Really, all we hear about/see is Football Players/Cheerios (and the coaches associated with each) making fun of Glee, and the former Football players and Cheerios bemoaning that they are no longer friends with those people. For all we know, the rest of the school thinks Glee is fine, but the Football players and Cheerios make the Gleeks lives miserable enough that it doesn't matter.
• I would like to add, how come the crowds of students go wild when New Directions perform? For example, Toxic. Yet they're still apparently the bottom of the food chain?

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.
  • 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?)
• In addition to the weather aspect, though everyone says it's an impoverished backwater that they want to get out of, everyone seems to lead an upper-middle-class lifestyle; they've got the money for top-tier arts programs and good school facilities (Figgins complains but we never actually see any budget cuts except for the Cheerios, and that doesn't have any effect except to make Sue complain), many of the kids seem to have a lot of disposable income, and even the poor families don't seem to go without much.
  • "Impoverished backwater" is stretching it a bit. The gloominess of life in Lima seems to revolve more around the fact that people never really escape it or become anything special, not the fact that the people there are particularly poor. The director of the Jane Addams glee club characterizes the New Directions kids as "privileged" so they're probably not intended to be impoverished. As for the money for school programs - first of all, the glee club has had a lot of trouble getting the funding it needs, and secondly, there are a lot of abysmal rural/suburban Midwest schools that attempt to make up for a lack of academic prowess with top-notch extracurricular activities, particularly sports. The fact that Will can't speak Spanish very well and all but three of the Cheerios are failing suggests that this may be the case with McKinley.
  • Yeah, I always figured Lima was like my hometown. It was actually a pretty nice suburb, but that didn't stop me from complaining all of the time about how boring it was and escaping to a college on the other side of the country the first chance I got.
  • If nothing else, it's Hollywood-ification. You have Rich, Middle-Class/Poor, and Slum. There's not a lot of room to show places that don't neatly fit into that.
    • Actually Lima is a very poor city w/ an unemployment rate that hasn't left the double digits for quite some time. It's also lost a significant portion of its population and businesses since the 1950's causing the tax base to erode. The show makes it appear to be much nicer than it is.
  • It might not actually be a bad place, but coming from a native Clevelander, it's complete Truth in Television that people living in even the nicer parts of Ohio tend to define success as getting the hell out. It says something that the Great Lakes states refuse to export water to states with shortages, telling people to just move back here if they want it.
• Census data has Lima at about 70% white, 25% black, 2% Latino/a, and 0.5% Asian. McKinley seems to have more Latinos/as and Asians than black people, a demographic much more reminiscent of California.
  • Without a lot more information, that data doesn't actually mean anything or correlate to anything relevant. Statistics are funny that way.
    • I live an hour away from Lima and have been there many times. I would hazard a guess that the Black population is 5-10% higher than the census, the Latino poulation would be about 5% higher and the Asian population is negligible.
  • Because schools never have differing demographics to the population at large...
  • There would logically be some correlation, however. It's easy to believe Tina and Mike might be among a handful of Asian students, but there should be more black kids at the school than we've seen.
• The lack of pay to play being mentioned- a lot of Ohio schools have trouble getting funding because they use Levy taxes for it (which, by the way, is Unconstitutional, has been declared so twice by the Ohi supream court, but nothing's been done about it), and so students have to pay money that helps fund their extracuriclular At my school it was $100 per sport, and $100 for an entire year for theater, and that's light compared to some.

Brittany's last name?

• Every single character shown, even background characters like Howard Bamboo, have gotten a last name. Characters who show up for only one episode get a last name! Why is Brittany the only girl on the whole show with out one?
  • Maybe she forgot it. The omission is very pointedly deliberate, considering that even the yearbook photo lists her name as "Brittany", no last name.
    • She is actually Sue's daughter with a Epileptic Tree
      • But according to Sue she has neither a uterus nor an ovulation cycle. Unless... maybe Sue went to that special school in Thailand!
  • If she were Sue's daughter, it'd stretch good writing to have no one realize that. Sue's sisters daughter, on the other hand...
    • OH. MY. GOD.
• I have a feeling that this won't be the last one of the things in this page that will solved by the end of the show.
• As of the episode "Britney/Brittany," Brittany's last name is Pierce. Her middle name is Susan though, so...

Racefail

• Only white folks get to have their own plots.
  • Because Mercedes' infatuation with Kurt turned her lily white for the duration of an episode, I take it?
    • Mercedes' crush was merely fuel for Kurt's coming-out plot.
  • And Tina during episode 9 was turned in a Nordic blond?
    • Artie/Tina was all about Artie and his disability.
  • Personal addendum to above JBM: Only white folks get to have their own story arcs.
  • It's the middle of the first season and those arcs are almost wrapped up, give it time.
    • Yeah, Artie and Tina are supposed to get the spotlight again within the next few episodes, and Mercedes is slated to get a love interest in the second season.
    • Of course Matt gets to have a line in the season one finale. And in season two...gets replaced by another white guy with abs.

Then again you have to be aware a character named Matt actually exists.

Will's Day Job

• Mentioned in the main article, but Will's job as the Spanish teacher irritates me pretty bad. I know we don't see many of the instructors actually doing the jobs since the focus is on the glee club which presumably goes on after school, but the few times we see Will Schuester actually teaching his accent is so bad you guys. Just Bugs Me since I'm a Spanish major and spend most of my day working on perfecting my grammar and accent. I realize the actor probably doesn't speak Spanish, but he pretty blatantly sounds like he's reading. Grah.
  • Most native Spanish speakers that I know get really irritated with people who are going for their Ed M in Spanish ed. That is because most Spanish teachers don't speak the language very well. This is a small town in Ohio. Don't pretend that they can get a good Spanish teacher.
    • Especially since education is actually a much lower priority than Cheerios, football, and Glee.

Will's response to the trophy

• He acts surprised, and the kids obviously didn't think he was expecting it, and yet, immediately after his shock, he talks about what the judges thought of them - which he wouldn't have known if he didn't already know they won.
  • He obviously didn't saw it before that scene, even knowing the result, It still a great moment to finally see it.
  • Given that he talked to Emma, Sue and the Principal between the competition and seeing the trophy, he was probably filled in about the details. He might not know the result if the Glee Club had asked them not to tell Will ("I have two gays Dads and you can bet that if you tell Mr Schu the result of the sectionals then the ACLU will..."). Otherwise, Rule of (Musi)Cool

The final dance

• I realize that the kids flipping their heads around was supposed to be a callback to Hairography, but the guys looked even stupider doing it than when they had the wigs on.
  • That's kind of the point.

Autotune

Does the ridiculous amount of Autotune make anyone else want to chuck their television out the window? It's one thing to use it to correct pitch when it is off enough to bother listeners, but they do it to insane extents. Finn gets so much that I'm wondering if one of the upcoming episodes is going to reveal that he's a robot. This isn't too difficult for most people to hear too. It's noticable to my friends with no musical training whatsoever (check the recordings of Can't Fight This Feeling and No Air for examples of Autotune gone wrong). And please don't take this as a personal dislike for the casting of Finn. Monteith isn't as skilled a singer as any of the rest of the male cast, but he showed some promise in the two instances in the pilot where he can be heard sans-autotune. The pitch-correction actually makes it seem like he's completely tone-deaf and just lowers the level of personality that can express while singing.

• The really annoying bit is that the Finnbot is supposed to have ultrasinging powers, when he's basically made of autotune. Oh, and the fact that after every song, my father says "wow, they're so talented" when he just heard several minutes of Autotuning. ARGH.
• At least one of the more recent CDs (I haven't heard the others) uses little or no Autotune. They may have used some pitch correction, but it would have been properly done since it was little enough not to be recognizable as such where it was noticeable during the show.
• This is my least favorite part of the show. Not only does it totally eliminate the need for the club to rehearse—ever—since every song they do they are immediately singing in Autotuned perfection, but it totally devalues the actual talent of many of the performers. Having seen several of them when they were on Broadway, I can attest that they sound far better when their voices are...theirs. I hate the Autotuned sound. I wish they'd drop it—musical episodes of other pre-Autotune shows are wonderful despite usually being full of untrained vocalists, so I can only imagine how awesome this group would be (well, maybe not Finn) in their natural glory.

The Cast Recordings

Some of my favorite numbers are missing, including the two mash-ups from "Vitamin D", Quinn's rendition of "Papa Don't Preach", and the two Vocal Adrenaline numbers. However, Volume 2 includes Rachel's cover of "Crush", which only played for a few seconds during "Ballad", and Mercedes singing "Don't Make Me Over", which I don't remember being on the show at all. Who decided on this play list, and what logic were they following?

• Sadly, the logic of business. Each song sold separately on iTunes makes $1.29. The album only makes around 76 cents a song. You'll be more inclined to buy "Crush" and "Don't Make Me Over" as part of an album, but the other songs you mentioned are good enough to buy separately, making more money.
  • But I don't own an iPod. If I did, I wouldn't be buying the CD at all!
    • You do realize you can burn songs off iTunes to a CD, right?
    • Um... you can download them from Amazon too
  • Plus I know Digital Piracy Is Evil and all, but it's an option.

Friendship

Not a single character on the show has a platonic friendship without there being some kind of sexual or romantic component. Mercedes was attracted to Kurt, Will's boy band weren't really his friends, and even Brittany and Santana are in a sexual relationship. That's fine for some characters, but it's a bit weird for everyone.

• Mercedes and Tina are really good friends, and I think Matt and Mike (aka Shaft and Other Asian) are buddies as well. The writers just don't focus on any platonic friendships because they don't have as much potential for drama.
• If you watch Sectionals there's quite a lot of nods towards friendship in the background. Matt and Mercedes was one I saw, can't remember the others but they're in there - just not as prominently as romantic relationships
• And in "Wheels" Quinn calls Artie her friend when Puck tries to give her the bake sale money.
• It's a high school drama.
• Tina and Kurt seem to have a friendship going on, and maybe it's wishful thinking but I can almost see some with Brittany and Kurt too?
• Quinn and Mercedes seem to be good friends too now.
• If you watch a lot of the numbers, actually, you notice a lot of friendship moments. In Mercedes' Cheerio's solo, you'll see Santana coming up and holding hands with her, for instance. As one of the above comments said, they're friends and all but drama is what gets people to watch TV. And, one supposes, it can be debated how much of this is character or the actors just getting into the music and their real-life friendship.
• OK, I know this has been said about a thousand times already on this page but: They. Are. In. High. School. When I was in high school most of the people I knew found it physically impossible to have a platonic relationship with someone of the opposite sex (or in the case of gay kids, of the same sex). I know that when I was sixteen and a cute boy said hello to me as we entered school I'd have our children's names picked out by the end of first period. Having stupid crushes is practically a mandatory high school extracurricular activity.
• As for Brittany and Santana, though they're having sex, it's also shown that they are genuine friends and spend as much time together for the sake of each other's company as for the sex.

Jonathan Groff as Vocal Adrenaline lead singer for the next few episodes.

I am conflicted at the idea that he will be a possible love interest for Rachel: are they turning her into a Relationship Sue and stealing a good plot from Kurt (who everyone wanted and guessed this would happen to)... or are the writers actually doing something different by not making him Kurt's love interest, which is what we all expected?

• Kurt will be getting a boyfriend in Season Two, and rumor has it the lucky guy is on the football team. I guess they're trying to make up for Kurt and Sandy being such stereotypes by making the next gay character as far from stereotypical as possible.
  • How do you know that?
    • I went to the Television Without Pity forums and found the Glee spoilers thread. It's not that hard to find spoilers for any reasonably popular TV show these days. You can find the ones in question here and here.
  • There is one canon homosexual relationship already: Santana and Brittany, both of whom are very much not stereotypically "real lesbians" ("porn lesbians" is debatable). Whether they personally identify as bi, lesbian, questioning, or queer of another color is unclear (and will probably never be addressed), but they are having sex together.
    • We don't actually know whether or not Santana and Brittany are actually dating. Brittany said that she and Santana were dating, but she never specified whether or not they were dating each other. It's entirely possible she just meant that they were both having casual sex with different people and wasn't smart enough to realize what she actually said.
    • Actually the Brittany and Santana thing is referenced during the last episode of the first half of season one. Santana is saying that having sex does not equal a relationship (on the topic of her and Puck's sexting. Que Brittany saying "yea because if sex meant a relationship Santana and I would be dating!", An awkward silence follows.
    • And while Kurt was singing his little love song or whatever in episode 16, Santana and Brittany look at each other sweetly, hold eachother's pinkies and rest their heads against eachother. Combined with them walking around the halls together holding hands all the time, and their three-way date with Finn was more just a date with the two of them while Finn watches... Yeah, they're canon.
  • One interpretation is that they're emotionally and sexually involved with each other but only sexually involved with other people. For them, sex is a fun act with no real emotional attachment (see Santana after having sex with Finn). It could also be seen as sort of a play on the stereotypical guy attitude - sex is fun (and you have a smoke or a burger after sex) but meaningless and it's the emotional aspect that's important.

The slushie-ing of certain characters

Rule of Drama and all, I can get that is necessary to the story the downfall of some characters and it allows for some Development, but really, becoming part of Glee Club seems to not only make you unpopular, but also unable(Or unwilling) to fight back. I can understand why Artie, Kurt, Tina, Rachel and Mercedes are too weak to fight back, and would get it worse. But what aout Finn? He barely complained to that other guy, while he has traded blows with Puck for less than that. Puck is the same, he takes no shit for anyone, yet lets himself be slushied. We don't know much about Matt and Other Asian personality, but they can also defend themselves. The Cheerios is a particular case. They might not be able to fight back by themselves, but would you risk slushie-ing a cheerio when Sue Sylvester might catch you? And don't get me started on the getting defaced thing. They should pay with the same coin, as they 'know' who hates them.

• Because they're embarrassed/ashamed to be in Glee club. They enjoy it and want to stay but at the same time have spent their highschool careers under the impression that "Gleeks" get their picture destroyed and slushied in the hallway. To quote a godawful musical set in a highschool other than Glee "Stick to the Status Quo"
• For me, the whole slushie-ing business is too over the top, and extends way past Rule of Drama and breaks my suspension of disbelief (which is sort of tenuous as it is...). Granted, everything in this show is supposed to be over the top, but I know for a fact in almost any high school in the area I'm from the people doing the slushie-ing would have been suspended long ago.
• This bothers me ; the people in the hallway not only have slushies all the time, IN school, but splash them on people?! They wasted a perfectly good drink, and I for one would hate to give a slushie up to humiliate someone. Where do they get the money for all of it? Are they just all rich and slushie-hating?

Finn's actor

Now, I'm not here to complain about Cory Monteith; he's a good singer, when he's not autotuned into a robot. But Kevin McHale, Chris Colfer and Mark Salling are all clearly better than him, so why oh why was Cory cast in the lead male role? Sure, Artie and Kurt don't exactly look like jocks, but there's no reason that, say, Puck and Finn couldn't switch actors. Yet the weakest singer was cast in the most prominent role, resulting in his voice being constantly overpowered by the lead female singer. It just baffles me.

• Because the casting people valued more than just the quality of his singing voice? And because on some level he's supposed to be a weaker singer?
  • Since when is he supposed to be a weaker singer? Finn is presented as being the most talented male singer in the club. That's why he's given the male lead in so many songs.
    • Finn is presented as being considered the most talented male singer in the club because he reminds Schuester of himself in highschool, and because he represents what those in power within the club think the male lead should be - physically attractive, ablebodied, white, straight, charismatic. He looks like the guy that Schue wants headlining his glee club and that Rachel wants to be seen standing next to, so they turn a blind eye to the fact that his singing is mediocre.
      • Sadly, I think that's more a subconcious effort on the part of the writers rather than intentional. I think they are uplifting Finn for being all those things, and don't realize it. The writers have tried to represent minorities but haven't been able to look outside their own privileged point of view. This is probably why Kurt's story is the most successful, because they do have the point of view of someone whose actually gay. However, their portrayal of people of color, people with disabilities, and women is general is how a person who has never been in any of those positions thinks those groups feel and act, rather than offering any true perspective. It is possible to write outside your own experiences, but these writers have not shown to be up to the task. For example, if they had done any research at all, they would know that in real life Artie's chair wouldn't even have handles that allow people to push him around like a prop, and he would have figured out ways get himself in and out of the auditorium up stairs and steep ramps by himself because he would be used to obstacles like that in everyday life. And he wouldn't be lifting tiny weights in the weight room.

The competition rules in "Mattress"

New Directions is disqualified for accepting the mattresses. They can't return them because Will used one. So why doesn't Will pay for that mattress, and return all the other ones?

• Someone might remember the Will-Figgins-Sue conversation a little better, but I think Will tried to make that exact suggestion (I'll pay for the used one!) only to have Figgins cut him off with something that sounded conclusive. A lot of amateur athletic associations do have scary strict rules regarding competitive eligibility, vis a vis endorsements and other commercial enterprises. So I suppose on some level I can buy what happened. I don't buy that it would happen identically in the real world, but insofar as it doesn't set off my complete bullshit alarm, I can accept it as a dramatic device.
  • Will suggested to return all the mattresses. Since one was used, it couldn't be returned. So why can't you just pay for the one mattress you've used, and return the other mattresses?

Also, why does being disqualified from competition prevent Will from actually seeing the show as an audience member?

• • It may not have, but with all the various red tape that's been involved for the rule books, he may have decided not to run the risk of someone deciding his very appearance there would disqualify the group. Besides, from the story perspective, he needed to be at McKinley to give Finn the inspiration for the last minute save and let him borrow his car.

The Guest Stars

I am starting to get really sick of reading that some other music star is going to be on Glee. I like this show, a lot actually, and I like a good deal of the characters. However a whole bunch of them are really underdeveloped and instead of using the back 9 to focus on them, they're jam packing it with more celebrities and more songs. This isn't American Idol, where you can have some Grammy winner sing for 5 minutes to fill time, there's a plot going on here. And I am only worried in the first place because the episode that revolved around a guest star last season (The Rhodes Not Taken) was complete filler just because they got a big name and it put a hault to all the plots.

• Well... "the Rhodes Not Taken" also had some character development for Rachel, Will, Emma, etc.
• What world is it that Kristen Chenowith is a big name? I love her to death, but she is well-known in a tiny segment of the populous. Moreover, a segment that was by-and-large already watching the show.
  • Uh, the world that is the target demographic? Musical, and theatre fans? She's kind of a household name amongst anyone that's ever picked up a play program.
  • Kristin Chenoweth has also done a lot of roles on TV that viewers might recognize her from. She won an Emmy, for God's sake - someone must know who she is.

Instruments

How is that almost all the guys can play some musical instrument or other but none of the girls can? Artie's got guitar and bass, Puck's got guitar, Finn has drums, Kurt has piano. The jazz band is composed entirely of guys. Mike and Other Asian haven't show any skills yet but I'm sure they'll pull out a violin or something. But I haven't seen any displays of musicianship from the girls bar their voices.

• Guys working to develop skills that will get them chicks isn't a new thing (can't say about Kurt). Hell, it's probably why most musicians are male in the real world.
  • Rachel has a keyboard in her room, presumably she knows how to use it.
• Duh. To set the stage for all the males to band together in a... band and woo their respective girls at some point in front of the rest of the school!

Finn worship

Finn's voice being the weakest has been addressed above but what bugs me is the Marty Stu level of worship he gets "oh he's such a great leader we will never win ANYTHING without him" and he has the most main characters trying to get into his pants (Rachel, Kurt, Quinn and April Rhodes). And yes he's the quarterback, but he is the quarterback of Ohio's worst football team ever and as the leader, wouldn't that be seen as his fault? when it comes to popularity "points" Quinn as head Cheerleader would score higher in the couple, but the show doesn't treat it like that, she seems to be lucky to bag him. Besides in McKinley where the Cheerio's rule supreme, wouldn't the top male cheerio be the king of the school as Finn seems to be?

• Sadly, it's part of the Unfortunate Implications of the show that Glee wouldn't go anywhere without Finn, the popular and strong straight white guy (at least Rachel has the voice to back it up). Although we need to repeat that last part over again - "male cheerleader". I'm surprised there are any, and that they're not gettting slushied more than the Glee kids.
  • Will used to be extremely popular and he was head male vocalist when Glee was in and he was popular for being top in a club that is now considered as outing yourself (ahh, homophobia). So why wouldn't the top male athletes be popular which would be male cheerio's!
  • In addition, the Cheerio's are a National-level group of performers. In most schools that compete at that level, no matter how unusual or unmanly they are, being that good at a sport or activity tends to prevent bullying, if only because school staff would jump right to the rescue. As the troper above stated, Glee ruled the school when Will was part of it, when they were regularly taking National competition.
• While I wouldn't discuss Finn's voice talent, I would like to point out that his leadership qualities have been shown on several occasions on the show, besides being the quarterback. In the very first episode, the gleeks are fighting over some decisions, and not even Will can get them to work. Finn does it. In the ending, they are literally lost until he comes to the rescue. Besides, Puck is just as much straight, white and popular(like Quinn and Brittany) but I don't see no one complaining about them. Or Will, who has the same "qualities"
• This seems to be subverted in the fact that Finn doesn't want to become "The Hero". Everyone just makes him out to be.
• To be fair in regards to Finn's singing compared to others, he has the weakest voice in the males ON GLEE. It doesnt relate to the rest of the school, just the male characters in Glee club, i think. If Corey Monteith were seriously that bad he wouldn't have gotten the part, plus although i don't like Finn personally, I think Corey is like Pierce Brosnon in Mama Mia, if he isn't straining too hard to get the power behind the notes and hit the right notes or if he is harmonized with someone other than Rachel, he sounds quite good. To Sir with Love, he sinqed fantastically with Mercedes, and Like a Prayer his leading into Kurt's part matched perfectly. So sure he isn't as strong vocally, but he has charisma to rouse the others into action, the personality, kind but dumb, to make those who aren't roused by the Speeches follow him, and has the social connections to make Puck sing... i think thats a win.

The Bullying

This one really, really bugs me - Figgins knows about all the crap that the Glee kids get from other students, SO WHY DOESN'T HE DO SOMETHING ABOUT IT? I know he couldn't stop it completely, but the least he could do is take away the Slushie machine and come down hard on any defaced yearbooks that he found.

• I thought the kids got the slushies from convinience stores and the like. Anyway, look at real life schools. A lot of them don't do anything about bullying. A few of them MIGHT talk to the bully, but that doesn't really do anything. One time in middle school my friend was confronting a girl who had been picking on me all year. The other girl bashed my friend's head against the locker, and the next day she returned, no suspension or anything. The first thing she did when she saw me was pick on me again. I think you get my point, I'm sure a lot of people can tell you of real-life bullying moments where nothing is done.
• Have we ever seen any of the kids actually report a bully to a teacher? It's kind of hard to put a stop to something when you don't even have the names of the people doing it.
  • Good point, but it's not the students' attitude to bullying that bothers me, as I've had a lot of similar experiences, but the teachers'. At least when I was at school they paid a little lipservice to Anti-bullying, but the staff at McKinley seem to do nothing. It's like it doesn't happen at all. Surely the cleaners or other teachers notice the pornographic depictions of students in the bathrooms?
• As someone who was bullied right through until the end of year 12, it doesn't matter how often you complain or what actually happened, the most punishment meted out is a slap on the wrist. Or you get accused of antagonising them, especially if you have teachers that oh so desire to be part of the 'cool'. So, there's nothing to say nobody has reported it, really.
• The glee students not fighting back bugs me. They have football players, Kurts ball-launching Kick, and Santana. Let`s not forget they also have a soundproof room, a thief (Puck) who can steal Sues megaphone, and a diva (Mercedes) who can Belt a note through the megaphone that would deafen them. (Not to mention Rachel and Kurts dads who can sue the bullies and the school.) Bullies get away with everything, so why not pull a Dexter on them and fight slushy with slushy!
  • It`s also been shown that the teachers can physically assault students, so why not get Shue to do so... instead of having him constantly stand there and impotently take the abuse himself.

Hell-O

It seems like a lot of the characters were... well out of character in that episode. There weren't many memorable songs, and the context of them was kind of shaky at times. There's still no mention of what Quinn's living arrangements are.

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.

How much time has passed between Sectionals and Hell-o!?!?!?!?

Some things made it seem like not long had passed (Rachel expecting them to be more popular now because of the win at sectionals), yet other things seemed to suggest it's been quite a while (like it now being Basketball season).

• Most schools have basketball starting a couple weeks after football season ends (less if the football team goes to districts or state) and since Finn said in Sectionals that football season was over, Hell-o probably takes place around 2–3 weeks later.

The Power of Madonna

• Finn: "Frankly, I need you. I'm tired of carrying the male vocals by myself."...what about Arnie,Kurt and Puck - each one of them having a far better voice than you, you goddamn asshole. No wonder that Mercedes and Kurt left for Cheerios and I'd absolutely love if they remained more-or-less permanent and the whole thing wasn't just Sue's ploy to divide them. Still, anyone else find Kurt's Lampshade Hanging quite ironic given how honestly straight Finn delivered his line?
  • He was throwing an olive branch to a kid he had previously greeted with outright hostility. It was his way of connecting to another singer, paying him a compliment and doing it in a light-hearted way.
  • Also, just because the other guys have better voices certainly doesn't mean that they get all the lead parts. I'm pretty sure that's somewhere else on this page.
  • Also, in a unintentional moment of brilliance by Finn, he could be verbally stepping aside (in Glee, in the love triangle) graciously for Jesse. That is to say, he's willing to share the spotlight and let others make their choices as they wish (Rachel's heart, Shue's decision to let Jesse join). So more than just a compliment and appeal to Jesse's ego, he's demonstrating the lesson of the episode - understanding.
• On another note: the feminism in this episode seems a bit over the top. It's a good message, but they're derailing and abusing male characters to get it across. It seems like a lot of shows lately are pushing gender equality while ignoring the fact that guys need to be respected too. Puck is represented as a bad guy for not wanting to sing about being a girl, which is pretty in character for him. It's not a bad thing to be a man. (I am female, BTW.)
  • "It's easy to be a dude"
    • Said by the white straight able-bodied jcok to his minority friends(Jewish, Asian and Black) and people who get discrimitated for other stuff(Wheelchair user, gay) this comes out as a VERY stupid thing to say. Not to mention the girls have been pretty bitchy all long too(Quinn cheated on Finn, Rachel has been trying to seduce him, both used Puck as a Finn substitute, Mercedes broke Kurt's windshield for not having her way, and Tina... faked her stutter.
  • The only plotline in the episode that really bothered me was Artie's. That flashback seemed staggeringly out of character for one of the few genuinely decent people in the school.
  • Artie didn't seem that out of character in the fact that we've barely even got a chance all season to even KNOW his character. All we've known about him till now is that he's in a wheel chair, dislikes people who pretend to stutter, and ... that's actually it. The only proof that he's a nice lovable guy was pretty much just us assuming that he is because he dresses like Mr. Rogers' dorky grandson.
    • And he seems to not always think before saying things that are kind of inappropriate (if funny) if "I still have the use of my penis" is anything to go by.
  • I think it's more like he's just clueless and socially awkward. He was trying to be cool like Puck supposedly is and failed horribly.
  • TPOM was 'awful', especially with the heavy handed message of feminism (especially when they gave a line about how women are payed less to 'Quinn', who seems to have no regret about having behaved as the worst female stereotype ever) and the completely bogus Tina/Artie subplot. Her reaction was especially horrificly written; I suppose they were going for empowered woman, but it clearly ended up being raving lunatic with a touch of Ax Crazy and asylum escapee. Oh, and Sue basically becoming ruler of the school and playing Madonna songs loud over the loudspeakers? Not funny. Not. One. Bit. There was a bit of interest (the 'virgin' plot), but it resolved itself stereotypically. Yet people call it a Crowning Moment of Awesome. Yeah, right... Dethroning Moment of Suck is more likely.
    • In my opinion (and my friends'), Tina's Ax Crazy act was both awesome and funny. It only needed her flipping Artie off.
      • ... Sorry, but I can't believe it. Those lines were just too stupid and embarrassing for ANYONE to find them funny other than 'ha ha ha look at how stupid that girl is being. I felt second hand embarrassment for the actors.

Jesse St. James

Jesse in general. If he really fell for Rachel, we'll end up with another spotlight stealer as if Rachelx Finn wasn't enough of tumor yet. If he's still pretending and spying, where exactly are they going with that? Is he going to drop out of New Directions and ditch them for his old team when the time is right?

• • Being a smug jackass doesn't help either.

Sue's blackmail

Anyone else getting a massive suspension of disbelief towards Sue's now apparent blackmail and her blatant abuse of power? She was quite relate-able back when she'd simply have a lot of influence on the school due to her charismatic personality and the success of her Cheerios, but now that she literally runs the school and demonstrates that by getting her ridiculous demands across, haven't they pretty much ran that trope into the ground?

• • I thought it's awesome as usual.
  • I find it helps to assume she has other, more incriminating photos than just the one she took on screen. I have to say, if all has is the one photo, then I think we might expect Figgins to roll the dice with his wife. "Yes, honey, I can see the photo. She's completely clothed. Remember that unbelievable sociopath I've been telling you about, the one I suspended? She drugged me and took that picture so she could blackmail me. Yes, I get that sounds stupid. But if we did anything wrong, wouldn't she have a more incriminating photo than that? Have I ever given you reason to believe that I'd cheat on you?"
  • Yes, but if Sue has done something to get more incriminating photos than that, then she's essentially raped him. So basically, she should be in jail right now, not getting her job back.
  • Sue should probably be in jail for any number of reasons (blackmail itself is illegal), but that notwithstanding, I don't know that I buy the premise. She could have taken naked photos without any sexual contact being involved. Besides, all of this is irrelevant: the blackmail is basically a slightly more elaborate Hand Wave. We need Sue on the show and in the school, because she's awesome, but we ended the first half of the season with her suspension. How do we get her back in the driver's seat with a minimum of explanation? BLACKMAIL!
  • It worked as a basic Hand Wave, but now not only she's abusing said handwave, but also openly taunting Schue over it and merely getting more witnesses to testify against her blackmail. Figgins hiring her back simply because 'she really is that good' would've been a bit more plausible.
  • That's absolutely reasonable. But part of the problem when trying to criticize Glee is that it's a show that revels in the ridiculous. If the writing staff, when faced with the problem of getting Sue back on the show, is asked to choose between a reasonable solution and a ridiculous, over-the-top solution that allows Sue to do something unbelievable, it's going to choose the latter. Without hesitation.

Pendergast

• So our Intrepid Reporter, a man who very nearly won a Pulitzer Prize (which he was ineligible for as a magazine writer, but whatever) for his investigative journalism, witnesses one Cheerios event and decides he has his story? A story, by the way, that he notes is precisely the opposite of the one he intended to write. Did he talk to anyone at the school? His interaction with the main subject of his story consisted of the length of Mercedes' song and a one-minute conversation in her office. Journalism Does Not Work That Way.
  • I just saw him as some newbie journalist who was lying about the Pulitzer prize (he didn't even know he was ineligible but it sounded good) who had no clue what he was doing. After all, how popular do you think that Splits! magazine really is? Either way, I thought this was the single best way that someone has stuck it to Sue so far.
  • For the matter, much like everything else in the show, he kind of over-inflates everything. At any rate, one wonders if Sue's new image (as far as the wider world is concerned) will comeback later in the show as a Chekov's Magazine Article where she has to maintain her increased popularity.

Molly Shannon

• What was the point? I get that I'm bitching about guest stars again but seriously. Let's get a talented comedienne that people recognize and give her 2 scenes and no jokes, especially in an episode that already had 2 special guest stars. She's slated to return soon so maybe it was just set up so she can play a bigger part later but when you do something like that you get a smaller actor to play the part so that we're genuinely surprised and interested when something juicy happens! What the Hell, Casting Agency??!
  • What exactly was bad about it? It was a small surprise cameo of a famous actor. Just like with Idina Menzel, and Olivia Newton John, and Kristen Chenowith and the other famous stars, it's just a fun guest appearance. It's not like she was stealing the spotlight or was a bad character. Is the fact that she appeared at all that bad?

Rachel whining about how unpopular she is.

Okay, it was believable in the first few episode when she got a slushie facial. But after she got almost all of the solos, dated Puck, Finn, and Jesse, and is being stalked by creepy Jacob Ben Isreal, I just don't buy it anymore. Sure, most of the other kids at her school act like she doesn't exist, but she is probably the best singer in Glee club, she's rich enough to afford ballet lessons, and has dated three of the main characters. Am I really supossed to buy that she thinks she's unpopular? If she wanted to, she could have all the other Glee club members clubbing each other to be her friends.

• Some of the things you mentioned are exactly why she IS unpopular. Because of her attitude, her general one-up-manship, and her never being satisfied, every one else can't stand her in the group. I believe she does want to be friends with the others, but she's spent her entire life trying to prove that she is the best at what she does, mostly by pointing out flaws in other people (see her conversation with Puck in episode 17). This is not the way to endear yourself with other people. Puck and Finn have both taken nose dives in the social ladder, partially by dating her, and Jesse is the new kid at the school, and a lot like a male version of Rachel himself, so dating them wouldn't boost her popularity any. Besides, being talented at something does NOT guarantee popularity, especially if its something that most people in the school already think is uncool. Finally, how rich do you have to be to afford ballet classes? I didn't think it was for the rich and famous only.
  • Not to mention the fact that one of her primary motivations is her desire to be popular... a desire which has not helped her at all. Maybe the popular people see this desperate desire and think that she's pathetic. A vicious cycle perhaps?
  • Probably spot on. One imagines that people would rather deal with a more likeable person with less character flaws but that's less talented versus someone who's talented... but a diva and poor team player.

Emma and Will

Okay, I'm a little confused on this one. I know that I'm supposed to see Will as being jerked up short for cheating on Emma. I do see that, and I know that what Will did was wrong. In other shows where this has happened, I've felt that the character on Emma's side of this was right unconditionally. But in this particular situation, I feel more sympathy for Will than I do for Emma. Do any other tropers feel this way? Have you managed to nail down why? Not knowing is what Just Bugs Me in this situation.

• For Will to have cheated on Emma they would have to be dating, which, technically, they weren't. Not only did his encounters with Vocal Aldrenalin's coach not go anywhere Will and April didn't have sex. Will has made no commitment whatsoever to Emma and although they both feel he betrayed her trust in some way the fact of the matter is that he actually hasnt done anything wrong, which is why her public dressing down of him may evoke sympathy not for Emma, but for Will. He's made to feel bad about taking her advice and trying to figure out what he wants, not only from himself, but any relationship he might enter in to. He's doing exactly what a man (or woman) in his situation should do and is made out to be a villian for it.
• Plus, Sue was the one who goaded Emma to rant at him in the first place, so the whole thing is stained with Sue's anti-Will sentiment that instinctively gets us on his side.
• Will and Emma were clearly in a relationship at the time when he was making out with Shelby. She broke things off with him after that.
  • Two dates does not make a relationship. Furthermore she kissed him, and he stopped it before things went any further because he was interested in pursuing a relationship with Emma.
    • Will told Shelby that he and Emma were in a relationship, and both he and Emma clearly felt that way. He even picked out a song for their relationship. If they were just being casual and had an "understanding" then he wouldn't have felt guilty about taking Shelby back to his place.
    • Will and Shelby were talking in the Carmel High auditorium, and then it cut to them making out back at Will's apartment. Even if Shelby did initiate the kiss, Will let it go on for a quite a while. And why did he bring her back to his place if he wasn't planning on doing anything?
• Emma got to know about Will's "infidelity" (he was claiming to wait for her, at least) from Sue. I sided with Emma immediately.
  • I agree. Emma was putting in a lot of work in her problems so that she'd be ready to be in a relationship with Will. And instead of helping her and being supportive, Will's been making out with Elphaba, experimenting with Glinda, and contemplating how he feels about his wife. Emma didn't even seem to cross his mind. The dick.
    • Really? How much work could she have been doing when the only therapist she saw was Sue Sylvester after Sue made herself Emma's "therapist." The only thing Will's guilty off is lack of expirience and poor judgement and doesn't deserve public humiliation for his relatively minor misstep (Will and Emma weren't even dating whe April spent the night, and Emma even couraged him to figure out what he wants and needs from a relationship, really the only way to do that is to date other people). Not telling Emma was probably the best thing he could do, look at how she reacted with Sue egging her on, who knows what would have happened if Will himself told her, don't forget that Emma is not entirely stable.
    • Emma said previously that she was seeing help. Just because a few episodes later Sue says she's decided to be Emma's helper that one day doesn't mean Emma never went to the proffesional like she said she was already doing. And if 'finding himself' could only be solved by him dating people, then why did they stop dating in the first place?. They stopped dating because she didn't think he was ready to date people yet, while she was going to get help for her problems. Instead of listening to this and acting on her advice to examine himself and spend time alone for a while, he goes gallivanting off with every age appropriate woman.
• I felt for both of them. Will's a confused, stressed new divorcee who really has no idea how to handle being single because he's been with Terri for so damn long, and he's panicking. It's a pretty common reaction to divorce, even in people who value committment and would never normally cheat on a significant other (I know someone who had this kind of behaviour going on for a while and not only did she not fit the cheater profile, she broke it off with her husband because he was cheating on her). That doesn't make what he's done to Emma any better, but it is understandable. He really isn't ready for a new relationship; Emma was walking into Ground Zero but, because she's never been in a relationship herself, she was too naive to know it was a bad, bad idea. Essentially she's been taking advantage of his various states of confusion for the entire Will/Emma plotline but earns sympathy anyway because she is a giant Woobie legitimately trying to overcome her many neuroses, and she was almost definitely not aware that she was taking advantage of anyone. It's a pretty grey situation and I don't think the show means for us to take the side of either character in particular.
• I can't be the only one bothered that Will only suggested Emma get help after she didn't have sex with him. And his face when she tells him she's a virgin. There was something about the kiss on the season finale that just didn't sit right with me. Maybe it was how angry he looked, or how he insisted she still loved him even though she was making attempts to move on, but it was the moment I stopped shipping them.
• At this point, Wills lesson of the day should just be a recording of himself labelled "don`t do this".

All the other Glee Club Members Parents?

• Where are they? So far we've only seen Mrs. Hudson, Mr. Hummel, the Fabrays, and a brief shot of Mrs. Puckerman, and they're only seen at their jobs and such. Why do we never see all the other Glee Club parents at competions? Why don't we see them back stage in between each performance, congradulating their children?
  • Because there... hasn't been a reason to show them yet? Most performances we see on the show are during school hours anyway, and the scenes usually cut off right after the number finishes. Also, you missed some: we've seen Rachel's parents in her locker photo, too, in the first or second episode.

Run Joey Run

• So why exactly were Puck, Jesse, and Finn so upset about "Run Joey Run"? She used an artistic license for a music video. All that happened was that there were other guys in general in the video. No kissing, or hugging, just... being there. Kurt and Quinn danced together a few times when she dated Finn, no one freaked out about that. This doesn't seem to be very different. Using their logic they might as well have been furious at Sandy for shooting Rachel in the video.
  • Because she lied to all three of them about the intent of the video, she told Puck it would help him get his reputation back, she probably told Jesse it was because he's her boyfriend and it would be fun and romantic, and most likely told Finn it was just for the Glee club project and she needed him because he is just the best singer ever. All of this was a blatant lie, the true purpose behind the entire thing, as stated by Finn, was to make Rachel look better by enditing the video to make it look like she had three guys after her. If she had told them from the beginning that all three of them would be involved they would most likely be okay with it, but once again she went behind someone's back with her own agenda for the primary purpose of making herself look like some uber-diva. This is behavior she was supposed to have grown out of at sectionals.
    • But... even if that was the reason for the three guys... it really doesn't come out as "three guys wanting the girl" it's more like "the director couldn't decide which of the three was better and left the three"
    • But that's just it, all it was was "three guys in a music video with a girl." There's only one scene where the guys are even in the same room as Rachel in the video, and all it is is just leaning over her. Compare it to some of their saucier dance numbers before and their reaction is pretty out of left field.
  • I can understand Jesse being kind of upset of not being told about "sharing" his girlfriend with other two guys. Finn and Puck, however, have no claim, as Puck pretty much used Rachel in the same way before, and Finn break up with her in the first place.
    • Puck didn't seem to care about that, though. He just said that the video was lame (which it was).
      • Actually, Puck seems to be mad at being used instead of being the one that uses. And It wasn't lame. It was Narmtastic. Beyondtheimpossible.
  • There's no reason to "freak out" about Kurt dancing with Quinn because he's gay. Also don't they switch it around a bit as Quinn has also done a bit of dancing in more than one song with Artie IIRC.
    • Exactly. So if what was going on in the music video was just as innocent as if it was Kurt, if not more so, why freak out at all? Who knew high school boys get all huffy about (gasp!) a guy singing next to a girl in a music project!
      • I though exactly the same thing. Nobody I knew in high school would have reacted that way, especially the theatrical kids who would understanding the idea of "acting". But I've also heard several Glee fangirls claim they would freak out if their boyfriend was in that video playing another girl's boyfriend and [briefly] holding her (gasp!), so apparently some teenagers are that ridiculous.
      • Using that same logic, why wouldn't Rachel tell the truth and come clean with the plan? If it was no big deal and all.
        • Because Rachel really isn't all that smart.
• It's only purpose was to lead up to "Total Eclipse of the Heart", but the writers were too chicken to make her do anything actually bad. If she had actually made a "slutty girl singer" video things would have made a lot more sense, or at least a song that actually features multiple men going after one girl. It was just really bad writing, especially when Finn had to basically explain to the audience why they were all mad. I'm pretty sure the actor didn't even understand what he was saying.
• At the end of Rachel's "Total Eclipse of the Heart" number, all the Glee club members leave as if they're disappointed that she would do something that under-handed. This includes Artie... whom Rachel approached to help her produce the video and should have known full well what was going on.
  • Exactly, what did Artie even get to do? Nothing. She approached him for help and then left him out of the loop.

The School Environment

• I understand that Glee is a work of fiction, and is meant to be a parody of standard high school tropes, but the absolutely toxic school environment just bugs me. In what universe are high school students allowed to throw slushies at each other with no consequences? Or allowed to print announcements about pregnant students in the school newspaper? Or throw students into dumpsters? Or demand that girls give up their panties as bribes? It may just be a case of Crapsack World, but since when do the quarter back or head cheerleader become objects of abject loathing just for joining a club?
  • Most of the abuse probably goes unreported. "Snitches" and "tattle-tells" are lower than dirt in high school. Kids who run crying to teachers are just bullied extra for being wimps.
  • Where are all the teachers? They can't be completely oblivious to all the abuse that goes on in the school. People like Sue and Ken obviously won't do much to stop the abuse, but where are all the other teachers whose job it is to protect their students from bullying, violence, and sexual harassment?
  • How are the kids at this school so twisted that a person can go back and forth from best friend to hated enemy three or four times a day? Everyone in this place is out of their minds.
  • I take it you've never gone to a public high school.
  • I did go to public high school, and while she can attest that some of the bullying is believable (having had food items, paper, gum thrown at her in the past), the rapid shift from friends to OMGIHATUFOREVR doesn't happen quite so fast as on the show.
  • I am currently going to a public high school (in Ohio!), and while bullying exists there, it's usually cracked down upon immediately when it happens. Plus, the people who complain about being bullied aren't "lower than dirt" as another troper said. Then again, I've only been bullied once (and it was in middle school, not high school), and my school's anti-bullying system could just be unusually good. That, or the fact that the school is so large that clique formation is pretty much impossible without getting lost in the crowd.
  • Granted I didn't go to public school, however I can attest to rapid changes in a person's attitude at that age. I could be best friends with someone at the start of first period, worst enemies by second and best friends again just in time for third. I remember a particularly vivid incident where I got so mad at a boy at lunch that I threw a water bottle at his head while I was yelling at him. By the bus ride home we were back to our usual heaviy flirting.
• After watching the latest episode... It is just me, or Will is way too aware of the bullying, and not only that, but is actually encouraging it, and encouraging a sort of gang war?
  • He was encouraging the glee members to stand up for themselves and other people who are being bullied. Divided we are weak, together as one we are strong, etc. After so much infighting and slurpees, instead of acting alone or just letting it happen, they all finally grouped together to tell those football players off, and it worked.
  • The Slow Clap thing was just ridiculous. It's fine if they want to have the Gleeks stand up for themselves, but they can't have a teacher witnessing the abuse and not doing anything about it. In a real high school those neanderthals could easily be expelled.
  • Also why exactly is this a bad thing? I can't be the only person who thinKs a gang war of Lady Gaga and Kiss impersonators vs. football players would be a FRIGGIN' AWESOME season finale.
    • Now that is put that way.... HELL YES. But yeah, the whole scene just paints Will as a HUGE jerkass, sure, United We Stand, but how many times has he passed Kurt with his "friends" near the trash bins?
  • I was bullied in elementary and half of middle school, but it was all verbal. There were some kids who got in fights, but if a kid was thrown in a dumpster, pushed into a locker, etc., the teachers would do something immediately. What gets me is: In one episode, Will sees Kurt get pushed into a locker and promptly tells Kurt that he's worried because Kurt isn't letting the bullying just roll of him and is showing signs of anger and isolation. What The Hell Teacher.
    • In fairness, Will might not have seen the actual push. Some people say he came around the corner in time to see it, while others say he came around after it had been done.

The GLIST

• I don't think this was brought up. Anyways, it was completely infuriating for Quinn to put the whole club down just to make herself feel better. Not only that, she places the blame on Rachel(and putting the list on Rachel's locker - that's real classy and mature Q). Even after knowing the club would get disbanded and the list maker may get suspended if no one came forward, she doesn't do a single thing. And what does she get? SYMPATHY and a nice pep talk from Will. That is all. Once again, Quinn gets away with screwing people over and Rachel gets pissed on for doing something harmless.
  • To be fair, it seemed like she was about to confess at the end of the episode until Will stepped in and saved her bacon.
    • Did you notice Tina, Artie, Kurt, Brittany, and Mercedes all were spared from the G List? They were the ones who are actually nice to her (I'm not sure if she's friends with all of them but if she hangs out with Mercedes she probably hangs out with the first three and Brittany doesn't seem to be really mean like Santana and might talk with her). She was just getting back at Puck (who ruined her life), Finn (who dumped her), and so on.
      • ...Brittany was on the glist. She was 4th. This is why she made out with Kurt - to try to get higher.

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.

Rachel never knew her mother?

• Isn't it a bit strange (and a little too dramatically convenient) that Rachel's dads never allowed her to contact her birth mother? Shelby said Rachel was taken away immediately after birth, and that she never even got to hold her. Granted, Shelby was a stranger who only agreed to be a surrogate for the money, but it seems unnecessarily cruel of Rachel's dads to completely cut Shelby out of the picture and deny Rachel any knowledge of her biological mother.
  • No, it's not. It happens all the time; look up closed adoptions on Google. Shelby would have signed a contract saying that she wouldn't be involved in Rachel's life. It's a legal thing, it would have been agreed upon by all three people, and it would have likely been her decision in the end. It's not like Rachel's parents are purposely keeping Shelby and Rachel from meeting because they are evil—they probably don't even know how to contact her.
  • Shelby can't contact her (legally) until she's 18. Rachel explicitly says she has never asked her parents because she doesn't want to hurt their feelings, so it's really more likely that they have no idea she's curious about that part of her life.
  • It just bugs me that instead of having an emotional episode or just an episode at all involving her dads, instead it's of her going off to find her surrogate mother.

Puck's Pro-Mercedes Genre Shift

Mercedes says she and Puck can't be a thing because he's Top 40 and mysogynistic and she's R&B and doesn't want to be played for a fool. How does singing "The Lady is a Tramp" get her on his side, let alone convince her that he's dating material? I get that it originally made fun of the high-falutin' New Yawk prissiness, though I am surprised that Mercedes still took it as a compliment, but how is that any more than a half-baked, misguided, and in fact technically failed attempt at becoming (or at least showing appreciation for) her genre?

• Mercedes obviously wanted an excuse/ to make difficult for Puck to "win" her. After Quinn talks with her, is very evidently she's delighted at "dating" Puck, even if he's just using her. What bothers me more is that she decides to both break up with Puck AND to leave the Cheerios. If she had left when the "problem" was her weight, it would have been a better message. Now she comes more as "ok, I had what i wanted, now i don't care about this shit anymore"

Dream On

The episode with Neil Patrick Harris didn't put the rest of the plot on hold to bask in his awesome. Why not? The Rhodes Not Taken focused on Kristen Chenoweth pretty thoroughly. I want an episode made entirely of NPH awesome!

• • Because April's a recurring character and we're never going to see Bryan again?
    • We didn't know she was going to be a recurring character during that episode. How do we know this guy won't be either?
    • I thought he was meant to be a recurring or semi-recurring character, since he's on the board of directors for the school system inm which Lima High is based, has history with the Glee Club director, and is a professionally trained singer. It just depends on how often they can get Neil Patrick Harris on the show, especially considering that they were able to keep Kristin Chenowith on and that it's not unheard of for someone to have a recurring part on a show when they work on another. It makes sense for him to have only had one part (and not a solo) if he was to be a recurring character, because if his character could handle an entire episode worth of preformance, or even one strong solo, there wouldn't be much room for Character Development once that staging of Les Misérables finishes its run.

Les Miserables Director

I think I can say with some certainty that the Schu/Bryan audition was by FAR the best that director got for ANY role in that play. WHY did he cast Schu as Val Jean and Bryan as a one-lined chorusmember? That makes no damn sense! It's not like there aren't other heavy male roles that need a strong singer in that show. Not Javert, as that requires a Baritone, but surely Marius, or at least Thenardier would have been better casting. Also, if Schu was trying to build Bryan's love of the arts back up by getting him performing again, why would he audition for the same role?

• • Rule of Funny
  • Rule of Drama
  • It's not that hard to believe, actually. Who shared this information first? SUE. The director was probably so excited about both performances that he couldn't shut his mouth, and Sue probably "asked" the director for Will to be Valjean and to give Bryan a crappy role. She knew it would devastate Bryan and it would likely cut the Glee Club. How she got it? Easy, she said she would take her laundry somewhere else, which is presumably a lot, and prestigious("The cheerios clean their stuff here!") kind of stuff. Notice that the director has no problem with Will and Bryan switching places.
  • I had the same reaction as the original questioner and eventually came up with the same rationale at the person above me. The only thing that gives me pause is the lack of a "Sue doing something cruel cutaway" showing her bullying the cleaner.
  • He didn't know he was auditioning for the same role, and by that time Bryan was already copycatting him.

Dream on - Les Mis

A little of the previous JBM but I understand Sue was being evil (and I loved Will, Bryan AND Sue in the scene where she revealed it) I have 3 JBM s (of varying degrees)

1) What would Will have done if he did get the role of Valjean? Would he have just abandoned Glee Club like that?

2) Yeah, I get that Sue was being evil and probably corrupted the Director, but couldn't we have gotten a little bit of Valjean/Javert to highlight the Will/Bryan Foe Yay? Like the previous JBM mentions, it's like no other male leads exist! Yeah, I know Bryan was copying Will to be a Jerk but he could be the Javert to Will's Valjean! It just fits!

3) Bryan has a reasonable point about showbiz being a hard business to get into. Yet just like that Will manages to get him a part? I know it's necessary for the show, but it still bugs me!

• 1. He did get the role. He gave it up, explicitly to save the Glee Club. If Bryan hadn't been a diva, presumably Will would have kept the role and the Glee Club. He can do both. 2. They have, what, 43 minutes worth of actual airtime? 3. Will got Brian a part in a crummy Lima, Ohio production of Les Mis. That doesn't disprove Bryan's point at all.
  • Original poster here: 1. Will would teach Spanish all day, then coach Glee Club and then be in any performance, playing a severly demanding role? Sure, he could do all that, but it ain't recommended. 2. How long would it have taken Bryan to say he was auditioning for the role of Javert? They could still sing the same song, "Dream On". I just wanted them to acknowledge Javert existed and for Bryan to identify with him. 3. It still feels like a Hand Wave. Everything is fine by the end and none of the Glee members have taken onboard what Mr. Ryan said.
    • Sue did it. End of story. It was an amateur production, it's highly doubtful the director even knew what a soprano/baritone etc mean. He would only want moderately good singers...

What did Quinn mean when she called Rachel "Treasure Trail"?

An old one, I know, I but I still don't get it. Is it something that's really specific to the US?

• A "treasure trail" is the line of body hair growing down from the naval to the crotch. It's typically thin to non-existent in women (or they wax/shave it off), so she was basically just calling her hairy/masculine as usual.
  • OR Quinn is kinky and wants to discover what's under the treasure trail

Shelby & Rachel singing 'Poker Face'

How is that song AT ALL APPROPRIATE for an emotional mother/daughter good-bye? I basically laid down the entire scene as a BLAM, despite it having an effect on the storyline. The song choice was just so wildly inappropriate! The line about 'bluffin' with my muffin' especially so. There had to be a Gaga song more fitting for the situation.

• "Speechless" would have been perfect. However, the entire episode intentionally had Narm Charm written all over it.
• Yeah, that was one of the low points in the show's run. Aside from mangling a solid pop song, the pop song was inappropriate for the moment and it came at the end of a legitimately affecting and effective arc.
• Also, Poker Face already has plenty of off-genre covers. It seems like they were using Lady Gaga's own acoustic version as a direct reference.
• The way I saw it, Rachel just wanted to have fun singing a catchy, silly pop song with her mom.
• I agree. It was supposed to be unrelated to the situation. It was about Rachel having fun with her mum since she was afraid it might be the last time. If it had been the fast version that would have been inappropriate. The thing I love is how they both look right after the song is finished. The moment of awkwardness sums up their relationship perfectly
• While there are lots of inappropriate parts to the song, invoking the idea of "poker face" for both of them trying to cover up how strongly being apart affects them seemed to fit the situation well. Also, "she's got to love nobody", "I won't tell you that I love you, kiss or hug you", the whole "I'm marvelous" section, and even "when it's love, if it's not rough, it isn't fun" all have parallels to the story between the two characters and I think that was the intention of using the song. You just have to be willing to look at it a different way instead of being locked into one meaning.

Celebritygasm

Why have the episodes lately been putting aside the story and focusing their attention more on "This episode is going to be entirely showing off [music singer]. Madonna, Olivia Newton-John, and now lady gaga. This is getting to be more than just theme episodes and celebrity guest appearances, it's starting to feel like Glee's now just product placement.

• Doesn't bother me much. Jukebox Musicals are nothing new.
• I do agree to a certain point. It's kinda jarring to see them performing songs of only one person(specially if you're from a different country and don't care about said person, but meh). The only thing I don't agree is that they're not hijacking the plot... except maybe with Lady Gaga. Will had given the assignment before, there's no reason to give it again.
• I felt that Gaga was actually one of the ones that didn't put aside the story. The idea behind Gaga and the costumes and all of that actually drove several of the plots. I thought it was one of the instances where a artist-theme episode worked great.
  • Plus for those of us not into Gaga we got not one but two friggin' awesome Kiss numbers featuring Puck and Artie.
  • The real shame is they talk about David Bowie briefly and then dismiss the idea entirely. Rebel Rebel would've fit the theme of the episode perfectly; "Got your mother in a whirl, she's not sure if you're a boy or a girl"...
• I felt exactly like that with the Madonna episode. I just couldn't stand it, it was like a 45-minutes long advertising instead of a Glee episode.

How did Santana know that Finn is/was a virgin?

Presumably she didn't know about how Finn thought he got Quinn pregnant, so wouldn't she still think that he had sex with her but that Quinn had sex with Puck as well?

• Finn mentions the hot tub incident in Sectionals, and Puck says he was "stupid enough to buy it". We can assume from this that people knew Finn didn't actually have sex with Quinn.

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.
• 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.
• It Gets Worse. Funk gives us "mothersucker". That actually sounds worse (as in, more inappropriate) than the original line, even though the original was an F-bomb.
  • "Tear the roof off the mothersucker" is the original lyric. Blame George Clinton.
  • The phrase "mothersucker" is not on the FCC's blacklist and "motherfucker" is. You can use the word "penis" on TV but not all it's synonyms.What.

The Broadway World In-Series

So clearly, Spring Awakening, The Light in the Piazza, the revival of South Pacific, etc. either didn't exist in the showverse or featured different cast members. I can deal with that. But seeing as they spent a good deal of an episode debating who would get to sing "Defying Gravity", isn't it a bit odd that Idina Menzel (or, for that matter, Cheno) can just show up? Who originated their roles in the showverse? Rachel's room is plastered in Broadway posters and memorabilia, and she is obviously very aware of many Broadway divas and performers, referencing Babs and Patti Lupone, so the Real Life Broadway does have a place in the show's world. But who exists and who doesn't?

• Celebrity Paradox.
• Idina Menzel originated the role of Elphaba in real life. Shelby Corcoran is not Idina Menzel, she is the director of Vocal Adrenaline and just looks and sounds like Idina. Separate the actor from the character and there's no problem here.

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)

Puck and Sammy Davis Jr.

• I know that of all the things to find ridiculous in Glee, this is kind of ridiculous. But it really bothers me that, apparently, before Puck sang 'The Lady is a Tramp' to Mercedes, he'd never heard of Sammy Davis Jr. EVERYONE I KNOW knows who Sammy Davis Jr. is, and I am by no stretch of the imagination just a musical nerd who hangs out with other music nerds. Hell, I have anime-obsessed friends who barely know anything outside of that who know who Sammy Davis Jr. is. Is Puck just stupid??
  • Call me stupid, I have no idea who he is. Maybe it's a regional thing or all your friends listen to the same genre?
    • Same here. Actually many of the artists used on Glee I've never really heard of. Doesn't harm my enjoyment though.
    • He was a famous musician and member of the Rat Pack. That's about the limits of my pop culture knowledge of him.
      • Original poster commenting that 'he was a famous musician and member of the Rat Pack' is pretty basic knowledge, and is what most people know about Sammy Davis Jr., and my irritation is that Puck DOESN'T EVEN SEEM TO REALIZE THAT.
        • So what? No matter how common a knowledge can be, there will be people that simply doesn't know about those facts for any given reason(In Puck's case, he doesn't care)
  • "Is Puck just stupid?" Yes. Well, more accurately he's extremely ignorant about massive swaths of the world. It makes sense to me that Sammy Davis Jr. would be in one of those ignorance zones.
  • He also made reference to "King Martin Luther" earlier in the episode.
  • Puck is either very stupid, or has extremely selective memory. He has questioned before if Quinn getting "fat" was his fault, and more recent, he didn't know why Finn and him "hated each other"
  • Sammy Davis Jr. is an historical figure but he is not significantly historical (neither are Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin etc.) and probably not taught in history class. I suggest that, theater kids aside, many modern day high school students wouldn't know who Sammy Davis Jr. was either.
  • Idina Menzel has a dog named Sammy Davis Jr. Jr. :3 For that reason I found it ironic...

Funk

Jesse in "Funk"

• What the hell was his problem? Is he still mad over that stupid video from five episodes ago even though he's been perfectly fine since? I mean, I can understand if they wanted him just to be pure evil, but it was written and played out like she'd done something to upset him. Is there a scene we're missing?
• Doubtful. Remember, he's basically the male equivalent of Rachel, only less used to not being listened to. It makes sense for him to throw a temper tantrum and quit the Glee club when he feels he's not being respected or treated right, even if he's being treated as just an equal. Sort of a reflection on Rachel's behavior when she used to walk out, only played for drama - because he's designated villain/FalseRomanticLead and she's designated protagonist.
• The only thing I can think of is that they spent so much of the series focusing on plots like Rachel/Finn and handing out a ridiculous Aesop each episode that the writers realized that there would be no real conflict at Regionals (Sectionals actually focused on the other performers at least, who looked like they actually wanted to win) so they turned Jesse into the designated villain (as the person above stated) and are trying to play it off like he's been Evil All Along. But yeah, it's completely ridiculous, I actually liked him as he made a refreshing change from the Rachel/Finn plot that's been shoved down our throats from the start.
• He's the Paolo. No matter how sweet and perfect he was to Rachel, (Hell, last time we saw him he admited to liking her), the writers turned him evol to pair Rachel up with a main character.
  • It's not even that he so much "turned" evil at all. He did this for Shelby, grew to like Rachel, but in the end, he was always going to go back to Vocal Adrenaline. He even says that he loved her, he just ended up choosing VA over her. It's not like he did a 180 flip. He's remained rather true-to-character.
    • Going back to Vocal Adrenaline would make sense as far as his characterization is concerned. Going back for the reason he said he did, or egging Rachel in the parking lot has no excuse other than bad writing. Especially considering how he acted in the last episode, specifically saying, "I don't want her getting hurt." Egging her in the very next episode he appears in is a 180 turn, alright.
      • Reason he said was more or less a lie so he didn't have to say "I only joined ND because Shelby told me to". Egging Rachel in the park had more to do with the acceptance of VA then him personally having a vendetta against her. Still not that big of a 180.
      • Considering he said "I don't want her getting hurt" to Shelby, who knows the reason why he's there, the chances of it being a lie are pretty small. Maybe he wanted to be accepted, but I doubt that even he'd go along with egging a girlfriend he cared about. It just points to a lot of bad writing to me.
        • EPIC bad writing. Even if he wants to be accepted in VA again.... let's not forget he knows that they egged the daughter of their coach. In the same episode, Shelby is portrayed as a very reasonable and nice woman. She would be beyond pissed if she ever finds out.
• I think besides the point mentioned above about him being a male Rachel, Jesse seemed very... familiar with that one girl in Vocal Adrenaline in the "Another one bites the dust" number among the other scenes when you see them together. I think that girl might have played a very big part in his turn.
• Jesse's facial expression as Rachel is running to him implies that he doesn't want to go through with this and is dreading what's about to happen next. VA had basically given him the same ultimatum ND gave Rachel, only they were bigger bastards about it and forced him prove he didn't love her.
• I just fan-wanked it to group pressure from VA. It kinda makes sense, they pressure him into doing it to make sure he's back on their team. But yeah, the writers could have portrayed it better.

Mercedes in "Funk"

• Frankly, who the hell does she think she is complaining that Quinn doesn't have issues? Quinn lost Finn, got kicked out of her house, gets called, "fat", is ignored by her peers (see, "Bad Reputation"), can't expect Puck to be a good father, is currently stuck living with Puck, got kicked off the Cheerios, and oh yeah, is an UNWED TEENAGE MOTHER. Mercedes is just being a bitch and playing the race card. That's low.
  • And she acknowledges that when she apologizes to Quinn. From Mercedes' perspective, Quinn was just the former Queen of the Cheerios who got knocked off her high horse so she automatically assumes that Quinn has never faced any real hardships. It's made clear at the end of the episode, where Mercedes actually apologizes, that she was completely wrong.
  • Seconding this JBM, and adding: The Glee Club itself is 50% minority (If you count Artie and Kurt) so it's not like Mercedes is the ONLY BLACK PERSON EVER. Meanwhile, there must be plenty of people who want to knock Quinn down a peg now that she's not on the Cheerios/Is the pregnant Ex(?)-president of the Chastity Club. So I don't see why Quinn would say that "now she understands how Mercedes feels" when she has all the issues mentioned and Mercedes is... the black daughter of a dentist, who wears designer clothes and is apparently well-liked by her peers.
  • At the risk of sounding like a King of the Hill parody of liberal academics, it doesn't really matter that Mercedes is the "daughter of a dentist, who wears designer clothes..." The legacy of racism and institutional racism strikes at well-off African-Americans, if not with the same ferocity as it strikes poorer members of that community. I'm sure she'd still get followed in a store, still get treated poorly by waiters who think black people don't tip, etc. And, not for nothing, she admits she was wrong. She apologizes to Quinn. She also wasn't terribly popular before joining the Cheerios; she was slushied, just like Kurt and Artie.
    • But none of that was bullying was racism. Artie, Kurt and Rachel are white, and later, they also bully Puck, Finn and Quinn. OTOH, Santana, Mike and Matt don't seem to be being bullied at all.
  • She probably had a kneejerk reaction to it - wouldn't you be a little "Uh... what?" if someone comes up to you that's seemingly completely different (in Quinn's case, she's a rich well to do upper class girl) and says "Yeah, I know all about your hardships!". After she had time to cool down and actually think about it, she got un-angry.
  • I assumed it was more based on the fact that funk started in the black community with Soul Train and most white people who have attempted funk have, well, sucked. I think it is comparable to if Quinn wanted to rap. Admit it, the idea of a white teenage girl who grew up in an affluent household would strike most people as odd and pathetic. Mercedes's gut reaction to Quinn saying she wanted to sing funk was disdain, but by the end of the episode she had realized that she was wrong to make snap judgement about people based on their race and social upbringing.

Will in Funk

Will is a bastard. Other than the What the Hell, Hero? he deserves it for how he treated Sue, last episode he encouraged the group to stand together against the bullies (Basically, condoning a fight against the football players) Notice that the group was supporting Finn and Kurt, who are both well-liked within the group, and the bullies were threatening them. Now, a mere episode later, the Caramel High trashed their choir room, and humiliated Rachel throwing eggs at her. She is easily the least liked of the group, and yet, Puck of all people, planned to avenge her, and Kurt, who doesn't even like her wanted to go too. The group has effectively evolved into True Companions and Will's reaction is to stop them. He doesn't even report their behavior to the other school or to Shelby. Sure, they got pwned with the Funk number, but Will is still a Jerkass for not even trying to report them

• • Will encouraged the glee club to stand up for themselves and stick together but not to do anything that would get them into serious trouble (like Puck and Finn's prank) and instead find other ways to fight back. Not to mention the fact that they don't have any hard evidence that Vocal Aldrenaline vandalised the chior room while Finn and Puck were probably caught in the act of their prank, and Puck admitted to it to his own principal. If Will had reported the valdalism it would probably be a case of Shelby's word against his and since Vocal Aldrenaline comes from a larger and seeming better-funded school it would most likely not lead to any action against them. After Egging Rachel Will decides to give them a taste of their own medicine and taunt them with an awesome performance they can't hope to replicate in order to demoralize them, he just cuts out the extra acts of vandalism that he knows he couldn't get away with. Furthermore after everything Sue has done to pretty much everyone on the show how can you deny that Will isn't fully justified in taking her down a few pegs. The thing that really bothers me is his attack of concience, granted he really did it for the kids and not for Sue herself, but this is a woman who actively encourages the bullying that goes on in the school and even engages with it herself among the teachers. Pet the Dog moments and Fruedian Excuses aside Sue Sylvester is a terrible, terrible excuse for a human being. She is a spectacualrly awesome villain though.
    • Yeah, the choir room technically did nt harm, and they had no proof(hell, it was probably Sue), but egging Rachel is * way* worse, yet, while the presentation of Vocal Adrenaline in the auditorium of McKinley was probably endorsed by Shelby, she doesn't seem the kind of person to endorse juvenile pranks, (the toilet paper) even less the egging of someone (Which is pretty cruel) let alone her own damn daughter She hasn't been portrayed as a villain (She even prevented Finn and Puck's expulsion, who would have gotten New Directions in serious trouble) so there is no reason for Will to not tell her anything about the egging. And like I said, he's encouraging a fight with the jocks and the Glee Club(Not to mention he seems to be fully aware of the bullying, but didn't did a damn about it). Sue is an AWESOME human being. She's horrible, yes, but not the kind of horrible to avoid, but the kind of horrible that annoys you so much you try to do everything in your power to prove her wrong. Technically speaking, it was thanks to her that Glee won in sectionals(Will only gave other people solos after she pointed it out, which united the team more. She also pointed out how Will hogged the money for wheelchair accessible bus, which in turn forced the Glee Club to work as a team to understand Artie better, and a large etc.) Sure, she's horrible, but it has been thanks to her that New directions has improved. Not to mention all the opportunities the girls and boys of cheerios get just because they were on the team.

Tina and Mike having the same last name

• Seriously, was "Chang" the only Asian surname they could think of?
  • Technically, Tina's last name is actually "Cohen-Chang" while Mike's last name is just "Chang".
    • That says nothing of substance. The Asian half of Tina's last name is still the same as Mike's.
      • So what? It could end up being a plot that they're cousins, or they're just averting the One Steve Limit. Don't forget the characters name Finn and Quinn and Kurt and Burt that sound like a bad children's fairy tale.
        • I always thought Finn/Quinn and Burt/Kurt having similar names was done for comical reasons. I bet the writers had a little bit of fun averting a silly ship name for that pairing by having them have rhyming names. And it makes sense that Burt would name his son Kurt. After all, it has been firmly established that Burt had hoped for a boy who would be just like him.
      • "Chang" is a dirt-common Asian name, period. I work at a school and can verify how many Changs or Chens or Ngs or Nguyens attend...tons. Never raised an eyebrow with me.

Regionals

• I can't remember the pilot very well (so I'm sorry if I screwed up some of the details) but as far as I can remember, Principal Figgins tells Will that the club has to place at Regionals or it will be closed. Does 'place' translate as 'win' in the Glee-verse? Because where I live, 'place' means 'come first, second, or third' and surely New Directions can do that- nobody said they had to beat Vocal Adrenaline.
  • I'm going to take a shot in the dark and say that will exactly be a plot point in the episode. Especially with Sue as a judge, I have a feeling New Directions will place second in Regionals. If you notice, so far it's really only been Sue saying they either have to win or it's all over so I'm fulling expecting the Principal to say otherwise if the situation arises.
  • I'm pretty sure it comes from horse racing (or is just used there most commonly) but "placing" means coming in second. First is "win" (obviously), second is "place", and third is "show."

Figgins in "Sectionals"

• Principal Figgins tells Will that he can coach Glee club again after finding out about Sue's leaking of the set list, and told him he phoned up the Governing board and set the record straight. HOW? Will was banned from coaching the Glee club for sleeping on a mattress that was considered payment for the glee kids services, it had nothing to do with Sue!
  • I felt that what he was actually referring to was the mattress incident. He called them and set the record straight about THAT. Which is hwy he could then coach again. But maybe I was alone in that interpretation.
  • The fact still remains that Will broke the rules, he slept on a mattress which was considered accepting payment, he didn't do anything to nullify it, the rule was still broken.
  • Will was only "banned" from sectionals as he accepted the payment from the mattress he used. He can coach at school as much as he wants to, and they'll probably hand-wave the whole thing when they reach regionals

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.

What Is Wrong With a Celibacy Club?

Ok, this is pretty old news, but its been bugging me since I saw the episode.

1.Rachel gives this entire speech on how celibacy doesn't work and how teaching abstinence only is dumb. But it is the celibacy CLUB. C-L-U-B. No one (except possibly their parents) is forcing them to join this club. If it was Health class and they were only teaching abstinence, then fine, whatever. But her putting down the club is like saying that ANYTHING telling kids they need to just wait is terrible. From my experience with these clubs, they are usually only support groups for teens who wait till marriage. THE EVIL.

2. Rachel says that teaching only abstinence is bad because kids can't help themselves and will have sex, and need to know how to protect themselves. That's all well and good...but do they seriously think that school is the only way kids learn how to protect themselves? Thing is, my school system teaches only abstinence, and I, someone who is actually waiting until marriage, have known how to put on a condom since I was twelve. How? Curiosity, Wikipedia, and teen magazines. Seriously, its not that difficult to figure out. Its not like schools could be allowed to tell you more than the internet or Cosmo GIRL would.

• • There was a time when schools could give frank discussions of sex and how to avoid STD's and pregnancy but...let's not get political here.
  • It was Rule of Funny, and and extreme parodies of it. She wasn't giving the rant because the school refuses to teach stuff other than abstinence, it was because the club was insane and refused to even discuss the idea that sexual intercourse isn't the devil.
• It's Rachel who gives the speech. She has the need to be the center of attention, and she did it in this instance by being controverial. Plus, let's not forget she wanted to boink Finn, who was also in the club and listening to her.
  • Yes, but every single entry on this site is about how the speech is an intentional Take That at the terrible abstinence movement, not just Rachel being herself. I'm just wondering why its such a bad thing that there is a club teaching abstinence in the first place. Sure, the club IS insane...but that club is obviously a Strawman Political figure representing the AM. Schools should be able to talk about sex, because not all students have personal or religious reasons for deciding to stay abstinent. But for those of us that do, why is it such a bad thing to form a club supporting that? Believe it or not, we're not all crazy right-wing religious extremists. Some of us are just people who think its better to wait.
• Regarding the whole thing with the chastity club, there isn't much to indicate that most of the characters took it seriously. Quinn did appear to take it seriously, but did end up breaking her vow because I guess she got caught up in the moment, and Jacob seemed to take it seriously until Rachel gave her little speech. But other than that, it was kind of clear that the club was just an excuse for the cheerleaders and football players to hang out with each other.

Shelby.

Okay, I understand that the Aesop of Theatricality was that you shouldn't expect finding out about or meeting your bio-parents to be a wholly positive experience, but the way the whole thing plays out, are the audience really meant to believe that it will turn out as badly as it did for Rachel meeting her birth mom? For starters, Shelby decides that she and Rachel should part mere days after the reunion that she initiated before they've even had a chance to talk about it like Rachel suggested that they do by going to dinner. She does this at the behest of Will, someone she barely knows and therefore can't guarantee that he has either of their best interests at heart, instead of say, Rachel's dads, whom she would have presumably got to know over the course of the pregnancy. Then in Journey we see that, because Shelby is too upset about having Rachel being an almost-adult who doesn't need her, she's going to move on with her life and start going for things that she actually wants, while shutting Rachel out. She doesn't even tell Rachel to watch out for the fibroids or whatever it was that necessitated her motive-producing surgery.

Also, a somewhat more minor nitpick: given Shelby's experience of surrogate motherhood, wouldn't she be more likely to suggest an open adoption to Quinn and Puck?

Where's the Disney episode?

Madonna. Lady Gaga. Britteny Spears. Theme episodes are everywhere...and yet they aren't doing a theme episode of the most obvious collection of over the top musical numbers? I know I'm not the only one who thinks this would be a good idea. My life will NOT be complete until Will sings "Make a Man Out of You"!

• Much as I love the idea to bits, doing so would in actual fact be involving a lot more people than a single mainstream singer, yes? Because there are so many movies, and several different sets of singers and songwriters and everything. So I'm not an expert on copyright law, but it might happen.
  • Factor in that MANY lyricists and composers for Disney songs are dead, and that rights for certain songs have reverted to estates/spouses/children, getting a broad enough spectrum of Disney songs to include in just one episode of Glee alone would be ridiculously expensive, damn near impossible, or would take so much time that the episode would have to go into production NOW to air in the third season.
    • Correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't think that's how copyright works in the US. I'm pretty sure the only copyright holders will be Disney themselves. If what you are saying is true, then something like Kingdom Hearts would be damn near impossible to make and no highschools could ever put on Disney shows (which mine does).
    • Poster of the copyright stuff here. The songs are in a different category than the characters of Disney. To use an example, Disney owns the rights to The Lion King characters. Disney can license the use of their characters and likenesses freely. The music of The Lion King is: a) written by Elton John and Bernie Taupin, b) released through Hollywood Records, and c) concievably part of the Disney music library. Glee would need permission from all three of these entities. If they planned on doing a just-Lion King episode, that would be relatively easy. Now imagine that they want a song from Cinderella, written by four people, two of which dead (thus meaning we must deal with estates), Disney, and whoever else has a claim in the song. To my recollection, the Disney shows are licensed by Disney, and Disney has covered all the respective copyrights for the songs herein. (Again, if the shows are for one Disney film/TV show, deals are made much easier.) And addressing Kingdom Hearts, correct me if I'm wrong (not very familiar with it), but the soundtrack only has a few select Disney songs being used as scores?
• I highly doubt Disney would give the rights to their child-friendly songs to a show as raunchy as Glee.
  • Are we forgetting the Disneyworld episode of Roseanne?! Where Darlene's baby was conceived? Disney doesn't shy away from this stuff.
  • The problem is more that Disney owns ABC, which is a rival network to Fox.
  • Network rivalry becomes moot when Tivo and Hulu let you watch whatever you want whenever. The sheer money Disney could make off royalties from iTunes and a CD release should make this a possibility. Sue singing "Be Prepared"? Santana singing "Poor Unfortunate Souls"? Kurt and his future boyfriend singing "Whole New World?" Yes please!
    • I highly doubt Fox is going to make episodes and songs that can only be seen on Hulu. Hell, I highly doubt Fox would want to share the royalties with one of their competitors when they have a good cash cow going all for themselves. A disney episode just is not gonna happen.
      • Already happened as Hulu is a joint venture of Fox, ABC(Disney), and NBC. That said, there probably still won't be big ticket Hulu only stuff and generally, Hulu tends to get things on a huge delay anyway so that first-sale markets (TV, concerts,etc) get their goodies first.

Male homosexuality = long, in-depth and wonderful plotline. Female homo/bisexuality & polyamorous relationship = couple cuddly shots and throwaway lines. Discuss.

Twitch. Twitch. Twitch. Twitch. Twitch. On the other hand, we're supposed to see more of Brittany's character in Season 2, so perhaps salvation will arrive.

• Brittany and Santana were originally intended to be background characters who sit around and do funny things sometimes. It was only after Brittany became an Ensemble Darkhorse that her relationship with Santana began to be developed, and they've been gradually receiving more screentime as the show goes on. Also, they both seem to be comfortable in their sexuality so there isn't as much potential for drama there like with Kurt, who has incidentally been a main character from the very beginning. Not seeing a problem here.
• Ryan Murphy just recently said Brittany and Santana will kiss on-screen in an upcoming episode (and possibly do "more" - though I personally doubt that'll happen), too; so presumably their relationship is going to be focused on more.
  • Am I the only one who feels bothered at the idea of them kissing and doing possibly "more" on screen? Before I sound like a troll, I would be happy to see a well-developed lesbian/bisexual/polyamorous/whatever-they-are relationship on TV. But I don't think Glee will be able to do that. Brittany and Santana come off as "gay for your enjoyment," more like porno lesbians than anything else. If they kiss on screen, I feel like it won't be taken seriously at all, or will be played as a joke. Do the writers seriously know nothing about how lesbians or bisexual girls get treated in high school? If they ever kissed and were seen by anyone, they would almost DEFINITELY be the subject of bullying. There's plenty of drama to be had in Santana and Brittany being "found out" and sticking up for themselves, but somehow I doubt that would happen.
  • I highly doubt they'd be bullied. Two attractive cheerleaders, one of which was a short-lived Head Cheerleader, and both essentially a step below Quinn as queens of the school,dating each other? The worse they might get are some chauvinistic comments or cat calls. More than likely they'd be celebrated and fap-fodder for people like Jacob. Does it really seem likely that anyone would be suicidal to mess with two of Sue Sylvester's most trusted Cheerios? Besides, other than the two Jerk Jock bullies, the school doesn't seem to have a problem with Kurt's homosexuality, but the fact that he's on the bottom of the social ladder (other than the occasional insult aimed at him). I think they could set the episode up to explore the Double Standard there is toward homosexuality. As long as it's played respectfully and not for Fan Service, it could be a good episode.
    • I guess what I'm saying is, I can't see it being played as much other than Fan Service, or even if it is done seriously, some Fan Service is definitely going to be employed. It just seems a shame. Also, what do you mean by "explore the Double Standard there is toward homosexuality"? I guess I'm kind of confused as to what Double Standard you're talking about. "If you're already popular, it's okay"? "It's easier to be homosexual if you're attractive"? "People don't take lesbians seriously and instead see them as fap fodder"?
    • Mostly Girl-On-Girl Is Hot, while two guys is Squick and "wrong", but I see what you're saying. Also, life tends to be easier for popular/attractive people.
• It's down to the characters in this situation. Kurt is one of the core six who have been in the club since the Pilot, and can probably be considered the fifth main character (after Will, Rachel, Finn, and Sue). As such, he gets a lot more screen time than Santana and Brittany, and much more in depth storylines. Another reason the female bisexuality is played differently is that one of the participants is Brittany. The girl is a walking fountain of non sequiter one-liners, and the comedy is central to her character. Giving Brittany a serious storyline wouldn't work unless it was built toward very slowly. Finally, Kurt's drama revolves around him being openly gay and there being no one he can relate to. Santana is very obviously denying her bisexuality, and Brittany is known to sleep with anything that moves (I believe she once said she made out with her cat?). Santana is making sure that Brittany doesn't tell anyone, and Brittany is obviously in love with Santana so she complies. No one knows, therefore no drama.

With so many male cheerleaders, how can Kurt be the only gay boy at McKinley High?

Okay, just to be clear, I'm not stereotyping, just making a joke. I am gay, so I understand gay=/=into "girly" things.

• There probably are, but Kurt is, in his own words, the only openly gay boy in school or even in town. With the amount of homophobia in town, I'm not surprise if everyone else decides it's far safely to remain in the closet. And regarding the male cheerleader thing, they can probably claim they joined to ogle the female cheerleaders constantly.
  • Agreed. Statistically, there are probably several gay guys at McKinley, and not just on the cheerleading squad. The key word in situations like these is "openly".
• See above as well. Who would risk incurring Sue's wrath by doing anything to any one of her Cheerios? While probably not for everyone, ironically, Sue's Cheerios may be one of the few places were you'd be safe from abuse (that wasn't from Sue anyway).

Why are all the Glee kids only from one grade? Why don't any seniors, or freshmen or sophomores join? Surely there must be some other 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.