GleeCap: Born This Way

Good morning, Glee fans! It's time for another recap of the show that is burning the candle at both ends.

Just as awesome as Kurt resembling Rufus Wainwright more and more as the seasons progress:

- As soon as Rachel got hit in the nose, I thought of Marsha Brady, "Oh my nose!" It's been done before, but it's a classic.+3
- Kurt's hair combed back = awesome. +5, and that watch fob + another 5
- "I've got to gay, I mean go." +4
- The mash-up of I feel Pretty and Unpretty was a really solid choice. It is so refreshing to hear them being creative with arrangements, and utilizing harmony. Even though it is pretty cheesy, I'm going to go with a +15.
- Even though I think the Lauren/Puck relationship is the weirdest thing ever, at least Puck didn't fetishize her in this episode, a very welcome change. +25
- Puck is getting some great reactions these days. The dry heaving at the sight of Karofsky and Santana being each others' beards. +3
- At first I thought the union of Karofsky and Santana would be a really bad move, but then they brought in the Guardian Angels reference with the red berets and red vinyl jackets, and while I don't believe for a second that their characters would have any idea who the Guardian Angels were, I'm going to have to go with a big +33 for sheer hilarity for the Bully-Whips.
-Kurt's calling Santana a "Latina Eve Harrington," you are so delightful, Mr. Hummel. +4
-Kurt referenced PFLAG, and all I could do was think about Reality Bites, when Steve Zahn and Janeane Garofalo were role playing Sammy telling his mom he was gay, and Vickie saying, "puh-flag, I like the sound of that." No points, just a nostalgic little journey. 
- And I really liked Lauren and Puck being all Saved By The Bell and breaking in to the school records. "My permanent record has three volumes? I don't remember doing half of this stuff." +5
- Brittany is my favorite. "Why because you're Lebanese and I think I'm bi-curious?" +15
-"I have to stay away from vigorous choreography while my nose heals." Well, there goes her social life. +12
- At first, I thought a lack of Sue Sylvester was a bad thing, but thinking about how in recent episodes I've felt like they were really reaching with her, I'm glad they made Santana the zinger of the week. +20
-Santana zingers:  "Legend has it, when I came out of my mother, I told the nurse she was fat." "Be more careful with your leering." and "I'm not ready to start eating jicama or get a flat top...maybe in Jr. College. + 76

+230

More unlikely than another school's choir showing up the middle of the day, and being accompanied by musicians who just happen to be outside with their instruments:

- Last season, Rachel said something to Quinn like, "I completely understand if you want to beat me up, just try to avoid my nose." Why is she now all of a sudden insecure and ready for surgery at the drop of a line by Dr. D-bag? Continuity. -5
- Finn's dance number with Mike Chang to "I gotta be me" was confusing. Is he trying to be as bad of a dancer as he appears, or is he hamming it up to make a point? I think it is the latter. I don't know that it is worthy of any negative points, but I feel like they could have done better.
- Karofsky looks at least thirty. His age isn't on his IMDb page. What are you trying to hide, Max Adler? The fact that you graduated from high school like 12 years ago, but are still trying to pass as a teenager? -6
- I always enjoy when Kurt sings show tunes (except for that awful one from Evita they did a few months ago.) and with his Eve Harrington reference, I totally buy him as Norma Desmond, but must the production be SO LITERAL? When someone is singing about painted trees and scenery, he's on stage with said scenery, then the makeup chair? F minus on creativity. -17
- I love flash mobs, but this one made me a little angry. First, it made me think of their last flash mob with Artie dancing, and it made me think, we need to have more dream sequences of him dancing. You show Finn and Sam dancing all the time and they are AWFUL, but you have a very solid dancer in Artie and you have him in a wheel chair? If you're going to keep him in the wheelchair all of the time, you should have cast a kid who is actually in a wheelchair. And Second, if these kids are so good at getting the community to help them out and learning a dance for a "barbra-vention" (worst name ever) they certainly could have gotten people to come to their concert last week. Continuity. -45
- I'm still really conflicted about Lauren's character. She has the deluded self-image of Samantha Jones, but no career, super hot body (post fifty at that), or Birkin to show for it. Then she calls Quinn a fraud for losing weight and using Proactive (product placement, a bit much)? As if Quinn being depressed by excess weight, acne and a lack of friends is unheard of or unacceptable.  -30
-Finn telling Quinn that her 8th great picture is the first picture where he can "actually see" his girlfriend? What?!? -40
- To continue on with outside cultural references. Puck is turning/has turned in to Julie Cooper. He started out villainous and is now a very funny and well-meaning guy? This makes me totally happy in that Puck is great. BUT, Fox canceled The OC after the villain went funny. And now with Karofsky? If Sue ever starts to turn the show needs to be canceled immediately. No points, but tread carefully.

-143

And now the T-shirts:
Emma gave the t-shirt assignment by stipulating that the t-shirt should read what you're "most ashamed of, and would like to change, but you can't because you were born that way, which is super terrific." "You were born this way, hooray!"

-Lebanese +13
-I'm with Stoopid [up arrow] +25
-Butt Chin -18 (any thing that makes you resemble - even a little bit - Cary Grant cannot be a bad thing.)
-Likes boys -60 (Ever since Kurt came out to Mercedes and his dad, he's been spouting how proud he was to be himself. Why would he put that on a t-shirt saying he's ashamed and would like to change it? He's embraced it.)
-I'm with Stupid [down arrow] +50
-Four eyes, Nose, Brown eyes, Can't dance, Can't Sing +20  (Artie, Rachel, Tina, Finn and Mike were the kids who actually did what was assigned.)
- No weave (Mercedes' shirt confused me. She's ashamed she wasn't born with a weave? Or she's saying this is my real hair? I don't think I understand.)
-Trouty Mouth -5 (Love the reference, but Sam is so cute sans James Van der Beek's first season of Dawson's Creek hair.)
- Lucy Caboosey -28 (she changed what she didn't like. That's not the point of the t-shirt.)
- Bad Attitude -15 (she could change that if she wanted to.)

+108/-126

So with a grand total of +69, I'd say that the episode was more enjoyable than not. 90 minutes suits you, Glee. Shoot, you were even able to squeeze in all 7 verses of that Sunset Blvd. song.

GleeCap: Night of Neglect

Glee is back, and because of the overwhelmingly positive feedback to the previous Glee recap, or GleeCap, so is my snarky commentary.

As great as the mental image of Mercedes being "carried the hell in" in an egg:

- Sandy Ryerson - the actor Stephen Toblowsky played "Needlenose Ned" Ryerson in the perennial classic "Groundhog Day," I just figured this out. Way to go writers, being all sneaky with your clever - was described as a "notorious friend of Dorothy," and then described himself as a "predatory gay". +50
- The "Brainiacs" included Brittany! +12 
- "Cat diseases" was a category of questions! +15
- Brittany knowing the answers to all of the cat diseases questions +30
- That Brainiac hand signal - SO GOOD! + another 50. This was really the best part of the episode.
- The "League of Doom" with, "Sergeant Handsome, Honey Badger, The Pink Dagger, and General Zod". +25 (although the General Zod reference alone is worth 20.)
- Cheyenne Jackson saying, "Let me cut to the sexy chase" +6
- Cheyenne Jackson saying, "This hairline is 85% my own." +10
- Cheyenne Jackson saying, "I'm handsome, I'm good looking, I'm easy on the eyes, also I'm gorgeous." +15
- The diva list: Aretha, Mariah, J.Lo, and Mercedes. One of these things is not like the other...and I'm not talking about Mercedes.  +3
-Artie saying that Sunshine with her size she could have "stayed in the air ducts for days" with a level of earnestness that can only be compared to Will or Finn. +2
-GP 's earrings during her Adele song +3
-When GP told the heckling club that she had given Debbie Gibson Alopecia, I just about giggled my face off. But then I thought, I bet it was Debbie Gibson's perfume, Electric Youth, that made her lose all of her hair. so, it's a wash.
- Jewfro kid has a vanity plate reading, "JEWFRO" +10
- When the full orchestra showed up to back up GP, I thought, "teenagers? on glee? there's a first time for everything." +8
- Sandy Ryerson running away, holding out his coat like a cape. +18 And then laundering his drug money though the Brainiac's field trip. +1 more.
-Puck's reaction to Mercedes' singing. +5
-Sue zingers: To Sandy, "How do you manage to enter a building with out setting off all of the fire alarms." on her evening activities, "I'm usually out bow hunting for hobos." and about Holly, "She's looser than a thrift store turtleneck and probably just as diseased." +35

+298 Not too shabby.


More anti-climactic than Gwyneth Paltrow's return:

- 5,000 x .25 = 20,000  It's a good thing Mr. Schuester teaches Spanish and not math. Yikes.-10
- I cannot say I've watched too many episodes of Glee more than once, but I'm pretty sure that Sandy Ryerson, because of the sexual harassment and the pot selling isn't allowed on school property. Am I wrong? Continuity -5
- While I am totally a fan of GP dressing up like Wallis Simpson, I am confused that she is teaching about Catherine the Great the next day. What kind of class is it that she is teaching about an American socialite/hermaphrodite Nazi sympathizer one day and a Russian empress from the 18th Century the next? -10
- Sue handing out beepers to her league of doom. What is this, 1996? -5
- Cheyenne Jackson is on yet another episode and he doesn't sing? You'd better have plans to remedy this, Glee writers.-5
- A Night of Neglect - WHAT? -23
- I am not only willing to believe, but embrace, the bedazzled microphone situation at Rachel's house, but at school? And more than one? And a bedazzled mic stand? Did the set designer find a great deal on rhinestones? -18
- Mike Chang is a TERRIFIC dancer, a dancer that I really can't criticize... at all. But I will request that he NEVER dance to Jack Johnson again. -6
- Emma never slept with her husband John Stamos? PUH-LEASE! -45
- I've long suspected, but now it is being validated very regularly, that no one writing the show has ever been involved with any sort of choir. This episode's glaring proof of this comes from the complete lack of audience members. There is no way that a concert could happen and most parents wouldn't come to see it. Finn's mom and Kurt's dad (aka the best dad on TV) - they should have been there, along with Quinn's mom. Mercedes' parents should have been there, if her whole church choir can come and back her up, her parent's could have been there. (fact: I just want to see her parents.) -100
-Along the same lines, glaring proof comes in the form of concert structure. Two numbers, an intermission and then two more numbers and that's it? At least PRETEND that the rest of the glee clubbers are performing something, have them dress up. And, they wouldn't be in the choir room the whole time, you watch the show from the wings. -50
- During the rest of the show, where was the church choir? They could have taken a few of the seats. Or, perhaps they could have been warming up in the choir room.  -10
- Jewfro kid had a twitter "curly hair in cairo" that helped bring down Mubarak. I'm willing to suspend disbelief, but only so far. -17
- I also don't believe that Becky, Jewfro, and football player would all leave together. -6


-310

For a grand total of -12. Ouch Glee. Better luck next time.