Glee: "Night of Neglect"

Season 2, Episode 17

The show returns with a messy, shoehorned vengeance

I think I am at the point where I don’t miss Glee when it’s gone. Though Glee has been off the air for five weeks, it wasn’t until about 3 weeks into the hiatus that I realized that I was feeling anything resembling a yearning for the show’s return. I was aware that I wasn’t watching it week to week, sure, but I didn’t particularly care. I don’t want to bring this up as proof that Glee has gone bad – even though I do think the show has gone bad, and I’m pretty sure that’s why I don’t miss it when it’s gone – but rather as the mindset under which I am writing this review, and under which you may want to read it. And maybe it was just all of the time I’ve had off from the show, but all of the shows flaws have seemed to return in full force tonight.

Tonight’s episode was supposedly about “neglect,” which might have been a good topic, if the show could realistically get away with it. In the beginnings of season one, before the glee club had won any competitions, and the group’s makeup was mostly outcasts, such a theme would have seemed realistic. But here, in the second season, with the glee club having won contests, and their reputation having been raised in the school, plus the fact that some of the glee kids still manage to be popular – not to mention the success of the show itself – I find it hard to buy into this idea that anybody is feeling neglected. (Christ, even Kurt found friends over at Tolerance Narnia.)

Nor am I totally sure that the show really even knows what “neglect” really means, given tonight’s song selection. Okay, granted I couldn’t recognize the songs that Tina and Holly sang tonight (and more on her later), but Jack Johnson? Aretha Franklin? Neither of those artists can be considered neglected from the public consciousness.

Yet despite all of this, the show kept trying to convince us that these people know rejection, most especially through Sue and her League of Doom. On some level, I don’t really know what to do with this, expect to once again bemoan Sue’s transformation into a cartoony version of pure hatred. Only this time, she brought Sandy down with her, as he took his own descent into cartoon villainy, only to quickly rebound into “good guy” status by hour’s end. (And the less we say about the return of Terry, the better.)

Yet even more troublesome are the steps that the show went through in order to make tonight’s events possible. For no reason whatsoever, the money the glee club did have (which I honestly don’t even remember them receiving) got funneled into some off-shore accounts (or something equally criminal), only to have the money needed all-too-easily donated by Sandy at the end of the episode. So if nothing really got accomplished, then what was this point, besides creating the circumstance for all of the singing? (Yes, I know that questions essentially ends up being rhetorical.)

Yet one aspect where the show does seem to dabble in rejection is the plotlines of its guest stars. (Okay, I know I’m reaching here, but if the show can shoehorn themes into its episodes, then I can shoehorn them into my reviews. It’s only fair.) Glee likes to pretend that introducing a story element in one episode, and then randomly returning to it weeks later counts as actual plot. Well, I tend to disagree, and I think the departure of two guest stars – John Stamos and Gwyneth Paltrow – helps to highlight my point. And no point during this episode was I sad that these characters were leaving, not only due to the fact that they have been nothing more than plot devices (and the off-hand manner in which Carl was written out of the show), but because they have never been around enough to really become real characters that we can care about. (That could also be said of some of the regular cast members, but that’s not my point. Let’s stay on topic.) Carl was always “hot dentist” and Holly was always “carefree, fun-loving teacher,” and they never evolved beyond these types. (And all of this is once again another example of the show shoehorning in random plot elements in order to move to their ADD-inspired place; this time, the show dumped this ancillary characters so that we could get back to the Will-Emma romance. Because that worked out so well the last time.)

Ironically enough, one of the characters who has often been “neglected” by the show – Mercedes – actually got some recognition tonight, though it frankly didn’t add up to much. I don’t want to give the show any sort of credit here – they obviously introduced this plot to save their asses from critics who keep pointing out how little Mercedes gets to/Amber Riley’s team of shark-lawyer hybrids. (Note: the last phrase of the proceeding statement was not meant to be factual.) I like the idea of the show making Mercedes’s character better – i.e. making her stronger, giving her more presence, making her less of a racial stereotype – but what they did here was only a superficial change. Mercedes just became more of a diva, more of a caricature. And by having all of her actions just be a reflection of her jealousy towards Rachel – who is a far more central character than she at this point – just takes away any sort of active role from Mercedes and places here on the sidelines once more.

I am about this close [makes appropriate gesture with thumb and forefinger] to giving up on this show.  

Supporters to the left of me, dissenters to the right. Or maybe I’ll just end up stuck in comments sections with you.

Additional Thoughts:

Have we seen Dustin Goulsby before? Because I’m pretty sure I would have remembered if Danny from 30 Rock was on this show.

“Tomorrow we’re going to do Catherine The Great and her pet horse Fred, so come early.” That’s just sooooooo wrong.

You don’t want to mess with Santana. She has razor blades hidden in her hair.

Sandy clearly doesn’t have a full grasp on what money laundering actually is.

Next week, Glee will run for 90 minutes. Insert snarky joke here. This episode has exhausted my supply.