Glee - "The Purple Piano Project"

Season 3, Episode 1

A frustrating, worrisome mixed bag

“This is our future. Face it, not everybody’s dreams come true.”

-Rachel

I’ve have never really been interested in the cult of Glee. As polarizing and vocal as a person as Ryan Murphy might be, I’ve always believed that it’s best to discuss Glee on its own terms. It’s not that I don’t appreciate the metatextuality of shows; if I didn’t, I probably wouldn’t write about Community. But the difference between Community and Glee is that while the meta elements of the former are entirely intentional, those of latter tend to happen by coincidence. And in my opinion, when we discuss those meta-textual elements, it seems that we not only to bump the show up to a creative level that it’s not even close to, but it also seems to place the focus outside of the television show itself, and doing that robs the show of any culpability towards its quality.

And yet, I believe we are the point where I can ignore the meta nature no longer. We have just lived through the “Summer of Glee”, but let’s not call it that. Between all the spats with recording artists, rumors about casting changes, and the I-still-don’t-know-who-thought-this-was-a-good-idea The Glee Project, Glee received a lot more attention than it had in perhaps any other time frame. The upshot of this was that for the first time since I started watching the show, I couldn’t separate the show from the man responsible for it – something that I’ve been able to do in the past.

That that connection was inseparable from tonight’s proceeding both speaks to this phenomenon and to the trouble in which Glee finds itself. It’s not just that people are aware more than ever of Murphy’s approach to the show. It’s that there are so many other things swirling around about how this new season is going to play out – the addition of six new writers, the lessening of songs and guest starts, the highly publicized cast changes – that it’s not unreasonable to fear that Glee might become even more schizophrenic than it already is.

And yet tonight’s premiere was surprisingly familiar, to the point where I’m not even sure if all of those behind the scenes changes are going to make any difference. Much like in the season two opener, “The Purple Piano Project” (alliteration, so you know the show is reaching) started off with a Jacob-led news-style montage that allowed the show to rewrite a whole bunch of continuity while engaging in a large deal of not-so-subtle in-jokes. It was terrible and forced, and a poor omen of the writers’ creativity that they couldn’t come up with something a least new, if not better.

But let’s talk about all those new stories we were subjected to. Finn and Rachel want to go to college in New York together. Finn is suddenly really worried about his life plan. Kurt has convinced Blaine to join him at McKinley. Emma and Will are living together, and may or may not being having sex. Zizes and Sam are both out of the picture. Mercedes is dating a football player. Quinn has joined The Skanks, who are their own clique apparently. Santana and Brittany are back on Cheerios. And Sue who is running for a Senate seat, and plans on running on a promise to cut fine arts funding.

Did I get all that right? It’s hard to tell mostly because A) I don’t really remember how last season ended and B) Glee is a show that so often presses hard resets on ongoing plots, or introduced new plots randomly, that it’s usually hard to keep track of them in the first place. But there’s something about how all of these plots were rolled out at the top of the hour that makes me feel as if something different might be at play here. Granted, I wasn’t in the writers room when they started breaking down the season, but I get the sense as if the plots are a little more long-term than they were in the past. Kurt and Rachel’s dreams, Kurt’s plan to run for class president, Finn’s lack of a life plan, Quinn’s own search for self-identity, and Sue’s run for office all seem as if they have a bit more longevity to them than previous plots. I’m not saying their all good, or that they all will last, but if the show is at least trying to shake things up a bit, I can get behind that.

But that doesn’t mean that this episode was any good; in fact, for a season premiere, given all the time the show had to put this episode together, it was rather disappointing. For starters, certain plots – the club’s need to get more members, their general lack of respect from the rest of the school, Sanatana attempting to sabotage the club – are all direct rehashes of things that we have seen before that it’s also not hard to believe that the writers rooms hasn’t come up with anything new after all. It’s this imbalance in storytelling that has me really worried that the show might split in two, where one half features all the characters we love doing exciting things, and the other has characters just doing the same old shit over and over.

The rest of the plotlines seem to fall squarely in the meta category. Sue’s run for office, and specifically her platform of no fine arts funding, isn’t just problematic for the return of her cartoon villainy, but also for what it represents. Glee likes to position itself as some kind of savior for the fine arts, what with all the glee club fever it’s apparently spawned just by being on TV. But now the show has gone to patting its own self on the back, as it’s clearly casting Sue as those evil forces hell-bent on taking away fine arts education, and Will as, uh, the show, I guess, bravely standing up to stop said forces. Not only is this prolonged parable head-ache inducing for its overly reflexive symbolism, it also involved forced cultural references (glitterbombs!), and the complete abandonment of ever pretending like Sue is an actual person ever again.

The other bit of meta-ness involved the introduction of The Glee Project Runner-up Lindsay Pearce as Harmony (thanks, internet), in a part that really only matters because of who’s playing it. The fact that she was only around to say a few lines and be forced awkwardly in the spotlight for a few minutes may lessen the impact, but it doesn’t change the fact that the show is clearly forming the narrative around the show’s revenue inducing offshoots, something that doesn’t bode well for future episodes. And that’s right, she’s only a runner-up. We have quite a long while to go as we have another runner-up guest spot to sit through, as well as two “winner” seven-episode-long arcs. Man, it’s going to be a rough ride.

Quotes and Other Thoughts

So about that whole “we’ll do less songs” thing: I actually thought this episode was going to go trough with it, seeing as how the episode was a third of the way over before the first song rolled around. But the show manages to cram in five more before the show was done. And here I thought they were trying to recommit to the stories. *Sigh*

This episode wasn’t even written by the new writers; it was penned by Brad Falchuk. I’m scared to see with what a newbie might come up with.

Also factoring into how the show does this season: Murphy and Falchuk have been working on American Horror Story concurrently with this show. And you thought these guys were sloppy when they were fully engaged with just this show.

“Why is that T-Rex eating that Jew?”

“Don’t be sad. We’ll always have Subway.”

“Yay! Yay college!”

Sheila prefers The Bangles to The Go-Gos.

“I have pepperoni in my bra.” “Those are your nipples.”

“Becky, I need the two of you to escort me to my hypobaric chamber, as I have glitter in my eyes.”