Season 3, Episodes 5 & 6
You know, it’s funny. Given the dust up that the PTC made
last week concerning the perceived immorality of “The First Time”, I’m
surprised that there wasn’t similar controversy over tonight’s episode, given
that it upped the age-inappropriate relationship angle in a big way. Now, there
are most certainly reasons for this – PTC probably wasn’t made aware of the
plot, and, as the episode took pains to remind us, Puck is 18 – but it’s still ironic that this episode that was much more
sexually suggestive that last week’s. In fact, it would be a good Idea to
compare “The First Time” and “Mash-Off”, not just because I didn’t post a
review last week, but also because the two are of opposing levels of quality,
and that says a lot about where the show is now.
For starters: “The First Time” wasn’t a perfect episode
of Glee (because really, there’s no such thing), but it was still pretty
fantastic, and it’s perhaps among the series’ best episodes. The key to that
episode’s success was two-fold. First was that the show was able to pull off a
theme that didn’t feel shoehorned it, and having it apply to and connect all
the parts of the episode.
But second, and more importantly, was the fact that the
sex scenes in the episode were actually pretty tame. I say this not as some
sort of prude, but to point out that Glee
is often a show that goes over the top with its subjects, when, as “First Time”
proved, the best episodes that keep things subtle. Whereas in past episodes
(specifically “The Power of Madonna” and “Blame in on the Alcohol”) teen sex
was seen as an outrageous act that required equally wild act from the teenagers
involved, last week’s episode played it pretty tame. And while playing it tame
here – that is, by framing these two hookups on the basis of love instead of
lust. I’m not sure what would compel Ryan Murphy to go such a traditional
route, but it made for a very sweet ending to close the episode off.
Additionally, and as stated above, I like how the episode
reached out to everyone, even beyond Finn/Rachel and Kurt/Blaine. Though I
still stand by my belief that the show is the strongest when it focuses on the
kids over the adults – and that is where most of the focus was placed last week
– but I also enjoyed that the show finally was able to produce a Beastie
storyline that wasn’t insulting to her. (That being said, why wasn’t Emma roped
into Artie’s “everybody should get laid” plan?) And Beastie’s storyline, much like
Finn and Rachel’s, featured some nice subversion of gender stereotypes, in what
was yet another bit of subtly from a show that doesn’t generally do anything that’s
not overt.
Of course, there were some things that worked outside of
theme – specifically, the students were able to put on their production of West
Side Story, and Puck fell in love with Shelby – and while these were more of a
mixed bag – I enjoyed seeing this show’s version of “America”, but Puck’s
storyline went from sweet to stupid real quick – but at least they played off
on established storylines.
And perhaps that’s why “Mash-Off” sticks out like a sore
thumb; not because it was the worst episode in the show’s run, but because it
was both a poorly structured episode, it introduced a lot of new
stupid/unmotivated plot points, and those plots that were recurring were
already unmotivated to begin with.
Perhaps, for the sake of argument, I should start with
the plot that opened last night’s episode, that of Puck being in love with
Shelby. Again, it’s stupid, but that wasn’t its only crime here tonight. It also
led to a really weird musical number – I mean, I like the song “Hot For Teacher”,
and I think it was performed well, but don’t for a second expect me to believe
that Will was okay with all those sexually suggestive moves Mike and Blaine
pulled – and for whatever reason, it also required Mark Salling to go so far
into “Dad mode” that he just stopped behaving like Puck entirely. But the worst
aspect was that it brought back Evil Quinn, a storyline that still doesn’t make
sense, and only grows cartoonish with each passing episode.
And speaking of cartoonish….Sue. Much as with “Asian F”, “The
First Time” had absolutely no Sue, and I don’t think we can ignore this pattern
any longer. She is no longer a viable character, and her presence just ends up
dragging every episode down. Please don’t misunderstand me; I like Jane Lynch
and her performance, but it’s clear that the writers just don’t know what to
with her, and they stick her in storylines that increasingly have nothing to do
with McKinley High whatsoever.
Now, I’m not stupid as to not notice that there weren’t
some intentional parallels between Sue’s ridiculous campaign ads and the
student’s own smear campaigns for their runs for class president. But drawing
this parallel only matters if I care about the race, and I really don’t. At the
beginning, when it was Kurt vs. Rachel as each fought to get yet another
addition to their CV, it was mildly interesting watching these two friends turn
against each other, but by adding other students to the race, the show diluted
and lost that train of thought, to the point that it took me a while to
remember why Kurt was so mad at Rachel. And then from there the plot only got
stupider, and Kurt, who’s running on an understandable anti-bullying platform,
decided that he wants to do away with dodgeball, because The Magical Leprechaun
Rory got hurt while playing.
And frankly, I don’t know what worse, that Kurt adopted getting rid of dodgeball as his pet project, or the reason for the dodgeball game happened in the first place. While Santana has always been mean, particularly to Finn, the sudden solidifying of some sort of rivalry between the two of them feels like a strange move, especially when it probably would have made sense to do it earlier rather than later. And that this went from trash-talk to a dodgeball game doesn’t even make any sense – who actively plays the game these days? – and it only makes it seems as if the writers are so out of ideas, there just look to the show’s ad campaign for ideas.
But of course, the real purpose of this rivalry was so
that it could lead to the final five minutes or so, which was perhaps the only
good part of the episode, though that’s obviously a relative assessment. Now, because
I’m a little late to the party with this review, I’ve already seen that the
ending of the Santana/Finn storyline has gotten rave reviews, but I’m a little
more skeptical. Don’t get me wrong; Naya Rivera was great at selling the pain
that she was experiencing at being unwillingly outed, and Finn’s final confrontation
where he calls her out on her insecurities was both a great win for his
character and a significant turning point for hers. However, that bitchy slap
at the end, while a great representation of the further fracturing of the
group, was a bit too overboard of a reaction in my opinion, and I’m afraid the
show might get really soapy in the next few episodes.
And I also wonder whether this storyline would have been
served better had it been stuck in a better episode. Much like The Gay Bullying
Trilogy before it, this feels like another storyline manufactured because Ryan
Murphy wants the audience to keep thinking about gay issues, which, in and of
itself is an admirable goal, but doesn’t really do justice to the characters.
Secondly, do we all remember what happened last time when the issue of Santana’s
love for Brittany was brought up? Not a whole lot, actually. So what makes this
time any different?
Glee can and should reach for these emotional moments that speak to the emotional tribulations that today's teens face. In fact, I seem to recall that use to be one of the show's main goals. But, and this cannot be stated enough, they need to be given the time to breathe, to be given the proper nuance. "The First Time" showed us much, while "Mash-Off" just kind of threw such a storyline in at the minute, hoping it would stick.
In Two Week: Glee
reuses “I Kissed a Girl”, tries to make it deeper than it really is.
Quotes and Other
Thoughts:
Oh right, the titular Mash-Off – Two thoughts: One, I
find it unbelievable that the two glee clubs would go from mad at being on the
same stage to excited to be doing yet
another mash-up in the space of like three second. Two, Glee/Will, just because you’ve done
mash-ups “about this time” every year doesn’t mean you have to keep doing it.
Try for something a bit more original Glee/Will!
“Do I look like a freshman?” No, nobody in this show
does.
“As for the condom, never used ‘em. Worked for me 99% of
the time.”
“It was like being
smothered by a sweaty sack of potatoes covered in body spray.”
“Enjoy. It’s drag queen Wednesday.”
*******
“Winning is really about poo flingin’.”
“I’m not impressed by your campaign until I see posters.”
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