Glee: "New York"

Season 2, Episode 22

Those New York lights are quite distracting

“I made it”

-Rachel

Imagine if Glee wasn’t quite the hit that it has become, if it didn’t have all the money that it earns from ad revenues, and record sales, and at of the all. (I realize that there is probably no in between ground for this show, that it was pretty much destined to either fail or succeed spectacularly, but just go with me here.) In this alternate universe, the show wouldn’t have been able to fly the cast out and shoot scene in New York, and the focus of this episode would have swung around to the competition itself, and perhaps would had the impact that was intended.

I always knew that New Directions wouldn’t win at Nationals. Glee is a show that likes to go bigger whenever it gets the chance, so it makes sense that the show would use this opportunity to lose Nationals now so they can come back and win it at the end of next season. (This would actually match up with most of these kids graduating, which is the type of dramatic cheese in which this show revels.) And you know, I’m okay with that fact, mostly because I recognized that the show was trying to use this moment to show how this group has grown into a family, and how this means they can accept any loss as long as they have each other. Notice I use the word “trying” because most of these thoughts were saved for the final seven or so minutes, and even more specifically, Brittany’s monologue, which meant that I all came spilling out at once, and it didn’t have a chance to make as big as of an impact as it could have.

And this is what I mean when I say that the New York setting was “distracting”. This episode seemed so busy name checking all of these NYC hotspots that it didn’t leave all that much room for plot, at least not in first half of the episode. Of course, some of this name checking was meant to play into the club’s attempts to write their original songs, and Finn’s attempt to woo Rachel a second time, but still often felt as if the setting was tangential to the plot, as if the show was only including all of this because it could, without thinking if it added anything to the story.

Nor was the back half of the episode that much better. Since the first half of the episode was spent telling us lowly, non-New York visiting urchins what an awesome city it is, the part of the episode that dealt with nationals had to be sped up, especially in order to make room for four more songs. And much like the other two competitions the glee club has competed in this season, I didn’t really feel as if the group placed that much weight on the competition. Admittedly there was more talk off winning here than there was for either Sectionals or Regionals, but the story was still short shifted by the time allotted, and didn’t help that it only really felt as if New Directions was going up against Vocal Adrenaline, and not 48 other show choirs. And so when it was revealed that McKinley had lost, I didn’t really feel care one way or the other, and given how the real focus was about the family nature of New Directions, I’m not sure if the show did either.

Yet despite the drawback that I felt the New York setting had on the episode, I don’t want to say that I hated it. (Though at this point, all of my reviews for this show are done on an adjusted scale, so I’m not sure that that means much.) For once, the episode gave us the appropriate amount of plotlines to juggle, so it didn’t seem so crowded, as the episode was effectively divided into the Rachel and Finn romance, Will’s attempt at Broadway, and the attempts of the rest of the glee club to write two more original songs. The songwriting aspect was thankfully kept to just a few scenes, and Will’s plotline ended up right where we expected it to (effectively making it just as big of a waste as it’s been over the past few episodes), which essentially meant that the episode focused almost entirely on the Rachel/Finn relationship and the aftermath that it caused.

Now, I like this idea of Glee having only one major storyline per episode, one that doesn’t have to fight off five others for the spotlight. And for most of its running time, I found this plot to be rather charming, even if a) it was essentially a rehash of what we’ve seen before and b) it was slightly erratic in its plotting. (And the less we say about the Jess and Quinn asides, the better.) Now, the fact that the two of them did get together at the end was a bit perfunctory to be sure, but what I really liked is this idea of Rachel being torn between love and what she believes to be her destiny. It’s a trite plot to be sure, and Rachel herself was a bit annoying with all of this, but I think it taps into to what could be an interesting idea for season three. Back when the show started, it was very concerned with the idea of Lima as this backwards town, and it would often touch on the idea of whether these kids could actually had enough talent to make it big outside of this small town. But this was dropped sometime this season, mostly as the musical numbers kept getting fancier and the characters became more and more self-involved, so I would like it if this would become a recurring theme next season. (This of course is just another hypothetical version of Glee, as the show doesn’t have a big enough handle on continuity to handle themes, but just let me have this.)

And I have to wonder how the next season will play out, given all the reveals that the show plugged into those last seven minutes. Kurt and Blaine are now in love (too soon?). Sam and Mercedes are now dating (because the show needed to give Amber Riley something to do). And then there’s that idea of family (which given how shoehorned it felt here, is further proof that the show can do themes well). Which of these ideas will actually stick around, and which of these will quickly dissolve into nothingness once the show gets bored? Well, based on what we know, the show can’t really handle something as long term as themes, and relationships are never long for that world. Yet apparently the show is bringing in new writers for next season, something that will either improve or sink the show, so at this point, everything seems up in the air as far as next season goes. And for a show like Glee, that seems fitting.

Quotes, Etc.:

I’m not saying I missed it, since I didn’t notice it’s absence until like 20 minutes through the episode, but it was a bit weird that there was no “previously on” segment.

Even if it was in the background, I can help but wonder if that shot of the girls having a pillow fight was fan service for the show’s straight male audience.

“He did seem crazy. Charged my credit card by swiping it through his butt crack.”

“And by ‘Broadway blogosphere,’ I mean the one blog that actually cares about Broadway.”