Glee certainly didn’t hold back the melodrama and sentiment in this week’s “Funeral” episode. My sister and I were on the verge of weeping by the time the hour ended. And while I enjoy when Glee gets serious once in a while and turns on the waterworks it felt a bit heavy-handed and just a touch emotionally manipulative for this point in the season.
Mr. Schue (Matthew Morrison) is hell-bent on winning Nationals this year and hires self-proclaimed Show Choir Whisperer Jesse St James (Jonathan Groff) to whip New Directions into shape. Unfortunately Jesse’s idea of training is to shower Rachel (Lea Michele) with praise while belittling the rest of the group all in the name of tough love. His attempt to win back Rachel’s love is weird and smells a lot like sabotage to me. I don’t buy his sincerity for one minute. The only good thing, and by good I mean less annoying than before, is that Jesse’s pursuit of Rachel has inspired Frankenteen Finn (Cory Monteith) to make a decision about his lame and forced relationship with Quinn (Dianna Agron).
It is Jesse’s idea to hold auditions for the featured solo at Nationals, and in a nod to season one the old sign up sheet is posted in the hall. The usual suspects sign up; Rachel, Santana (Naya Rivera), Kurt (Chris Colfer) and Mercedes (Amber Riley). This led to an audition segment that knocked out all but one of the musical numbers in one swoop.
Kurt pulled another Broadway standard out of his checkered pants and performed “Some People” from Gypsy. Chris Colfer pulls these extravagant numbers off well but it was nothing new. I’d loved to have seen him do something unexpected. Santana channeled some Amy Winehouse with “Back to Black” and reminded us once again that she needs more solos. I needn’t point out that Mercedes totally killed with her vocal assault of “Try A Little Tenderness”. I’d be more surprised if Amber Riley sang poorly. Rounding out the bunch was Rachel’s tearstained rendition of Streisand’s “My Man” which had Kurt in tears.
In the midst of all this vocalizing we discover that Sue’s handicapped sister Jean passed away and Sue is dealing with it by not dealing with it. Instead she plots the deaths of New Directions by having Honey Badger divert their New York flight to Libya and kicking Becky off the Cheerios. The loss of her position of power at Sue’s side sends Becky to Mr. Schue for a spot on New Directions, but with Nationals looming he puts her off till next year. Poor Becky.
When Kurt and Finn find out that Sue isn’t planning her sister’s funeral he pulls rank on Jesse and volunteers the Glee club for the job. Despite their somewhat touchy history with Sue they all step up and give Jean a funeral worthy of a queen. Jane Lynch really earned her Emmy in this episode and probably deserves another. Sue had become a bit of a joke lately and this episode really brought her back to earth. Her grief was very real and for a moment I wondered if the actress who played Jean had actually passed away. There was no “In Memory Of” message over the closing credits so I can only hope that isn’t the case. Either way, heavy-handed or not the performance of “Pure Imagination” was pure magic. I have doubts that her truce with Mr. Schue will hold for next season but if it does, I can only hope that her venomous and lactating rage finds another outlet. What would Glee be without Sue’s quips?
Some relationship business was resolved this week as well, with Schue’s ex-wife Teri coming to the rescue and scoring first class tickets to New York for the Glee Club. She also announced she was moving to Miami so it looks like Honey Badger is out of the picture for a while. Inspired by Jean’s legacy and some business about tethering Finn dumped Quinn after the funeral and all she could think of to say was “silly Finn, we’ll win prom queen and king next year and all will be peach keen”. Whatever. That leaves Finn to dance around Rachel all he wants. Lastly, Emma (Jayma Mays) said her goodbyes to Will as she helped him pack for New York. He plans to star in April’s one woman show on Broadway over the summer and be back in the fall to teach Glee. We’ll see how that goes I guess.
If this dreary hour of television had aired at any other point in the season I think I would have better things to say about it, but I don’t think this was a wise choice for the last hour before the finale. The momentum for Nationals was lost completely and this felt more like an attempt to tie up loose ends instead of a natural progression of the story. Let’s hope the finale really delivers. Tune in next Tuesday to find out how the kids do in New York, and what Quinn’s big plan is for Finn. In the meantime I think I’ll watch Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory again.
R.I.P Jean. We loved you.
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You forgot the best vocals of the night My Man.
Oh crap I did didn’t I! Thanks!
Well the death of Jean had tears silently streaming down my face. Perhaps this event would have been better story timing if this was placed neatly elsewhere, but unfortunately death comes when it comes, Nationals or not.