I have to wonder after seeing this most recent episode of Glee if executive producers Ryan Murphy and Brad Falchuk are too busy with American Horror Story to pay any attention to their singing cash cow. “Pot O Gold” was written by Ali Adler who is new to the Glee team and the ex-girlfriend of Sarah Gilbert and it was a big mess.
The dilemma this week, as with most weeks, is that Sue is still on her tired and at this point ridiculous campaign to cut funding for the arts in school all because she hates Will Schuster’s hair. Some weeks Sue is funny but this was not one of those weeks. Each season she seems to evolve just a little only to be reset back to default settings. I really thought we had broken through a wall with the death of her sister and her seemingly genuine appreciation for what the New Directions did for her, but that is all gone and I am getting bored with her fast.
Also boring but in a different way is the manic schizophrenic bi-polar-esque breakdown of Quinn Fabray. She started out this year as a pink haired skank channeling Betty Rizzo and now she’s back to wearing sweaters and pretending to want to sing while she plots the reacquisition of the baby she gave up for adoption back in season one. Quinn has acknowledged since day one that she doesn’t believe there is any future for her outside of Lima, Ohio but I don’t understand why she wants the baby back so badly and so suddenly. For someone so down on herself she seems strangely confident that she’d be an amazing mother despite having no discernable income to speak of and the only prospects for a man to help out being Puck who only wants to clean pools and doesn’t seem all that into her anyway. But she’s only 17 and teens are stupid! Maybe so, but I don’t buy it. Further adding to this mess is her plan to have Shelby declared unfit. Puck quickly realizes this plan is cray cray and sabotages the plot before it gets out of hand. Oh and he spent half the episode with his shirt off so YAY PUCK!
Speaking of cray cray, Brittany took her special blend of nutty to a whole new level this by believing her new live-in exchange student Roy Flanagan is a leprechaun. I feel bad for Damian McGinty that his introduction to the show after winning The Glee Project was so silly and contrived. The gag was old before the first commercial break and they drug it out for the entire hour! He did get two good songs in though, and the boy can sing. The good news though is that Brittany and Santana are officially dating and I think “officially” means “secretly” in this case. And Santana uses her power over Brittany to lure her into joining Shelby’s all girl show choir The Troubletones. With New Directions splintered Roy gets his chance to shine despite being shoved around the halls of McKinley by jocks with inexplicably epic mullets.
With so little to like about this episode I must give mad props to Burt Hummel. His decision (with some prodding from Will) to run for Congress against Sue was the one plot development to come out of this week that I really enjoyed. I have a good feeling he’ll win which will open up the door for the Hummel’s to leave the show when Kurt graduates at the end of this year. The seed was planted for Finn to take over running the auto shop should Burt head off to Washington which gives Finn a future to grab onto that doesn’t involve going to New York and the basis for some friction with Rachel. Sue in Congress just doesn’t make sense and suffering a landslide defeat to Burt would send her spiraling into another level of madness that could actually be funny.
Now what about the music? Roy’s “Being Green” was a bit sappy for my taste and seemed a little forced, but I’ll cut the kid some slack since he’s new. He really showed his range on “Take Care Of Yourself” even if the song was a bit weird. Blaine’s “Last Friday Night” was fun but crammed into the plot with a shoehorn. I did enjoy Puck’s “Waiting For A Girl Like You” but it wasn’t clear if he was singing to Beth or to Shelby. It could be both I guess. The highlight of the hour was “Candyman” by The Troubletones. Brittany, Santana and Mercedes together are a force of nature and that is just a great song.
Glee returns next week with lots of sex and more boys kissing!
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