Television proms are nothing like real proms, at least not the proms I attended back in the 1980s. Don’t judge me. The 80s were AWESOME! Glee isn’t set in the 80s unfortunately. Prom at McKinley High has been historically dramatic. At last year’s junior prom we had Karofsky crowned prom king with Kurt as his queen. Finn punched Jesse St. James and Quinn slapped Rachel. Senior prom was considerably less violent but no less dramatic. “Prom-asaurus” was a nice break from the heavy handed social-issue of the week stuff they’ve been hammering down our throats lately. The music was good, the mood was light (mostly) and it showed us how these characters have grown over the years, some more than others.
Sexy teen trollup Brittany (Heather Morris), in perhaps her only act as class president, took over the prom committee from the terror cell running it and declared the theme to be dinosaurs which included paper mache velociraptors, Sue’s prombrosia and cheetah-print Flintstone outfits. Oh and there was the ban on hair gel that really really upset Blaine (Darren Criss). Rachel (Lea Michele) wasn’t too keen on the idea either. Depressed over her epic failure at the Nyada audition and jealous over Finn (Cory Monteith) and Quinn (Dianna Agron) campaigning for king and queen she opts to hold an ANTI-PROM for the lonely and disenfranchised. Santana (Naya Rivera) hated this idea and told Rachel so as only Santana can.
Finn, being the eternal good guy, is torn between loving Rachel and wanting to support Quinn who is counting on the sympathy vote to win queen as her final crowning achievement. What nobody knows is that her therapy is going well and she can actually walk again. When he discovers this he gets angry and causes another scene on the dance floor that gets him ejected and sends him back to Rachel where he should have been all along.
Meanwhile Rachel’s anti-prom is pretty lame. Kurt and Blaine are bored and obviously want to go to prom despite their fear of reliving last year’s humiliation. When Finn shows up he convinces the group to come back with him which means Blaine loses the hair gel and debuts his natural fro to the world. Still cute! Puck and Becky stay behind and after Becky kicks his ass at strip poker he makes her a cardboard crown and they make a grand entrance at the prom. It was very sweet and any excuse to get Puck (Mark Salling) in his underwear gets thumbs up from me.
I mentioned growth before and nowhere was it more evident than in the announcement of prom queen. McKinley’s top mean girls Santana and Quinn were tasked with counting the votes and in a surprise move they tossed the ballots and gave the crown to Rachel Berry. I really enjoyed their discussion about how awesome their high school years had been and how they had one last chance to really make a difference. Bravo Glee for taking the high road.
The final moments of the episode really captured what those final few weeks of high school are like for seniors. Tina’s tearful admission that she really doesn’t want it to end was sweet. I remember feeling much the same way, only with fewer tears and less singing.
Speaking of singing, the music this week was all over the place stylistically but overall pretty good. Rachel, Kurt and Blaine’s performance of Fergie’s “Big Girls Don’t Cry” was almost perfect. It wasn’t the right song for Kurt’s range but I thought but he did a good job. Brittany’s “Dinosaur” was odd and quirky and fun but nothing I want to hear ever again. Santana tore up “Love You Like a Love Song” and the guys made the ladies swoon with “What Makes You Beautiful“. The hour rounded out with Quinn and Santana belting out “Take My Breath Away” where Quinn stood up for the first time in front of her friends. Mercedes said it best. PRAISE!
Like I said before, TV proms are not like real proms but that is okay. If Glee had modeled this episode after my prom experience then Kurt would have gone to prom with Mercedes, stayed for half an hour, met up with the rest of Glee club at The Waffle House for a late dinner and then ended up bowling. I had fun but I doubt the tv viewing public would agree.
Next week is Nationals and oh what a feeling it will be. Check out the preview below.
































