Glee - Furt recap/review

This week on The Kurt Show, Burt Hummel proposed to Carole, and a delighted Kurt got set on the wedding plans. He enlisted New Directions to serve as the band (and the bridesmaids and groomsmen). Shortly after the news was announced, Karofsky walked up to Kurt and took the little bride-and-groom figurine Kurt had. After missing weeks of threats, pushing, slushie-ing, and kissing, the sharp eyes of Will landed on this scene and Will thought, “Uh oh. Bullying.” He took Will to Sue’s office to report it, but Sue couldn’t do anything, because there wasn’t proof of actual violence.

Rachel, in one of her best moments, enlisted the guys on the football team to confront Karofsky and protect Kurt. Sadly, Finn didn’t step up and the others failed, with Sam getting pretty pummeled. Then Burt found out about the situation and sat down with Sue, Karofsky, and Karofsky’s dad, who seemed pretty reasonable and mature by the way he was polite to Sue even after she expelled Karofsky. The evidence this time? Karofsky admitted that he had threatened to kill Kurt. The school board let Karofsky come back, so Burt and Carole spent their honeymoon money on paying for Kurt to transfer to Dalton Academy. The glee club, especially Finn and Mercedes, were really sad and threatened to protect him, but Kurt was over the school’s tolerance of bullying. We like seeing this bullying arc come to a head, and Kurt’s transfer promises more Darren Criss sightings, but has anyone else had enough of Kurt? Sue stood up for Kurt, because decent bullies don’t push around gays. They only call names, take down New Directions, and target fatties, of course. Kurt pointed out that Sue was a bully for calling him “Lady.” In one of the best Sue lines of the season, she said, “I’m sorry. I thought that was your name. [To make up for it] I will allow you to pick between three nicknames: Gelfling, Porcelain, or Tickle Me Dough Face.” Kurt picked Porcelain. He would. We would have picked TMDF. It was sad that Kurt had to leave after the glee club, Will, his dad, and even Sue were on his side. Now that he had all that support, that was the best time to stick it out. But there’s more drama this way.

In Sue’s corner, Rod Remington announced that he was engaged to the co-anchor he cheated on Sue with. To celebrate her own life and success, Sue decided to get married too. To herself. She also decided to officiate the ceremony after getting an ordination on the internet. She invited her Nazi-hunting mother (Carol Burnett) and the two sang “Ohio” together, fought, and the mother left. Sue is now married to herself. Our favorite part was when Sue said, “You may now kiss yourself,” and started kissing her own hand. This plot was ridiculous and weird, but Sue is always funny, so it was one of the better plots of the episode for us. It also had Carol Burnett, who was excellent, but underused. If they had only given her at least HALF the screen time they gave Gwyneth Paltrow, that would have been nice. We hope there is an episode mending her relationship with Sue and Sue’s sister, because we think she should come back.

Finn lamented over his lack of leadership abilities and the chicken way he didn’t stand up for Kurt. To make up for it, Finn gave a sappy speech about how he and Kurt are “Furt” now, rather than giving a speech about Burt and Carole. The wedding was long and cheesy. And no one seemed to know who the wedding was about. Much like this show, the wedding was all about Kurt. The parents even gave mostly long speeches about their kids during their vows. We know you are supposed to put the kids first, but it made no sense. Bad timing. Have the speeches to each other "backstage" before the wedding. Songs performed included Bruno Mars’s “Marry You,” which the Glee club skipped down the aisle to, an English version of "Quien sera?" (that they called “Sway”), and “Just the Way You Are,” performed by mostly Finn for Kurt. Finn and Kurt danced together during that song. We can hear the gays screaming, “THAT WAS SOOOO IMPORTANT. WOW. BIG STEP FOR US ON NETWORK TELEVISION” from here, but we just thought it was lame. Some things in this vein are touching and some things in this vein are just stupid.

In other subplots, Sam and Quinn are official boyfriend and girlfriend, even though he gave her a promise ring. If any guy gives one of us a promise ring, we would vomit, even if the guy were as hot and nerdtastic as Sam. Also, apparently when Brittany and Artie fool around, sometimes he just lies there. We love you, Brittany.

This episode didn’t make a lot of sense to us. There were cheesy, unrealistic speeches, ridiculous character reactions, and abrupt happenings. It just didn’t flow for us. And don’t get us wrong, we support equality, standing up to bullies, and letting people be who they are, but the Kurt-centric thing is getting old. We wish it were The Rachel Show again. We think that Glee should have split its gay bullying episodes over the season, rather than giving it to us all at once. And the cheesiness of this episode kind of negated the show's good moments on this subject.

Beating the dead horse also does more harm than good to the gay rights movement. We know anti-gay people, and some of them watch or will watch Glee. A lot of them are young men in high school. If you beat them over the head with the messages and make the show all about being gay, they are not going to listen. They are going to turn off the show. Yes, TV can do a lot to change minds and hearts, but it needs to do it in small doses, like on Grey’s Anatomy. Callie and Arizona had one big gay rights episode with Callie’s dad, and because it was just one time, the words spoken in that episode are stilling running around in our heads today. If you make the show all about gay rights, you will end up preaching to the choir and changing hardly anything. It may give gay teens support, true, but does it have to be every episode? And how much support does it give young gay men to have STEREOTYPICAL Kurt crying in every episode? Blaine is a better role model and example.

The Kurt focus and the guest stars and theme episodes are taking away from the other elements that made Glee popular. Glee hasn’t given Rachel nearly enough solos this season or plots. What, now that she has a boyfriend, her main story and angst are over? Come on. And we didn’t love the songs. Marry You was ok, Ohio was good if you like that kind of music, and Will sounded good singing Sway. While we enjoyed these three songs in the episode, they will not be gracing our iPods.

Episode grade: C-