Glee - The Spanish Teacher

Will gets a complaint from one of his students for the way he teaches Spanish - with sombreros, tacos, and renditions of “La Cucaracha.” He finds out later that it was Santana. She tells him, "This is my education and it's not a joke to me, although it seems like it is to you … Why don't you just dress up like the Taco Bell Chihuahua and bark the theme song to Dora the Explorer?” Word. The principal tells Will that a tenured teaching position has opened up, and if Will wants it, he should probably learn Spanish. Oh God. Will doesn’t speak Spanish and he’s a Spanish teacher? That is seriously messed up.

Will starts taking night classes from David Martinez, played by Ricky Martin. David is a former tooth model who likes to sing, so Will invites David to the Glee club. If his Glee kids are singing in Spanish by the week’s end, Will is sure to get tenure, right? Will announces that this week will be Latin-themed. David walks into the room. The girls and Artie swoon, and David launches into a half-Spanish rendition of LMFAO’s “Sexy and I Know It,” which is a funny song. This episode reached for the funny this week and hit the mark maybe twice.

Will has to defend his Spanish teacher honor by performing "A Little Less Conversation" dressed as “an authentic matador.” It makes us want to die. Ricky Martin knocks it out of the park with "La Isla Bonita", a duet with Santana. Unlike the other performances, this one wasn’t stereotypical and was by far the best of the week. A mash up of "Bamboleo" and "Hero" was performed by Sam and the Glee guys. It was ok. We didn’t get the shoes. Mercedes sang "Don’t Want to Lose You", because she is still torn between Sam and Shane. Girl, pick Sam already. He's adorable.

Will is mean to Emma about her pamphlets, but they end up becoming huge. Emma gets the tenure. Ha. In the end, Will realizes that the kids need a real Spanish teacher and that it was never his dream subject. He takes an opening in History and tells Figgins to hire David as the daytime Spanish teacher. David is so grateful. He starts talking about his immigrant parents’ history and the American dream. He actually gets to teach students during the day and not just racist jerks wanting to yell at their maids! Decades of civil rights movement stuff later, people in the entertainment world still write stories where minorities need whitey to lift them up. Usually, we don’t find this offensive, because it’s still about people helping other people, but in this episode it was so blatant.

The ridiculous subplot of the week was Sue deciding to have a baby with improperly frozen eggs she has saved up. She is looking for a sperm donor and goes right to the high school children. She also wants Will to contribute, because she wants a positive child with plentiful hair. Um. Ok. Upon hearing the news that Sue intended to have a baby, Santana and Nene Leakes asked, “With whose vagina?” Out of nowhere, Becky betrays Sue, but they make up and Sue takes it well. Not good.

Kurt had words with Finn about how Finn only asked Rachel to marry him because he was giving up. We liked everything Kurt had to say. Maybe Finn ISN’T talented enough to make it in show business (but, hey, Cory Monteith is, so who knows?), but he is still only 18 and shouldn’t give up. Who finds their niche in life before 18? Hopefully Finn and Rachel mutually decide to break off the engagement. We thought it was realistic and slightly funny that Mercedes, Rachel, and Kurt were watching Twilight together, and we liked Kurt’s line about getting their period.

This show forgot why its remaining fans are still watching. We are Broadway/music enthusiasts looking for big Rachel numbers, good dancing, hits made better, and singing. We are not looking for sweet moments between Will and Emma anymore. We are not looking for the adults on the show to succeed or better their lives. It’s too late for that, Glee. You have ruined every single character on this show, except for maybe Santana, so just give us our one-liners and songs and call it a day. Weeks that focus on this show’s adults are always going to be weird, because these people are not real adults. And yeah, we thought this episode was weird. 

Ricky Martin was the bright spot in this episode. He was charming and loveable. It was nice to hear some Spanish, but aren’t there BETTER Spanish songs? We assure you, there are. That was a missed opportunity to give some great Spanish showstoppers, rather than just throw around stereotypes and then condemn them. On that note, Glee always has its cake and eats it too with politically correct morality. The show mocks, bullies, and perpetuates stereotypes all day long, but it’s ok, because at the end of the show, a character says this is wrong. But the show invites us to laugh at the name-calling, costumes, and jabs. This has to be the most hypocritical show of all time. We guess because Ryan Murphy is gay, he can get away with this. We’re not PC, so we are not offended. It’s just an eye-roller of a contradiction.

This episode made us hate Will more than ever. Just as regular commenter, CurvyGirl hates Finn, we hate Will Schuster. Will Schuster is our Finn. We hate him much more than Artie. We just wish Artie would stop singing and rapping. It seems like this show has a pattern: Around two good episodes and then one really bad one. Maybe that means next week will be good? Nene was funny. But this show needs to give us what we want and stop being crazy.

Episode grade: C