Glee - Born This Way recap/review

During a Glee dance rehearsal, Finn breaks Rachel’s nose. Rachel’s doctor suggests that she get a nose job, because it might make her prettier and allow her to get more air down so that she can be a better singer. Is that possible? Because we’re pretty sure her voice can’t be improved. It’s one of the greatest things our ears have ever had the pleasure of being exposed to. On that note, more Rachel singing please, show. And another Rachel/Blaine duet is a must.

Rachel falls for it though and announces to the Glee club that she’s getting a nose job. Santana gives her take, which is that if you don’t like something about yourself you should change it. She also described what she thinks are the physical deficiencies of the rest of the Glee club. Our favorite line? “Maybe Rachel’s fine with having an enormous beak. Maybe she needs it to crack hard seeds.” Is this an anti-bullying show or a show that bullies for laughs and then hypocritically denounces it? We don’t care, because Santana is funny. And she’s keeping it real.

This shocks Will, and he points out that the things we like to change are the most interesting parts. He meets with Emma for ideas, and she utters the words “born this way,” so he thinks he needs to bring Gaga back to the show. Emma expresses discomfort with the term OCD, even though she is clearly OCD, and Will thinks she needs to accept it.

Santana, meanwhile, plots to become prom queen so that she could get Brittany to date her. She resolves to lock down the “jock block.” She deems Sam too unpopular to pull it off for her (although his Sean Connery was very funny, and we love how nerdy he is), so she sets her sights on Karofsky, just after noticing that he is gay when he walked past her and checked out Sam's butt. She decides to use this knowledge to get Kurt back to McKinley High so that she could become the hero everyone would vote for.

Will announces that this week’s assignment is “acceptance,” namely, self-acceptance. The kids were to sing Lady Gaga, the so-called “queen of self-acceptance” and they also had to make white t-shirts with a word or phrase on them that they have been mocked for, but is part of who they are. We have a problem with Gaga being labeled the “queen of self-acceptance,” because of how she treats her body. We love us some Gaga, own her songs, and would kill to go to her concert, but we don’t like the way she buys into the weight-loss thing. Also, she has confessed to doing cocaine. If you respect your body, you don’t destroy it. Pop stars SHOULD eat. She’s molding her body to fit the norm so that she can be as famous as possible. It’s a good career tactic, but it’s not self-acceptance.

Will was disappointed that Emma put “Ginger” on her shirt when she should have put OCD. Well, Will, we are made at you for not putting “Horrible Rapper” on your shirt. So there. Zizes and Puck start conspiring to make Zizes prom queen rather than Quinn. Rachel takes Quinn to her plastic surgeon so that he can make mock-ups of what Rachel will look like with Quinn’s nose. They sing a mash-up of TLC’s “Unpretty” and “I Feel Pretty” from West Side Story, which are both good songs. We liked this number. Every girl has felt both extremes, no matter what they look like, and we think that duet would resonate with the audience. Including TLC gets an automatic A from Leeard, and this is one of her favorite songs.

Quinn and Zizes get into it over who should be prom queen, and things got a little personal. Santana confronts Karofsky about being gay and he crumbles. Favorite character status reached. They reach a deal to become each other’s beards and win prom king and queen. “The only straight I am is straight-up bitch,” Santana said, threatening to out Karofsky if he didn’t play along. Oh Santana, don’t you think it’s weird to have a prom queen who looks 40 years old? Santana makes a plan to implement an anti-bullying movement at the school and convinces Karofsky to apologize to Kurt so that Kurt can feel safe to come back to the school.

Finn sings Sammy Davis Jr.’s “I Gotta Be Me,” and it was surprisingly not terrible. A fun number. Not a favorite though and it went on a little too long. Rachel shows the Glee club the compositions of her with a small nose. We thought it looked really awkward, and no one in the Glee club thought it “looked like her.” Finn said, “Rachel, please don’t do this. You’re beautiful.” Quinn was not a fan of that statement.

Will convinces Emma to see a shrink (hats off to Will, for once), and the shrink gives her a pill and sets an appointment for next week. Glee addresses the stigma of mental illness. What social cause can this show pick up next? Santana and Karofsky personally start enforcing the no-bullying rule, so Kurt is able to come back to McKinley. His condition is that he and Karofsky start a chapter of PFLAG at the school so that Karofsky can be educated about gay people. The Warblers show up and sing Kurt goodbye. It’s “Somewhere Only We Know,” and it’s a wonderful rendition, but we weren’t crazy about the placement or the staging. It just could have been used better, especially since the vocals were great.

Kurt sings Barbra’s “As If We Never Said Goodbye,” and it’s one of our favorite songs by him. We love when he does big Broadway numbers. It fit really well and it was sweet. Kurt has gotten better at singing this season. We feel like we are really starting to see all the Glee gay rights and anti-bullying stuff pay off emotionally with this episode. Side note: We kind of like Karofsky’s dad. There are a lot of great dads on this show.

Zizes and Puck dredge up a middle school yearbook showing that Quinn wasn’t born beautiful. She was chubby and big-nosed, and her name was Lucy. Also, she had dark hair, braces, and glasses. Poor Quinn! She got into sports, got a nose job, and reinvented herself. Zizes papers the entire school with the truth. This makes us like and understand Quinn more. It can be hell to be ugly and unpopular in middle or high school. Puck takes Rachel to the mall to meet Kurt where people dance to Duck Soup’s “Barbra Streisand,” which convinces Rachel to not get a nose job. Hated that. We really liked this storyline, and we wish it had ended more subtly and poignantly.

Finn is sweet to Quinn about the Lucy thing. The people of the school like that she used to be ugly, so Quinn is still in the running for prom queen after all. Zizes apologizes to Quinn for what she did. Brittany and Santana have a sweet moment. Will reveals that he is self-conscious about his “butt chin” by putting that on his shirt. The gang sings Lady Gaga’s "Born This Way". It’s a great homage to the song and it make us like the song better. This episode was a lot better than last week’s.

Did you like the episode too? What would your t-shirt say? Do you think Kurt’s hair was a little too crazy in places?

Episode Grade: A-