Glee season 4, episodes 8-10

Yeah, we're mean and tried to make you watch this again.

Thanksgiving- Whose idea was it to "have a Kiki"/do that song? How painful. We just watched it in awe, remembering that Glee really can be this terrible. We were also angry about Quinn. The show finally brought Quinn back, like we've been wanting, but we didn't get the mature, capable Quinn who left for Yale. The show brought back Crazy Quinn who is boning the wrong guy: in this case, her married professor. Yuck. Why does Sue have a baby? The show gave Sue a baby and then did almost nothing with it. Thank God, but still. It makes the whole thing more pointless and annoying.



We liked when the kids circled up and said the prayer from Isaiah. We've mentioned before that we admire Ryan Murphy for being respectful of good people who have faith, rather than trashing them and making them look like stupid monsters like 80% of TV shows do. We also liked that Kurt called Blaine. Finally.

This was probably our least favorite episode of the season so far. The Marley eating disorder plot was handled with all the grace and intelligence of a string of snot from someone's nose. She just came across as an idiot. One person starts telling her she's fat and she stops eating? And takes laxatives? It happened overnight. Eating disorders don't happen overnight. They start with insecurity, a society that wants to control women's bodies, and a lack of information on how the body works. The girl (or guy, in some cases) will then start dieting. She will decide that there are certain foods she can't eat. Slowly, that list will get bigger.

Then she will start limiting calories as well. It's a downward spiral. Maybe there ARE people who just wake up one morning determined to starve themselves. Ugh, we don't know. We just think it happened to fast. There was no good music in this entire episode. They actually inflicted a rendition of Gagnam Style on us. Tina did an admirable job saying all those words, and the dancing was solid, but GS is so months and months ago. Let it die.

Come See About Me was pretty and true to the Quinn character, but we didn't want to buy it. The opening mash-up was dull and cloying. It's hard to forget that Whistle is about some guy teaching an inexperienced girl how to suck his dick, one of us hates One Direction and their songs about loving girls who can't love themselves. And oh yeah, songs about living while you're young are everywhere right now. Is it the Mayan apocalypse scaring people into relating to these songs? We don't get it. And we don't get this episode.
Episode grade: D+

Swan Song- Oh God, FINALLY they let Lea Michele do a big, Broadway, Streisand-ish number this season. Seriously, that is the reason we watch this show. So that we can hear Rachel Berry belt things like My Man, What I Did For Love, Don't Rain on My Parade, Maybe This Time, Defying Gravity, I Dreamed a Dream, and now Being Good Isn't Good Enough. We've been playing it on repeat.

We are concerned that Lea Michele's range seems to have decreased since season one though. She's been belting lower and lower songs, and the show doesn't seem keen to take her up as high as she was in, say, Faithfully and Halo. We don't even think any of the notes in Being Good Isn't Good Enough qualify as "high notes." Sure, there were tons of "big notes." The reason we worry is that an inability to sing as high or low as you used to is a sign that you're damaging your voice. We blame those stupid Glee tours they made her do.

The show had Kurt sing Being Alive by Company, which is one of our favorite songs ever. Since they had Kurt do it, there is no chance we'll ever get a Lea Michele version. That would have been incredible. We heard Bernadette Peters put the feminine spin on Being Alive, and it's just made us crave a Rachel version of it more and more. But our dreams have been dashed. We want to go outside and kick something. Oh Holy Night was pretty, but we heard it on a previous Christmas soundtrack. What kind of Jewish person loves Oh Holy Night that much?

We liked that the Glee club was disqualified from further competition and that they all came back to sing Don't Dream It's Over, realizing that singing is less about competition and more about loving music. Duh. Also, we never realized Don't Dream It's Over was a good song before, possibly because the original version of it is Butt Rock. Sung by voices that don't make us want to die, it's perfectly nice and uplifting. This episode is getting a good grade almost completely for the joke about Joe joining a paintball club where "Christians, Jews, and Muslims can shoot at each other safely." We want to start a club like that in our town. How wonderfully fun and politically incorrect.

We loved All That Jazz, but we love every version of All That Jazz. We were surprised that Kate Hudson sounded about as good as Rachel in that number. Good job, Kate! Rachel learns that she's a better singer than dancer. YA THINK? We were glad when Rachel won the competition and that Kurt got into NYADA. Carmen's reason for rejecting him last year was believable. It made a lot of sense to us, and we respected her for it.

In suckier news, Glee has decided to put Sam and Brittany together because neither of them have the brains God gave a lamp. We're not digging the couple. We don't like Stupid Sam. We like Dork Sam. The Sam who woo'ed Quinn. All of the sudden, he got less intelligent. We already have Brittany for those jokes. Bring back the weird Sam! They even sung a song about being stupid. Ugh.
Episode grade: B+

Glee, Actually- Hey, Glee, we like the movie Love, Actually. Shut up. We liked it a HELL of a lot better than anything Christmas-y Glee has ever put out. Glee Christmas episodes are almost always dumb to the point of offensiveness. This year was no exception. It wasn't the trainwreck last year was, but it was close. Rory is back. God, poor Damien. This is how he's used? Still?!! And he's hardly ever on the show. Artie's vignette was dumb. Burt had better not die.

We like that the show has Kurt acting icily toward Blaine. He's not going to feel okay about things overnight. On a show like Glee, we would have expected instant forgiveness, because this is a show that knows how to develop NOTHING. But they did it right this time. We liked Puck's plot, his moving back to Lima, and his family getting together. It's funny they got tattoos because, technically, only one of them is Jewish. That's inherited through the mom, not the dad.

Shockingly, we thought Britt and Sam's apocalypse plot was pretty fun, and we were touched by Sue's gesture. Anyone who would do that is a true, well, Mensch. We didn't want any of the songs. We didn't like the choppiness. We didn't like Rachel just sailing away. Also, since it's Christmas, we should have seen some of the old characters who are still home from the break. This one is a missed opportunity. Instead of trying to make Really Special Christmas Specials Just Like The Christmas Specials of Yore, complete with cutesy themes and innocence, the show should just start making regular Christmas episodes like other shows.
Episode grade: C+