Glee, The Office, The Vampire Diaries, and Grey's Anatomy finales

• Glee: Dull, mostly lame songs, a Wemma wedding no one cares about, and no death of an annoying character. We have to wait to find out what happens with Blaine's proposal and Rachel's audition, the only two things we care about. Catfish's identity was super predictable, as was Ryder's reaction. Episode grade C-. Season grade B-
• The Office: This was the big one, and it was very nearly perfect. Michael came back and has kids, Dwight is married and in love, Pam and Jim ended things perfectly, Erin found her parents, Creed was finally brought to justice, Nelly got a baby, Ryan and Kelly got what they deserved, and we finally got to see Mose talk! We didn't know he could. This show should have ended three years ago, but this finale was perfect. Seasons 6-8 were terrible, but season 9 as a whole was watchable. Episode grade A. Season grade: B
• The Vampire Diaries: This season drained our will to even watch this show. We're so glad the sire bond is gone and Elena and Damon are together by choice. We are also glad that Elena didn't take the cure. It's good that Bonnie died because now there is no one around to magic the cast out of every single problem they face. Knowing this show, they will bring her back. The finale was pretty good, but the season as a whole was a disappointment. Episode grade B. Season Grade C
• Grey's Anatomy: Arizona whyyyyy. We like that it wasn't just about lust and that the show brought the affair back to the leg trauma. Just when you think things are buried... We kind of hope the Chief is dead. His character has run its course and the cast is too huge. LOVED April telling Jackson she wanted him, even after Matt's cute/dorky proposal. We're so glad that Meredith and her baby are healthy. We always knew they would be. Meredith has been through so much on this show that even Shonda knows it would be ridiculous to hurt her like that. Owen and Cristina are broken up...again. They do this every season, so we're not buying it. You don't spend four seasons on a couple if they aren't endgame (unless a cast member is leaving, like Callie, Izzie, George, Burke, etc). Episode grade B+. Season grade B.

Glee- Season 4, episodes 19-21

We thought the Harlem Shake was funny a few months ago, but now it's just sad. Glee opening with it two weeks ago was so behind the times and lame that we wanted to rip Finn's head off. Which isn't much of a change from how we usually feel about that guy... At least Finn is in college. Puck is just pathetic.

Glee, season 4, episode 18. We hear (and believe) that Degrassi did it better

Shooting Star- Last night, Glee did a "school shooting" episode. Note the quotes. Because this was less an episode on the topic of school shooting than a pointless episode about nothing. Glee wanted some attention, so leaked the topic of the episode way before it aired. Ryan Murphy tweeted that it was the most "powerful" episode of Glee yet (it wasn't).

Instead it was a missed opportunity intending to provoke and get talked about. ASB: Attention-Seeking Behavior. The stunt worked. People watched and are talking. We're talking. The episode started out good, but then it got stupid. We don't think it was "off tone." Glee has done serious episodes and moments before. It's usually a comedy, but it's allowed to change it up.

Glee- Season 4, Episodes 15-17 and a list of the few tolerable songs this season

It's funny that Glee did a guilty pleasure episode this week, since Glee is the ultimate guilty pleasure. We love the singing and dancing, occasionally the humor, and the moments when the show is spot-on. It does social commentary really well. The plots and characters however? Dumb dumb dumb. In fact, if we were to watch a few random episodes of this show before seeing the first season, we never would have gotten into it in the first place. But we're here, and we enjoy Glee, stupid or not.

Glee- Season 4, Episodes 12-14

By Keith McDuffee from Northborough, MA, USA (Glee cast) [CC-BY-2.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0)], via Wikimedia Commons

Naked, Diva, I Do- Whoa. We didn't expect the show we wanted to write about today to be Glee, but this episode dropped bombs up until the last moment. Anything Can Happen was cute, and Emma's song was fun (although no Company song should ever be shortened). Still, we were underwhelmed with the music this week. What a shame. We liked the episode though. Things happened!

Glee- Season four, episode 11

Sadie Hawkins- The midseason premiere was the dullest thing. Glee always makes a bigger deal of things than it should. A Sadie Hawkins dance is hardly a symbol for female empowerment in 2013 when asking out guys isn't as uncommon as it was when those dances were first invented. Also, girls like to be pursued and guys like to do the pursuing. Don't scream "gender stereotyping" at us. We usually hate that stuff, but when it comes to courting and mating, there are real differences between the sexes. Rebelling against the romance games because they are sexist is like rebelling against the sky for being blue: well intentioned (the sky would look so much better if it were purple), but pointless.

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.

Glee's best moment in a long time

Glee- Dynamic Duets

By Eva Rinaldi (Cory Monteith) [CC-BY-SA-2.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0)], via Wikimedia Commons

The tone of this episode started off like a comedy and a farce. Then it changed to dramatic, regular Glee. The tonal shift was jarring and didn't do the episode any favors, but we enjoyed it anyway. Ryder finding out he was dyslexic was great. One of us has a dyslexic Dad who was undiagnosed until adulthood, and everyone thought he was stupid too. But even more than that, we loved Sam's Bane from Dark Knight Rises impression. That made us laugh out loud. Sam is so crazy. His voice is still good. We can't believe this show ever dropped him. We're really starting to hate Tina.

We missed Lea Michele and her voice this week. Where is Quinn? WHERE IS QUINN? We love her so much, and we enjoy her voice more than most of the voices in this show's history. Most of the superhero identities and costumes were just dumb. We think these kids are a little old to be doing this, and if they had, they would have been embarrassed and made fun of the entire episode. Still, unique idea. We're glad the episode made Finn comfortable in his new role instructing the Glee club, because you know we couldn't take much more of pathetic Finn. If there was anything this show didn't need to drag out, it was this.

Puck's advice to his brother was outrageously stupid, but it worked, because so is Marley. You've gotta make them work for it, girl. All of the Warbler stuff was hilarious. We don't appreciate when Blaine sings as much anymore, because he doesn't have much oomph behind his voice, and they overautotune it, but having him sing a lot fit with the focus of the episode. Some Nights is a really cool song, and the Glee cover didn't top the original, but it was better than it had any right to be. Dark Side was only good because of the background a Capella work. We loved Holding Out for a Hero and Heroes. Superman was okay.
Episode grade: B

This is reeeeeal late, but here it is: Glee, Parks, Grey's, Scandal, TVD

Parks and Recreation- Leslie vs. April
We were disappointed in Leslie this week for opposing April, but it led to funny things, and it's understandable that Leslie is still attached to that empty lot. The opening Joe Biden scene was awkward to us instead of funny, but Joe did a good job and it was a cute cameo. We're liking all the famous politicians popping up this season. It's always tasteful to make a fun, brief appearance on a critically acclaimed show. Andy got a security job? That is so much better than having that guy be an actual cop. Hoo boy. There were some fun lines about accounting, and we feel bad for the firm that keeps trying to hire Ben. It's best to have him out of there though for the sake of the show. Orin stole the episode with his Human Farm. We love him so much. He's used just enough though. Too much Orin would be bad.
Episode grade: B

Glee- Glease
We both hate and love that episode title. It was inevitable that Glee would do an entire Grease-themed episode with all the numbers exact copies of the scenes from the movie, so if you didn't like it, just rejoice that it's over and we can all move on. We thought it was okay. We didn't want to buy any of the songs since we've had the movie soundtrack since we were kids. We're glad Santana replaced Unique as Rizzo, but that's just going to prompt more Unique storylines as she tries to climb her way back into accepted exposure. We were so happy to see Rachel and Kurt after missing them last week. The show keeps repeating itself. We saw Rachel trying to throw up in season one, and now Marley tries it this season. Marley is adorable, but she was a little pathetic and dumb this week. She just needed to get a scale to see if she was actually gaining weight. You can't gain two inches in less than a week. It was obviously the clothes/a prank. Kate Hudson's character is evil, but we liked that development.
Episode grade: B-

Grey's Anatomy- Second Opinion
THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU. Not only are Arizona's attitude and mobility improving, but Cristina is back for good! It wasn't a visit. She gets to do whatever she wants in the OR, and she's a pretty good teacher too. Cristina finding out that Owen fought hard to get her back had to make him want to die. This guy has really suffered for that one night stand. We're pretty sure Cristina will make him suffer a little longer too. At least for the rest of the season. We're getting sick of the drama with April and Jackson. April, just accept that you're in a sexual relationship or actually get out of it. We like the idea of Kate and Alex together. The big twist at the end was that the crash victims would be suing Seattle Grace and the "people who put them on that plane" --Owen. How does that work? Was the hospital negligent in plane selection or something. We're going to need to hear some details on that case, because it doesn't sound like the hospital is the best party to go after at all.
Episode grade: B+

Scandal- Spies Like Us
The case of the week was so interesting that we're not even going to complain at length about Hot President still being at the summit. We finally got some background on Huck, former spy. His colleagues were perfectly cast and assembled. THAT'S how spies would look. They wouldn't look like Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt. They would blend in. We felt bad for David Rosen, but we'll never feel bad for Abby. Olivia ended the episode closer to her ex than ever before. The president is going to get all broody over that, and we can't wait to see it. There's no sophomore slump for this show. 
Episode grade: A-

The Vampire Diaries- We All Go A Little Mad Sometimes
It's time for the show to move on from "Elena feels guilty" as the central conflict. We can't stay in that place for one more episode. We liked the hallucinations so that she actually had a reason to act all crazy and sad, but after this episode, a new problem needs to become more immediate. We're mad that Katherine wasn't real. The bulk of this episode was boring and filler. Klaus skulked around, killed a wolf, threatened Caroline (how dare he?!!), and tried to keep Elena safe. The best part was the end where Jeremy was awakened to his new purpose. That could lead to something a lot better than us watching Compassionate Elena cry over not being perfect. Boo frickety hoo. Let's get on with it. We want Man vs. Man, not Man vs. Himself.
Episode grade: B-

Glee focuses on Finn too much, Parks and Recreation gets going, Grey's Anatomy does the unthinkable, Scandal gives us a whole hour without Hot President, and The Vampire Diaries mishandles Elena

By http://www.flickr.com/photos/gageskidmore/ [CC-BY-SA-2.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0)], via Wikimedia Commons

Glee- The Role You Were Born to Play
Good things about this episode: Blake's appearance as Rider, Kitty's singing voice, and Mercedes coming back. Bad things: They wasted Mercedes on a boring song, Kitty is still a copy of Quinn and Sue mixed, all the Finn stuff played out like a bad after-school special, Unique is Rizzo instead of Kitty, Marley is getting to be a bland character (at least Rachel had ambition), no Rachel, no Kurt, no New York, we're not sure "weird, nice guy" is the best choice for Blake's character (since we already have Sam and we were looking forward to seeing him be the mean boy), and Finn is sticking around to coach the Glee club. Can we nominate anyone else? Quinn would have been a great sub! She's actually deep and intelligent. We didn't want any of the songs, but we liked Blaine's Hopelessly Devoted to You, and we also enjoyed Everybody Talks as a male/female duet.
Episode grade: C+

Parks and Recreation- Ben's Parents
Breaking Bad's Jonathan Banks (Mike) did a great job as Ben's crotchety dad. Ulani was pretty hilarious too. Ben's storyline made Ern think of her own parents, who are similar and don't enjoy sharing room space. There aren't enough unity quilts in the world... That's why we loved when Ben said, "Well, if there's anyone who can bring my parents together it's...NO ONE. No one can ever bring them together." Everyone else's storylines were good too. There wasn't a single stinker. Tom ditching Jean Ralphio was long overdue.

We've been wanting Ann and Chris to get back together for a long time, but he has to go through some stuff, and Ann has to become more independent and self-possessed. These things are happening! Did you guys know the guy playing Chris is 48 though? Holy moly, he looks good. Rashida Jones is 36. So does it work with the formula? (A man can date a woman if her age is at least "half his age plus 8.") That means he can date a 32-year-old without shame, so Ann is in! Yay. Also, Twizzlers are much better than Red Vines. The season slump is over! Ben and April are home!
Episode grade: A-

Grey's Anatomy- Beautiful Doom
They. Killed. Feeny. WHAT?! We actually teared up. Thank God Cristina could get on a plane. Your only friend is dead, Cristina, come hoooome. Come home for good. Has she? Please? We loved Meredith saving Melissa's life. Meredith is one of the most genuinely likable and compassionate TV characters now. We can't believe we wanted her dead in season three's ferry crash. Since she's not all flaky and tortured anymore, she's mature and no longer annoying. We liked her in seasons one and two, but in season three, she and Derek broke up for no reason. Then it took all of season four for Meredith to get her stuff together. Our favorite line was, "Who's letting her have gummy worms?!!...Doesn't matter."
Episode grade: B+

Scandal- All Roads Lead to Fitz
We got more information on the conspiracy. It includes tons of people, including the first lady and Cyrus. There's something to do with election rigging abilities. It's all surprisingly interesting. So Fitz wasn't really elected? He lost by less than 5,000 votes, and this week's murderer should have been president instead? That's what it looks like, but on this show, things aren't always what they seem. Clearly, the right guy is in office, because the governor is so obsessed with power and success that he literally doesn't want to live without them.

Abby is majorly betraying Olivia. The case of the week was entertaining, but we don't think that would fall under attorney/client privilege. She wasn't acting as his attorney, was she? She was acting as a fixer. That's arguable. She might be able to sneak it through. We knew the wife was having an affair the entire time, but we didn't know the husband knew until near the end. We missed Fitz, but we enjoyed so much forward-movement in this season's major arc.
Episode grade: B

The Vampire Diaries- The Killer
There were a lot of good things about this episode. First, we liked that Connor is dead and we love that Elena killed him. It was so bad ass and everything we've wanted to see from this character. It's a pity the episode ruined it right afterward. Plenty of characters have killed on this show, and while we like remorse, total crying breakdowns are annoying and sort of sexist. Only...Caroline is a good person too, and she didn't react like this. It makes sense for Elena to pause, look sad, and take a deep, mournful breath, but all of this drama? Bleck. We LIKE Elena and don't think she's a damsel. If you hate her, we feel your pain this week.

It's getting lame how much the show has to emphasize Elena's compassion. We know it's part of her character, but you wouldn't see this kind of reaction from any of the guys on this show. Why is a guy's primary character trait never "compassion"? Elena couldn't have her kick-ass moment even though it was self-defense. The show had to immediately turn her into a crying puddle again. Now, she hallucinates too! Of course, she still can't wipe her mouth, even though she can bury a guy.

We're interested in what's going on with Professor Shane and Bonnie. He's clearly against her friends, but he's helping her and has control over Bonnie's unconscious mind now. That's going to come back to bite her. This episode was extremely gory, and we liked it. Especially the whole in the one hybrid's chest! We loved Haley telling Caroline, "I don't do teen drama." Where is the show going with her and how long is she staying? Now the town has underground tunnels. Could be useful. Overall, this was a decent episode that Elena tried to ruin by losing it.
Episode grade: B

Glee- The Break-Up

By David Shankbone (Chris Colfer) [CC-BY-2.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0)], via Wikimedia Commons

What happened: Finn got kicked out the army for shooting himself in the leg and comes to see Rachel, who tries to get him set up in New York City with her. Finn isn't into it, realizing that this isn't his place. When he finds out Rachel kissed Brody, he goes back to Ohio. Rachel follows him there and breaks up with him very satisfactorily. Blaine cheats on Kurt because he was lonely and feels so guilty that he immediately goes to visit Kurt and confesses.

Santana comes back to Lima long enough to break up with Brittany because she feels like long distance relationships are too hard. It's more mature than it sounds. Will and Emma fight because he expects her to go to Washington D.C. with him and just drop her job for a while. Jake breaks up with Kitty after she treats Marley badly, but he turns down Marley's offer to hang out. The musical this year is going to be Grease.

What we thought: Ryan Murphy actually wrote this one himself. Glee hasn't had a crazy-awful episode this season yet, and this episode continued the streak of good choices for this show. Rachel and Kurt need to be single in NYC for a while. This is a good, while sad, decision.

Brittany and Santana started out as a joke, so their relationship hasn't felt real to us until this episode. It's partly that Brittany is so dumb that she can't mentally be in a real relationship with a normal human and have us be rooting for it. This episode made it seem like real love though..

Marley is so cute. We just want to squeeze her little cheeks.Marley will make the perfect Sandy in Grease. What is Jake's problem? There has to be some issue or reason he's staying away from a girl he's obviously crushing on. We've already had a male stripper, so what deep, dark secret will Glee whip out that can top that? Oh, hell, this show is so repetitive, it's probably that he's a male stripper.

Finn is so stupid! He shot himself in the leg and got thrown out of the army? It looks like Finn is going to end up taking over for Will when he goes to D.C. Ugh. We wanted a cool new teacher for the interim. We wanted Will to leave forever, actually. We guess Finn is back for good. He's not the character we want to see make a comeback.

We don't feel that bad for Finn. He messed up his own relationship, Little Lion Man-style. It was sad when he cried on Will's shoulder though. Finn, we're all trying to figure out what to do with our lives. Welcome to the human experience. He needs to work on his insecurity issues before he can be with someone though.

Ugh, we had forgotten about the Left Behind books. Ugh, more like Suck Behind. (That sounded cleverer in one of our heads.) We've read a few, and for books about the end of the world, they are pretty pointless and hatefully boring. The rapture stuff on the show was stupid.The left behind prank was hilarious though. Just so you guys know, only some Christians believe in the rapture. We don't.

We're not feeling Kitty. She's everything that was bad and annoying about Quinn without any of the depth of likability. She is one of the only graduated characters we want to see come back, and she's missing. For the most part though, the way the show is bringing back the old characters feels natural, un-rushed, and not too crowded.

We can't believe Blaine cheated on Kurt. Who was it?!! We guess Blaine is one of those people who can't be alone. We're loving Kurt's new haircut.

Just let Emma stay home, Will. Man, what a stupid fight.

Rachel's speech to Finn was right-on. We love when she's not a crazy jerk. We actually teared up a little. Oh God, maybe we do care about Finchel. That was a well-written scene. It had us rooting for Rachel again and respecting her new pair of balls. 

Long distance relationships can only work if you have a) self control and b) other things in your life other than love and relationships. Plenty of people can be single and happy for a long time because they know how to deal with loneliness. These are the people who can do long distance...for a while. But that requires maturity, and these kids are 18 and younger. It's cool that Santana knows herself well enough to decide that this isn't going to work for her right now. These two handled things the best. 

As for the songs, Barely Breathing sounded alright. Since it was a Blaine/Finn duet, we thought it was just going to be an Autotune Olympics, but most of the song stayed in their range. That helps.

We love when Glee does something different with the song they are covering and hate when they just make the same version with another singer. Turning Give Your Heart a Break into a piano-driven male/female duet was a great idea. It's not like one female singer is going to top Demi's version, even Lea Michele. This song is right in the good spot of Lea's range though. It sounded like karaoke too. Not overproduced, like usual. How short is Brody? Lea Michele is 5'2" and she's almost as tall as him in stilettos.

We didn't care much about Klaine, but Teenage Dream made us feel for Blaine a little. It did everything that song was supposed to and communicated the problems to Kurt. We forget Darren can act. The whole karaoke bar scene was great and natural. Darren Criss sounded raw, and that's a good thing.

Don't Speak sounded good, but it was awkwardly placed in the episode. The street scene was moving, and then the singing took it to a slightly cheesy place. Still, Lea needs to sing more No Doubt or Gwen. She's perfect for that.

Mine was nice, but Naya can't stop Songbird as far as a soft, sweet love songs to Brittany go, and it's weird to hear Santana cover a country song. Only one lyric really fit ("You are the best thing that's ever been mine"). We think a different song could have been used.

Our favorite version of The Scientist is the Natasha Bedingfield cover, but this one was really good too. The flashbacks mixed with the song really got to us. We teared up. We weren't emotionally invested in any of these relationships before this episode, but this one made us hope that Kurt and Blaine reunite. Finchel should maybe happen at the end of the entire series. We love tumblr's Faberry idea though.

 As Leeard put it once, we'll never stop caring about these a**holes. Once we're out, they suck us back in.

Episode grade: A

Glee- Makeover

By vagueonthehow (Flickr: Darren Criss) [CC-BY-2.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0)], via Wikimedia Commons

Instead of running for top 40 songs we already know and own, Glee has songs that actually fit the storyline? Nice. Not that we liked too many of them. The best was A Change Would Do You Good, just because that’s such a fun song. Celebrity Skin sucked because Sam was doing his butt rock impression and Brittany can’t sing. Sorry. It’s sad that Kurt has totally ditched Blaine, but at least it gave Blaine that opportunity to join that cool fantasy-looking nerd club. We want to be in that… Blaine needs to stop getting so many solos though. He’s better in duets.

Fashion is the last thing Kurt should do. Have you seen his clothes? They are the most ridiculous thing on the show, and we all know that’s saying something. Two words: hippo broach. Sarah Jessica Parker is always cool, even in that movie that sucked (I Don’t Know How She Does It.) We didn’t know SJP was going to sing! It was definitely her singing. She’s not great, so it was good that Rachel and Kurt joined in to save her, but it was fun, pleasant and fabulous. We aren’t digging her character because it’s unrealistic that people in New York would be that nice and incompetent, let alone nice and incompetent at Vogue. We kept waiting for Kurt to wake up and realize it was all a dream and that the real world doesn’t just hand you stuff. It was refreshing to see things go well for him though.

Is it possible that Will could get a different job and we could have a different Glee club coach? Please, God, let it be so. That’s all we want for Christmas. That is so necessary. We’re with Sue. Quit, Will. We spotted Kirk from Gilmore Girls briefly. The actor was never what made Kirk great. The writing was. That’s why his career didn’t take off and he has a few lines in a Glee episode. Sam’s impressions are great. More impressions, Sam! Spot on Bush, but we prefer his Connery. The McKinley plot was mostly boring. This was SJP’s episode. Yawn, don’t care about the love triangle with Finn, Rachel, and New Hot Guy. Finn, you dumped her and didn’t speak to her. You could have been dead for all we knew. You have no leg to stand on.

Also, it's no fun to have a makeover on a character/person who already looks great.

Episode grade: C

Glee- Britney 2.0

By Heather_Morris_PaleyFest_11a.jpg: Jennifer Tse from Los Angeles, CA derivative work: Tabercil (Heather_Morris_PaleyFest_11a.jpg) [CC-BY-SA-2.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0)], via Wikimedia Commons

What Happened: Coach Sylvester throws Brittany off the Cheerios when she finds out about Brittany’s grades. They set a poor example and are the reason she was held back this year. Brittany loses it, much like Britney Spears years ago, letting herself get to rock bottom so that she can make a comeback to normality like Spears. She nearly ruins the glee clubs reputation by having them all lip sync though. Trouty Mouth Sam gets her to finally drop the meltdown act and get back to her plans. Will and Emma are tutoring her every week to bring her grades up, and she is back on the Cheerios. Still, she misses Santana, who is too busy for Skype. Marley and Jake nearly get together, but it turns out he’s a player dating Kitty. Marley was warned by Unique, so she should have seen it coming?

Rachel and Kurt get a huge loft together, and Kurt tells Rachel that Cassie is known for losing it during a Broadway performance. A cell phone went off and she grabbed a baseball bat, going for the owner. After Cassie tells Rachel that she isn’t sexy, Rachel enlists all her new friends for a group dance that will prove her wrong. Cassie wasn’t impressed, so Rachel loses it and insults Cassie. Cassie throws Rachel out of her class. Rachel apologizes. Cassie tells Rachel that she’s hard on her students so that what happened to Cassie (buckling under pressure) won’t happen to the kids. Rachel is back in the class, but only because of school policy. Cassie doesn’t believe in second chances. It looks like she never got one. The hot guy brings Rachel an orchid and hits on her, but Rachel still loves Finn. Of course, the last scene, where she painted over his name on the wall, shows that she might be ready to move on.

What We Thought: Brittany’s Hold It Against Me was pretty good. We find that song boring, so we didn’t care if she butchered it. She didn’t, but we still don’t like the song. We loved all the Brittany jokes in this episode. They are what made this episode a little better than last week’s. The test where Brittany wrote “see other side” and drew a world without math was classic. We also laughed at how Becky spelled her name “Bocky.” We saw two alums, Santana and Puck. This is exactly how all those old students should be used. They should pop in when it makes sense. We like that Puck’s speech got rid of his brother’s bad attitude, but it was kind of a bad, crazy speech that really wouldn’t convince anyone of anything in real life. They looked like brothers though.

Rachel’s plot was the weak point. Oh great, Rachel’s sex appeal is called into question, so we get yet another opportunity for Lea Michele to prove she’s sexy. Any feud that ends in some kind of pathetic, attention-seeking dance off failed to bring it, unless it’s in West Side Story. This episode “treated” us to more Artie rapping in a mash-up of Boys and Boyfriend. Even though Blaine assisted, that number was painful. The second worst song was Womanizer. Not because it was bad in itself, but because it didn’t compare well to the Britney version. Britney has a crappy voice. If this glee club can’t improve on the originals, we don’t know what to tell them.

We loved Cassie’s youtube video. Kate Hudson does “insane” as well as she does “sweet” in those romantic comedies. She was excellent in Almost Famous. We wish she’d pick better movies and parts, because she doesn’t suck at all. We’re also into Tina’s highlights. Ern wants them; Leeard isn’t sure they will look good on Ern. By now we were thinking that there were too many songs in this episode. It was starting to feel choppy. Then a song that made the choppiness worth it came up. By far the best song in the episode was 3 by Tina, Sam, and Joe, THE SCHOOL CHRISTIAN. He must have been too dumb to listen to the words. The cover really improved on the original though, and it’s just the kind of thing they should have Tina singing.

We need to know more about Marley before they put her in a romance. All we know is that she’s sweet, thin, pretty, and she has a large mom. Yeah right  would she be that thin with that large of a mom. Marley is the most naturally thin girl in the show’s history. Not that it’s full of chubby girls at all. Marley’s just really tiny. The mashup of Aerosmith’s Crazy and Brit’s (You Drive Me) Crazy was pretty and our third favorite song of the night. We like Marley’s voice better than Jake’s, but they are both nice voices that go well together. Lots of people are hating on Marley for her headpieces, but we like them. It’s just the sort of awkward attempt at a style that a high school girl would try. It’s endearing. Her version of “Everytime” was pretty and the words fit the plot. Marley could annunciate enough that now we know what that song is about. Yay!

Rachel sounded great on Oops I Did It Again, making it our second-favorite cover, but the other dancers were sexier. What did she think she was a gonna get from Cassie? An “I was wrong?” She was rude at the end. We were horrified. If they are going to dedicate half the show to Rachel, it’s time for her to stop being such a freaking idiot. It was good of her to apologize though. We want her with the new guy. We stopped caring about Finn sometime in the beginning of last season. Gimme More was funny. We like the way this episode covered more of the trainwreck Britney Spears who was going through a hard time, whereas the first Britney episode mostly worshipped her and ignored that part. We thought Mr. Schu learned his lesson about oversexualized high school performances during the Rocky Horror episode. All-in-all, there were some goods songs, it wasn’t boring, and there was some good humor.

Episode grade: B+

Glee- The New Rachel

By vagueonthehow from Tadcaster, York, England (Chris Colfer & Lea Michele) [CC-BY-2.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0)], via Wikimedia Commons

Glee eschews the crazy in favor of the sweet. We approve! Even though Rachel is in the school of her dreams with beauty, talent, a bright future, residence in one of the coolest cities in the world, and a cute new wardrobe, she is miserable. We hate you, Rachel. She’s upset because Finn hasn’t talked to her for two months. Yeah, he’s in the army, but come on, girl. If you haven’t heard from him in two months, you should forget him. Rachel is also disturbed by being constantly sexiled by her roommate who has more than a few notches in her belt. Having sex in a shared room while your roommate is trying to sleep is the ultimate in bad taste.

The worst thing about Rachel’s new life is her dance teacher, Cassie, played by Kate Hudson. Cassie’s personality is even worse than Rachel’s little-girl ballet skirts, but her introduction scene was a nice way to open the season. We like that she calls Rachel “David Schwimmer.” We wish Rachel would take off her version of the Sex and the City “Carrie” necklace. Is that a nod to the HBO show? We get it. Rachel is in New York. That doesn’t make her Carrie. Rachel met a new hot guy with the perfect torso. She heard him singing in the shower. Ern, however, did NOT hear him singing because her dad blundered out of his room and started singing along.

Kate Hudson’s mashup was forgettable, but her performance wasn’t. The Spanish pronunciation wasn’t great, but she sure has charisma. She really put Rachel in her place with that dancing??? She hasn’t heard Rachel sing yet. Whoopi Goldberg is back! Yay! The Freshman Reaping was a good scene. Ave Maria wasn’t good, but we can’t believe that girl got thrown out of the school! What is she going to do now?!! What about her lease in New York where she’s living?! What about all the money she’s invested? Losing a semester? We’re having a meltdown for this two-second character. When Rachel saw Kurt, we were touched and excited for her. He should have given her a heads up that he was coming to squat though.

Back at McKinley, Artie is still on the show and Sue had her ridiculous baby. Ugh. Artie is nominated to pick the “new Rachel,” since “Rachel was the undisputed star.” WHAT?!! They hardly let that girl sing at all last year. We know, because our iPods were particularly empty during season three. They held a little sing-off of Call Me Maybe. The cover was cute and didn’t make our ears hurt. We don’t think it needed to be covered though. We like that most of the characters aren’t regulars anymore. This show had too many characters. Yeah, we aren’t left with most of our faves, but at least the show has a core three dozen to focus on. Of Tina, Blaine, Brittany, and Unique, the new lead should be Tina. But we’re not super impressed with any of them. We’d pick Blaine, but the show autotunes him too hard.

New characters, new characters… So, Glee took the worst person ever on The Glee Project (and that’s saying a lot) and gave him a lead role. Alex was hated by literally every person except Ryan Murphy. Seriously, who else likes him? Unique says he can sing any song, any time. ANY song, any time, Unique? Try this one. Start at 5:00. That’s one blogger’s Everest. Stupid runs one of us has no ear for. Just Jake was okay. He had a decent tone, but he didn’t wow us. We think it’s stupid that he’s Puck’s brother. The Glee club needs better voices this year. Just Jake’s ego should keep him out of the club, but we doubt it will. This is a club that contained Rachel, Mercedes, Santana, and Quinn Fabray at one time. Hate him.

We like Marley alright. She may wear too many hates, but she’s pretty and seems sweet. Her mom is fantastically, tear-jerkingly supportive. We already have the best dad ever on this show (Burt), so it’s time to have the best mom. New York State of Mind was good.  Marley is great and likeable at the same time. Do we have a real nice girl on the show?!! For once? We appreciated that she wasn’t totally overdramatic about the song like Rachel was. She looks like Lexie on Grey’s Anatomy to us. Looks like Marley is the new female lead of the Glee club. She’s better than Tina, so good. She looks like a real teenager. We loved when she stuck up for her mom. We hate that the show is going to put her with Jake. Cliché.

Kurt is looking a lot better in his old age. He’s cuter. And Will got a haircut! So necessary. It’s Time sucked because of all the autotune. That’s a great song, and Darren Criss isn’t that bad. He doesn’t need all that computerized fixing. This show always overuses the autotune, but it was at new levels in this song. It was awful. We greatly prefer the original. We saw Burt. He showed up to foist high expectations about New York on his son. We love that they covered an ADELE song from her first album. Lots of people aren’t familiar with the music on 19. It’s really good and (BONUS) not overplayed like her other stuff. Marley’s voice was better on New York State of Mind though.

This episode wasn’t as laughably bad as a lot of Glee episodes. There was little ridiculousness. We like that it goes between Rachel and the Glee Club, but it feels like they will have to end Rachel’s plot at some point or make a Broadway-based spin off for her and Kurt. We don’t think the high school show can handle nine million characters and a plot about a Broadway adult once Rachel graduates. We’re pretty pleased with this premiere. We came to lambast, hate watch, and snicker, but we got a promising episode. We know it’s only a matter of time before the show sucks again.

Episode grade: B

Glee finale: Goodbye

We know what you guys want: a Glee reaction post. Well, you can have it because you deserve it. Blog stats are awfully nice these days. 

One of us (okay, Leeard) spent the episode crying off and on, but Ern didn’t even care until the second half when we started saying goodbye to Quinn and Rachel. It didn’t help that the episode started out with Will singing “Forever Young.” Can you think of any Will Schuster song that you ever absolutely loved or downloaded? We can think of maybe one. And we didn’t download it. (It was that one with Mike Chang dancing when Will had a fever.) Will is just sappy and lame and we don’t love him. 

Mercedes is going to L.A. to be a back-up singer, which is awesome, but we will miss her on the show if she leaves. She has arguably the best voice on the show. Rachel is the one who would be arguing. Brittany has a 0.0 GPA, much like Britney Spears before her. Gloria Estefan guest stars as Santana’s mom and does a good job. Santana decides to skip college in Kentucky, where she would have been a cheerleader, and go to New York to pursue singing and dancing. Gloria Estefan gamely ends up supporting her. We love that she was supportive of Santana’s sexuality as well. Also, we're supportive of Santana never finding her fabulous self in Kentucky.

Quinn kisses Puck to help him get his confidence back. This sounds stupid, but it was actually charming. He got a “Puckerman A” (a C-) on his test and graduated! Burt reenacts Kurt’s dance to "Single Ladies". Burt is the sweetest and the best, but Ern doesn’t think anyone needed to see that. To the shock of tumblr, Finn and Kurt were rejected by their schools in New York, but Rachel gets into NYADA. This makes perfect sense to us, because there are hardly any roles for Kurt and he can’t sing without autotune. Finn is talentless, this we know. He can play the drums though. Rachel showed passion, persistence (okay, stalking), and she can sing the house down.

Rachel tries to be stupid and stay with her friends, but Finn actually mans up and drives her to the train station, dumping her and joining the army. Rachel travels to New York City and walks around it, singing "Roots Before Branches" and crying. And you know what? We were touched. Rachel has been on this rocky journey for three years. Sometimes she was obnoxious in the past two seasons, but we remember her being the heart of the show in season one, and we were happy to see her living her dreams. As she looked around the city, it was striking how far she has come from Lima. We are alright with Finchel being over, especially for such smart, unselfish reasons. Plus, it's only temporary.

The songs in the episode were okay. "Glory Days" doesn't seem like the right choice for graduation as the seniors are walking across the stage, but this is Glee, so we don’t care. Kurt’s "I Remember" was forgettable, and surprisingly, so was the cover of The Beatles’ "In My Life". We got to see how blank the underclassman voices are together. Yayyy, something to look forward to. The Glee Project had better find some good people this summer. We need replacements, fast! "You Get What You Give" was lame, which was disappointing because the recorded version was so good. It had a lot more energy and voices behind it. We don’t know why that version wasn’t used.

At the end of the season, we really don’t know who is staying on the show or going. That tainted our enjoyment of the finale. We assume Mercedes will be gone. Ryan Murphy (who has lied to us before) said that Kurt and Rachel are not leaving the show and that he has a plan to keep the seniors around, which is weird. We think it’s time for new blood and new characters, with guest starring appearances by Rachel and Rachel’s voice at least once a week. Sadly, Finn will be back next season, or so we hear. How is the show going to manage this? Artie is still a junior. Ugh. Tina has been sounding great lately, so we are glad to still have her for sure. As dumb as this show is, we want to see what season four does, so we will be back next year. Sidenotes: We loved the Nationals episode and the one where Beiste walked out on Cooter. Bad ass.

Finale grade: A-

Season grade: B (Which is a step up from the C+ we gave the second season)

Listen to the Glee graduation album early here

http://perezhilton.com/2012-05-07-glee-graduation-album-listen-tracklisting-songs/?from=top-headline#.T6kdbuhDuSo

We like "Edge of Glory" and "You Get What You Give" (so true). We both hate and like "We Are the Champions".

Glee- Dance with Somebody review

Nearly everyone has stopped caring what happens in this show, but there is still music, so we still watch. How Will I Know was beautiful. We liked the way they slowed it down. It might have been the best song of the episode, so it’s a shame it came so early in the episode. We had already seen it in sneak previews, but still. Ern is over Blaine. When he did Teenage Dream and When I Get You Alone, she loved him. However, as soon as he got rid of the Warblers backing him and the super cool song arrangements, Ern realized that he was over-autotuned and often comes across as douche-y. We will always love Darren Criss from A Very Potter Musical, but on Glee? Meh. However, it was so sad when Blaine found out about the flirty texts.

Kurt was being a selfish little baby. We kind of like that. We hate when this show makes Kurt a saint every week. This week and religion week, we got to see Kurt mess up. It’s like Kurt doesn’t actually love Blaine or like Chandler; he just needs someone to make him feel nice about himself. If you’d throw away a real relationship for your ego getting stroked by compliments, we don’t know what to tell you except that we guess it’s pretty common these days.

It’s Not Right, But It’s Ok was…okay. This show needs to scoop up Pip, who was recently ousted from The Voice, so that they can have a guy singer on this show that doesn’t need a computer to make him listenable. We find it unbelievable that Darren Criss would be able sing over the Glee club in the background and the musicians without a microphone. Leeard will always love Darren Criss, due to hotness. I Wanna Dance with Somebody was adorable and perfect.

Quinn started out with a good attitude, but Artie ruined it by bumming her out and making her see his version of reality. The doctors said she had a chance for a full recovery soon. She should have stuck with that belief for a while. Ryan Murphy seems happy to have his Christian character that he always wanted. Of course, in order to be acceptable in entertainment, a Christian who is nice usually either has to be black or a simpleton. Joe is a simpleton, but he’s sweet. We like the emphasis on deeds and not just words with him.

Quinn is actually the most fully realized Christian character. She started out mean and hypocritical, but after she went through all her drama, she came back wise and nonjudgmental, yet still Christian. Saving All My Love was a little boring. Dreds are gross, but Joe is sweet, so we are rooting for him and Quinn. So Emotional brought it. We liked the Santana/Rachel pairing, since we like both those voices. They meshed better than we thought they would. Sidenote in the middle of a paragraph that really has no theme anyway: This show needs to be FUNNY again. Remember when this show was funny?

You know what we’ve stopped caring about? Emma and Will getting married. Yawn and snore. We laughed pretty hard when we realized that moving the wedding date was because Will wanted the Glee kids at his wedding. Then he started crying about it. Dear Lord, we hate this show. At least Sue wasn’t on it this week.  We’re glad that we finally saw Burt Hummel again, because he remains the best. I Have Nothing was a sweet song choice, lyrically, but we would much rather have a Rachel Berry version of the song. Kurt singing that high is a new level of horrible. We like that the show didn’t have Mercedes do a full solo. She already got a Whitney song weeks ago, and we need covers that are significantly different from the originals. The last song was okay.

Episode grade: B-

Glee - Saturday Night Glee-ver review

Alex, how we didn’t miss you. He plays a Mercedes and Kurt fan named Wade. His real name is Unique, and she is hilarious. Of course Ryan Murphy wouldn’t miss an opportunity to let this kid do his drag thing. Will needs to leave or die, and Emma needs to take over the Glee club. She would be so much better and cuter at it. Sue and Will’s number was painful at first. Will’s high voice didn’t even sound like a person. When the kids joined in and started dancing, "Night Fever" got better. Finn’s dance moves looked like Ern’s.

Will singled out the kids who didn’t know what they were going to do “for the rest of their lives.” Um, who does? Maybe 2% of kids and 20% of adults. Mercedes’ "Disco Inferno" was pretty fun. She maybe growled a little too much in it. She was looking good in this episode. That red dress was her best outfit ever and it made us believe that Sam would want to be with her. “The cream always rises to the top, Mercedes.” Oh, Mr. Schue, how we hate you. No, it doesn’t. Haley Reinhart lost American Idol and Ashlee Simpson had a number one single. When he interpreted Santana’s love song as political and told her to go to law school, we barked a laugh. We agree with him that fame isn’t something to aspire to, though.

We are so over Finn and Rachel. How are they remotely believable as high school seniors? Finn, competitive eating champion sounds about right. "How Deep Is Your Love" was probably the best disco song for Rachel to solo, but we are annoyed that her first solo in FOREVER isn’t a belted powerhouse like "My Man". It was a little dull, too. Oh Finn, you artard. College-aged is still young. This episode is mildly painful for at least one of us. Who doesn’t have an artsy-fartsy dream they gave up because it wasn’t practical (besides Leeard)? Will Schuester talking about living your dreams and how it’s terrible if you didn’t dare to dream it makes us roll our eyes and bums us out. In high school, everyone’s dream is to be famous or be President. How many people will actually get there?

Wow, this post is getting bitter. Moving on. The Brittany/Santana storyline was a way better lesson. Alex did a pretty good job in his song, and Jesse St. James’ face made the dress storyline worth it. He looks better as a girl. If we want this though, we prefer to just watch Kinky Boots. Rachel looked the best she’s looked in a long time during Finn’s hideous song. We like the side-swept bangs and the soft curls. Ern tried sweeping her short bangs to the side and it just made her look like Hitler. We would watch Sue’s sex tape with Oliver North. We're not buying any of the songs, but we don't think Glee butchered disco. Their voices fit the songs and they were fun and happy. We'll call this a musical success. The episode was ok. It just served to remind us how little we care about these characters and their futures. 

Episode grade: B

Glee- Big Brother review

Comments- Finally, Glee is back. We missed this show more than it deserves, because it’s often kind of a crappy show. Still, we are on the Glee train until it crashes. Thank God Rachel and Finn didn’t marry. The burning question of whether they went through with it was answered in the first line of the episode. What relief! Now we can breathe again.

We liked Quinn’s positive outlook and gratefulness at being alive, but we didn’t trust it. There’s no way Quinn could end up in a wheelchair with no drama. Sure enough, she's in denial about how long it's going to take to heal. I’m Still Standing was cute, but the lyrics were so on-the-nose and unintentionally hilarious. This is the way Glee always handles stories about the handicapped.  To hammer the PSA home, Glee had Quinn say, “Don’t text and drive. Texting and driving was the stupidest thing I’ve ever done, besides sleeping with Puck.” Um, what about trying to steal Shelby’s baby?

We are glad that Quinn has a chance at a full recovery. Sue coaching the Glee club is a hilarious idea. Could Cooper BE any cuter? No, because it’s Matt Bomer from White Collar, one of the best-looking guys in history. It came as no shock to us when he came out of the closet. No guy that pretty is straight. He makes the usually adorable Blaine look homely by comparison.

Of course when Quinn doesn’t bring drama, Rachel provides it on Quinn’s behalf. Quinn shut it down nicely. Puck wants Finn to go into business with him for his BRAINS? Oh, Puck. Cooper is such a douche. Saying “Namaste” in a non-yoga setting was the clincher. Of course Matt Bomer would be able to sing too (at least we think/it’s tough to tell what these people actually sound like with all that autotune the show uses). One person should not be so gifted. It isn’t fair. Hopefully he’s stupid in real life, like Finn. We prefer Blaine’s voice though. Rio/Hungry Like a Wolf was a good mash-up in that the songs went well together.

Ern’s brother tries out new accents in public all the time, haha. We loved seeing baby Blaine and Cooper. Blaine was being too sensitive about his brother’s advice at dinner. Older siblings criticize and that’s that. He means well. When someone who means well criticizes you, you should take what’s helpful and ignore the rest without getting upset. We were really scared that Quinn was going to slide backwards off that ramp Artie made her climb. We disagree that it’s hard to go to a theme park in a wheelchair. Ern knows, because Ern did that once. No, Ern was neither injured nor handicapped. Ern was just a bad person when she was younger (and possibly now too.)

When you are in a wheelchair, they sometimes rush you to the front of lines and you get to remain seated the entire time. You don’t get tired. Someone in your family has to push you. Clearly, the writers of this show have never done this. Cooper’s acting lessons were so bad. We are starting to see why Blaine is annoyed. The man is an idiot and arrogant at the same time. During his acting lessons, we started to really loathe him and wish that he was off the show. “When a choice feels wrong, it’s actually a good sign.” Haha.

The thing about arrogant people is they don’t realize they are arrogant. It’s a blinding trait. They have no idea. They think they are the best people either. Blaine being mad at Cooper for being arrogant is like me being mad at Helen Keller for not being able to enjoy The Dark Knight. You just hope they one day seek therapy because they can’t form lasting relationships and let a professional break the news to them in a convincing way. Also, you realize that we are all a little arrogant and/or self-centered. Some people are just better at hiding it.

Blaine should never throw punches again. That’s not his forte. Fighter was ok. We like when the show has someone of one gender singing an original song by someone of the opposite gender. It’s hard to top Christina Aguilera though, and that’s one of her best songs (and creepiest music videos).

It’s about time we address Sue’s pregnancy, because that’s still happening. Oh show, why do you do these things to us? Leeard still refuses to believe this is a thing. She will not believe it until she sees the baby pop out of Sue, and she might not even believe it then. Apparently, the baby girl is going to have Down’s Syndrome. This is realistic, since Sue is old. But it’s not going to be funny. We fail to see how it will add anything to the show. We already have Becky.

Kurt’s solution to Blaine’s brother problem is that they sing it out. A) Stupid and B) Good, because it led to the best cover of the night. The song is just fantastic, so anyone singing it can make it nice. It was cool to apply the breakup song to the brothers’ relationship. Cooper, those Transformers movies suck anyway. The first one was ok. As for the final Rachel/Finn fight, we are past caring. But Team Rachel.

Episode grade: B