Glee/Headscratchers/Season 3

Discuss all issues with Glee's third season here.

You may also be interested in... General, Characters, Season 1 by Episode, Season 2 by Episode, Season 3 by Episode.

The Purple Piano Project

 * Denying Sugar Motta
 * Ok, there is no way you can be that un-life/genre savvy and of a jerk Will. Her dad bought your the three pianos, and you couldn't even consider letting her into Glee Club for maybe even dancing; I'm sure Britney would've been more than willing to help her, sure you'd have to deal with an untalented Rachel Berry amped Up To Eleven, but by denying her you screwed over the Glee club by losing your potential source of tons of money. I think the conflict of her being on the team would've been worth the conflict of a new Glee club starting up.
 * Do you really think Sugar would have accepted anything less than being the star? She probably would have tried to push out every other potential competitor, leading to an even more hostile environment. Besides, Will offered to coach her and she said no.
 * I did and do, in fact, believe she would have. I have every episode that follows this one to support that.
 * "Self-diagnosed Asperger's." "Self-diagnosed Asperger's." "SELF-DIAGNOSED ASPERGER'S."
 * I think the joke is that she's incredibly self-absorbed. I self-diagnosed myself with Asperger's. Doesn't mean I have it, just means I have a few autistic tendencies. For all we know she took the same online test I did.
 * Sorry, gonna have to call you on that - online tests aren't good enough to say anything about having Asperger's or not. That takes a doctor. Actually, it takes a specifically trained doctor. Regular, run-of-the-mill docs aren't qualified to do it correctly. Same with autism and "autistic tendencies" - if you haven't had a legitimate medical professional tell you that's the case after a proper and thorough examination then don't claim it, it just adds to the misconception of behavioral problems that's so prevalent in society.
 * That outrage right there, you're SUPPOSED to be feeling that. The intention was that Sugar is a spoiled bitch who falsely claims to have a legitimate condition just so she can blame her rudeness on it.
 * She's basically a physical manifestation of an Internet troll. Only slightly prettier to look at.
 * Slightly? I'm perfectly okay with her staying on the show even if she's a bitch and her singing sucks just because she's hot.
 * I think this is another instance of Glee using real world head lines in their episodes, considering self diagnosed disorders are becoming a huge problem in schools. At my school alone, we've had to call 9 people's parents in order to confirm mental disorders they claimed they had in order to get out of doing certain things. In a rival school of mine, they actually had a speaker come and talk to them about it. I think this was just RIB throwing a real world thing in.
 * Finn complaining about Blaine joining the Glee Club. Seemed like there was a lot of resentment there for pretty much no good reason. When did Blaine give any indication that he wanted to make New Directions at all like the Warblers?
 * Finn is hostile because Blaine is a better singer and dancer. As "the leader" of Glee Club, he's feeling threatened that Blaine will be stealing his thunder (which is obviously the direction the show is looking to go.)
 * You say that as if being a better singer and dancer than Finn is actually difficult.
 * Or that Blaine taking over as "leader" of New Directions is a bad thing.
 * Besides, it's already been shown that Finn gets easily hurt at the thought of someone hogging the spot of 'lead' (re:Jesse). Hooray continuity.
 * Finn probably still remembers what happened the last time they let in a former member of a rival Glee club who was dating a member of New Directions. Plus, Finn probably picked up on the fact that Blaine is used to Warblers completely revolving around everything Blaine wants and does. Frankly, I'm a bit surprised he was the only one who actually vocalized such concerns.
 * Since when did the Warblers do everything Blaine wanted? They're shown to have a pretty serious hierarchy and Blaine wasn't all that high up on it. They had to take votes on everything, and Kurt singing Blackbird unannounced was met with mild indignation if I recall correctly.
 * None of which Finn would have ever actually seen. Every time the Warblers performed, Blaine was clearly the center of attention. The sole exception was at Regionals when he performed with Kurt, which could be reasonably inferred by an outside observer as having been Blaine's idea. Plus, when did they ever actually go against anything Blaine wanted in the end? Sure, they resisted in a few cases (particularly when he wanted to perform for Jeremiah), but ultimately they did it.
 * On a more meta level, there's also the fact that Blaine got a phenomenally disproportionate amount of screentime and songs compared to the actual importance of his character.
 * I thought that Finn was accusing Blaine of lighting the piano on fire, since he was, after all, dancing with the people who doused it with lighter fluid.
 * And on that note, Blaine leaving the Warblers. He sees Kurt all the time, and leaving a prestigious school like Dalton just to be with him seems a little off. Clearly the meta reason for it happening is the fanbase loves him and wants to see him interacting with all the other characters, but the in-universe explanation was a little weak.
 * Not to mention that his parents, who clearly care enough about his safety to shell out the money for him to attend an expensive private school, are just okay with him attending a school that his boyfriend (the one he's only been dating a few months) had previously been bullied out of. The simple answer is that it's lazy writing to appease the Blaine fans.
 * Quinn's becoming a hardass. When Season 2 ended, and she got her Important Haircut, it seemed like she was going to become a better person and improve her life. Now we get... someone who isn't remotely like Quinn at all.
 * I think that's the point. Quinn is seen  She's pretending to be this badass to hide her disappointment with the previous year.
 * Will's expulsion of Santana doesn't address the real issue: namely, that Sue is illegally basing her cheer squad's operations on things other than cheerleading; the only way for Santana to get away from Sue's influence in the present circumstance would be to give up cheerleading, because saying no to anything she asks draws punishment. Why isn't Will trying to get the administration to stop Sue from abusing her power over the Cheerios (or, for that matter, telling the media about it)?
 * He has tried the former, didn't work. The latter well, that probably won't work as Sue already has a media outlet of her own and as she told him earlier "Everyone loves a martyr." It would simply be far too easy for her to spin it around into a personal attack on her, giving her even more ammo to use against him.
 * If Rachel and Kurt were so determined to attend Juilliard, how could they not know that it didn't have a musical theater program? I'd understand if they were just casually interesting, but they seemed pretty dedicated to the idea. Surely people like Rachel and Kurt would've tried to learn everything they could about it.
 * Whatever trope they were using in the season 2 finale seems to be in place here, ie, Rachel not knowing that Cats was no longer being performed. I can't for the life of me guess what that trope would be though. It's just too strange to be simple Rule of Funny.
 * With Rachel and Kurt, I get the impression that they make out that they know a lot more than they actually do. They're both extroverted people who always want to be the centre of attention, and with the gift of the gab you can make anyone believe just about anything by sheer confidence alone. The example about Rachel not knowing that Cats was no longer being run is a good example, she might know the show, the songs, but she doesn't know that it actually doesn't run anymore. It shows how young they are, really.
 * More to the point, why couldn't they just apply to the drama program? Tons of stage actors who have gained popularity in musical theatre have done that. There's no reason to be that dedicated to the idea of a specifically musical-theatre program.
 * I'm really disturbed by Mercedes' development. Since Chord quit, they got rid of Sam... and gave her a random black boyfriend instead? Was that really necessary?
 * Well he's probably going to turn out to be important. I originally thought Becky was just a one-shot character of no real significance, and now she's pretty damned important. Mike used to just be the "other Asian" and now he's a full cast member. There's definitely going to be development here.
 * Isn't that Azimio? It looked like it to me, in the few seconds we saw the back of his head.
 * Despite being a full cast member, Mike has had no development. He's just been there to dance and be a part of the Token Minority Couple. Mercedes' boyfriend is probably there for the same reason.
 * It seems like they're just scrambling to deal with planned future Mercedes plotlines that Chord's quitting suddenly made problematic. They needed somebody to fill in the role of Mercedes' boyfriend and without Sam they had to write in a new character. There is a bit of justification for it since she had expressed a little interest in a black footballer back in "The Substitute" (though I'm almost positive it was a different guy), even though that went completely nowhere.
 * It was a completely different guy, and a much cuter one at that. Seriously, from Sam to...this guy? It makes it seem like Mercedes is just desperate.
 * Mercedes is desperate. Let's look at her past relationships with guys: She had a crush on Kurt, who turned out to be gay; she dated Puck even though she knew he was only with her to become popular again; who knows what happened with the linebacker Kurt tried to set her up with but it obviously didn't go anywhere; she couldn't find anyone to go to the prom with and actually had to share a guy with a friend; and then when she actually developed feelings for that guy and for the first time in her life they were returned, he moved away almost immediately after. If Mercedes was able to find anyone who was willing to go out with her, I doubt she's even be able to say no.
 * Why were two of the biggest storylines of last year - namely, Karofsky, and the Brittany-Santana-Artie love triangle - not even mentioned in this episode? Karofsky might be addressed later, but Brittany and Santana had plenty of time to interact and didn't, especially since Santana was featured prominently in this episode and would've probably talked to Brittany about some of this Cheerios drama. Way to leave your two biggest storylines hanging, guys!
 * As for the first one, Max Adler has been filming a movie so he won't be back for a few episodes. Give it time...
 * As for the rest, it's the first freaking episode, give it time.
 * Emma's completely off-screen development. It's been two, three months and she's already okay with sleeping in the same bed as someone else, and even kissing. Her character was headed in this direction by the end of last season, but it would've been nice to see exactly how such drastic changes came about.
 * If you remember, Emma was convinced by her psychiatrist to start taking medication in the season 2's episode "Born This Way" to help her with her OCD. It was already addressed.
 * Also, when Will tries to kiss her, she tells him she hasn't brushed her teeth yet and runs off to do that. She got over a little bit of her intimacy anxiety with Carl, and she's known Will for more than three years now. They also weren't standing very close when they kissed and it was just a quick peck. As for the sleeping thing, there was a lot of blanket between their two bodies and she had on a huge sleeping gown.
 * I'm fine with them skipping steps in regards to Emma's character development since they've already wasted so much of our time with the "They can't get together yet! Let's shoehorn in Stamos! Who cares if it makes sense?" storyline.
 * Sue's back to trying to sabotage Glee Club, even after they organized her sister's funeral last season. What?
 * Status Quo Is God is really the only explanation. Even then that's pushing it.
 * Apparently she's just trying to get rid of arts in schools to further her run for Congress or vice-versa.
 * Exactly, before she was doing it just For the Evulz. Now it's just business, not personal.
 * But it's still an incredibly stupid plotline. The writers are just running out of ideas.
 * Quinn threw the cigarette at the piano causing it to burst into flames due to the lighter fluid Santana and the Cheerios doused it with. Quinn is no longer a Cheerio so that means it was more than likely an accident. But if the cigarette had missed the piano, what would they have done to set it on fire?
 * It would have spontaneously combusted from the force of Sues glare. In fact, the reason Sue hates Shue is because his hairgel is fireproof.
 * Seems legit.
 * Maybe they were going to set it on fire, but Quinn saw it and decided to incinerate it for the hell of it
 * Maybe it was a failed attempt for attention, kind of like what she did for 'The Glist'.
 * Santana and Brit back in the Cheerios. Why?

I Am Unicorn

 * The show treats Blaine's transferring unforgivably casually. In the case of Blaine, how can nothing but a romantic relationship with a peer (gay or straight) factor in your decision to transfer schools? What about academics, the possible loss of credits, or the possibility of harrassment for being gay? If his parents sent him to Dalton for a reason, what would cause them to undo that reason so suddenly. Guidance counselors typically advise students not to choose colleges based on where your boyfriend or girlfriend is going because you might break up or because if the relationship is meant to happen, it should sustain the distance. Keep in mind, the two high schools are in the same town.
 * But as of 3x09 we know (but then again we don't) that he has financial issues. The scene where he gives his present to Kurt and explains it will be in the DVDs, so it's official. And this troper finds it likely that Blaine's economic problems will be brought up again in the show at least as a minor plot point/arc, if not a major one. So, could this be a case of Fridge Brillance, since we know Dalton is very expensive? Maybe he really wanted to go to McKinley because of his love for Kurt, but that also came at just the right time as he needed to transfer to a more affordable school?


 * Isn't there a choir department or something that could teach Sugar how to sing? There's zero arts budget?
 * Yes, actually, there is zero arts budget. The arts aren't considered nearly as important as sports and the like. Hell, this even goes up into college. Trying being an English major, even at a liberal arts school; no one takes you seriously. It's a very important real-world issue.
 * Even if there's no arts budget, it isn't as if New Directions isn't loaded with talented singers, some of whom almost certainly have musical training in addition to their natural talent. (Rachel and Kurt come to mind here. We know Rachel does her own vocal exercises and both she and Kurt seem like the kind of people who take music seriously enough to have had lessons.) If Will hadn't been so quick to deny her entry into New Directions, one of them could have probably taught her and would have had plenty of incentive to do so, since they wouldn't want her bad singing to ruin their shot at Nationals this year. The real problem with this is that Sugar sincerely believes that she's a talented singer and therefore would never even consider accepting help or guidance from someone else.


 * Why does Quinn think it would be a better idea to take the kid back when she hasn't even finished highschool yet?
 * Shelby mentions that giving up Rachel is one of the biggest mistakes of her life, Quinn might think that means she should fight to keep Beth. It doesn't make the most sense as she's currently an unemployed high school student, but it's also been established that Quinn isn't thinking rationally either.
 * The next question is, how is it even possible? She signed away her rights as a mother when she gave Beth up.
 * If she can prove she was coerced into giving consent to the adoption or that Shelby is an unfit mother she can legally revoke her consent. but since Shelby so far as been a great mom and no one coerced Quinn into the adoption it is legally impossible for her to regain custody of Beth.
 * She could bring up how Shelby tracked Rachel down before she was 18, attempted to start a relationship with her, and then abandoned her all over again. That certainly wouldn't reflect well on Shelby.
 * Not to mention the fact that she decided to move back and work at the same school as the daughter she has now abandoned twice. The first episode seems to imply that Rachel and Quinn might get closer again, so maybe Quinn will bring that up. She's not the only one who would, either; Will has issues with the way Shelby treats Rachel as well.
 * Speaking of which, why hasn't there been any reaction between Shelby and Rachel?
 * But even if Shelby was found to be an unfit mother, wouldn't that just put Beth in foster care? I suppose Quinn and Puck could then attempt to adopt Beth out of foster care, but they'd have a hell of a time with it.(They're high school students, Puck's been to juvy, etc.)
 * Are they just ruinning all of Quinn's character development for fun (okay, not for fun, for the sake of a new storyline)? I was curious about what they're going to do with Rebel!Quinn, but suddenly revealing that despite all her character developments she never thanked Mercedes?
 * I highly doubt that she never thanked Mercedes. I thought Will was just being kind of a douche. Telling her to grow up? She's 18! She's lashing out because her attempts at going back to a normal life failed! It's his job (and Emma's job as the counselor) to encourage her to seek help and make sure she's doing okay. I don't recall him doing that for her, or Rachel for that matter. And he really shouldn't have let Shelby walk back into their lives willy-nilly like that. I think he's gotten more and more douchey as the seasons have gone on.
 * She came into Will's office and blamed him for ruining her life. That, right off the bat, makes her way out of line. She does this to publicly embarrass him on camer, which will help Sue destroy the Glee Club that has been nothing but a family to her, no matter how bad things got for her. She has absolutely no right, 18 or not, to go into a teacher's office and speak to him that way. In my school, you would have at the very least been suspended out of school for 10 days. Quinn is acting like a brat and refusing to take responsibility for her own actions, so she gets what she deserves. As for the Shelby issue, it's not like Will has a choice. And Will and Emma are only in loco parentis while Quinn is in school. This transformation happened over the summer. Where the Hell is her mother?!
 * First off, we've already seen that Will and Emma are both shaky on the finer points of being an authority figure/confidante for their students. He's definitely a douche at times, as Emma is pants at being a counselor. But Will is absolutely justified in telling Quinn to grow up. She's in and out of the Glee club for no good reason, proving she's unreliable, and she's hanging out with a bunch of delinquents and smoking. Finding yourself is one thing. Putting yourself and other students in danger, becoming as much of a bully as Santana and Karofsky have been in the past when you've seen how bullying affects others - that's acting like a child.
 * That's the point, though. She IS a child. She might legally be an adult, but she's still just a kid, and she still needs guidance.
 * She's also refusing to take responsibility for her how actions. A lot of the bad things that happened to her are entirely her own fault, but rather than accepting that, she'd rather blame other people and be a victim. Again, she's 18, she needs to start taking responsibility for her own life. That includes things like sleeping with Puck and giving up Beth. Not once has she said "I was wrong," it's always been someone else's fault.
 * While I agree that Will can be a douche, he didn't let Shelby wander back into their lives - Figgins hired her. He was just as shocked about it as I'm sure Puck, Rachel, and Quinn were. I also disagree that 'my life sucks' is a reason for Quinn to destroy school property, harass and torment other students, and otherwise lash out. Will has always offered her a haven in glee, especially when she was at her lowest, and she basically spat in his face by going back Sue, who (besides herself, as the poster above me mentioned) is a root cause of many of her problems.
 * Here's the thing. Yeah, she's only 18, but Will and the rest of New Directions have already tried the nice "cry on my shoulder" approach with Quinn and she repayed them by trying to portray the matyr. There's a time where you should listen to people in their grief, and then there's the time where you call them out on their own roles in misfortune. At this point, Will coddling Quinn anymore in her pity party would simply turn him into an enabler.
 * Be that as it may, teachers are absolutely not allowed to yell at their students no matter how much they may bring it on themselves. If Quinn had even a single person in the world that gave a crap about her, Will Schuester would be out of a job and possibly a career, especially with it being on videotape. Tough love and telling Quinn to grow up are fine. Raising his voice is NOT.
 * Blaine is suddenly a Junior. Try rewatching Series 2 knowing that Blaine was a Sophmore and Kurt was a Junior at the time, it's definitely not the feeling it give off.
 * Seriously, that makes no sense. Blaine being a sophomore and the star of the Warblers doesn't work.
 * Except that in Season 1, Finn was the captain of the football team as a sophomore and Quinn was head Cheerio as a sophomore. At least the implausibility is consistent.
 * That was at Mckinley, though. They have a terrible football team, so Finn was probably just naturally talented enough compared to everyone else to get the spot despite only being a sophomore. In Quinn's case, it was probably that the former head cheerleader had graduated the previous year and when the spot opened up Quinn was the only one capable of impressing Sue enough to get it. It makes no sense for a sophomore to be the star at Dalton because the Warblers are good and well established and have a clear hierarchy and pure talent alone is not enough to pull you up that hierarchy. In fact, Blaine told Kurt that he needed to stop showing off how good he is LESS so that he'll fit in (which is exactly the opposite of what Blaine does...). The two schools are completely different and it's still inconsistent with what we've seen of Dalton.
 * My reaction to hearing Blaine say he's a Junior caused me to let out a Flat What, but I have a possible explanation - if Blaine's bounced around between schools (Dalton, McKinley, and it seems like he went to a different school before Dalton), credit requirements may have been different enough to leave him behind a year. It's an imperfect solution, of course, but it's keeping my blood pressure under control.
 * Or his Sadie Hawkin's Dance was a bit more than just a few punches. Serious time in a hospital could have been reason enough to keep him back a year.
 * Quinn's "development" feels like an Ass Pull to me. I have a hard time believing this is what the writers were planning when they wrote Quinn in season two. Seems like they just didn't know what to do with her, so they pandered to the fandom and brought Beth back.
 * It is interesting to note that her development seems to be mirroring Puck's. In season two he started being less of a jerk, settled down with a steady girlfriend, and started taking more responsibility for his actions. Then in season three we see that his grades are also improving too and he is willing to work with Shelby and abide by her wishes in order to be a part of Beth's life. Quinn on the other hand has refused to acknowledge any of her own wrongdoing and starting this season she starts acting out and behaving irresponsibly (a lot like season 1 Puck) and plans on taking Beth away from Shelby any way she can.
 * It feels to me like they are using WAAY less music this season. I think this episode only had 3 or 4 songs. Last season they were averaging 8.
 * I think that's because they've decided to focus more on character development than the music which, per me, is not all that horrible an idea.
 * It's certainly about character development, but it seems to also be a way to drum up interest in musicals. I don't think we've had a single "top 40" cover yet, which I was quite looking forward to hearing Blaine do. It's mostly been music that the average viewer would never have listened to otherwise.
 * Why do Quinn and Puck suddenly care so much about being a part of Beth's life? They didn't mention her at all in season two, and didn't seem to have any emotional effects from the experience for that entire season. Now it's suddenly Bethbethbethbeth! Puck might be understandable since he actually expressed an interest in keeping Beth, but Quinn always seemed pretty set on adoption. Also, couldn't Shelby have at least called first before making the executive decision that Quinn and Puck were going to be a part of Beth's life? That's a major thing to suddenly drop on someone.
 * I agree with Puck, since he seems to like kids. I can see him being very protective of his little sister - the whole reason he dated Rachel in season 1 was to make his mother happy - but Quin...Quinn is just thinking this can save her. Again, Ass Pull Character Development.
 * If Sugar's dad is so rich that he can casually boost a whole separate glee club just to spoil her, why is he sending his daughter to a public school in the first place?
 * A public school would be easier to bribe, since they aren't getting tuition funds.
 * Initially it was probably because she wants to be a star and New Directions made it all the way to Nationals last year. The only other glee club we know of from Ohio that made it that far was Vocal Adrenaline and her dad probably realized that even he didn't have enough money to make her anything but a part of the background in VA. Once Will refused to let her in it probably became an issue of showing Will up.
 * He might also be one of those parents who thinks "Public school will be good for them. It will teach them to be like any other kid" and then spoils them rotten at home. Hell, we had a few kids like that in my school.
 * Is anyone getting as mad about Kurt's character as I have been in the last two episodes? He had to get told by his dad that he is manipulative and needs to calm down in "Duets", but he is back to being manipulative, especially in regards to his relationship with Blaine. First, he convinced Blaine to transfer to McKinley despite all the reasons mentioned above. Now, when they are trying to put on a production of West Side Story, Kurt basically acts like it would be awful if Blaine auditioned for Tony because Kurt wants to be Tony really bad. This somehow makes Blaine decide to audition solely to be any male that isn't Tony, and yet, when the directors ask him to read for Tony, we have to see Kurt acting really betrayed and hurt. I know Kurt has issues with being seen as only the camp gay performer, but I don't think he has the right to bitch to his boyfriend about trying for something Kurt wants. If Kurt isn't right for the role, he shouldn't get it. That's how theater works, and it is frustrating to see him act like it is so awful if Blaine doesn't do what he asks.
 * Of course Kurt would be hurt about it, but he didn't bitch Blaine out of auditioning for Tony. Blaine chose to audition for Bernardo/Officer Krumpkee so that he wouldn't hurt Kurt's feelings if he did get it. He also probably figured that he himself has more time to audition for and get a lead in a musical. This is Kurt's last year. And to be fair, Kurt gives him flowers and seems to be completely over it by the end of the episode.
 * Glee has developed a very bad habit of resetting everyone's characterization back to square one at the beginning of each new season (Rachel sending Sunshine to a crack house at the beginning of season 2 being the most egregious example). That being said, it seems like he never really stopped being manipulative. For example, in Silly Love Songs he manipulated the Warblers into breaking decades of tradition and performing in public just because he thought Blaine wanted to sing to him. At the very least, it's still pretty much consistent with his character, even if it is frustrating.
 * It's because Rachel and Santana are very popular characters, and Ryan believes that it's because of their negative qualities. Ryan wants Kurt to be popular (because he's in love with him) so he gives him their characteristics.
 * Kurt's been manipulative since he tried to give Rachel that make over in the first thirteen episodes, it's a part of his character. Not getting called out on it is Murphy's fault though.
 * Uh... Kurt is a popular character, don't know where you got the idea he isn't, but he's been a popular character since "Wheels" at the very least.
 * I don't even like Kurt but it's pretty obvious that these manipulations claims are kinda ridiculous. Blaine's transfer is a meta thing, not an in-story thing. It's illogical and a really crappy reasoning was written in. To blame characters involved in such bollocks for that isn't fair at all. The Tony thing is clearly more to do with Kurt's ambitions. He needs the role, he doesn't just want it. Blaine has no problem with Kurt taking the role over him because a) not the end of the world, it's a school musical and b) Kurt genuinely needs some experience acting. Finally, Kurt isn't hurt that Blaine was asked to audition for Tony (we never see him accept the role before Kurt goes all hurt face), it's because it reinforces his 'can't play straight' issues. It's an insecurity thing that Blaine's success was reinforcing.
 * Did anyone find "Kurt's so gay he can't play straight" thing offensive?! I'm sure Chris Colfer could pull it off. And after all the shit with Johnathan Groff...
 * Chris Colfer could pull it off, sure. KURT is another matter. Remember when he tried to be straight back in Season 1? No one believed it (well, except Brittany) and just humored him. Likewise, the only one who put it that way was Kurt. Kurt overheard Coach Beiste expressing legitimate concerns about his suitability for the role from the perspective of a casting director and took it to mean that he was too gay to play straight.
 * Kinda surprised nobody mentioned this, but... Beiste. Remember her, Glee writers? Remember that gal who was crying in the locker room because her feelings were hurt when people were insensitive about her femininity? Remember that her issue was that she was still a girl inside, but the problem was that she tended towards masculine things? Remember that her first big issue last season was gender sensitivity? Hmm? Now play the scene where she emasculates Kurt for being too girly to play a man. Oh sure, he wasn't supposed to hear, just like she wasn't supposed to hear the football team. And, well, okay, she has that whole, "I'll do whatever it takes for my guys to win" thing, but there is nothing to win by staging the play. It does Dot such a great injustice.
 * I agree, but I think it also has a bit to do with his voice and looks not being right. Tony was, after all, in a gang. I don't think anyone could buy Kurt being in a gang.
 * And the real difference here is that Beiste was being criticized for just being who she was. Kurt, on the other hand, was auditioning for a role that he didn't fit. It's like comparing a girl who gets teased for being short with a girl who is told she's too short to play Hermia in A Midsummer Night's Dream. Beiste isn't saying that there is anything wrong with Kurt being semi-feminine, she's just saying that he doesn't fit the part (and doesn't have the acting skills to fit the part). Sorry, but if you're auditioning for a play, it is expected that the director will critique your audition. And "can't play a manly-man role convincingly" is a valid critique. Pointing out the ways in which a person isn't right for a part in a play is not at all the same as making fun of a person.
 * Oh Kurt. You auditioned for Tony, the street tough Romeo Expy, with a flipping Streisand song? Really? I'm glad you didn't get the part. You're too dumb.
 * Agreed. Kurt picking a Streisand song to audition for the role of a straight leading man made no sense whatsoever. While he certainly has every right to act Camp Gay if he desires, it still comes across that he has issues with being masculine in ways that Beiste does not. To my knowledge, he has only performed songs by male artists 3 times in the entire series. And even then, the Springsteen cover was during his "straight" phase, and the two Beatles songs sounded more like the Across the Universe versions that were performed by women.

Asian "F"

 * Does anyone else feel like Mike Chang's father's reaction to an A- as abusive? They treated the A- as an extremely unthinkable event, meaning it hasn't happened before, or at least not often. So Mike should still have high, straight A's on his report card, along with playing Football and performing in Glee Club. Any college would drool at his feet for him to attend, and his Dad still terrifies him over a single A- and tries to force him out of Glee Club. That seems emotionally abusive to me. Or is it okay because Mike is a boy and Asian sterotypes are funny?
 * It is emotional abuse, yes, because his father wants his son to be successful above anything else- he's forcing his wishes for his son's life on his son while ignoring what Mike wants.
 * It's interesting to look at Emma's "Ginger Supremacist" parents, and how her first choice for a t-shirt last year in "Born This Way" was one that said "Ginger" on it. It would explain why that was something she was very self conscious of, when no one besides Sue has ever mentioned it to her. It would be like the child of racists being more aware of their own race.
 * Even if the reason she's ashamed is a bit implausible. Maybe I'm just not all too worldly but I've never heard of actual ginger supremacists, and isn't this show supposed to be slightly realistic?
 * No. Sue's mother was a Nazi hunter. Vocal Adrenaline uses lamps so hot that you have to wear sun screen on stage. The show has never been above making a joke out of exaggerated characters or situations. It's not that realistic and never has been.
 * Ginger speaking. I've never seen a Ginger Supremacist, but I've definitely seen people who take so much pride in their red hair it borders on fanatical. Also, gingers protested that episode of South Park with the 'Kick a Ginger Day' subplot IRL, so they probably exist somewhere.
 * While there might not be any "Ginger Supremacists," their absurd rhetoric does mirror that of real-life white supremacists (eg "Whites are endangered!")
 * Wasn't Emma's OCD already explained in season one? Something about her brother pushing her into some mud? Either way, apparently the writers mistakenly believe that OCD is something taught, not a mental illness.
 * Traumatic experiences or patterns can lead to mental illnesses.
 * By the way, where was Emma's brother? Was he even in that scene?
 * Was it explained with an actual flashback? That may have been just something Emma was saying, especially given her shame about her parents, so she may not really have a brother, thus explaining the original question as well as why we didn't see him.
 * The show is turning into High School Musical with slightly better writing. I first got into Glee because it was High School Musical except portrayed realistically, with much better music and writing. Maybe this is just a one-off thing, but Britanny's performance just seemed a little too contrived. I'm willing to write off the unrealisticness of the band and the Piano Man, but that excessively complicated choreography was just too much. I get that it's supposed to be portrayed as a music video, like Mercedes' first audition was, but when you get a huge group performing like that it loses its artistic merit.
 * If you look at the crowd, most of the girls dancing were Cheerios. And the background girls that weren't could have been former Cheerios that knew a common routine. It could've just been an assembly for President that Brittany hijacked. Also, it was totally awesome, so I don't mind that much. What bothered me more was how smart she suddenly got before the number, and it didn't seem like just through Santana feeding her information either.
 * You mean the smart-sounding stuff she was spouting by the lockers? I'm certain Santana had rehearsed those lines with her, it seemed like she tripped up on some of them. Referencing economic such and such (don't remember the exact quote) seemed like her improvising with something that seemed smart.
 * Brittany isn't stupid, she's crazy.
 * "Comeback" established that Brittany is probably the most popular person in the school, and can get anybody to follow her lead. All she needed was the flash mob to drum up support and everything else just fell into place. Also keep in mind that parts of it (like the storming through the halls and spontaneous costume switch) were probably imagine spots, like many of their other songs.
 * The thing that bothers me is that her entire campaign seems to boil down to an elementary school-level argument of "Boys are dumb." I'm all for girl-power, but you have to have way more substance than that.
 * Sadly, that would have worked in my high school.
 * Has anyone else noticed that Shue is getting a little trigger happy? They barely have enough members to compete, and Shue keeps kicking students off. Santana seemed like she just conveniently got back into Glee so Shue could kick Mercedes out. And what if Mercedes actually was in pain? She wasn't acting too divaish about it, compared to how she and Rachel typically get.
 * Considering the nausea, along with the moodiness, it actually occurred to me that she might be pregnant. It would hardly be the first time on Glee.
 * According to Amber Riley, Mercedes is NOT pregnant, but I thought the exact same thing.
 * Or stressed out.
 * Also Will didn't kick her out. She quit.
 * After he forced an ultimatum on her.
 * Yes, and she STILL quit.
 * What did Mercedes gain in being such a flaming bitch? It's as if getting the part had less to do with wanting to play Maria (an amazing role that any actress would want, regardless of how it's arranged) and more to do proving herself better than Rachel.
 * That's exactly what she was trying to do. She's tired of Rachel getting all the spotlight when she knows she's just as talented. While I agree that Mercedes took things a bit far, it IS pretty consistent with her character to take things a bit too far when she feels like she's been wronged (throwing the brick at Kurt's windshield, cranking the diva Up to Eleven during "A Night of Neglect," etc.) and I think her frustration is understandable.
 * That and Will turning into Drill Sergeant Nasty during booty camp training. It's a defense mechanism that when you're stressed out, you push back. And frankly Mercedes was actually right, the club has bent over backwards to let Rachel have her own way and the fact that, despite stealing the show (Rachel even admitting as much) they still found a way for Rachel to have the starring role (only this time sharing it.)
 * Schue has had no issue denying Rachel the things she wants, and he has never attempted to stop the other Glee Club members from picking on her, which happens frequently when during Glee Club time. The only person on the show who has tried to keep from hurting Rachel's feelings is Emma. I'd count Beiste, but I don't think the two have ever had any interaction. And they haven't really bent over backwards to give Rachel whatever she wants - there's been a huge amount of resistance, they just need to keep her from quitting, which she hasn't done since season 1. Rachel's gotten a lot better about being a drama queen while Mercedes has just gotten worse. I mean, season 1 and season 2 Rachel would have had a fit at the thought of having to share the spotlight with someone else.
 * It didn't seem to me that Will was being too harsh; he was being a lot nicer than my musical theater teacher, and he goes pretty easy on us. It seemed more like Mercedes wasn't even trying. She had some good points about Rachel, but she shouldn't use it as an excuse not to make an attempt at practice. Everyone was stressed out, and they made a point of it, but everyone else put more effort into getting the moves, even Finn.
 * The problem is that Mercedes' motives are hypocritical and rotten to the core. She doesn't want the glee club to give an equal share of spotlight to everyone; she's only mad that it's "The Rachel Berry Show" because it's not "The Mercedes Jones Show".
 * The thing is that there are several sides to the argument and all of them are partially right. Rachel does get away with a lot because of her talent, Mercedes has been given chances to shine, and New Direction does need to work harder if they really want to win nationals.
 * The problem is not Mercedes, the real problem here is the writer's presentation of Mercedes. The last time Mercedes had a "real" plot-line was when she was obessed with tater-tots. It is possible for Mecedes to have, secretely all this time, been habouring a grude that Rachel gets all this so called "special treatment" (when it been shown since the pilot that Rachel takes dancing classes independantly, another thing the writers have forgotten) but the writers have not SHOWN this building resentment.
 * Mercedes was fully in the right. The club walks on eggshells around her. She also 100% earned that part. I agree with this blog and what it says when Mercedes tells Rachel to tell her she was better and Emma says "oh no". They knew she was better but they didn't want to upset Rachel. Read it for yourself. It's awesome.
 * Am I the only one who thought Mercedes deserved what she got? Jesse pointed it out when he was assisting Will last season. Mercedes doesn't try. Her response when Jesse asks if she rehearsed was something along the lines of "I don't need rehearsal, I'm great." She was late to booty camp because "she woke up half an hour late and set her whole schedule back". She's contrasted consistently this episode with Finn, who doesn't have the talent for dancing but gives it all he has. Mercedes keeps coming up with excuses, saying she's in pain or sick. And she's also contrasted with Rachel. Rachel works hard for what she gets. She consistently demonstrates not only talent, with Mercedes does have, in spades, but drive and persistence. Mercedes expects everything to come to her because she's talented, while Rachel CHASES what she wants. Mercedes is just lazy.
 * Santana orchestrated for Glee Club's pianos to be set on fire and she gets back in with a single apology. Wut?
 * Well Schue needs her since he doesn't have twelve and he has been proven to be very forgiving in the past (Rachel quitting, Quinn and the Glist, etc.)
 * Her and the Cheerios set the pianos on fire. Somehow the school cracks down on bullying, but arson is okay and easily forgivable?
 * The school didn't crack down on bullying. Santana cracked down on bullying in her bid to win prom queen.
 * I may not know much about musical theater auditions, but was I the only one who found it strange that none of the auditions asked the kids to actually act out scenes from West Side Story? I know it's one thing to test if someone can sing, but shouldn't you see if someone can act as well? What's to say that Rachel can't portray emotion? What's to say that Blaine is a stiff actor? I heard that Sondheim admitted to wanting singers who act and not actors who sing. Did we simply not see that part of the audition?
 * Conservation of detail?
 * Yes, conservation of detail. In the previous episode, after Blaine's singing audition, they asked him to read for Tony. Not sing, read. They just didn't show it happening.
 * Reverse, actually - Sondheim likes actors who sing more than singers who act.
 * Minor nitpick, but... I am pretty sure there's more than five parts in West Side Story. Why couldn't Kurt play, say, Bernardo? What about the other friends of Maria's? It's not like there's five characters and a bunch of faceless Jets.
 * Especially the role of Maria's best friend, whose personality and singing style would be a much better match for Mercedes than Maria herself, but good luck convincing her that.
 * Do you mean Anita? Santana was cast as her.
 * The callback list says 'We are pleased to announce the following roles have been cast'. Kinda implies they're still casting other parts so maybe they just cast the people who've auditioned so far.
 * What is Shue's problem this season? Does he think that none of the Glee kids have a life outside of the club? So there's Glee club and after school activity AND Booty Camp another large and physical time commitment AND the play which, coming off the heels of a play myself is a major obligation even if you don't have a starring role. What about school work? For at least some of these kids it's their senior year and they've got other responsibilities. He is pushing them too hard and when one student couldn't handle that excess pressure he acts like she's committed a crime. Come on now...
 * Personally, I think he's justified. He doesn't require nearly as much as Cheerios or football and he never has, yet the only people who don't do the bare minimum are Kurt and Rachel. And yet, strangely, they are the least upset when the Glee Club loses.
 * The thing is Glee club does not practice every day after school. Neither does football, Cheerios, or any other school activity. Booty Camp takes place on a day where neither football nor Glee meet. Mercedes isn't in any other after school activities so she really shouldn't have a problem balancing them out. Other members who do far more than her have managed to work through the schedule relatively easily. It's already been established that yes, Mercedes has talent, but she doesn't practice anywhere near the way she should to truly develop it.
 * We have no idea what type of other activities Mercedes might be involved in. We never knew Artie, Mike, Tina, and Brittany were on Academic Decathalon until "A Night of Neglect". We never knew Rachel took dance classes until "Laryngitis". It's not outside the realm of possibility that Mercedes is involved with outside interests - church choir, the school newspaper, a part-time job, whatever - until the show actually comes out and tells us if she is or isn't. And the others? Mike Chang's showing some of the pressure. Quinn's spiraling. Puck spent the first part of last season having crap grades and going to juvie. Not everyone can be Kurt or Rachel and deal with pressure the way they do.
 * Quinn and Puck suffered the consequences of their own behavior and choices, And yes Mike's grades slipped, but only from A to A- on a single test, the point being that his father is being unreasonable and overreacting. Also the point is that we are shown that the other Glee kids have other obligations outside of Glee while Mercedes hasn't (other than church choir). Granted, that doesn't mean that she doesn't do anything else, but until evidence to the contrary surfaces it's the most valid theory.
 * Mercedes DOES sing with her church choir, as shown in "Grilled Cheesus". It's undoubtedly the source of her vocal talent.
 * This really isn't that much- two after school activities (Glee and the musical, or, for some, Glee and sports) is hardly that over taxing, especially considering that it doesn't seem like any of these practices take up that much time- maybe 45 minutes to an hour, and not every day. Even being generous and saying that it's much longer (let's pretend 2 hours) and they have one or the other every day, that's still really not that much- They would be home by 5 at the latest. Assuming the most crowded scenario, and a very early bed time of 10:00, that leaves 5 free hours a night. On average, high school students have 2 hours of homework, leaving 3 hours every day free for relaxing (once again, assuming they go to bed at 10, which most students don't), as well as 48 hours on weekends. It is hardly child endangerment to ask for maybe one more hour a week to practice some dance moves. And there would still be plenty of time left to take part in a few other activities (most church choirs only meet on weekends for example). All in all, the amount the Glee kids whine about how hard he's pushing them is totally over the top. In my high school, our show choir practiced from 6-8 three times a week (that late so we didn't interfere with musical practice, which ran from 2:30- 5:30... and you can bet most of the kids in choir were in the musical as well), and we were non-competitive.
 * Azimio. In this episode he says that his dad didn't raise him at all, but in the "Sue Slyvester Bowl Shuffle", he did the "Thriller" dance specifically because it would make his dad proud. Is he trying to impress a dad that was never there, or is it just writer inconsistency?"
 * Writer inconsistency is the likeliest culprit and has my money, but it's not uncommon to want to please an absent parent, the idea that "if I do THIS, they'll love me and be there."
 * Why is there such an airing delay between this ep and early november? Why no new eps till then?
 * Baseball playoffs.

Pot O' Gold

 * Am I the only one who noticed that when Rachel came in late from putting up her campaign posters Shue didn't say a thing? Didn't he yell at Mercedes for doing almost the exact same thing only the last episode?
 * Did they really need to imitate the bullying of Phoebe Prince for this ep? It seemed a touch too coiencidental for me
 * Admittedly, it's probably coincidence, although there are definitely parallels between the two cases. It could be the writers were drawing inspiration from the incident, but not so much that it's directly Ripped from the Headlines.
 * It's definitely a coincidence. Damian McGinty was cast because he was one of the winners of a contest for a role on the show. The role would have likely been a transfer/exchange student who gets bullied and becomes friends with Finn regardless of who won. It just happened to be that one of the two winners was Irish.
 * So what's bothering me isn't the ending; it didn't necessarily come out of nowhere, and was foreshadowed all throughout the episode, what with revisiting Puck's pool cleaning/milf satisfying job in case we'd forgotten. I'm just wondering what the writers think they can achieve by having Puck and Rachel's mom get together. Yes, it would be good for Beth in the longrun, since Puck is clearly the only one of her biological parents who has her actual needs in mind, but the Squick factor is maybe just a bit too much.
 * Personally I saw it being foreshadowed earlier when Puck showed how dedicated he was willing to be for Beth (and of course because he loves MIL Fs). It seems like it's the kinda plot line that will make him grow up in one way or another and it'll go against Quinn in a lot of ways. Essentially the Beth plot line seems like it's trying to get Quinn to stop obsessing over perfection.
 * It could also be a way for Quinn to get Beth away from Shelby, since child services would freak the moment they found out about her and Puck.
 * The pool scene was meant to foreshadow the eventually ending to the episode. It was a quick reminder to the viewer that yeah, Puck is still interested in MIL Fs but his daughter takes top priority in his life. Shelby happens to fulfill both.
 * Rory spends the whole episode humoring Brittany's fantasy in order to get into her "pot of gold." But since this is Brittany we're talking about, does anyone else think it would have been an actual pot?
 * I tend to think Brittany knew the entire time what was going on, and was just pretending to believe in leprechauns to get what she wants.
 * Which would also explain why she was so willing to just let the whole thing go when Finn told her they weren't real.
 * It was a big plot point in season 1 how they needed 12 to compete. By my count, they have ten right now. Quinn, Puck, Kurt, Blaine, Rachel, Finn, Mike, Tina, Artie, Irish Kid. Why is Shue all "SECTIONALS WE MUST WIN?" Shouldn't he be worrying about being able to compete at all? For that matter, shouldn't Shelby have the same concern? She has four members right now (possibly 7, with the random backup that had somehow shown up during Candyman). I understand the writers forgetting minor character points but this was a big plot point. Are they managing to forget entire arcs now?
 * I think the implication is just they need to find a new member. I'm sure Puck could get Lauren to help out once more, if even just for the competition. Also, it might just be my school, but we had a Hip Hop class, a choir, a Glee Club, step team, drama department, cheerleaders and people who just like to sing (myself included). It won't be that hard, I'm sure Kurt or Quinn have someone that would agree to do it once or Kurt could try to get Karofsky to do it.
 * Maybe, but that doesn't make any sense given how determined the show is to characterize the glee kids as unpopular. Either they're totally isolated and don't have a friend in the world (what the writers have shown us so far), or they do have friends who they can call on for a favor in a competition (leaving out how stupid adding random people at the last minute with no rehearsal is). To me, this is just another irritating continuity issue among many that Glee has.
 * It could just be Mr Schue being Genre Savvy. He probably assumes they'll be able to get extra members at the last minute. Remember when they asked Jacob to come along? He was just there to fill the spot that Finn had left open, but Jacob was sitting in the audience with Emma, it was pretty obvious he wasn't going to perform. Besides, rules state you have to have a certain number of people, but not all of those people have to perform.
 * Okay, seriously, Shelby should not be around teenagers at all EVER. I mean, Jesus. First she tracks down her daughter that she gave up for adoption. She didn't just seek her out, she manipulated a boy into dating her to get her to be willing to meet. And then a few weeks later rejected her because she wanted a baby, not a teenager. Well, gee, maybe you should have thought of that before you tracked Rachel down! But, okay, maybe she didn't know so she adopts Quinn's baby and that's nice. Then she turns around, comes back, tells Quinn "Oh, I want you to see your baby, but only if you dress and act in a way that I find appropriate". Again, perhaps you should have considered how Quinn might take that, given that you've brought her baby back into her life. And now she's hooking up with Puck. None of this would bother me so much if the show didn't seem to want us to root for Shelby. She should NOT be allowed to work with children of any age, and I kind of hope child services does come and take Beth away.
 * I felt that way about Puck/Shelby, it is kinda creepy. But I did the math. Puck is eighteen. Is it creepy? Kinda. Is it illegal? Not really its just the equivalent of a twenty year old dating a fourty year old.
 * Actually, it is illegal. As far as I know, every state has laws about people in authority positions dating those they have authority over. There are sexual harassment laws that can be very prickly (but don't prevent relationships outright) for an employer/employee relationship, but Shelby is a teacher at Puck's school, which I'm pretty sure makes it one hundred percent no unless/until Puck graduates or Shelby leaves.
 * But Shebly isn't Pucks teacher, hell, she's barely a teacher at all! She leads a rival glee club that's missing a third of the people needed to actually compete, which makes her position meaningless.
 * Doesn't matter. If she's employed as a teacher by the school, she has a certain level of authority over Puck. You don't need to have a class with a teacher for them to be able to send you to the principal, write you up, or give you detention. Even if it weren't illegal (in case I'm wrong), it's still a serious line, and Shelby's willingness to cross it is distressing.
 * She has a certain level of authority, and it is creepy, but it's not illegal, as other people have mentioned. Plus, the great Blaine and Jeremiah debate on the S2 Headscratchers page determined that the legal age of consent in Ohio is not 18, but 16.
 * There isn't really anything creepy about the mom and dad of a child being together, and Puch and Shelby would make much better parents than Quinn and anyone. And having parents that actually like eachother is much healthier for a child than having parents who can barely stand each other, like Quinn and Puck.
 * All of that is true, but it still crosses a serious line that Shelby should not be willing to cross until the end of the school year.
 * Shelby has every right to refuse to let Quinn see Beth, especially since Quinn has clearly shown she isn't mentally healthy, considering her tattoo of an American Idol host, and to a much lesser extent her hair and associates. Quinn doesn't have the right anymore because she signed away her child over two years ago and for a whole year never mentioning her child to anyone or referencing her at any point or showing any signs of remembering that she had a child at all.
 * I agree that Shelby has the right to refuse to let Quinn see Beth. What she shouldn't have the right to do (YMMV, of course) is tell Quinn "Oh, hey, I'm back with your baby but I'm going to withhold her from you unless you behave the way I want". If she really thought Quinn was disinterested in being part of Beth's life, then as the adult in the situation (which Shelby undoubtedly is), she should have just left it alone and allowed Quinn to approach her when/if she was ready. I really feel that the way Shelby went about the issue was, as Quinn stated, "taunting her with the idea of seeing her child".
 * Two things about Rory. One, shouldn't Britanny's parents have TOLD her about Rory being an exchange student? I hosted a Japanese exchange student for a year when I was younger, and I was fully aware of what she was doing in my house. Why did Britanny not even receive any explanation about Rory, considering that it would be her parents who would be hosting him?
 * Maybe she wasn't listening/didn't get it/thought it was his cover story?
 * Second Rory issue. Why should he have had to work so hard to get at Britanny's "Pot of gold?" It's already been shown that screwing is Britanny's version of saying hello, and since he's staying at her house, I'm surprised that he didn't get a special welcome right off the bat.
 * I didn't even understand what the hell the 'Pot of Gold' thing was. Shouldn't Brittany be getting Rory's pot of gold? What is the pot of gold? Why is it even relevant to the story?!
 * It means sex. Or at least, Rory and the viewer are led to believe that it means sex.
 * And if that isn't clear enough, the "pot of gold" in question is Brittany's vagina.
 * Britanny brings up the reason with Finn, when she mentions that it isn't ok for him to treat her that way, as she is a candidate for senior class president. She probably views sex with a man as submitting to him, something she wouldn't be willing to do unless he fulfilled an equal amount of degrading or submissive requests. (Because I believe Brittany knows exactly what's going on, and only acts crazy/stupid to throw people off)
 * And on that note, why do Britanny's parents allow her to be this way? She's not developmentally challenged, but it's clear that her parents are encouraging her Too Dumb to Live lifestyle. It's sort of sick, in a way.
 * Probably the same reason Sue hasn't been thrown in jail for all the shit she's pulled off (or at least civil court). It's one of the show's aspects you're not supposed to take too seriously. Brittany is the archetypal dumb, slutty cheerleader. It's just that she's actually nice about it, instead of being an Alpha Bitch.
 * What, you think parents should actively stop their daughter from being a quirky Cloudcuckoolander? I don't believe Brittany is stupid either, just... odd, in a Luna Lovegood-esque way. It's not like she's doing anything dangerous either, yes, she does have casual sex, but she seems to be safe about it, and there's nothing wrong with that.
 * Safe? She thinks "protection" means a burglar alarm.
 * If Santana's still not ready to come out of the closet, why is she confronting guys and telling them to back off of "her girl"? The way she was talking about Brittany did not sound like something that could be Handwaved as being a concerned friend.
 * Yes it can. Plenty of people, especially people from "the hood" like Santana is supposed to be from, will refer to friends as "my girl" or "my boy," as a shortening of "homegirl/boy." Given that hood connotation, it was also probably Santana trying to sound tough.
 * Actually, the real problem was probably the "she is beautiful, she is innocent - she is everything that is good in this miserable stinking world."-bit.
 * OP here. Given the events of Mash-Off, it was probably stuff like this that led to, so it actually makes a lot more sense now.
 * Sugar gave in to Santana way too easily. I know Santana is one grade A scary bitch but Sugar is supposed to be a girl who can strut into a room of people and tell them they're crap, she shouldn't be content to sing quietly behind three other girls - where was the fast paced screaming rant?
 * I think it's implied that she's big talk until someone smacks her down. No one really was mean to her until Santana came in to play. People just danced around the fact that she was bad, but Santana just back handed her with it. Sugar wasn't prepared to handle that.
 * Blaine sings "Last Friday Night (TGIF)". The actors playing Blaine and Artie were both in the music video for that song. Are we meant to believe that in the Gleeverse, different actors notable for starring/guest-starring in a different musical television series were featured in the video? This isn't the show's first Celebrity Paradox by a long shot (John Stamos, anyone?), why is the show so intent on getting all meta for a quick Actor Allusion?
 * Because it's funny.
 * I think it was more because Blaine has a love for anything Top-40 at the moment, and Katy Perry at all times; not that Darren was in that specific video.
 * That's just the music video, though, they had nothing to do with the production of the song. I'll listen to your complaint when they cover "Dress and Tie" by Charlene Kaye, which Darren Criss features in for about half of. Except I won't, because that would be AMAZING!
 * That's not even the worst this show has gotten with Celebrity Paradox. In the S2 finale, Will sings Still Got Tonight, off of Matthew Morrison's own album. Sure, it could just be a song that Will wrote, instead, but if it's not?
 * If Brittany figured out that leprachauns aren't real, why the hell didn't she take Santana to task for using Rory to manipulate her into leaving New Directions?

The First Time

 * Why is Mike's dad just finding out about the musical now? I thought Mike and his mom agreed to tell Chang Sr. at the end of "Asian F"?
 * Yeah, but only in theory. He might have been away, or she might have, or the only time they were all together might have been when they were all stressed out from work and school and they didn't want to make things worse. Real life interferes with plans a lot.
 * So  Which raises the question... how many schools ARE there in the greater Lima area? Isn't it supposed to be a small town?
 * I think Lima is a small city, on the order of Orlando, FL or Syracuse, NY. It's not unrealistic for there to be 5 or 6 high schools in the area and a reasonable ability to move between them without moving house.
 * For the record, Orlando is a big city for all intents and purposes. We're talking a metro area of 2 million people. Not quite the same magnitude. Even Syracuse—which is much smaller than Orlando—has more going on than Lima. However, Lima would have at least two major high schools.
 * Also for the record, Jonesboro, Arkansas is a city of 55,000 (even including the unincorporated area outside the city proper you're still only looking at about 65,000 people) making it about twice the size of Lima, Ohio and yet has four public school districts and at least three private schools, so it's not at all inconceivable that Lima has more than one.
 * OP here. The reason it bothered me is because it seems like the show has made a pretty good effort to make us think McKinley is the only school in Lima - Dalton is like 40 miles away, as is Carmel. The people the football team play are never explicitly stated to be from the area. The sudden change was a bit jarring to me.
 * Eh, Glee has always played fast and loose with geography. In real life, Westerville (the location of Dalton) is almost 2 hours from Lima. It's one of those things about the show you can't think too hard about.
 * Lima has 10 high schools in it, not counting McKinley, which isn't real. It was flown in from a suburb of Detroit, and before that it was in whatever the hell town The Wonder Years takes place in.
 * I'm bothered by Artie's reaction to Beiste leaving the room when he started asking REALLY inappropriate questions of the cast. First of all, he shouldn't have asked Rachel and Blain such personal questions while in a position of power. Second, he shouldn't have asked Beiste such questions either. Third, if Beiste and Emma weren't going to stop Artie like they should have, they were absolutely right to leave the room. Even tacit approval of what Artie was saying could get a teacher blackballed forever. Remember, Artie was basically suggesting that two students have sex to make them better actors. Any teacher who gave any kind of approval to that could never teach again.
 * So what's going to happen with Karofsky now? He stopped bullying last season, transferred to a different school, and has been coming to terms with being gay. It's great to see he's doing well, but does this mean his character arc is over?
 * How is that a Headscratcher? That's a 'I-wanna-know-the-future-without-trying'.
 * Because the show is generally good at extending story arcs in a "This is what the character will be facing" way. But for Dave, it seemed so definitive, that the show has no reason to go back to him now because he's where he should be.
 * But that's still not a Headscratcher. Neither is the entry below, come to think of it.
 * Brittany says she lost her virginity at cheerleading camp, when "an alien" came into her tent. CREEPIEST RAPE JOKE EVER. I understand that in show-logic, we're supposed to find her not-remembering how she lost her virginity "cute" or "quirky" or "just Brittany being Brittany". The problem is, it's STILL a rape joke made in regards to a character whose mental state is in serious question.
 * I got no hint of it being rape. I read it as Brittany having lost her virginity to someone she didn't know and who was probably lying/using subterfuge to get laid, which is incredibly sleazy (of the guy, not her), but that she consented. Rape by fraud is a thing, but it means you had sex with someone based on a condition or promise that wasn't kept. It's very hard to define case-by-case, and we can't apply the term here without knowing more.
 * I agree. You could argue that anyone who would actually believe such a lie should be considered a child and therefore unable to give consent, but by that logic Santana and half the male population of McKinley High School are also rapists.
 * Look at her face when she says the line, that's whimsy, not pain. We also know that she, along with Santanna and Quinn, all lost their virginities to Puck in the same year.
 * They all slept with him the same year. I never got the impression that anyone but Quinn was a virgin with him.
 * Of course it's a look of whimsy. This is Brittany. That's what made it creepy to me. The idea that she got raped, but doesn't have the mental capacity to recognize it as such because she's just silly spacecase Brittany. And they expect us to LAUGH ABOUT IT.
 * So, according to Artie, they're "a few days away" from opening night, and... they still aren't off-book?
 * Deadlines are basically things that happen to other people in the Glee universe. At least it's been lampshaded at last that they wrote the last season's big song in the space of a night.
 * Rachel claimed back in Season 1 that performing 'Tonight' was one of her dreams. There is no way she didn't have the song already memorized. Odds are it was just a polishing rehearsal, rather than them NEEDING to be on book. It WAS just her and Blaine at the time.
 * Blaine becoming a drunk, raping asshole. What. If it's true that he only had one beer, I'd imagine he'd turn into an over-affectionate snuggle bunny, not... what happened. That whole scene made no sense.
 * Is it me, or is the word "rape" used a little to loosely on this site? If they stayed until the club's closing at 2:15, he most likely had more than one drink. It's true he was being a drunk jackass; Kurt called him out on it, and Blaine profusely apologized later. But to call him a rapist is a bit much.
 * Especially since Blain could barely even walk on his own, nevermind forcing himself on Kurt.
 * And really, he wasn't "forcing" Kurt into anything. Sure, he didn't stop when Kurt said "no", but he was begging/attempting to persuade him more than anything. He wasn't trying to tear off Kurt's clothes, he didn't really grope him in the car, he merely asked to "do it and get it over with". And even then he apologised to the point of nearly crying later. Really, I think Kurt wanted to sleep with Blaine (see: the scene in Blaine's bedroom where Kurt brought up their physical relationship), but as he said, losing your viriginity should be memorable. Not something you do to "get it over with" while drunk.
 * The original cut of that scene had the boys consensually making out before leading into the groping and struggling, but they had to cut out the same-sex kissing. It was still sexual assault because Blaine did not stop when Kurt told him to, but the original cut would have had more buildup to it.
 * Why was the make-out scene cut? Was it because of fear from the network, or psychosis from the parents?
 * Blaine made some clumsy fumbles when his inhibitions were lowered and when Kurt told him to stop (not the 'no, no, no' said outside of the car whilst Kurt is laughing, which wasn't really serious, but the actual no in the car) Blaine stopped and started talking to him instead. Blaine did a lot of things wrong in this scene (the clumsy fumbles were idiotic, the pushing sex at that time was very stupid and disrespectful) but he was not raping Kurt. The scene was very poorly cut, but if you watch it closely you can see that Blaine doesn't actually assault Kurt and he does actually respect his consent when denied (even if the alcohol obviously hindered his ability to recognise Kurt's discomfort). He definitely owed that genuine and honestly remorseful apology to Kurt but Kurt also accepted it, so he obviously didn't feel violated by Blaine's actions.
 * I don't think I'd call him a rapist, given what really happened, but if Kurt hadn't physically pushed him away and given an extremely forceful no, it probably could have gone there. I think it definitely crossed into the realm of sexual assault, but not very far, and it stopped short of rape.
 * No, I don't think it probably could. There is a difference between alcohol lowering your senses to try propositioning sex with your boyfriend, who you have spent the week TALKING about said sex with, in an inappropriate place such as a car and then trying to force yourself on him. Prior to Kurt's refusal Blaine doesn't even put his hands anywhere they haven't been before (no hands going 'south of the equator'), so it's not like he is completely out of his mind-he still recognises Kurt's boundaries. And then after said refusal he is only touching his arm and face lightly in a 'please can you listen to me' way whilst he's making his drunken, stupid propositions. Even if there was anything in this scene to suggest that he was going to try and overpower Kurt (which there isn't) there is no way that he actually could have. Kurt is bigger than Blaine, Kurt was on top of Blaine with no obvious way for Blaine to have restrained him and Blaine was not ignoring or trying to get past Kurt's refusal. So, no, it wasn't assault and it didn't 'stop short of rape'. There is plenty wrong with Blaine's actions without trying to twist the scene into something it wasn't. If the scene was supposed to elude to an assault then the dialogue and reactions from Kurt would have been completely different-Kurt's anger is focused on the when and the where, not on the how.
 * I apologize, I was unclear: it stopped far, far short of rape, although I definitely still think the scene was supposed to put that in mind. As for it being an assault, the most common usage of the word I've heard is "putting your hands on someone in a way that's forceful and they don't want," and Blaine was dragging Kurt into the car and tugging on his arms. It was undeniably sexual in nature, so while no, it doesn't fit the connotations we think of as sexual assault, it could fit the technical definition.
 * I think that "sexual assault" implies something waaaaay more terrible than what happened... I think that you could call it "personal space invasion", it is hard to pin-point.
 * It's not hard to pin-point at all. Kurt was rightly pointing out that getting it on with a drunk Blaine in the back seat of his car in a gay bar's parking lot wasn't remotely ideal for the couple's first sexual experience.
 * There are only two virgins left on the main cast. In the Sexy episode, abstinence just gets mocked. Typically around half high school students are still virgins. It's just sort of annoying.
 * Emma and who? IN MY OPINION, the only reason 80% of the "half of high school kids" that don't have sex, don't because they believe that they can't find someone willing.
 * Emma and Bieste, two adults portrayed as having problems that are shown by them not having lost it yet. They're also women.
 * Bieste is in the Main Cast?
 * "In my opinion" isn't an argument for putting it on the show. I've never known anything like that to be the case.
 * I'd say it's completely the case. The number of people that would have sex if they had the chance is vast (and far outweighs the number of people that choose not to have sex). Plus of course, there's the fact that the show can have any agenda it likes and that just because you disagree with the moral behind it doesn't make it wrong. Oh and, significantly, only three characters are really shown as losing it sleeping around (Santanna, Bittany and Puck). Everyone else lost their virginity as part of a significant relationship (bar Quinn and Finn who had more dramatic reasons for losing it).
 * Yes, because I'm obviously objecting to the moral here. I just think they should have a few characters who don't see virginity as a bad thing. I'm a teenaged gay guy and I don't want to have sex for personal reasons (I'm religious but that's more of an after thought when it comes to this). I'm just saying that this show is supposed to be diverse. Oh well, it's rude to bisexuals and trans* people too, so at least us virgins aren't being singled out.
 * Why isn't anyone getting in trouble for getting drunk on this show?
 * Because they didn't get caught.
 * Burt caught Blaine drunk in Blame it On the Alcohol. Emma caught Kurt drunk in The Rhodes Not Taken. Will knew they all got drunk and just told them not to get drunk until after Nationals. What the Hell?! He should've at least threatened to turn them in next time. There's a fine line between I understand kids will try alcohol and trying to stop them when you can. It's ridiculous how many times they get away with it. It's just treated to casually.
 * Despite how well it was acted and how emotional the scene was, Finn's breakdown makes little sense. He's upset because the scout from Ohio State University wasn't recruiting him, which is fair enough. The kid had his hopes up. But why do he and Rachel see that as him not being good enough to get a football scholarship? Not getting recruited to OSU is like not being drafted in the first round. It means you're not the best, but it doesn't mean you're no good. Ohio State is well-known for a reason. Plenty of less impressive colleges could very well be interested in Finn. It's not like he's Rachel, where only the very best will be good enough.
 * Well, beyond the fact that Finn has been told that his dream isn't coming true, which naturally leads to overreaction in your average teenager, Cooter's words were about him hitting his plateau in high school. When your dreams are focused on that one thing and you're told by someone who is knowledgeable on the subject like a recruiter would be that you've hit your peak here and now, yeah, it's going to sting and it's going to hurt and make you want to quit at first. This was only about, what, a few hours after it happened? It's not surprising that Finn doesn't react that well, he's still processing it.
 * But football isn't Finn's dream, at least not before the beginning of this episode, anyway. This whole season has made it clear that Finn has no plans or goals beyond the end of high school. He's not Rachel, his whole life wasn't leading up to getting into OSU. The school was never even mentioned before this episode. Collegiate football has barely been mentioned before and when it was, it was only in terms of Finn getting a scholarship to pay for college so he could support Quinn and the baby. Yeah, the dude got his hopes up and it sucks that it was for nothing, but just four episodes Finn was excited about staying in Lima and working at Burt's shop. I agree that the emotional crisis seems entirely shoehorned in so that Rachel could comfort him.
 * The school wasn't mentioned, but Finn has repeatedly mentioned getting a football scholarship. It might be the only way for him to get to college. You're right to say that Finn has no plans past high school, but that's exactly what's bothering him. His friends all have big plans and big dreams, like going to NYADA. He doesn't have plans, but his dream is to do something, anything, big. But he's struggling with thinking that he's not good enough at anything to leave Lima.
 * Okay, but prior to this episode they haven't established that Finn wants to leave Lima. In "I Am Unicorn" he seemed almost looking forward to the idea of staying in Lima and working in Burt's shop, and okay, maybe he was trying to convince himself that as much as Rachel, but that's not how the scene played to me, and when Burt mentioned Finn running the shop if he gets elected, he once again sounded excited. Presumably there have to be some people who like living in Lima or there wouldn't be anyone there.
 * I'll give Finn wanting to play for THE Ohio State University. (Sorry..Buckeye hurr). This is also a state with the University of Toledo, Bowling Green State University, University of Cincinatti, Xavier University, The University of Dayton, etc. OR, if he's going to follow his wacky girlfriend/fiancee to New York, there's Syracuse and others where he could enroll, fight for a scholarship, MAYBE have Coach Beiste could have seen this coming and sent some tapes out of her three-year starting quarterback. Or sent him to some football camps so he could get known by recruiters. Fah!
 * Finn fed Rachel real meat. What.
 * That's not much of a headscratcher, Finn's an idiot. It bothers me that Rachel's veganism is treated as a joke, and that there's almost no way this will ever be brought up again so there will never be any fallout. Almost certainly towards the end of this season Rachel's going have some big emotional crisis about leaving Finn for New York and it's all going to be about a boy who doesn't care enough about her to remember even the most basic facts about her.
 * Well, to be fair, Rachel's vegan-ism hasn't been mentioned since season 1. And even in season 1, it was mentioned a grand total of one time.
 * That's irrelevant. Maybe we've only heard about it once, but Finn wouldn't have. He shares meals with her fairly often.

Mash Off

 * Why does Sue talk to Santana about her sexuality? Having Sue be affected by something that she hasn't dealt with herself seems off
 * The ad outing her was slinging mud at Sue. If she wasn't there, it would seem like Shue and Burt were saying, "See this? Everyone knows your secret now and it's partially Sue's fault."
 * I got the impression that she was taking on a counselor's role, like she did with Kurt last season. Whenever there's an issue with someone's sexuality it seems that she's there to protect them. She might be trying to destroy the arts and ruin Shuester's life, but it seems she really does care about her students when it comes to a serious issue.
 * She was also, as un-Suelike as it sounds, taking responsibility for her actions. She knows that it's partly her fault and even sort of apologises. Even Sue isn't a Complete Monster.
 * Because a hit at Sue dragged in someone who wasn't a part of it- someone Sue might even like or have liked once, and most importantly, an almost-defenceless teenager. Sue may be a bitch, but she probably feels guilty that someone used Santana to attack her in a way that could destroy her life- and they attacked her over her sexuality, which is a whole new low.
 * So, Finn decides to out Santana in the school hallway? Not to downplay Santana being an utter bitch (which she was), but this is the same homophobic school that drove his step-brother to transfer for a semester because of the way he was treated. Hell, Finn himself was also the victim of a lot of homophobic bullying.
 * I don't think Finn was the first to talk about Santana being a lesbian in public, just the first person to call her out on it to her face. He did say that everyone "already knew", and Santana hasn't exactly been secretive recently- what about the PDA in popular hangouts and Santana intimidating guys who hit on Brittany? He wasn't really outing her so much as he was letting her know that she wasn't fooling anyone.
 * There's a difference between people suspecting and people knowing. People may have suspected it due how she has been with Brittany, but very few, if any, knew it was fact.
 * Santana called Finn fat and bad in bed. Hurtful? Yes. But it was Finn's brother who recieved a death threat the year before because he was gay. There is a huge difference between calling someone fat and shouting something that puts them in the way of actual bodily harm down a hallway full of people who are known for trying to make a gay kid's life miserable.
 * This Troper wasn't entirely sure that Finn and Santana were talking about the same thing. It's possible that Finn thought Santana was talking about something else eg. "Everyone knows you're greatly talented" because that's what they were just talking about and Finn is a bit dim. How would Finn know about the tape anyway? Burt wouldn't seem the type to play it at home in front of his family.
 * He most certainly knew they were talking about the whole outing thing, and no he didn't know about the tape, he thought they were talking about the school-situation.
 * Alright, then the Writers have really messed this up. The scene where Santana found out that she'd been outed goes straight into the performance scene. How much time has passed between those two scenes? Was it a couple of hours? Days? Or did Santana go straight from Sue's office to the Auditorium? While the performance was brilliant, the moment between Finn, Rachel and Santana was truly disorientating, in a bad way. If Santana was as upset as she appeared to be, Brittany would have noticed this and at least asked her what was wrong. Brittany acted, through out the number, that she had no idea what was going on, which is very unlike her. Brittany was the one who ran after Santana at Prom and comforted her after all. Even Mercedes gave Santana a concerned look. However, if the scene POV was supposed to be from inside Santana's mind, then I can accept the attempt at portraying the confusion and paranoia of the scene but I still think the whole thing has been poorly executed. One of the biggest problems with Glee is that there is plenty of Tell but not nearly enough Show.
 * I think it probably happened not long after she left Sue's office. She probably went somewhere to dry her eyes and cover up that she was crying and then she went to the auditorium. As for Brittany, she may have noticed that Santana was upset but just decided to hide her concern, stay focused on the song, and ask her afterwards.
 * My first reaction when he said it was "What the hell are you doing in a crowded hallway". Doing that painted a target in her back. He knew what had happened to Kurt. Outing someone in public like that, especially in a small town like Lima where he didn't know how her parents would react. As many as a quarter of gay kids are kicked out of the house when they come out to their parents. No amount of her calling him fat could justify putting someone at that much risk.
 * The consequences for Santana were certainly not justified. She deserves all our sympathy for the shit she's going through. But as poorly timed and placed as Finn's words were, he said them in the heat of the moment when she had finally pushed him too far. And I'm pretty miffed that everyone seems to think that (1) Santana "just" called him fat and (2) calling someone fat somehow isn't in itself hurtful and often downright cruel. On (1), She insulted his performance in bed, she dissed his best friends (ND), she dissed his talent and virtually called him worthless, and on top of that made an insulting reference to his girlfriend. She took a cheap shot at his face at the end of the dodgeball game. Even if that was "legit", she pelted Rory with dodgeballs till he bled and then *laughed it off*. And don't even get me started on all the crap he's had to put up with her for the past two years. On (2), I don't mean to downplay how it sucks to be outed, but people seem to conveniently overlook all the kids who've killed themselves after being bullied in general and being picked on for their weight issues in particular. I'm not justifying Finn's calling her out, but I really think the balance of wrongs is not nearly as one-sided as Santana's fans are making it out to be.
 * When you choose your actions, you also choose your consequences. Everyone seems to be hung up on the differences in magnitude between Santana's insults and Finn's "outing" of her...but the fact of the matter is if you dedicate your entire life to being the biggest raging Country Matters humanly possible, it's really only a matter of time until someone tries to cut you open and eat the gooey bits inside. Yes, she's as horrible as she is because of her self loathing etc, but being closeted doesn't give you carte blanche to be a horrible person without fear of any reprisal.
 * Likewise being horrible to someone who is a bitch doesn't make you any less horrible. Outing someone is a horrible thing to do, no matter who you do it to.
 * The difference is, he used her sexuality as a weapon. He could've called her an asshole, for example, and I think most people who weren't already wildly biased in Santana's favour would've been okay with it, but he chose her sexuality to pick on. It's not okay to attack Santana for being a lesbian just because she's a nasty person or they were having an argument, and I'm actually pretty insulted that some people seem to think it is. Here's why; by insulting her for struggling with her sexuality, he's insulting everyone who's done the same thing by proxy - if he's saying "There's something wrong with this girl because she's having trouble coming to terms with the fact that she's a lesbian," then what does that say about all the other girls who are doing or have done the same?
 * Finn wasn't saying "Santana is in the closet and won't come out - therefore, she is a coward". He was saying that instead of handling her insecurities reasonably, she resorted to tearing other people down. The focus was not on her sexuality or her being in the closet per se, but on her extremely poor reaction to it.
 * Agreed. Earlier in the episode, it was established that Santana's all but impervious to run of the mill insults like "asshole" so that was clearly no kind of option. Also, Finn's comment says nothing about all the other girls attempting to come to terms with their sexualities because he wasn't yelling at THEM in a hallway Or, conversely, what does Santana's ridicule of his sexual prowess and weight say about all the men that struggle with those issues? People seem to forget that in a fight, each party is actively trying to hurt the other and the one who runs away crying isn't the victim, they're the one who's lost.
 * I don't entirely blame Santana for lashing out, because she has to deal with a lot of inner turmoil and frustration. She could definitely have dealt with it better, though. Having said that, Finn still had a right to defend himself. It's like being attacked by someone who's not really responsible for their actions (eg a child or an insane person): you still have the right to self-defence, even if you can't blame the attacker for attacking you.
 * Firstly, the child/insane person is a poor analogy. Santana's Gayngst doesn't exempt her from being a reasonable person because she can't help it. Both Kurt and his father have been openly bullied because of his sexuality and haven't dedicated their lives to being horrible. When Karovsky was lashing out due to his Gayngst it wasn't ok.
 * I think you misunderstood me here. I wasn't saying "it's ok for Santana to be a total bitch to Finn" - it most definitely *isn't. All I'm saying is that even if she *had mitigating circumstances, Finn still had a right to defend himself against her attacks.
 * Why is it that characters like Kurt and Santana can treat characters like Finn and Rachel the way they do and nobody says anything about it? During season 1 and season 2, he and Santana were often cruel to Rachel for no reason. While Kurt has matured and no longer displays this kind of behaviour, the same can not be said for Santana. Why is it when Santana has a Kick the Dog moment, but can't predict that The Dog Bites Back, she's the victim? While I wouldn't wish anyone to be outed on public TV, Santana contributed to the situation just as much as that Pizza guy did, by fostering an enviroment that encourages all kinds of bullying. How is it okay for Santana to continue to treat Finn the way she does, despite being told repeatedly by different people to stop? It's a bit hypocritical of the writers to project the message that it's all fun and games until Santana's feelings are hurt, but until that point she can be just as hurtful and mean as she likes. Just because she's gay, doesn't give her the right to lash out at people.
 * Positive Discrimination, maybe? That if you're gay you don't deserve to be hurt even if you've already hurt others? Or the writers finally doing one too many Gay Aesop?
 * It's because what Finn did is Disproportionate Retribution in this episode. He knew that, at least in this instance, it was just trash talk. He even said that earlier in the episode. Finn didn't seem like he was really hurt by any of the comments, just annoyed he couldn't come up with a comeback. On the other hand, Finn seemed aware that outing Santana, as well as questioning how much Brittany loved her, would hurt her way more than any of her comments hurt him.
 * Not hurtful? Of course Santana's backhand apology would hurt. That would hurt anybody but the especially painful part was when Santana said that Finn would "spend the rest of his life riding on the end of Rachel's coat-tails". Given just how upset he was at the end of "The First Time" over the fact that he thought he wasn't good enough to do pretty much anything he wants to do, it's pretty obvious Santana's comments caused just as much pain as his. Finn and Santana might have started it together, but Santana took it too far. Glee has shown plenty of times that Santana can dish it out, but she can't take it. The Writers seemed to have attempted to do the same thing for Santana what they did for Quinn. Like Quinn, Santana helped bring about this unplesant situation. And just as RIB have done with Quinn, they have presented Santana as a character with a hard bitchy outer shell but on the inside she has enough sympathetic character traits to make the viewers think that there is more going on beneath the surface, that both girls are conflicted, complex and most importantly three-dimensional. This is not what occurred in "Mash Off". What occurred in “Mash Off” is that is “Bullying is wrong, unless the bully is gay and the victim is heterosexual and white, then it’s perfectly fine.”
 * It seemed that Finn's comeback wasn't outing Santana. He said that everybody in the school already knew after all, and he doesn't treat her being a lesbian as a bad thing. What he focuses on is that she is too afraid to let other people know, hiding from herself because she's afraid. The last thing he says is the real insult. "You know what I think you are? A coward." Finn doesn't even seem to consider outing her as the comeback.
 * It matters very little if he meant to out her or not; the fact is that he did and he's not sorry he did it.
 * Intent DOES matter. Finn said that everyone already knew, and nobody cared. He didn't think he was outing her to a single person. Look at the faces of the people in the hall. ONE person reacted, which he was too focused to notice when he was talking. He doesn't think any harm came from it at all. Why should he be sorry? Because of the ad that he doesn't know about yet?
 * If everybody already knew then why did the ad only come out after Finn's shouting in the hallway? The campaign has been going on for months. Santana's been Head Cheerio for at least a month and probably longer considering how long it takes to cast, rehearse, and stage a musical, so why now? The truth is we only have Finn's word that everyone already knew and didn't care. We also have fairly definitive proof of how that school treats gay kids that would seem to fly in the face of his idea that no one cares. The whole school may have suspected but there's a big difference between thinking something is true and having someone who is close enough to her to know for sure confirm it. The ad outed her to the whole Congressional district but Finn outed her to the school.
 * Speaking as the person who wrote the previous headscratcher entry, honestly I simply can't find Santana to be sympathetic at all. Yeah, Finn's outting her (unintentional as it was, though I still take contention with the fact that he would do it anyway considering all the issues Kurt faced last season) Santana is just far to much a bitch. But then again, the writers of the series have been making light of a lot of Santana's action this season (like getting back into Glee Club despite setting their pianos on fire).
 * Original Poster speaking here. I can understand that Santana's sympathetic tendoncies might be in the YMMV category (she also hasn't been that nice this season thus far), but I felt I understood where she was coming from in episodes Sexy, Rumours and Prom Queen, which showed that Santana loves Brittany but she's too afraid of what other people think and how they will treat her. That Santana thinks her entire identity that she's built up will be flushed down the gurgler if she reveals she's gay because that's all people will see and label her with. I know that Santana is selfish and most of the good things she does is motivated by her own gain, but then there are moments like in The Sue Sylvester Shuffle when the Glee club is in serious trouble and Santana comes through for them in the end, it just takes a while for Santana to realise what her real priorities should be. However, I think RIB have taken this issue too far. Being Gay does not give you excuse to lash out at people just because you can.
 * Let's break it down. No one gets thrown out of their home or killed for being fat or bad in bed. It happens to gay kids all the time. Secondly this is approximately the 9,000th time Santana has insulted Finn, and Finn even said earlier in the episode that her insults weren't that big a deal. Finn's not terribly good at concealing his emotions so it's a pretty safe bet that he's not just downplaying it, so by his own admission what Santana said to him didn't really bother him. He didn't look particularly hurt when she said it. He wanted to get one up on the master insulter so used privileged information to hurt and humiliate her. Regardless of what his intentions were in the hall, what he actually did was out her. He's potentially put her life and well being at risk to make himself feel better about being insulted by someone that insults him routinely. Santana deserves all sorts of comeuppance for her bitchy ways, but nothing, nothing, nothing justifies outing someone. Finn is a world class d-bag for doing that and even more so for thinking that he's okay in doing it. It would be one thing if he did it in the heat of the moment and then felt bad about it later, but in the auditorium later he still thought he was perfectly justified in saying what he said. Santana is a long, long, long damn way from perfect but no one deserves to be outed.
 * First of all, gay kids don't have the monopoly on being bullied. Anyone who is considered abnormal in any way will be a potential target, whether it's based on their appearance or their personality. Second of all, it was clear from the look on Finn's face that he was extremely bothered by her attitude the entire day. What Finn said earlier happened before Santana hit that Irish kid with the dodge-ball and then laughed about it. It happened before she insulted him in about ten different ways in quick succession. Thirdly, he said it in a moment of unthinking anger. He really had not intentions besides the fact that he lost his temper. It's also entirely within character for Finn to do stupid things. Lastly, it's not entirely clear by the end of the episode whether of not Finn's aware that Santana is about to be outed on public television.
 * Ok - for a start let's ignore the advert about to publically out Santana cause that was not predictable by Finn and even at the end he seems unaware of its existance. Santana has been bullying him for at least a year and he finally got his own back. Rocky Horror showed he's embarrassed by his body, First Time showed how crushed he is about not having his dream football future, he felt guilty for kissing Rachel in New York causing New Directions to lose in his eyes, he doesn't think he could get into NYADA because he isn't a good enough singer or dancer and he's in love with a girl who always is getting ripped into for no reason. Santana comes up and hits every single one of those sore spots so what does he do? He strikes back at one of hers. Instead of sticking to generic insults he sinks towards her level (not all the way, mind you, as this is a one-off retaliatory speech instead of persistant unprovoked abuse) and it hurts her - just like he has been hurt by her time and time again. Is he a saint? Of course not, he did respond in kind to her - but is she a faultless victim to be put on a pedastal and cried for? No. She has spend years in school preying on people's insecurities and we're supposed to feel sorry that somebody shone the spotlight on one of hers? She normalised the behaviour and at the very least you have to agree she brought it some of it on herself.
 * None of those insecurities Santana had any way of knowing he had. The last time body image issues came up was Rocky Horror when he walked through the school in his boxers, not the actions of someone who has serious body image issues. Try as she might to give them to him, she had no way of knowing he actually had them. She definitely had no way of knowing what Cooter said to Finn about OSU and plateauing. I'm not saying Santana is excused for her bitchiness because she's struggling with her sexuality. I'm saying that Finn being a world class d-bag to someone who is a bitch doesn't change the fact that he's a world class d-bag. (And this is wildly of topic but Finn's in love with a girl who is constantly getting ripped into for no reason because her very popular boyfriend doesn't stand up for her.)
 * Santana at least suspected that they were sensitive topics. Otherwise, it's too great of a coincidence that all the insults she picked happened to be right on target. Rachel gets ripped into for a lot more reasons than the fact that Finn doesn't stand up for her. There's no way Finn can be blamed for that. He's just one guy.
 * Really? Because I seem to recall him getting the hockey team to leave Rory alone by saying two words. TWO WORDS! He didn't have to put for the slightest effort nor throw even a single punch. Yet he can't make even a token effort for the girl he supposedly loves. A good boyfriend or even just a decent one would stand up for his girlfriend.
 * I doubt we can expect Finn to be hovering over his girlfriend to protect her every time someone so much as looks at her wrong. As much as he'd probably like to, he can't do that. It's one of him against a whole bunch of people who rip into her whether or not he's there.
 * Yes, it does suck that she is going to be outed on public TV. Really suck. Undeniably, unbelievably suck. But why should Finn cop the blame for that? Santana picks on people in public all the time - she picked on his insecurities in the same forum that he picked on hers, she just ended up worse off because some tosser with a TV slot decided to make it the public's business. This is highschool, people bully publicly and people get bullied publicly - why are we acting like Finn swooped out of nowhere and destroyed a perfectly innocent and priest-like Santana? She directly contributed to Finn's comments and frankly deserved a taste of her own medicine to realise that words can actually cripple people's self esteem. The fallout of the TV ad is not Finn's fault - nobody, NOBODY could have predicted that would happen. Honestly, do you ever stop yourself from saying something for fear it may be put on national TV? By Finn's own admission he didn't consider himself to be outing her, he claims repeatedly that the whole school knows which nobody has denied. From his point of view he was getting back at a girl who had repeatedly gotten to him by letting her know that her act wasn't fooling anybody and he sees her for what she is - a coward that bullies to cover her own insecurities. What some silly little girl and her douchebag father then decided to do with that information isn't Finn's fault. It ended horrendously for Santana but don't paint her to be something she's not.
 * I see no one claiming that Santana is a saint. Only a blind person could but that still doesn't justify what Finn did. You're comparing apples and oranges. Bullying is horrible in all of its forms, but Santana pointing out that Finn is slightly soft around the middle doesn't endanger his life. You say he couldn't know what would happen, but he knows full well how that school treats gay kids since his BROTHER is a gay kid that had to transfer out of the school to get away from the bullying, so no he couldn't possibly know it would have wound up on television but he knew (or at the very least should have known) there would be repercussions to saying such a thing in a public place. And the whole school didn't know, they suspected, there were rumors but they didn't KNOW until someone that was close enough to her confirmed the rumors... and yes there's a difference. If the whole school already knew, then why did this ad just happen to pop up after Finn shouted out privileged information in the halls? The bottom line is that Finn's an a-hole, this is just the latest in a long line of things that prove that, immediately preceded by feeding Rachel meat and lying about it afterwards and going all the way back to cheating on Quinn when he thought she was pregnant with his baby. He outed her, and whether he meant to out her to the whole school or the whole world or no one at all in immaterial because the fact remains that he outed her. Through his words and deeds Santana's life and well being are in jeopardy, and he doesn't even have the decency to be remorseful. No, Santana isn't a saint. She is about as far from one as a human being can be, but still she doesn't deserve that. No one does.
 * Bullying is bullying, regardless of how much someone is victimized. It's comparing really outdated oranges to outdated oranges. We can say he had no idea what was going to happen since there's no evidence that he knew that Sanatana was about to be outed on public television. It was some other girl and her Jerkass father who sent that to the media, not Finn. Finn had no idea that the conversation was being recorded. I don't know what you mean about feeding Rachel meat, but Quinn was the one who lied to Finn about him being the father. It's hardly conclusive. Yes, Finn can be a jerk sometimes and I agree its within character for him to do dumb things. However, it's incorrect to lie so much blame solely at his feet.
 * No, it's not the same. Having experienced both first hand I can tell you with no uncertainty that someone saying something that makes you feel like crap for a day or a week or even for years is not remotely the same thing as someone saying something that makes you fear for your life. It's not even close. They're both terrible but they aren't the same thing. I'm not saying Santana is a sweetheart, but nothing justifies that. Finn didn't know the conversation was being recorded but he did know it was being HEARD, and he knew that there would be repercussions. Even if it didn't end up on television, there still would have been and probably will be repercussions and he knew that ahead of time because once again he has a gay brother and knows exactly how that school treats gay kids. Not to skew this discussion too far off topic but Finn fed Rachel meat in "The First Time", that whole exchange about having never had meat replacement products that tasted so much like meat... that's because it was real meat. He fed her meat and then lied about it. In "The Rhodes Not Taken" Finn takes Rachel on a date and kisses her, he's cheating on Quinn, his girlfriend that he thinks is pregnant with his kid. There are a dozen other examples of how dig a douche Finn is in between the two examples I cited. My point is the guy is a jackass and this is just the latest example of it.
 * Fair point on the first count. However, Finn's not the one who outed her. That girl who recorded their conversation and her father technically were. I agree that Finn shouldn't have said it so loudly in a school hallway but Santana had been bullying him the past year. She hit that Irish kid with a dodge-ball and then laughed it off. She also insulted him in ten different ways that she knew were sensitive subjects in under two minutes. Yes, Finn can be a jerk. So can Santana. So can Quinn. So can all the characters in Glee. I think there's enough blame to go around than just Finn.
 * The girl and her dad outed Santana to the Ohio 4th Congressional District. Finn outed her to the school. Even if the whole ordeal never ended up on television there still would have been repercussions from him shouting in the hallway. We saw with the "Brittany's pregnant" thing how quickly information gets around that school. Everyone was going to find out and someone would have said something to their parents and Santana's parents would have found out, which is clearly a concern of Santana's. The commercial only makes a bad situation worse by making the secret get around that much faster.
 * Which reiterates my point: there's more than enough blame to go around without singling Finn out.
 * There is certainly plenty of blame to go around, but the majority of it belongs to Finn because it was Finn (and no one else) shouting Santana's personal business in a crowded school hallway with malicious intent.
 * Santana is a bully. A deeply insecure bully compensating up a firestorm, but a bully nonetheless. Plenty of people are in the closet and don't compensate by emotionally tearing down anyone within earshot. People have a right to defend themselves, and calling Santana out on her closetedness wasn't the first action Finn took.
 * Defend themselves, yes. Put someone else's life at risk by outing them, no. The simple truth is that if he hadn't been shouting her personal business in that hallway, then Salazar's niece wouldn't have heard and she wouldn't have told her uncle and it wouldn't have ended up on television. Just because someone else outed her worse doesn't mean that Finn didn't out her. He did it, and now we have proof that he refuses to accept any guilt in the situation. The everyone already knew excuse it bull because you can clearly see people in the background of the shot reacting to what is clearly news to them.
 * It's a bit hard to expect people in the middle of a deeply personal and spite-filled bitchfest to measure their blows. Granted, what Finn did looks excessive to the bystander, and it was wrong. And Santana deserved none of the consequences that followed. But given that she had pushed and was pushing his red buttons, we shouldn't completely blame him for losing it either. Even so, I wish he had enough sense to realise after the fact that it could seriously screw things up for her after that. That left a bitter taste in a lot of fans' mouths, notwithstanding his honest belief that everyone in school knew already.
 * There are and will continue to be instances of people ending their lives (and those of others) as a result of consistent and systematic bullying (not involving outing) so rabid hatred of Finn notwithstanding, what constitutes life threatening insults is hardly as clear cut as the above tropers would have us believe. Singling Finn out and pushing the agenda that he's the worst person ever because he finally exploded all over a bully makes no sense in a show where characters like Santana, Rachel, Sue and Quinn wear Jerkass / Complete Monster as their hat on a rotating basis. Everyone on the show is an unscrupulous Jerkass to disturbing levels as the plot demands not just The Scrappy.
 * And Santana isn't being bullied. Kurt was tormented well before he was out. Santana hasn't had to deal with that so far even though everyone has their suspicions before Finn said anything. I think it's pretty safe to assume that Finn simply didn't believe the situation would change after he accused her of hiding her sexuality in public; he wanted to get one precision strike in that would wear off in a day or two. Outing Santana to people who already know or suspect something doesn't really seem any more life threatening that what she's put other kids through for years.


 * DODGEBALL IS NOT BULLYING! I'm all for doing things to prevent bullying, but outlawing a game because of it's vague associations with it is just not productive. And frankly, falling into those draconian zero-tolerance policies that will ban anything on a might-have-been are really just as much bullying as the things they are trying to prevent.
 * I'll admit, that made me facepalm. A person (in this case Santana) being a jerkass and taking a game too far does not mean the game itself is a source of bullying. That'd be like wanting to outlaw Football from the school because a couple of the players were jackasses. It was even worst that Kurt making a platform on this is actually working.
 * Dodgeball Is Hell trope in play here. It's about as violent a game as you will have kids playing in gym class. I always enjoyed it, even as a constantly bullied child, but in TV land it is the prime activity for the strong to pick on the week.
 * To be fair all the platforms were different flavours of nonsense so I'm somewhat torn on whether we're supposed to take them seriously, or just as a representation of "highschool campaigns are idiotic because they're teenagers".
 * I just decided it's not worth getting upset over and wrote it off as the silliness that the show tends to slip into.
 * Dodgeball isn't bullying, but it is a way for people to attack targets and get away with it. It's a chaotic game and it could be quite easy for someone to 'accidentally' throw a ball, hard, at a target and pretend they were aiming at someone else's leg.
 * A saner alternative to banning the game would be to just disqualify any player who aims at someone's face. A lot of schools do that without banning dodgeball. I thought Kurt's platform in this episode was reactionary and went too far. It's too much to ban a childhood game just because one person (Santana in this case) was being a Jerkass.
 * I'd also add a mandatory target switching rule so the bullied child isn't singled out for all offensive artillery.
 * Those rules are so casually ignored, it's ridiculous. Granted, any competent gym teacher would promptly pull and discipline any students doing what Santana and the other Troubletones were, but that doesn't always happen.
 * I would suggest they switch to yarn balls like my old school did. Then even if you got hit in the face, it wouldn't hurt.
 * Not the point. It's still extremely humiliating, which can do a lot to a kid's psyche despite what people yelling "Man up!" would tell you.
 * I thought this plot point was ridiculous even by Glee standards at first, but based on comments I've seen around the Internet, dodgeball really is brutal at some schools. At my school, we played with these big rubber balls that were practically weightless; you could get hit right in the face and it wouldn't hurt at all. But apparently some people played it with basketballs, which sounds downright dangerous. So maybe this is actually a case of Reality Is Unrealistic.


 * And on a completely unrelated topic, between "Pot of Gold" and this episode it's pretty obvious that with a little bit of guidance Sugar is a pretty decent dancer, even if her voice leaves much to be desired. I wonder if Mr. Schuester and/or Rachel feel like idiots for writing the girl off so quickly and setting off this whole two Glee Clubs thing?
 * It's a Glee club, not a dance club. Dance is a side. Schue is totally justified in not accepting a student who can't sing to his club, especially one who's that much of a bitch.
 * Mike couldn't sing until this year and he's been in the club since Season One. No one knew Brittany could sing until about a year after she joined the club. Both got by on dancing and harmonizing. A guy that was supposedly desperate for new members shouldn't have been so quick to dismiss someone, especially since he already knew he was organizing a Booty Camp.
 * All right, but you're still forgetting something- for a club of any kind to be successful, everyone needs to get along. Sugar would likely have repeatedly clashed with everyone else, and may have demanded (and possibly got) key roles that, given her refusal to acknowledge how bad her singing voice is, could have lost them Sectionals or other contests. If Sugar was a sweet-natured girl (no pun intended) who acknowledged her lack of vocal talent but was willing to work on it, Will wouldn't have had a problem with accepting her. The club has enough problems as it is without a new bitch to screw everything up.
 * But nothing that Sugar said or did was any worse than the things that Season One Rachel said or did, and no one even considered for a second kicking Rachel out for her attitude problems. Yes, prolonged bad performances from Sugar would have caused them trouble at competition, but there were months in between to try to calm her down and teach her how to dance. Which, evidently wasn't even all that hard. Wasn't it worth trying for at least a little bit instead of giving up on her, especially when he already knew he was going to be running a dance workshop anyway? Sugar accepted a secondary role in the Troubletones after one verbal smackdown from Santana. Do you really think she wouldn't have backed down after Rachel, Mercedes, or Kurt went off on a diva rant on her?
 * Two reasons. 1) Rachel actually has talent and it's a lot easier to deal with arrogance if they've at least got something backing it up, and don't need huge amounts of training and help to get them there. 2) Sugar does need a lot of training and help, ND has no way of knowing it would be easy to teach her to dance (and for all we know, it wasn't, and catching Sugar up would have eaten up too much of the time that ended up being Booty Camp—Shelby had her alone for awhile and could devote all of her attention). 3) Season 1 Glee was a lot more desperate. They're not fighting just to exist week to week, they've got enough of a foothold that they can afford to turn people away.
 * OP here, my question wasn't about whether or not they should or shouldn't have kicked her out in the first place, although I agree with the above poster that it really wouldn't have killed them to give her a chance and if after a couple of weeks she wasn't showing any signs of improvement, then kick her to the curb. My question is does Shue, at the end of "Mash Off" feel like ass for kicking her out once he's seen it clearly demonstrated twice that Sugar was in fact teachable.


 * So, why does no one go after the politician who made the ad campaign? Not only is it EXTREMELY unethical to out someone like that on TV (which even many conservatives would say is too much and would criticize that) but it might even be illegal, assuming Santana is a minor, anyway.
 * He did lose the election, and it's implied that voters were turned because of the low blow he dealt.
 * Okay, but there's still the matter on whether or not what he did was legal.


 * Hall and Oates? You know that you're going up against the vocal might of Mercedes Jones and Santana Lopez with the creative direction of five time National Champion Shelby Corcoran and the best idea you can come up with is Hall and Oates? No disrespect to them or anything but their musical style isn't exactly showy which is sort of the point of show choir.

I Kissed a Girl

 * Santana's grandmother is incorrect. Presuming she's Catholic, The Church's stance on homosexuality is to love the sinner, but not accept the sin- in this case homosexual actions/sex. Having sex outside of marriage would be seen as a sin, anyway, even if she were straight. Santana should have been encouraged to live a chaste life and accepted, always, as a person and family member. Though there would be a level in scandal in being openly gay and also calling yourself a devout Catholic, implying Catholicism is alright with it. Basically it's Failing Religious Studies to add drama.
 * And since when has every single member of any religion followed it the way they should, especially regarding acceptance? Her reaction was realistic, if unfortunate.
 * It was never about religion in Abuela's case anyway. Even if it were, it would have only been to justify the hatred already there. I'm a gay person of color too, and my own less-accepting relatives (which isn't to say all of them) said the same thing she did. That is, if I want to sleep with men, I should do so secretly and that it's "selfish" to come out and "shame" my family.
 * "Everyone has secrets, Santana. They're called secrets for a reason." "The sin isn't in the thing, it's in the scandal when people talk about it aloud." It seems pretty clear to me from those statements that it wasn't so much about Santana being a lesbian in and of itself, but what people are going to say about her (and, more importantly, her family) when they find out.
 * So, is the show really suggesting that outing people is okay? Because Finn certainly wasn't doing any apologizing, and the show seemed to suggest it was for her own good.
 * He keeps insisting that everyone already knew. And whether you approve of his actions or not (and that's already been discussed higher up the page, so let's not get into it here), I don't think this one incident overrides the show's earlier assertions that outing is Not Okay.
 * It does come off as a really bad Author's Saving Throw though. Even if his intentions were good, he was still never actually called out on it.
 * It's yet more of the "Finn can do no wrong" that this show has always run off of, whether he's quitting Glee after Baby Daddy Gate or enticing Quinn to cheat on Sam right after breaking up with Rachel for doing the same thing, the writers will NEVER call Finn out on anything... ever.
 * On the whole 'Finn can do no wrong' thing, (i agree with you for the most part) did nobody else notice he pretty much gave her a 'come to the choir room or we let you get suspended' kind of moment right after Figgin's office.
 * What about the time he called Kurt "faggy"? He got called out on that more than he deserved to. And he did catch mono (from Santana...) for getting Quinn to fool around behind Sam's back. Plus, previews for "Hold on to Sixteen" suggest that Blaine will call him out for his rude behavior towards him. But in this case, it can be argued that Finn not apologizing to her is a sign that he's finally growing balls, because no one was fully right or wrong. Without getting into the debate again, there are two things any sensible person will agree upon: A) Even Santana didn't deserve to be outed like that, and B) That said, it only happened because she was being a total Country Matters to him. And despite all the crap she put him through, he still kept her from getting suspended and went out of his way to show her that she has friends who care for her and support her if her family doesn't. Sounds like a Crowning Moment of Awesome to me. Finn has come a long way from having to be forced to protect Kurt.
 * You're right that no one was fully right or fully wrong in this situation, but if you aren't fully right then you are at least a little bit wrong, and not apologizing when you're wrong (even if you're only a little bit wrong) especially to someone you claim to care about isn't growing some balls, it's being a dick. And yes, she owes him an apology too.
 * Then if neither of them apologize, isn't it a wash? I will agree that Finn's sudden "You were my first time and I don't know what I would do if anything happened to you" smelled suspiciously of plot-driven Ass Pull.
 * Fair enough but is being no better than the biggest bitch on the show the sort of behavior one should assign to a character that is supposed to be your show's hero?
 * Well no, but I'm of the impression that the writers lost interest in Finn being the hero after the first season. After all, as I alluded to in my train handling comment below, the characters take turns playing the stock archetypes (to such an extent that it nearly eliminates all dramatic value). It's very difficult to identify with Finn as the hero, or with Britney as the sweet one, because in the very next episode they'll be a different character. This is precisely why I found Finn's "I don't want you to die" speech to Santana so jarring as he hasn't been so overtly boyscout in a long time. I actually asked my girlfriend "Where season 1 Finn came from all of a sudden?"
 * That's actually pretty consistent with his behavior. He has never born Santana any ill will, despite all the crap she says to him and everyone else. And when he convinced the three Cheerios to rejoin the Glee club after Sue pulled an ultimatum last season, he called out to her specifically. He always wanted the whole club to just be friends and knew that she only lashed out at people to hide from her gayngst. None of this was a secret to anyone (as Puck confirmed). Anyone else, even Kurt, would have just said "Screw you you carpet-chewing dyke in denial," but Finn was concerned for her just as much as he was being spiteful. And when the outing happened, he organized the whole club into showing her that they care, even though they had no reason to do so because she has never cared for anyone but herself.
 * Fair enough. I think I'm just sensitive to all the Poor train handling that seems to happen in the show almost episodically to serve the plot. It's almost as if the characters themselves are actors cycling through the jerk/crazy/paragon roles as demanded by the week's storyline.
 * *Cough*Quinn*Cough*
 * Quite.


 * And how is "I Kissed A Girl", a song about meaningless experimentation, an appropriate response to a guy saying that lesbians just need to meet the right man?
 * The Cover Changes the Meaning. The song seems a lot more meaningful in that context, with all the girls supporting Santana. Plus it's so freaking catchy.
 * Agreed with the above, plus I don't expect teenage girls to get the meaning exactly right on what they decide to sing when there's an in-the-ballpark, incredibly poppy and catchy alternative. The point of the number, anyway, was pretty much "fuck you", and deeper meaning or not the song is pretty brazen, so it works for that purpose.
 * Not to mention that after that creep jock pretty much threatened to rape Santana to "set her straight", the song was their way of saying "screw you - I kissed a girl and I liked it".
 * New Headscratchers drinking game - drink every time somebody cries rape on a decidedly non-rape situation. Seriously, he was a cocky rugby player hitting on a girl, that's slightly short of rape.
 * Agreed.
 * Okay, so I misread the scene. My bad. But there are quite a few jackasses who actually think that raping a lesbian is the way to "straighten her out". And having just read about the "rape an LGBT straight" epidemic in South Africa, that's the first damn thing I thought of when I saw this scene.
 * To be honest it maynot be a rape scene but it did feel a bit rape-y. Santana is now known by EVERYONE as a lesbian (As in just girls) and this GUY says he gonna set her straight. Sure if it was anyother situation, hell in any previous episode it would be him hitting on the hot cheerleader but in this episode he's hitting on a lesbian with the 'set you straight' in the conversation it does make it kinda rapey.
 * I think people just don't realize that this moment has an actual name- he wasn't threatening to rape her, he was threatening her with corrective sex- that is, sex to 'turn her straight'. While not guaranteed to be rape- Santana could still consent to this incredibly stupid idea- it's certainly not out of the realm of possibility. Corrective sex is rape a surprisingly large amount of the time, and either way, the suggestion to have it is both demeaning and offensive.
 * What's with Kurt and Rachel's "NYADA or nothing" attitude? Yes it would be an awesome school to get into and would greatly increase their chances of professional success, but any guidance counselor worth the title would tell you not to put all your eggs in one basket and to always have a second and third choice for college. Oh wait...this is Emma we're talking about.
 * Two possibilities. One: being told to have a second choice doesn't mean a teenager will listen; plenty of my friends didn't with both happy and sad results. Two: they may be applying to other schools, but a) they're probably going for programs equally hard to get into (say, other programs that only take 100 kids; in a country the size of America plus international students, standards would still be vanishingly high for both) and b) the show just hasn't chosen to focus on it because Rule of Drama and because NYADA is still their first choice and the one they're worried about. (Personally, my problem is why they weren't thinking about this last season. In my high school, we were told your junior year is most important for college admission and that we needed to be absolutely sure where we were applying by the end of junior year).
 * Gahhh, the "NYADA or nothing attitude" has really been starting to bug me too. If Kurt and Rachel are determined to go to New York, you'd think they'd realize that since New York is a major city, it has A LOT of different colleges to choose from. Then there are nearby colleges in New Jersey (the Mason Gross arts program at Rutgers in New Brunswick, New Jersey has a very prestigious reputation, and from there they can take a very quick train ride to NYC whenever), as well as other schools in Long Island. Yes, I get that NYADA is Kurt/Rachel's first choice, but honestly there are dozens of other great schools in that area they could choose from.
 * Why don't we get to see the scene with Santana's parents? I feel like we're missing an important step in her emotional journey. Last episode she's almost completely destroyed emotionally, scared to death of what people will think/say, then we see her loosen up somewhat when the Glee Club makes abundantly clear that they've got her back. Shouldn't we see the scene where she risks her tentative acceptance of herself and tells her parents and they're okay with it and Santana starts to think that maybe, against all odds, just maybe this will all work out and everyone will be cool with her and she'll get to have her girl and her friends and her family and then have the scene with her abuela?
 * Time restrictions? That's the only excuse I can come up with. Maybe they considered doing both scenes, but it would take too much time, so they ended up going with Rule of Drama and putting the abuela scene in instead of the Heartwarming Moment that a scene with Santana's parents probably would have been.
 * Or as a hint that Santana could've been lying and she never did tell her parents?
 * Or maybe it wasn't a crowning moment of anything. They were just "okay" with it. They didn't disown her, but they didn't exactly throw a party either. They might just think/hope that it's a phase she'll grow out of.
 * Even still it's a part of her emotional journey. If you look back to "Preggers" Burt was only just okay with it too, at first, but it was still a part of Kurt's emotional journey. Last episode she was clearly very concerned with her parents' reactions. After that, it feels weird to just be told about it after the fact. If they'd been less specific and had Santana say that she hasn't told her family yet, then it would seem like she was mostly concerned about her abuela's reaction. As is, it just reeks of bad writing/editing/planning.
 * Time restrictions, and I would probably think it was even sloppier to repeat essentially the same scene twice. The other party's reaction is different, but the structure would be the same. I think we got plenty of the message from Santana telling Glee and how she seemed when she said it.
 * Then there's also how after Santana tells the glee club her parents were alright with it, Brittany says, "No way!" I find it very hard to believe she wouldn't tell her girlfriend how her parents reacted to her coming out.
 * Also, the very next scene after her grandmother kicks her out, Santana's all smiles and happy in glee club.
 * Am I the only one bothered by Finn's "I don't want you to kill yourself speech?" Yes, lately there's been lot of focus on LGBTQ suicides, but just because someone is gay/lesbian/bi/anything doesn't mean they're automatically suicidal.
 * No, that's certainly not true, but it's not outside of the realm of possibility that Finn would jump to that conclusion. Santana's a very angry person and it wouldn't take too much for that anger to be directed inward at some point and for her to do something to herself. I don't think Finn was thinking that she was actively planning on doing anything, just that he wanted to head off even the remote possibility of her some day doing something drastic.
 * Honestly I think Finn should've been more worried about himself than Santana. She always took me for the kind of person who took it out on others and if pushed far enough will sooner painfully kill someone ELSE rather than herself. I'm just saying nomatter what, Santana doesn't strike me for even a chance at being suicidal.
 * While I agree that it would be out-of-character for Santana to suddenly become suicidal, I think Finn's behavior is completely in-character. It makes sense for someone like him to overreact and behave irrationally if he believes there's even the slightest chance that one of his True Companions is in danger.
 * Anyone else getting the feeling that Sue's character has run it's course? It bugged me that her "campaign against the arts" ended rather anticlimactically in this episode.
 * Oh no, she's totally still relevant thanks to the totally not ridiculous love triangle storyline they've drummed up for her.
 * Plus her character ran its course during "Funeral" where they had a tasteful ending to her general hatred.
 * I agree, Sue's act has just gotten more grating and tired this season. Season 1 she was entertaining and laugh out loud hilarious, and her moments with her sister added some depth to her...but now that her sister is gone, it seems like Sue is all Strawman 24/7, with literally no other purpose than wanting to cut arts programs (For the Evulz, of course) and to throw out increasingly desperate attempts at over-the-top one-liners. I think another reason why Sue's act has gotten tired is because she's kind of lost the shock value that her humor had in the first season. Even the funniest jokes can get boring if you keep rehashing it over and over and over again (which sadly, is basically what Glee's writers have been doing with Sue). Bottom line, Sue's character is getting old, and hasn't been entertaining for a while now, at least IMHO.
 * This has been bothering me all season, but why are they running for senior class president during their senior year? Seems like there's not a whole lot of time to preside if it's taken this long to get results. Shouldn't they have voted on this stuff at the end of the previous year instead of now?
 * I don't have an answer, but yeah, I agree. A show takes 2–3 months from auditions to opening (maybe 6 weeks at the tight end—at least this was true in my high school), and a senior class president campaign is not going to take up this amount of the senior year. Every school I've heard of has them at the end of the previous year, but even if not I can't imagine it would go more than a week.
 * It's been a while since I took a math class, but I'm pretty sure the quadratic equation is used in advanced geometry and algebra. Why would Puck need it for his bookkeeping?
 * I'm fairly certain that was him brushing off the question. When he says "It's for my pool-cleaning business" he means "I'm trying to straighten out my life so that I can spend more time with my daughter."
 * Zero Tolerance Violence Policy? Since when, exactly? Presumably sometime after your state wrestling champion was flinging a tiny Latina girl into lockers repeatedly. Not to mention after the skinny gay kid was getting thrown into lockers and dumpsters on the daily. It's nice that we have these rules in place to protect 6'4" football players from getting their pretty faces slapped.
 * Specifically, slapped by brown girls. Nobody does anything when it's the 6'4", corn-fed white footballer trying to pound the working-class Jewish boy into unconsciousness in the middle of the choir room, no matter how many teachers or students see it. That's the point; it's a selectively applied policy to make the least amount of trouble for Figgins, the school administration and the powerbrokers among the students and their parents.
 * Since when has Figgins ever been effective about anything, though. He can be convinced to do things by Tina wearing a cape and costume fangs.
 * It's addressed in-universe as well. Santana asks him where was this policy when they were being slushied for the past 2 years, and Figgins said slushies are not considered weapons. In short, he picks and chooses when to be an effective principal.
 * Or if you like, it's a spike in the Rule of Drama that the show runs on.
 * We all know Figgins is totally ineffectual as a principal (Something proved when Sue took over) but they needed a reason for Santana to get pulled back into the choir room so the episode to revolve around her. Not that I'm against that, I just wish they'd planned out a better way of doing it.Also what's wrong with Mr. Schue? He knows Santana knows about the video, and it's technically Finn's fault everyone's gonna find out so how's Santana hitting him 'unprovoked' or what ever he actually said about it?
 * Slushies and slaps are not anywhere near the same thing as being physically beaten up, thrown into dumpsters or shoved into lockers. Shitty way to run your school, yes, and we've established that Figgins can't be taken seriously as a principal, but it's still frustrating that Glee picks and chooses when Rule of Drama applies.
 * Part of it may be the fact that two teachers were there to witness it. Can't recall any time when physical violence has been witnessed by a staff member - sure they know/hear about it but as Sue pointed out in Furt it's too easy to deny as a student and get away with it.
 * Bieste pulled the Santana/Lauren curb stomping apart and almost certainly had to have been around for the football team's civil war. Shue was there for the Quinn/Santana fight as well as the Puck/Finn fight
 * Sadly, this is Truth in Television. A lot of schools with zero-tolerance policies on violence don't actually enforce them. They're just for show, to make the school look good to the public because they're TAKING A STAND against youth violence. It's especially the case when no school staff members witness the violence, schools won't punish kids based on "he said, she said".
 * Where are the rest of The Troubletones? There are seven of them, Santana, Brittany, Mercedes, Sugar and three nameless dancers, but only the named characters are in the choir room.
 * Seriously. Where are your twelve members? Neither group has twelve members, sectionals are next week, and the preview definitely didn't address this. What the hell, Glee, you have apparently completely discarded the first half of your first season.
 * I get this really bad feeling that there'll be some really major dramatic moment and ND and the Troubletones will join together (Especially seeing as it looks like Rachel's gonna get suspended for fixing the election and therefore won't be able to join them for the show.Hopefully I'm not the only one thinking it after all Finn said Santana was gonna miss Sectionals because of the suspension he hung over her head so that means Rachel won't be singing next week, something that makes matters worse)
 * From things I've seen floating around the internet, it seems that the New Directions are going to recruit a few random band members to get their twelve, plus Sam will be coming back. As for the Troubletones, it seems that the three unnamed members are probably Cheerios, so I'm guessing between those three, Santana and Brittany they'll be able to find five more Cheerios to give themselves a full glee club.
 * Doesn't Josh the sleazy lacrosse player's actions sort of disprove the whole "everyone already knew" meme that keeps getting batted around the show?
 * Not necessarily. Speaking a lesbian who has gotten this kind of crap from guys: almost every one of these guys will dismiss rumors and suspicions (which makes a kind of sense—this whole attitude comes from not believing lesbianism exists, thus dismissing the notion). It's only when they heard it from me that they started up with "you haven't met the right guy" or "I could straighten you out."
 * Finn's blackmail is stupid. If Santana refuses, is he going to go say, 'I lied; please, suspend her?' In that case he either gets in trouble for lying, he creates enough doubt of what really happened that they probably couldn't suspend her even if they wanted to, or they believe she did something worse than the slap to get him to lie, which would get her worse than the 2 weeks, something he presumably doesn't want. I suppose this sort of karma since she was able to blackmail a boy with threatening to tell he briefly looked at a boy who was getting a drink from a water fountain, but really, does anyone besides Will know how to do blackmail properly? Does anyone have the ability to recognise when a person's blackmail attempt is unbelievably weak?
 * It's made all the more stupid by the fact that Santana has already admitted to slapping him and is just trying to deny culpability with the whole "Snix" thing. Really all Santana had to do was walk back into the office and tell them that he just tried blackmail her. Blackmail, legally known as extortion, is a felony and since it was committed on school grounds, Finn would be subject to expulsion. Figgins the weak willed worm would crap himself and just drop the whole matter to keep from having to expel the school's star quarterback.
 * You would have a VERY hard time even suggesting extortion here. In general, it needs to be a threat of actual harm before it's considered criminal (it would be easy to argue that a suspension wouldn't hurt Santana enough to get over that threshold). Also, blackmail is its own legal term; extortion is similar, but blackmail is not "legally known as" extortion.
 * The first part of that statement is still true though. Santana had already admitted to slapping Finn and Finn suddenly saying she didn't is enough to create doubt about the whole situation. I honestly have no idea why Santana didn't threaten to sue the school over discriminatory practices. I mean, Figgins is so weak willed that it really wouldn't even matter if the case would never hold up in court.


 * The election scene is a major problem. Supposedly the school election and Ohio election are on the same day. First, schools are closed on election day. Second, an in session school would never be the location of an election since that would mean child molesters and others unallowed around minors aren't allowed to vote. Third, that thats not how you vote at a school election, my school gave you the ballot which they collected five minutes later. My fourth, final, and most unforgivable problem is thus: Election Day is by definition always on a Tuesday in America. Your telling me that this entire episode took place over at most three days?!! No, no bullshit no. I say thee nay.
 * Where? I'm 100% certain I never had election day off from school because it always got touted and talked about in class (granted, I did graduate a good five years ago). Every school does student government elections differently. And that depends on the type of election it is. A day with an election is not always Tuesday—tell that to the last few Republican primaries, which have been mostly on Saturdays (written feb 2012). If it was, for some reason, not the Once A Year Election Day, it could be on any day of the week, and if it was Election Day, the whole episode could have taken place over more like a week and three days. All TV shows have unclear timelines like this occasionally because not every single episode comes exactly one week apart. (I have no argument against the second point because you're right—it would also be a huge disruption to school.)
 * Also, schools are often used as polling places for official elections. It's generally in the gym and students are sent elsewhere during that time.
 * Convicted child molesters are felons and can't vote anyway, regardless of the polling places location.

Hold On To Sixteen

 * Honestly, at this point it's just a routine, since they do it every single time, but I must ask: why do they not have a setlist days before Sectionals?
 * Rule of Drama? Tradition?
 * There's actually a pretty plausible reason- Rachel got suspended last week. Think about it. How heavily is she usually featured in setlists? Now think about who they're going against- Mercedes and Santana, two of the other heavy hitters from ND. If Will wasn't featuring her, then he was an idiot who wanted to lose. This makes the setlist thing both believable and fitting- They have to come up with a whole new setlist because their old one is a no go with Rachel suspended.
 * So if the guys in the jazz band can dance why did they recruit Jacob Ben Israel and Lauren Zizes whenever they needed a twelfth member? I mean, obviously Puck doesn't know them but he didn't remember Mercedes name up until he needed to date her. Do you really think that someone like Tina or Artie (who recruited these guys to help ND in the first place) don't actually know something about these guys?
 * Maybe this is the first year any of them were available, or they were asked to be Christmas-and-Easter members (or in this case, Sectionals-And-Regionals members), and only expected to continue preforming until some of the people from the group that lost moved over to the group that won.
 * Precisely which member of the group is Sam living with? Finn would seem like the natural choice obviously since they're friends, but once upon a time the Hummell-Hudson house was so small that Finn and Kurt had to share a room and Burt had to build on just to have room for the family he already has. I seriously doubt that The Evans agreed to let their son ride a couch for the next six months.
 * Rachel might be an interesting choice. It might give us an excuse to finally meet her dads.
 * Burt and Carole sold their houses and bought a new one when they got married.
 * He might be sharing a room with Finn. Last time we saw Kurt in his room(After the "incident"), it had a normal door(Blame it on the Alcohol) and was implied to be upstairs, so that means Finn kept the room-basement.
 * Again, they have a new house, so neither of them is living in the basement.
 * Are we the audience supposed to know how extremely flawed Quinn's plan is or is it just bad writing? I mean, Shelby's not fostering Beth, she adopted her. Legally Shelby is Beth's mother every bit as much as if she'd given birth to her. The state couldn't take Beth away just because Shelby got fired, even if it was for sleeping with a student. (It would be different if she got arrested for it, and yes teachers can be arrested for sleeping with student, no matter if they are 18 or not.) On the other hand, it's not exactly out of character for an eighteen year old (even one as book smart as Quinn) to not understand adoption law, especially when we see how desperately out of control she's been lately.
 * I think we're supposed to know how bad the plan is. As you've pointed out, Shelby is Beth's legal mother, and all the sabotage in the world wouldn't change that, especially given Quinn's rather bad record. What it's showing us is that Quinn's desperate to get the thing she thinks can fix her life- i.e., Beth- but she doesn't have a clue what she's doing and she hasn't thought it through. She's even more screwed up than we thought.
 * It wasn't so much the Shelby being fired that Quinn thought would get Beth back. When she told Rachel her plan, she basically said that Shelby would be unable to look after Beth and Quinn said that that was when she would step in, after Shelby got Beth taken away from her because she couldn't afford to look after her. Still a stupid plan, but not quite so naive
 * But that's the point... Beth can't be taken away from Shelby except in cases of abuse or extreme neglect. Beth is Shelby's daughter, legally. It's not like Shelby couldn't get another job.
 * legally if quinn could prove shelby was an unfit mother she could sue to regain custody. her entire plan was to frame her to get beth back. the plan wasnt thought out but if she actually managed to convince social services that shelby was unfit and quinn wasnt she could legally regain custody of beth
 * Sam's house. Is it just me, or is that a very nice house for a family that was basically homeless a few months ago?
 * Maybe it's a fixer-uper. The Evans live there and fix the place up in exchange for a break on the rent. They did say that Mr. Evans new job was in construction.
 * So all it took to change Mr. Chang's mind was to see just one of his son's performances? Feels a bit anti-climatic and rather cliche to me. Also, he's apparently fond of honor. Whoda thunk it?
 * While the bit about honor did seem out of the blue for the sake of having an Asian moment, I think the point is that Mr. Chang never actually saw his son perform, and never realized how good he is.
 * Probably also how happy he is. It takes a certain kind of parent not to want your kid to be happy. And that ultimately is what Mr. Chang was worried about - that Mike wouldn't be happy because he'd be poor and living on the streets, etc etc etc. But seeing Mike be willing to accept the difficulties in order to be happy helped change his mind.
 * How did Finn and Rachel get into a strip club and not realize that it was a strip club? I mean, assume for the moment that they are both 18, which I don't think the show has established, and that the club allows 18 year olds in, just won't serve them alcohol, they still would have to have presented ID which ought to have tipped them off that this wasn't dinner theater.
 * I don't think Sam was stripping all the way. If he never showed a "bathing suit area" and just kept those shorts on, no one would need to be I Ded. (It's also possible they're just that clueless, but I find my explanation more plausible.)
 * The dinner theatre/comedy club in my city actually does require ID. So there is precedent.
 * While Blaine being all sweaty and angry and working over a punching bag provided some nice Fan Service, does anyone else think he was being unjustifiably bitchy over his argument with Sam? The only thing Sam did was disagree with Blaine's suggestion for dance moves, and came up with an idea that the others happened to like better. That's just an inevitable aspect of being in a group. Funny how Blaine wasn't nearly as upset when Kurt's ideas were being shot down in the Warblers.
 * It wasn't just that the other idea was better received, it was the whole sex aspect that bothered Blaine.
 * Didn't bother him in "Sexy."
 * One major factor to consider is whether or not Finn and Rachel told the others that Sam had been a stripper prior to returning. If they had, then it seems as if Blaine was intentionally trying to offend Sam to get his way. If they hadn't told anyone, then what we have is Blaine being uncomfortable with sex and getting worked up about the situation, not realizing Sam would take his comments so personally. The latter is most likely, as the former seems highly OOC for Blaine, even with the little characterization he has, and also because Sam was clearly ashamed of being a stripper, and Rachel and Finn would likely want to protect his dignity by not telling the entire Glee club (especially Blaine, who barely knew Sam) that Sam had been working at a strip club.
 * Blaine had just been talking to Kurt earlier in the episode at how he was irritated with his treatment. I think Sam showing up and Blaine suddenly having two Finns to deal with was too much, and the tension that's been building for awhile finally boiled over. To put it another way: the tension's been building for awhile and Sam was a catalyst. I definitely gasped because Blaine was being seriously bitchy, but when you consider that he's felt slowly and systematically attacked for months now you can argue that Blaine's reaction was pretty tame (especially since he's starting to show a rather mercurial personality).
 * "You smell like Craigslist"? What does that even mean?
 * Craigslist has a dating section. For men seeking women, women seeking men, and women seeking women, the ads are a mix of people looking for an actual relationship, and those who just want casual sex. The ads for men seeking men, on the other hand, are ENTIRELY x-rated, with no shortage of nasty perverts looking to give an anonymous blowjob while their wives are out of town. Most gay men consider Craigslist the bottom of the barrel when it comes to online dating. This is what Kurt was getting at.
 * I took it as: Craigslist=Cheap and used
 * Was the statement about Harmony being a sophmore supposed to imply Pierce's contract was extended. If it was, great I love the character. But has she? It wouldn't shock me that she'd be the sectionals villain next year, Warblers regionals, and VA Nationals.
 * I just took it as her being a Graceful Loser.
 * There are two different ways I interpreted it: A) Making her relatively young character just in case they wanted to bring her back, or B) Drawing parallels to Rachel, who was a sophomore when the show started.
 * What exactly was so disrespectful about Shelby's offer to the New Directions? It'd be one thing if she was outright trying to psych them out or being smug about it, but Shelby seemed sincere. Pegged me as What Do You Mean It's Not Heinous?.
 * The whole thing smacked of arrogance. It was patronizing towards New Directions, and presumptuous for the Trouble Tones to assume they would win. If they did, ND would have never heard the end of it.
 * Shelby said if we win. Not when we win. New Directions were being insanely thin skinned.
 * I don't think Shelby and co did anything wrong here, but I guess New Directions was antsy because they were quite a mess up to that point.
 * I agree. The offer seemed sincre, and she even refered to it as "In the Case of a New Directions defeat". Sure, she wanted to win, but so did Mr. Shue. The really heinous thing to me is how Hypocritical New Directions were about it. Oh, Shelby is confident? Cue shot of Blaine and Finn bumping fists DURING a performance and saying "We got this." Oh, Shelby offers a spot to New Directions in the Troubletones if they lose? Cue Quinn pressureing half the troubletones to rejoin New Directions after they win.
 * The writers did the same thing with Finn's cheating. If the character is supposed to be the main character, we, as the audience, are supposed to forgive everything they do no matter how hypocritical they are. The writers are portraying the troubletones as a cancer, or something unnatural. The truth is the writers know that, while there's nothing wrong ND joining the Trouble Tones, the Trouble Tones aren't Will's baby, and Matt Morrison is cheaper than Menzel.
 * It's one thing for them to be confident among themselves, and to offer the rival group a spot after they lost, but the Trouble Tones were all like, "When you losers lose, you can join us!" I can understand why ND would be offended.
 * Uh no they weren't. they said In case, not when we win.
 * I'd give TT the benefit of the doubt and say they didn't mean it to come across that way. Still, given the context, I'm not surprised that it actually did come across that way to ND. Good offer, bad timing.
 * Shelby and the others may have been sincere and well meaning, but the way that Santana told them smacked of arrogance.
 * Except not. Santana said IN CASE of a Troubletone's victory, Shelby agreed to let any New Direction member who wants to join, join. There was not a single trace of arrogance in her voice nor were the Troubletones assuming they would win (and if they did they weren't rubbing it their voices like some of you apparently think) Seriously you people need to watch the scene again if you think the Troubletones were being rude or cocky
 * So, in this episode everyone's talking about Sam like he's this amazing star, but I don't remember him being all that prolific in season 2. I'm glad he's back, but why was his importance so integral that they put so much effort into getting him back?
 * He sang lead in Sectionals last year, had three romances and a little Ship Tease with Kurt, and had a serious storyline about homelessness. Many fans liked his nerdy references and Only Sane Man personality, and being Mr. Fanservice didn't hurt either. In short, he is a well-liked character who was abruptly written out due to petty drama between the actor and producers. His return is a welcome one, at least to me. Now if we can get Lauren back as well, we'll be in business.
 * It also helps that he never wronged anyone during his stay, unlike... well, everyone else in the show.
 * What petty drama?
 * Two versions: Either Chord didn't renewed his contract because he wasn't made a regular at season 3, or the most likely, he wasn't offered a contract to return for the third season.
 * I'm pretty sure the OP was talking about why it was a big deal to get Sam Evans back in Glee Club, rather than why it was a big deal to get Chord Overstreet back on the show, and I'm sort of right there with them. I mean, I like Sam well enough and I too am glad he's back but aside from the male lead at Sectionals last year, he was never a huge part of their overall make up.
 * The best explanation I can think of is that Sam is a good influence on the group when they inevitably start to self-destruct. Since no one really holds any ill will toward Sam, it's easy for him to mediate between clashing personalities. Basically, his presence may not strictly be necessary, but it does nothing but good things for their group dynamic (except apparently with Blaine, but he's the new guy, so they didn't expect that).
 * That, and his duet with Quinn last season was very well-received by the in-universe audience (and probably the Real Life audience as well) at last year's Sectionals.
 * Why are people forgetting Rory? He has had only one New Directions solo and barely a line at times.
 * Because Damian was lucky enough to win a role on Glee. He has the rare pleasure of swaying behind Rachel with wet moved eyes as she sings solos.

Extraordinary Merry Christmas

 * Where did Sugar go? The end of the last episode seemed to imply that she was joining New Directions, and it looked like she was part of the club in the next episode preview, but I don't think I saw her at all this episode.
 * She'll probably be showing up in the next few episodes or so. She really wasn't needed for this episode.
 * Obviously she returned to the future to spend the holidays with her moms.
 * Hopefully her time machine won't blow up on the way back.
 * Am I the only one who thought Artie's movie was much longer than it really should have been. I'd have thought that one of the characters (preferably Kurt given how stereotypical his role seemed) would have gotten fed up and broke character sooner.
 * He was playing a Retraux flirty-but-sexless "Hi, this is my Heterosexual Life Partner, welcome to our amazing home!" amalgam of different variety special hosts (and narrators). Practically everything he did was subversively breaking character, including the diamond necklace subplot. Artie's movie was supposed to fill an entire evening of airtime (the Yule Log video is two to four hours long, I expect a typical Christmas Eve live special to run for at least one hour, if not two), and the part of the show that we saw was only about ten or fifteen minutes long, and Kurt made a comment that the oven wasn't even started yet (in-story) but they had a turkey by the end of it, so there was probably either some Deus Ex Machina or enough time to make people think they cooked a turkey. Also, Rory did go majorly off-script.
 * Rory did mention later that the TV guys made him put the Bible stuff in.
 * He said it was inspired by his Christmas sponsor. As in Sam. Rory chose to put it in himself because Sam inspired him.
 * Confirmed. The camera zoomed in on Sam smiling when Rory mentioned that.
 * Not to mention that actor Damian McGinty is very openly religious in real life, frequently praying or mentioning praying and thanking God often during his time on the Glee Project, and he seemed genuinely sincere when he was reading the verses. So, it was an in-character moment both for the character and the actor, arguably.
 * How much would it have cost to run that special? They had an $800 budget, I'm almost 100% certain that "My Favourite things" isn't in the public domain (let alone some of the other songs which might be Newer Than They Think), and it would have cost a bit to do the whole thing live (with the exception of the intro and pre-preparing Finn's Light Sword effect) or film it and convert it to black and white (if the "are we live?" bit was a mis-speak). Even if everyone provided their own costumes, props, and food at no cost to the station (considering the end of the episode at the homeless shelter, that's almost definitely the case), and the set was pre-built or counted in someone else's budget, it still seems like it would have cost more than the budget, and almost definitely more than it would cost to license the rights to a major station's previous year's Yule Log recording.
 * For that matter, what was the point of all the drama surrounding choosing the TV special over the homeless shelter, when it's made clear at the end that they could have just done both? (with time to cook a turkey!)
 * They came straight from filming (which was cut short). Finn mentioned the turkey was a prop from the holiday special so it was already made and they just simply brought it with them.
 * The plot point of not having time to do both makes sense. Lima doesn't have its own PBS affiliate, meaning the kids would have had to drive over an hour out of town to either Bowling Green or Toledo.
 * Except they did do both, leaving the filming early, after the Bible reading convinced them of the real meaning of Christmas, with seemingly no issues from the studio. However far away it might have been, it was close enough for them get to the shelter.
 * That's just it, they had to leave early in order to make it. And since the shelter was running out of food, the dinner was probably going on for awhile.
 * Isn't "Do they know it's Christmas" a horribly innapropriate song to be singing for homeless people in a homeless shelter?
 * Very much so. "Thank god its them instead of you" came off as incredibly mean spirited, considering that Sam and Quinn are/were homeless for gods sake.
 * Considering they sang I Kissed a Girl in an episode about a lesbian coming to terms with her sexuality, it rather seems like they aren't even thinking about their song selections in and out of universe.
 * Also, even if we're taking into account that The Cover Changes the Meaning, it's hard to say exactly what they were changing it to in this instance.
 * There was an off-hand mention that the song was supposed to be their closing number from the TV special, possibly it made more sense in that context.
 * A throw away line says the Re-Walk artificial legs Artie got in the previous season's christmas episode broke the day after he got them. While it then explains why they were never seen again it seems needlessly depressing to put that in, especially with the trouble it must've took for Coach Bieste to get them.
 * YMMV, since there was also a lot of questions on this very site about how she got it and the fact that it's not due to be widely available for years yet. It was an experimental prototype, and it broke pretty quickly, which is realistic and relieves the "Coach Bieste is just magic" implications. It's actually a much neater and more intelligent resolution to the question than I have come to expect from Glee.
 * What about Rachel and Puck's Judaism? We get one obviously voice over'd "happy hannukah" from Rachel as the camera is panning away under a constant chanting of merry christmas'. It's especially jarring because at the beginning of the episode, Sue mentions Christmas as a time when "jewish kids feel slightly uncomfortable".
 * It does bug, especially on this show which supposedly celebrates the things that make us different and especially this year since Christmas and Hanukkah overlap this year. It would have been nice to have more than a passing acknowledgement of it and their culture. That being said, Hanukkah isn't one of the high holidays and not all Jewish people celebrate it. It would seem unlikely that this would be true of Puck's family considering how much Puck's mother is implied to be invested in their heritage/faith. Rachel is ethnically Jewish but it's never established how much she follows the Jewish faith, and it was established last year that at the very least she celebrates both holidays.

Yes/No

 * Becky is an aloof bitch in her mind? Where did this come from?
 * "Where did this come from?" Did you miss her screaming "I can't work with her" when asked to co-captain with Santana? She's shown plenty of signs of following Sue's lead in being not so nice.
 * No, she's shown plenty of signs of having no defining character traits beyond being Sue's sidekick and reminding her of her sister. The sudden "aloof bitchiness" is just that thing that happens from time to time when the writers figure out what they want to do with a previously undeveloped character. It's already happened with both Brittany and Santana.
 * Santana has had very little interaction with Becky, so from her point of view, she is a bitch.
 * So Artie tells off all his fellow Glee-clubbers about judging Becky based on her appearance... and then breaks up with her after getting a nude photo? I would say that it was based more on the harassment then the image, except neither Artie nor Sue mentions that during their talk...
 * Artie never liked Becky as more than a friend. Compare his scenes with Tina in S1 and Brittany in S2 with his scene with Becky in this episode. His actions are not the same. He broke up with her after she said she wanted to sleep with him because he wasn't interested in her like that.
 * Why did Will care about the whole "babies are messy" thing? He does realize that getting married doesn't equal having a baby, right?
 * Uh, Will wants kids. See his whole storyline in the first thirteen episodes. Emma knows that going in because she was the one he always talked to about how much he was looking forward to having it. Also, they've presumably had that discussion since they started living together.
 * Why did Will go to Emma's parents and ask them about marrying Emma? Even using the basis of 'it's tradition,' didn't 'Asian F' establish that their relationship with Emma is at best strained in the first place, so having their blessing likely wasn't either forthcoming or important for Emma?
 * Your parents being dicks doesn't mean you don't love them (I'm sure plenty of tropers will tell you this from experience). The sense I got from Asian F was that Emma's ashamed of her parents and they (particularly her mother) don't respect or support her, but that she still loves them—otherwise why would she care when dinner went badly? If she didn't want a better relationship, so it wouldn't matter. He probably knew his chances of success were low, but I think he was correct in thinking a yes would be an awesome thing for Emma.
 * So, Finn, one of Will's students, is going to be his best man... Does this man have no actual friends?
 * He has Bieste, Emma, and occasionally Sue. He's marrying Emma, so she can't be his best man, Bieste probably wouldn't appreciate being the best "man" at his wedding, and Sue may or may not be his friend at the time.
 * What about Burt? They seemed to be close. It would be a lot less innapropriate for Will to ask Burt than one of his students.
 * Sadly, this is or at least can be Truth in Television, a lot of times teachers spend so much of their time focused on school and all their various school-related activities that they don't really have time for friends outside of their jobs and since Will appears to be the only male member of the faculty outside of Figgins... Although asking one of you students to be your Best Man is still weird though.
 * I don't think that's fair. Lots of jobs are busy, but it doesn't mean it's impossible to have time for friends. Especially since Will is a horrible teacher, so it can't be excused with being busy with lesson plans or something.
 * True but in busy jobs, often times your only friends will be the people within the same building. And for jobs where the job doesn't end at the end of the work day, that can be harder still. Even parties may end up involving coworkers and such.
 * I'm guessing since we haven't seen Will's crazy wife Terry in a while that everyone forgot what a controlling psycho she is? Way back in the first season, it's implied that Will is emotionally and mentally (and possibly socially) stunted by their unhealthy relationship, and any friends Will might've had that could see that crazy in Terry could have easily been driven away by her. Besides, all the other men that people know in this universe are people that are plain assholes to Will (Bryan Ryan, Figgins, Tanaka) or Will doesn't even know them TOO well (Burt, David Martinez, Coach Beiste's boyfriend). Though I still also think it's odd Will picked Finn as his best man.
 * Finn has taught Will how to be a man? How? By showing him what NOT to do?
 * Finn's birthdate problem has been solved by the admission that his dad came back to the US and overdosed rather than dying in battle.
 * So Coach Bieste won't even consider letting Sam on the basketball team? The same woman who had so little depth of roster on her football team last year that she had to sub in three girls who couldn't even play just so that she'd have enough players to field a team in the championship game won't even put him on the B-team or the C-team. Sam's not asking to start. I mean, it's high school athletics, it's not like the school is paying for them to be there.
 * That was a completely different situation. The game was due to the rest of the football team not wanting to do the halftime show and not being allowed to play. That's the only reason the girls were forced to substitute. And the sports teams seem to be an easy way to go up the social ladder in the school, so it'd make sense that even the b or c team would be full.

Michael

 * While Santana and Sebastian's duet was possibly the best performance in the episode, the reasoning behind it made no sense without some serious Artistic License: Law. Sebastian slushied Blaine, and that slushy happened to pierce his eye, making him need surgery. In the real world, Sebastian would be held liable no matter what was in that cup, since he was the one who threw it in Blaine's face.
 * Not necessarily. Assuming there was nothing unusual in the cup (which would be possible—ice could be hard enough to scratch your eye if it hit you just right, especially if the slushie was from a different source than usual), Sebastian knows Blaine has taken slushies to the face and been fine, so an argument can be made that it was an accident and Sebastian couldn't have predicted Blaine would be injured. Even if someone did think he meant to injure Blaine, it's still pretty likely for the police to say "we're not interested" without proof.
 * I think the police would be very much interested in pressing charges against an assault where the victim required surgery.
 * Depends on the police. Some are great about that kind of thing, some less so.
 * Actually it's assault anytime anyone does it to anyone and why anyone endures them as often as they do without involving the police is entirely beyond me, and OP is right it didn't need rock salt in it for Sebastian to suffer legal consequences, especially in plain view of two dozen witnesses.
 * I called Rule of Drama here, just because a. it would be too quick of a solution to go to the police and b. the kids probably felt like there was some personal pride on the line - Puck probably would have thought going to the police would ruin his street cred, and Santana probably found a challenge in finding someone who was very capable of matching her in bitchiness. There's also reason c. Blaine's actor had to be on leave for a his brief stint on Broadway, so he needed some absurd reason or another to be gone for a while, and the writers decided to use it as a point of conflict. The only major conflicting force against the Glee club in-series at this point is Sebastian anyway, and at that point he wasn't even really that threatening; the slushie throwing showed just how far he'd go. Besides, at the end of the episode, the kids EXPLICITLY state that going to the police wouldn't have been as much fun as beating the Warblers at Regionals.
 * I always figured that since we hear in the beginning of the episode that Sebastian's father is a state's attorney, it would be harder to get him charged since his father could lean on the police/judges to get his son off the charges, so ND may have factored that into their calculations. Or something. But definitely factoring Daddy Smythe's influence in.
 * Okay, even for a State's Attorney it's going to be pretty hard to make the charges go away when there is bodily harm necessitating surgery, two dozen witnesses, AND a taped confession.
 * There isn't a tape anymore, though...
 * Is there? Santana threw a tape at Sebastian. We never actually listened to it to know if it was the confession tape.
 * We do actually hear a tape, but only one, when Santana announces "we've got the Warblers right where we want them.", right after Smooth Criminal. She then plays the tape recorded during Smooth Criminal where Sebastian admits that there was rock salt in the slushie that got Blaine. We neither hear/see any other tape, so presumably there's only one. Santana threw this same tape at Sebastian, and given that Sebastian isn't Too Dumb to Live, there's no way in Hell that that tape will ever see the light of day, let alone the Warblers hearing its contents.
 * Oh I don't doubt that we'll never see or hear of this storyline again, I'm just speculating for speculation's sake. As a former employee of Office Max, I can tell you that you can't buy just one micro cassette tape, the smallest they come in is a three pack, so there are at least two others. Santana could well have thrown Sebastian a blank tape. The Warblers don't need to hear the tape, they were there when Santana recorded it.
 * Actually they weren't; Sebastian told them to leave so they wouldn't see him "make a girl cry". They reappeared at the end to hand him the slushie which he used on on Santana. Re the tapes, this is getting ridiculous. Not a personal criticism, but we began discussing whether Sebastian's father's influence would get him off assault charges and now we're discussing the theoretical existence of blank tapes. The facts are: Santana recorded Sebastian's admission. She informed him of this after Black Or White and then handed this same tape to Kurt, who threw it at Sebastian. As before, since Sebastian isn't Too Dumb to Live, he presumably hid or destroyed the tape and so the Warblers never heard it.
 * You clearly need to re-watch the episode because they came back after "Smooth Criminal" they were there when he confessed to salting the slushie and they were the ones that handed Sebastian the slushie he threw at Santana.
 * I've watched that episode plenty of times. I am aware that they handed him Santana's slushie, I'll even concede that they heard him admit to the rock salt. But that brings up another error: why say "now all your teammates know exactly what kind of guy you are" as a threat if they've already heard his admission in person and know what it did to Blaine? Note: THE ORIGINAL QUESTION IS STILL NOT ANSWERED.
 * What was the point of the rock salt supposed to be? I know what it wound up doing, but what was Sebastian's purpose of putting it in there. The Slushie was meant for Kurt and from the angle Blaine was at pushing Kurt out of the way it looked like Sebastian was throwing it more at Kurt's chest than at his face (which is kind of where he threw the one on Santana as well), which makes sense because that would likely ruin Kurt's clothes which would scar him... so was the salt to further destroy his clothes in some way I don't know of, or was Grant just not throwing the thing like he should have been?
 * Okay, not to downplay how horrible it must be to get slushied but rock salt is water soluble so Blaine effectively got hit by a slushie not so different than anyone else. And even if I buy that that his eye got damaged by a piece of dissolve salt. Why's he laid up in bed like he got hit by a car? Why is he missing multiple days of school before he has surgery? After, yes, but before?
 * Salt takes a long time to dissolve by itself. And maybe it's just me, but when I hear "rock salt," I think of the giant chunks used to melt ice and snow on the street, rather than neatly-ground table salt (though it's the same thing). So it could have very well been a solid chunk that scratched his eye, though I agree that the bedrest was unnecessary.
 * Rock salt being water soluble doesn't mean that if you chuck a liberal amount of coarsely-ground salt into an ice-water mix (i.e. a slushie) it dissolves quickly and neatly. A) Lowering the temperature slows down the dissolving process, B) a slushie doesn't really have that much water for the salt to dissolve in because there's so much ice (provided it hasn't had time to melt) c) in reference to the above troper, large chunks dissolve slower than finely-ground salt. Therefore, if the slushie was prepared just a while before the throwing (only too plausible, because it would have melted) and not stirred very much it's very likely that there was plenty of undissolved salt chunks in it. Yes, this troper is a chemistry major who delights in nerding.
 * While we're on the subject of the rock salt: Will said he had spoken to Dalton's headmaster, which means their school is now aware of it. What happened to the "No-tolerance anti-bullying policy" at Dalton. Sure, it was after hours. But the Warblers were in school uniforms, representing a school-sanctioned activity, and someone was seriously injured by one of their teammates who showed absolutely no remorse, all in front of multiple witnesses. Even with all the variables and an inability to pursue legal action, it still should have run afoul of the Dalton anti-bullying edict.
 * So I guess we're just discarding this whole Blaine/Sebastian idea? I know Sebastian was The Scrappy and there was a lot of fan hate for him, but did the getting rid of him need to be so stupid and wildly illogical? I thought you could do better than that, Glee writers.
 * Really? I like Sebastian, he's like a Sue Sylvester with 90% less all-talk. I sincerely hope he's in Season 4.
 * How are they getting rid of him? Regionals is still at least three episodes away.
 * (OP here) Yeah, but they were pushing the Sebastian-wants-Blaine angle hard, and they just shot it in the face all at once. He may still be around, but it will be as a villain that ND is going to beat (potentially in some quirky and unexpected way that showcases the power of love) and then he'll just disappear. What I meant to express wasn't so much getting rid of the character as slitting the throat of his main plotline.
 * The way I understood it was that they needed an explanation for why Blaine would be gone because Darren Criss is going to be in a movie. But if that's not the case, I'm very confused indeed.
 * Actually, it's because he had to go do a three-week run of How to Succeed In Business Without Really Trying on Broadway.
 * Once again, where the hell is Sugar? Is she in New Directions or not? Why does she keep not showing up to school for weeks at a time?
 * ...Aspergers?
 * Don't say that, not even as a joke! First of all, it has been made abundantly clear that Sugar does not have Asperger's. Secondly, a real Aspie probably wouldn't skip class, since it's part of a routine and people with Asperger's are uncomfortable with breaks in their established routine. (Something I can personally attest to.) To the original poster: She probably is showing up to school, but isn't shown very often because she's only tangentially relevant to the plot of the show.
 * While Sugar (probably) doesn't have Asperger's—we can't really know either way until she sees a doctor—we've seen her use her "self-diagnosed Asperger's" as a means of getting what she wants before; it's possible that she's using it to skip school. Considering how uninformed Figgins is and how influential Sugar's dad is, this is actually fairly plausible compared to some of the show's wackier plot twists. Also, who else would love to see Emma talk to Sugar about this self-diagnosis?
 * Sugar has about the same chance as the other background characters of not being around; the writers only have her around when she has something they want her to do. Regarding the Asperger's quip: the point of Sugar's entire character is to poke fun at the kids and their parents alike who try to use certain medical conditions to get around a certain order of things, whether it's true they have it or not. Anything Sugar says or does can also be justified in the same vein as Brittany; it's a comedy show and half the quips aren't meant to be taken seriously.
 * I get that Rachel's freaking out when her letter hasn't come, but in what way does not getting into NYADA equate to having no plans and nowhere to go? Especially since earlier in the episode she said she's going to New York either way.
 * This ties into an earlier Headscratcher of Kurt and Rachel treating NYADA like their one and only chance of making it big on Broadway. It is ridiculous that they're not even considering other schools in the tri-state area.
 * Plus, it's not exactly as though you even have to have a degree in musical theater to get work on Broadway. I mean I'm sure it probably helps in this case we're talking about a girl who has been in acting, dance, and singing class since she could stand up, so she probably has the chops to hack it on her own.
 * Why are there "cello guys" sitting around a Warbler meeting? The Warblers are an acapella group.
 * In-Universe Reason: There were other musicians there, possibly Dalton's school orchestra. The Warblers might have been planning a collaboration or something. Real Reason: The cellists are the musical duo 2Cellos; their cover of "Smooth Criminal" is a big hit on Youtube, and the performance is an homage to their music video.
 * Who is paying for Blaine's surgery? My friend was assaulted, she got her nose broken and needed surgery. The girl who did it skipped town so she wouldn't be arrested. My friend is now stuck with expensive medical bills because they can't sue the woman, as they don't know where she is. I can only imagine there is a similar situation with Blaine, as they are all actively deciding not to press charges. So now Blaine's parents are going to have to pay for his cornea surgery. We can assume they're probably doing fine financially, but seriously it's so unnecessary. They know who did it and they have "evidence".
 * I'd imagine Blaine's parents have health insurance that would cover most of the costs, though this is yet another reason why they should have involved the police. Even if Sebastian wouldn't be convicted of assault (and he totally would), civil court is a different matter entirely.
 * New Directions gets pissy about the Warblers stealing their idea to do Michael Jackson but conveniently forget they did the same two years ago with Vocal Adrenaline and Lady Gaga?
 * Lady Gaga was just a random weekly practice session. Micheal Jackson was what they were planning for their Regionals performance.
 * They have no claim over Michael. The Warblers have every right to do his stuff too. Yes, it's kind of a douchey thing to do but strictly speaking they've done nothing wrong.
 * They may not have done anything technically wrong, but they did do something wrong nonetheless. Sebastian clearly stole the idea out of malice.
 * Why was Kurt in Will's Spanish class? In The Substitute, he said he was taking French. He didn't just drop French, did he?
 * The Substitute was last year. I mean literally, not in an 'lol glee' way; people change the classes they take from year to year.
 * Most high school students I know don't take two different languages in school, even if they take them in two different years, but a theory I had was that he wanted to improve his NYADA application. There are so many classic plays and musicals originally written in those languages. Being able to speak English, French and Spanish would probably be impressive to the higher ups.
 * Why did Rachel even go to Quinn for Finn advice seeing as this is the 2nd time she's done the exact opposite to what she was told?
 * Truth in Television? A lot of people, especially those of the teenage variety will seek out the advice of others and completely disregard it in favor of what they/their hormones want. In this case, I think Rachel genuinely wanted to be talked out of it which is why she sought out Quinn, knowing what her opinion would be after "The First Time" but she was thinking she had no other options and got desperate and did something dumb.
 * Actually if you look back at the first Finn/Rachel scene, Rachel is very clearly in the process of telling Finn no before he cuts her off, so when she goes to seek advice on what to say, it makes sense that she goes to Quinn whom she knows will never in a million years tell her anything other than she should not get married. That's why she went to Quinn. It's only after the NYADA letter drama that she starts to think she has nothing in her future and agrees to marry him.
 * How the hell did Quinn manage to maintain an A average between all the crazy shit she kept pulling?
 * She was back in class and at least pretending to be normal, trying to prove herself to be a fit mother after about a month. She may have had to bust out some extra credit work to play catch up, but nothing terribly hard. Strictly speaking there's nothing to say that Skank Quinn wasn't keeping up with her homework. It's unlikely, I'll admit, but not impossible.
 * Colleges don't look at your classwork as a senior; it's your sophomore and junior years they scrutinize the most.
 * Why is Finn the only one not in costume in the opening number?
 * Closer shots show that his football uniform was bedazzled. I guess Finn thought it was close enough.
 * Ok, what is with Kurt implying that turning the tape over to the authorities is nothing more than petty revenge? Reporting assault to the authorities is the RIGHT THING TO DO.
 * Moreover, preventing this person from assaulting other people by reporting them to the authorities is more important than you and your team wanting your chance to beat them in a damn choir competition.
 * Surprised this hasn't been mentioned before but scratched corneas heal on their own, no need for surgery, and usually in just a few days, not two weeks.

The Spanish Teacher

 * What is this "tenured position" crap? Tenure isn't like getting an Assistant Manager job where there are a fixed number of tenured teachers. Teachers get tenure after a pre-determined amount of time on the job, usually between 3–5 years. It's not something they have to compete over. Also, Sue, who apparently has no other function other than Cheerios coach, wouldn't be up for tenure. You have to be a teacher.
 * I just assumed Sue was one of the gym teachers when she's not coaching the Cheerios.
 * In what way is Will a great Glee Coach? The team is constantly ill-prepared for competition. He constantly uses the Glee Club to work out his own personal issues. He plays favorites and doesn't even try to hide it. Here it is two weeks out from Regionals and they aren't even trying to get prepared.
 * Rule of Drama
 * Where is Tina? I've gotten use to her never doing anything interesting on screen and almost never saying anything, but to just not be there? I mean, they at least had the decency to explain why Blaine wasn't there.
 * Her actress was sick during filming and they didn't have time to write in a n explination. Ushkowitz was also gone during Black Or White.
 * It would be pretty easy to write a throwaway line about Tina being sick. Methinks they just don't care about Tina at all.
 * Uh. They did write a throwaway line for her brief disappearance. Watch the episode "On My Way." Within the first five minutes, Sebastian tells Rachel to drop out of the competition and get sick "from whatever Tina Blowing-Wang just had."
 * So because Becky has Down's Syndrome she can only write in Crayon and can't spell? I thought all Becky ever wanted was to be treated like everyone else. So we have the writers making stereotypes about the developmentally disabled right along side Santana calling Shue out about racial stereotypes. Nice Broken Aesop there, show! Good on ya.
 * Sue didn't say Becky's spelling was bad, she said it was better then Brittany's. The joke actually relies on the viewers assuming Becky's spelling was awful. Writing in crayon was a little bit stereotyped, I'll give you that, the writers probably didn't think the stereotype was strong enough without extra set-up.
 * I'm very confused as to how Will became a Spanish teacher in the first place considering, you know, the fact that he doesn't speak Spanish. Is it Artistic License or is it easy to become a teacher in the United States? Are we supposed to assume that Mc Kinley's highschool is just that bad that they would hire anyone (they did hire Terry as a nurse despite the fact that she had no qualification)? And how can he just switch from being a Spanish teacher to being a history teacher just because the history teacher retired? Do you get a "teacher" diploma and then can teach in any subject?
 * In the US, teaching requirements vary by state. In Ohio, you need a license for the appropriate grade level (elementary or secondary), and for secondary teachers, have to pass a competency exam in the subject you want to teach. Even though that just raises the question of how Will passed the exam to teach Spanish when he can barely speak it, it wouldn't be hard for him to switch to history. I've had teachers who switched subjects before.
 * I imagine he did what so many of his future students do and just crammed for the test the night/morning before, not learning the language but memorizing it long enough to regurgitate it on a test and then forgetting it as soon as he was done. That, or in the Glee-verse they were so desperate to fill the position that the test was a cakewalk, or, you know, both.
 * So in an episode that is supposed to be dedicated to Latin music we get songs by Madonna, Elvis, and LMFAO? Really show? On top of that, "Hero" is more of an American pop song by a Latin artist. So two out of six songs actually fit the theme.
 * To be fair, La Isla Bonita was already in Spanish so that explains that. It was also said that song could be bilingual.
 * A song being in Spanish doesn't make it Latin Music just as translating A Little Less Conversation and Sexy And I Know It into Spanglish doesn't make them Latin Music.
 * David Martinez wasn't really included in the assignment; he was just there initially to help Will's students get back into that Spanish hype that Will was having difficulty getting them into. And the point of A Little Less Conversation was the point of the entire episode... That Will is inadequate as a Spanish teacher and he has difficulty making very rational decisions when his personal life is on the line.
 * Still, regardless, Will's criteria is "to sing songs by Latin Performers or Latin descendants". This would have been a great opportunity to showcase Latin America's greatest artists, both modern and traditional, including, but not limited to: Gloria Estefan, Celia Cruz, Selena (Quintanilla), Elvis Crespo, Julio Englesias as well as his son Enrique Iglesias, Kumbia Kings, Daddy Yankee, and even traditional folk songs such as "De Colores". Why was there an LMFAO and Madonna song in this episode?
 * Rachel pointed out that Kurt wouldn't turn down a marriage proposal from Blaine. Did Rachel forget that only seven states in universe allow gay marriage at the time. I get the sentiment but if I was in Kurt's shoes I'd be offended and point out I that it doesn't apply. They could get married once their both in New York, but that would have to be when Blaine moves up after graduating. And since they'd have actually been dating for two and a half years at that point which makes more sense.
 * Well, you're not Kurt. I'm gay and I get more offended at people tiptoeing around/pointing out the fact that I can't legally marry than when they refer casually to it. "If I were him" isn't an argument for anything. That's not to imply that some gay people might not get offended at it, but it's perfectly possible for the opposite to be true.
 * Rachel wasn't exactly appealing to Kurt's reasoning there; she was appealing to his emotions in that she wanted him to try and put himself to her situation of getting proposed to (and really, what romantic would say no?), regardless of whether or not any of them are mature enough for it and regardless of the technicalities of the law.
 * So the latin music episode has bilingual music fine. But given the fact that this may be the only time we do bilingual episode, you don't want to ever mention that Kurt can sing in French (he can) or that maybe someone's a fan of Gackt or someone? Really? You make me sad.
 * You're confused that they didn't take the opportunity to mention or explore French singing in an episode centered around Latin music? Is this a joke?

Heart

 * How the hell is Rachel so damn short? Her mother is at least 5'9" (if not taller). Her fathers are both well over 6'0" so how on Earth is she only 5'2"?
 * Genes aren't the only factors in determining height. Nutrition can play a part, or may be she drank too much coffee when she was younger. Who knows? But it's not too unbelievable.
 * Idina Menzel is actually average height at 5'5". As for genes, shortness is recessive. One or both of Rachel's dads could have had a tall parent and a short parent.
 * Joe doesn't really make a lot of sense. How does a kid who is home schooled in a super religious family who has never been exposed to anything but Christian music come to decide to put his hair in dreadlocks and pierce his nose and have a rainbow guitar strap?
 * Even within Christian music there are a ton of sub-genres, it's not unlikely that he's emulating one of his favorite artists who might have more relaxed or even liberal views. Even then just because someone is Christian doesn't mean they're all suit-wearing, bible-thumping, fire and brimstone "everyone is going to hell but those who agree with me" assholes.
 * Okay, but how many of those open-minded religious people home school their kids? Maybe it's just because I'm from the Bible Belt but the overwhelming majority of people I know that home school their kids do it because they don't want "secular humanists in the public school system to indoctrinate their kids with the liberal agenda of believing in evolution and climate change and tolerance of the gays" yadda yadda yadda. Either that or they have severe development/learning/social disabilities and just can't function in school, none of which seems to apply to Joe. Every open minded, open hearted Christian I know is happy to let their tax dollars pay for their child's education while they focus their efforts on their child's spirituality.
 * More than you'd think, there are tons of reasons why some parents choose to home school their kids and religion only one of them, and often not nearly as important than you'd think. Most parents do it because they have no faith in the public school system to see that their kid gets the proper attention needed to make sure they're actually absorbing the material rather than just memorizing it for long enough to pass the next test.
 * Okay, but unless Joe purposefully sequestered himself from popular, secular music then the fact that he only knows Christian music says (or at least very heavily implies) that he was home schooled because of his/their religion. I mean, it takes a fair amount work to avoid exposure to pop culture these days: no TV, no internet, no radio. Sixteen years of that doesn't happen by accident.
 * It's possible that Joe's parents are conservative Christians (which could explain his initial uneasiness about performing a love song for a same-sex couple), but he himself is more free-spirited, and his parents give him leeway with how he expresses himself since he's still devout.
 * Many people at my church have noserings and tattooes, and (surprise, surprise) not all conservative Christians are raging a-holes, so Joe is hardly an anomaly. As for the whole "he's stuck at home being alienated from pop culture", his parents willingly let him go to school when he asked and he seemed to learn "Stereo Hearts" pretty quickly, so that was probably supposed to be a joke.
 * This troper's ex boyfriend was a life long homeschooler, raised by a Christian family and his musical interests were overwhelmingly Christian rock and metal (yes, that exists) and our friend jokingly refers to Joe as "hotter [troper's ex boyfriend]" because they look (and act, he also had a hesitant but ultimately accepting view of queer people) very alike, down to the headful of dreadlocks. Troper's boyfriend dressed more like a rocker, though.
 * So am I alone in thinking that Rory is lying about being deported? There was just something about their exchange in the Sugar Shack scene when she said she's going to miss him and he seems to have forgotten that he gave her a reason to miss him.
 * You're not alone; a lot of people noticed that too. And it is in character with what we've seen so far, since he's basically doing the same thing with her that he did with Brittany in Pot o' Gold. Though this time it seems to be working (so far).
 * Is it just me or is Rachel perfectly justified in not wanting Finn to take a huge dump in her en suite bathroom and stink up the place right before they're about to go to bed?
 * I don't think it was the smell she was worried about (they could have lit a match or closed the door); I think it was simply the idea of him using her personal toilet that grossed her out.
 * And guess what, when you're married you have to deal with shit like that.
 * I've been married for seven years and I've never once taken a dump in our bathroom attached to our bedroom right before bed precisely because lighting a match/candle or closing the door don't always work. I guess I just hate the implication that Rachel is being unreasonable in her nighttime routine when it's established that Finn could just go use another bathroom.
 * The implication is that both of them are immature and not ready to be married because neither one is able willing to compromise.
 * For that matter how does Finn justify getting upset at Rachel for not knowing what Finn is going to be doing in New York when even Finn has no idea what he's going to be doing in New York?
 * The writers needed a reason for him to start irrationally shouting at her, and I guess that topic was closest at hand.
 * Just because Finn is clueless, it doesn't mean that he's gonna be happy when she reminds him that he has no plan other than "marry Rachel."
 * So you remember when Burt got elected to Congress months ago? At what point is he actually going to go do that? Why did they bother holding a special election to replace a deceased Congressman if they person they voted in isn't going to report to Washington until right before the regular election?
 * They probably just forgot he was elected, which wouldn't be unusual for the show these days.
 * Kurt mentions it in "On My Way". Guess his term still hasn't started.
 * Wasn't one of Rachel's two dads, both seen in a picture taped to the inside of her locker in the Pilot episode, black? Re-casting is understandable because they want to flesh out her character's family but...one was definitely black.
 * Well, it was a pilot. It's not unusual (in fact, it's very common) for lots of things, major and minor, to change between the filming of a pilot and actual production after it gets picked up so not everything in Pilot episodes are canon or on the same level as canon as regular episodes. They probably just decided to change the dads' races because this fit better. Besides, Brian Stokes Mitchell is mixed race with African American being part of that mix (he's German and Native American, too, if I remember correctly).
 * Yeah, they sort of ruined the "We don't know which of my fathers is really my father" joke from the Pilot with the casting as well.
 * Brian Stokes Mitchel also identifies as black. On top of this, at least one of the pilot actors was simply a model there for the shoot. Recasting was always supposed to happen.
 * Recasting from the pilot is all well and normal, but isn't it kinda an unfortunate implication to replace a dark-skinned black man with a light-skinned black man now that her dads are actual characters?
 * If neither Rachel nor her dads know which one is her biological father, it's more believable for her black dad to be light-skinned.
 * Right, but that was supposed to be the joke. That it was painfully obvious which of her fathers was her bio dad.
 * First off, the "We don't know which of my fathers is really my father" joke wasn't ruined; the fact that one of them was obviously her real father and that they weren't aware of it WAS the joke. And I'm comfortable with thinking that they retconned both her dads into being white. It's not the greatest choice they could have made, but it's also not the worst thing the show's ever done. I'm not happy with it, but I am at peace with it.
 * Except now it's not obvious which one is her father. Rachel looks so much like her mother that now that Leroy doesn't have an extremely dark completion, it's entirely credible that he is her father and thus the joke is ruined.
 * But the original, dark Leroy could still have been Rachel's father. He could still have had some Caucasian ancestry and with the white Shelby, produced a white-looking daughter.
 * That's extremely unlikely, literally one in a million. Every mixed-race person I know is a moderate shade between their parents' skintones. When the mix is black/white, the end result is usually caramel.
 * It doesn't even matter if it's likely since obviously the joke relied on the fact that the audience would assume dark!Leroy wasn't her dad. That joke is dead with light!Leroy since the audience is far more likely to just shrug and assume he could be her dad.
 * Kurtofsky shipper here. As much as I liked the fact Dave tried to confess his feelings, I didn't like the fact that Kurt thought it was Blaine rather than just some other person. Aside from my personal preference, it just doesn't make that much sense. I can't say anything about Kurt not being able to tell the difference between Dave and Blaine's handwriting. Maybe theirs is (are?) similar, or maybe, like me, Kurt just can't recongise handwriting. Maybe Kurt did talk to Blaine and they had an honest miscommunication about the gifts, which sometimes, does happen. But Dave is taller than Kurt; Blaine is shorter than him. The moment Kurt saw the gorilla suit and believed the person underneath was his actual admirer rather than someone hired to deliver the gifts/messages, that should've be when his brain went, 'Hey, wait, Blaine couldn't have possibly had such a growth spurt in so little time. Who is this person?'

On My Way

 * How the heck did Sebastien figure the obviously photoshopped picture of Finn would be good blackmail? Couldn't Rachel and Kurt potentially just have done the same thing to one of his pictures? Shouldn't they have known and countered with that?!"
 * Everyone in this show who isn't Will Schuester or Santana Lopez sucks at blackmail. Fact. My question is what's the point of the blackmail thing if it's just going to get called off ten minutes later? I mean, I get why Sebastian's doing it but I'm not sure why it's in the episode. Is it to provoke yet another Finchel fight?
 * Probably that in addition to giving Sebastian another opportunity to twirl his moustache.
 * But both the fight and the mustache twirling were summarily dropped not even ten minutes into the episode, so once again, pointless.
 * Speaking as a former teenager and product of the public high school system it usually doesn't matter how badly the photo is doctored so long as it's embarrassing enough. Hell, this even came up in an episode of Great Teacher Onizuka, no one cared that the picture wasn't real because it was so completely over-the-top humiliating.
 * Except that in this instance, Sebastian's telling them to their faces that he's going to post the picture. That gives them the opportunity to suggest that should the picture ever see the light of day, Sebastian may find his head perched atop some of the worst debauchery on the internet. That's called a stalemate. Their response certainly shouldn't have been "Ok, What do you want?" as though the internet was some magical place to which only Sebastian had access. What makes this even worse is that the two characters in question: Kurt and Rachel, have both been specifically shown to be as vicious as Sebastian when it serves their purposes - so there's no argument to be made that they're not devious enough to have thought of the retort.
 * And we've recently got a new continuity, where Kurt and Rachel would never stoop to below their opponents level. We haven't dealt with Crack-house Rachel since she decided Finn was God.
 * It's entirely possible that Kurt and Rachel have actually matured since then.
 * Maturing to become wore weak minded and stupid is doing it wrong. They wouldn't have needed to do anything, they'd only need to point that out to Sebastien before rolling their eyes and laughing at his idiocy. That would have been mature without also being derp-tacular.
 * I suppose it's possible, 18yr old Quinn was pretty reckless and crazy until later that year when she turned 17.
 * Who taught Quinn to drive? If you can't avoid texting while driving, at least hold the phone to the wheel so that you can see what's going on.
 * She had sex with her boyfriend's best friend and then lied about it, clearly Quinn doesn't have the best judgement. I guess she wanted to be able to put it back down again instead of holding it, but she could have put it on her lap. She was looking ahead, though and the car came from the side, so she still wouldn't have seen if she held the phone by the wheel. Also, just a question, but who taught you to drive that they mentioned how you should hold your phone while texting and driving? That's illegal in most places and while it would be common sense to hold the phone by the wheel, driving advice is generally about how to pass the test and texting and driving will definitely not help you pass the test.
 * I said "If you can't avoid it." It's obviously never a good idea. And my point is that you should never take your eyes off the road regardless of what else is going on inside your car.
 * The way the other car just rammed into hers, it seems like it was running a red light and, being as distracted as she was trying to get there as quickly as possible, I don't think the accident could have been avoided. Unless she was maybe running a yellow and the other car wasn't paying attention and even then it's still not entirely her fault.
 * If you rewatch the episode, you'll see a stop sign that Quinn just barely missed seeing through her car window. It was the other car's right of way since there was no stop sign, and there were no lights. It was practically deserted where Quinn was driving. Though the other car could have made some effort in avoiding Quinn, no matter how you look at it, this is Quinn's fault.
 * The above response reminded me of something. While Kurt was generally awesome in this episode, did anyone else think he was a little out of line the way he told off Quinn? She's been through the ringer too. The first time she had sex, she became pregnant, was kicked out of her parents' home while carrying the baby, lost her social standing, and the only people who took her in were the same Glee club she helped bully not that long ago. While her own situation is certainly different in a few ways (she's still heterosexual, and after giving up Beth for adoption, gets to move on with her life), he could have talked about it with her without putting her down the way he did.
 * One thing to keep in mind is Kurt's going to have an obvious bias since he can actually directly relate to Karfosky's pain. That and, when you're going through grief, you're not exactly the most rational person when it comes to arguments. In this case, I'd say Quinn actually did the right thing by dropping the subject.
 * I agree with you but still, I'm bothered by the way the show seems to imply that the pain of being gay (and bullied) is the worse than anything else and that if you're not gay, you can't understand. What Quinn went through (having to give up her baby, being rejected abandonned and insulted by her family who are implied to be heavy alcoholic) can't be compared to Kurt's experience, even if he was bullied he always had the support of his father and friends.
 * But he wasn't comparing her experience to his, he was comparing it to Karofsky's. Unlike Quinn he didn't have anyone to help him through his pain when he was outed, even Kurt ignored his phone calls (Which Kurt even admits was pretty shitty of him).
 * Like Kurt said, "no one ever stopped loving you". Quinn has done horrible things to most of her friends and they've all forgiven her. She got pregnant and people said a few insults and stopped "parting like the red sea" in the hallways. Kurt's received a death threat, he's been physically abused by his fellow students for years, and no one, not even his teachers, stood up for him. Karofsky's own friends vandalized his locker. Being gay IS worse than teen pregnancy. Quinn had people lining up to help her whenever something happened to her. Her mom took her back in six months. Karofsky's mother says he has a disease and his best friend said he never wants to see him again. Quinn had her baby, gave her away to the first person who came along, and went right back to being top girl in the school. Kurt and Karofsky will have to leave the state just to get married.
 * Being teased because you're gay is not worse than being teased because of teen pregnancy. It's comparing apples to oranges. Quinn had people lining up to help because she has a support system. So does Kurt. Dave clearly didn't. If he had had one, maybe his life would end up like Kurt's.
 * Kurt is forgetting that Quinn's family did stop loving her. They put her out with no care about how their teenage daughter or her unborn child would get by. Quinn's mom only changed her mind when her husband left her (which becomes Fridge Horror if she only let Quinn back in because she couldn't cope with being completely alone).
 * Yes, but she still had people lining up to help her out when she was going through a hard time, be it Finn's mom, Puck's family, Mercedes welcoming her into her home, or the entire glee club supporting her and telling her how much they loved her. Karofsky was abandoned by all his friends (who then promptly started bullying him), his own mother claimed he was diseased and needed to be cured, and even Kurt, the one person he thought he could rely on when there was no one else, ignoring his calls. It is not the same situation, not by a long shot.
 * Karofsky made death threats against Kurt. It scared his parents so badly they temporarily transferred him to another school. Of course Kurt wasn't going to return his calls. it's been a while since I've seen the season, but I think part of the reason so many people offered to take Quinn in was because she was carrying a baby inside of her. Leaving a pregnant girl to the elements would be a pretty lousy thing to do, even for the members of Glee.
 * But Kurt is just bringing an undeniable fact, you can't argue with that. The world didn't stop loving Quinn, and it's not about undermining her suffering, but she always had someone holding her back, regardless if she brought this up on herself. She had people there for her, Karofsky didn't, he had only Kurt to turn to and he was avoiding him because his declaration of love (Because Kurt had even offered Dave his friendship the previous episode, meaning that Kurt considers their past history, that: the past) But, even beyond Karofsky and Quinn's contexts, Kurt's words remain simple truth, beyond the reasons, he had no one there to call a friend in his time of need. It's not about if he deserved it or if it was something karmic, it's just stating the fact that he had no one.
 * So the parents were willing to play along with this reverse psychology plan up to and including buying a wedding dress and six matching bridesmaid dresses and renting seven tuxes. You're talking about a couple thousand dollars there. That seems a bit excessive for a wedding they have no intention of letting happen.
 * Remember that it's Rachel's parents we're talking about here and the general consensus in their family seems to be "If it's worth doing, it's worth over-doing."
 * That's exactly it, though, they didn't think it was worth doing.
 * They did think their little reverse-psychology stunt was worth doing, they just never expected Finn and Rachel to move the date up out of nowhere and force their hand to either fess up or keep going with he lie.
 * Also, how does Quinn have a bridesmaid dress that just so happens to fit her perfectly that she can just go pick up on a moment's notice which also just so happens to match everyone else's?
 * If the Glee wiki is any indication, there was supposed to be a scene where the girls got fitted for dresses; it was probably cut for running time.
 * Why would Figgins tell the school, which Dave doesn't even go to anymore, about his suicide attempt? If he'd succeeded, that would be one thing, but from what I know of schools, if a student (or in Dave's case, a teenager who doesn't even go to the school) is dealing with mental issues, the faculty does not release that information to the student body.
 * Figgins is like the Rule of Drama made flesh. Nothing he does makes sense outside of facilitating some dramatic scenario for the Glee club.
 * I recall Figgins being in only one scene this episode, in which he's in his office with the other teachers, discussing the issue. I don't think it was stated or even implied that Figgins was responsible for the students knowing about Dave. It's actually implied that they found out online, because students from the other school started posting comments on Dave's facebook. Also, it's not uncommon for schools to do things like bring in more councelers, hold an assembly, or even have some kind of ceremony in honor of the deceased student. If the school already knows, it makes perfect sense for Figgins to have the issue adressed in some way.
 * Does Finn realize that it's basically impossible to get his father's dishonorable discharge changed, especially to an honorable one? I'm not sure about Ohio, but a lot of states treat dishonorable discharges as if you got convicted of a felony.
 * It doesn't matter. The whole thing with his dad smacks of Rule of Drama striking again, coupled with an almost deliberate effort to erase all of Finn's character establishment from the first season. Hey remember when they were trying to make Finn the noble moral center of the group because he wanted to be awesome like his dad and always do the right thing? BOOM! DISHONORABLE DISCHARGE! Not only have they eliminated his moral compass gradually through his actions on the show, they've now eliminated the reason for it altogether.
 * Problem is that the initial established backstory was that Finn's father died in the Gulf War. Finn is a senior in high school so he would have been born around 1995. Since the Gulf War ended in 1991, it was a HUGE plothole. Less Rule of Drama than Rull Of Oh Wait We Goofed.
 * Well, Finn wasn't he junior when the show started in 2009? He could have been 17 then and would have been born in 1992, which makes the numbers add up a little bit better. He could also have been held back in kindergarten or something because A, he's not that bright and B, he looks a lot older than he should.
 * We can only go by what's been established, otherwise we could sit here all day speculating. It's totally fair to assume he's the same age as Rachel and the other seniors, and that his dad died from drug addiction a couple years after the war. As for it retconning away Finn's characterization, I don't see how. So he learned a dark revelation about his father, being an issue that many former vets struggle with. Carol said he was a good man before the drugs took hold, and Finn still bases his morality on that. Not seeing a problem.
 * Um, I admit I don't follow the show as I used to, so correct me if I'm wrong but, wasn't established in the first season that Finn's dad "died" at the Iraq war? Or that has been retconed as well?
 * Not retconned. Carol explicitly admitted that it was a lie she told Finn when he was a child so that he wouldn't think less of his father. In reality, Finn's dad came home a Shell-Shocked Veteran addicted to drugs, left his family, and died of an overdose in Cincinnati.
 * That's what a retcon IS. Bringing in new "information" to discredit and change previously established continuity (hence the Ret part of retroactive continuity).
 * It's only a retcon if it contradicts previously established information with no explanation. If Finn's dad was changed into a police officer as if his military career never happened, that'd be a retcon. Carole fessing up that he didn't die in the Gulf War is a revelation, since it was a lie within the context of the story. There's a difference.
 * Where was this show choir rule book when Rachel was getting egged?
 * The gender difference is probably partly responsible. Originally, all the boys including Artie wanted to go beat up Jeese before Puck and Finn decided to go after VA via the tire stunt. In Finn's case, he wanted to beat up Sebastian, and Artie, though clearly sympathetic, was more analytical in how he could protect Finn and use the threat against him to their advantage.
 * ^ Just nitpicking, but the tire stunt was in retaliation for VA vandalizing the choir room, before the egging. The "revenge" for the egging was to do a funk number. Being Glee, it somehow worked.
 * Are the Troubletones all ND members, or just for one sequence?
 * Why does Kurt have Karofsky's (and vice versa) phone number? They clearly weren't friends, and we saw the whole scene at Scandals, so why would he have it?
 * They could get it through fb (friended when Dave did the Bullywhips routine) or maybe they could have got it in Scandals in between their scene and Kurt+Blaine leaving, because Kurt wanted to stay in touch.

Big Brother

 * How did Quinn wind up in a wheelchair but otherwise unharmed from the car accident?
 * Miracles do happen. I was in a car accident and wound up in far better condition than I should have been in (the wreckage, I've been told, was nothing short of horrific). Also, car accident doesn't necessarily mean horrific injury; plenty of people walk away hurting less than she did.
 * What Six Flags did the kids go to? The one in Ohio closed eight years ago.
 * The closest one now is in Chicago which is a 5 hour drive each way. Ten hours in a car. Great way to spend your ditch day.
 * If you don't mind spending most of that day driving. King's Island and Cedar Point, both famous parks in Ohio, are at most 2 hours away.
 * Why are the juniors skipping for senior skip day?
 * To have fun?
 * So Quinn didn't understand she could have fun the three previous years she was at Mc Kinely?
 * Because some of them are dating seniors?
 * Only Tina is. Artie and Quinn aren't dating, Blaine isn't there and Sugar and Rory are dating each other, so they shouldn't be there.
 * Why did they spend so much time on Blaine's brother, when they could have done something really dramatic, like show Quinn in the wreckage and being rushed to the hospital and someone frantically interrupting the wedding and everyone showing up at the hospital, completely distraught, still in their wedding attire? They could have at least had a little montage with dramatic music.
 * My guess is that 7 weeks passed in real time and they wanted to focus more on Quinn getting used to being paralyzed rather than the direct aftermath of the accident. But I agree that Cooper added nothing to the overall plot and felt like another gratuitous guest appearance.
 * What was up with the ending to this episode? It seems like a total downer. Was that necessary?
 * It was completely necessary, to set up Rachel and Finn breaking up, like we all want them to. Those two are simply not in any position to marry, and the end of this episode was setting up the discussion on that. Rachel has her dreams in New York, Finn doesn't have much going for him, so working with Puck would be a big break. LA and New York happen to be on opposite ends of the continent. It's not going to end well for those two.
 * One's in Mexico the other in Canada? The separation isn't that much.
 * They can barely keep it together as a couple when they live in the same small city. You think they can maintain with 3000 miles, three time zones, and 6 hour plane rides between them?
 * Speak for yourself, some of us think they are a lovely couple and want them to stick together
 * YMMV about the status of their coupledom, but they are most certainly not ready to be married. The show has demonstrated that beyond any argument.
 * Someday I hope to have a relationship like that... I have too much self esteem.
 * Do you also have oodles of talent and ambition that you fear may one day lead you to professional success and stardom and wish to have all that done away with?


 * So Artie promises to show Quinn a fun, uplifting time on their Senior Ditch Day (even though he's a junior) and then right when she starts to get into the swing of things and have fun, he clobbers her with harsh reality. Wha huh? Does Quinn likely have some pent up angst with regards to the accident and being in a chair that she needs to deal with at some point? Possibly. Does she need to deal with it in the middle of Senior Ditch Day? No. Does she have to deal with things on Artie's timetable? Definitely not. And why, oh why does she need to face the possibility that she'll never walk again when the doctors have already told her that she'll likely make a full recovery and she's already regaining sensation in her legs?
 * Because Artie is angry that Quinn may recover and he is stuck being diabled forever and he wants to crush her dreams. Even though, being in a wheelchair does not give you d-bag privleges.
 * He's not angry that she might walk again some day, he's upset because she's ignoring the possibility that she might not. Even Joe says when he's praying for her it that she'll learn to accept her current situation.
 * Which brings us right back to the problem addressed in the OP. Why on earth does she need to deal with the possibility right now when it won't affect the outcome of her recovery? If it turns out that she doesn't ever walk again, she'll have plenty of time to get used to the situation won't she? Needing her to "deal with the possibility" on their schedules, when there are clear signs that it might not be very likely, smacks more of self righteous do-goodery than any concern for her welfare.
 * Exactly, she already said she was regaining feeling in her legs and it's been a matter of weeks or maybe a month since the accident and her doctors have said that she should make a full recovery. Doctors don't tell people that if it isn't very likely. They don't do false hope, certainly not in that situation, so this is basically a couple of high school boys who think they know better than doctors.

Saturday Night Glee-ver

 * Did we see Quinn's face once in this episode? This may not even really be a headscratcher, but, we have one episode with her in focus and in the next she's apparently gone...?
 * I remember seeing her at the beginning, after the first dance sequence, sitting by Artie in their wheelchairs, but she seemed to disappear after that. Neither Sugar nor Rory was there for the entire episode though. None of these disappearances were ever explained or even mentioned.
 * Damian had the flu the week this was being filmed, which is probably the in-universe explanation as well. Sugar may have been nursing him back to health because I imagine her mind works like that. No explanation for Quinn, though.
 * She's in heavy physical therapy?
 * Dianna read the script for this horrible episode and suddenly came down with a horrible case of the Fuck Its?
 * ...I'm going with this one.
 * Judging from the dejected look she gave after Brittany tried and failed to get her to dance, I'm going to say that she stayed away from the heavily dance-focused week because it was too hard for her.
 * Why is Will going after Finn, Mercedes and Santana so hard in this episode. I understand that he's concerned for his students but at one point he's pratically shoving job choices down their throats.
 * Carmel High is in AKRON? That's near Cleveland and is on the opposite end of the state from Lima—two-and-a-half hour's drive—and yet the kids from one school visit the other at leisure. I know, Artistic License Geography and all, but at this point it'd be less glaring to admit that they just teleport.
 * There's also the fact that Akron is a Rust Belt city, meaning most families with money live in the suburbs, so it's extremely unlikely that an inner-city public school would have the exorbitant budget Vocal Adrenaline has. A seemingly-minor nitpick, but it just goes to show that the writers don't actually know Ohio and are just picking names off a map.
 * I never get annoyed at this, but the fact that they have a heavily choregraphed (at the end) performance of Night Fever out of nowhere confuses me. Usually when they just all break into song the dances are more free form that anything, and even at times they're just kinda doing their own thing. Also, if they hate disco how did they all manage to figure out not only the words but the notes to the final chorus of Night Fever?
 * Have the writers of this show been to college? How exactly can Finn apply to Pace University (which is where The Actor's Studio is) in mid-April and expect to get in for the fall semester? I mean, I can buy Sue pulling strings to get Santana in that late to a state university like Louisville, but Pace is a private university and Will has no pull anywhere.
 * For that matter how are we supposed to believe that Finn is ever going to get into a fairly competitive program like that when he has literally nothing to get him there. His grades are presumably just good enough to stay eligible for extra-curriculars. He didn't even try out for either Cabaret sophomore year or West Side Story senior year. He briefly work shopped for a production Rocky Horror that never got staged, and he didn't even earn that role. And now he's going to go to The Actor's Studio? Yeah, right.
 * Here's a Headscratcher for you, who's the brunette hanging all over Finn in the auditorium offering to put his non-existent dreams ahead of hers, because she's sure as hell not Rachel Berry? Rachel Berry is a determined ambitious girl with a dream that she's had since toddlerhood, and that dream was New York... also Rachel Berry can sing better than that.
 * The established tendency for characters to experience a wild and sudden shift in personality as the plot demands makes this somewhat less of a headscratcher.
 * Unique could pass as a cisgender girl; unless the audience/judges knew Unique was a biological boy, there wasn't a risk of that screwing up their chances. Now, Jesse entering the stage during a performance and yelling at one of his performers to get off the stage, I can't imagine that not shooting their chances straight to hell. Was Jesse always so stupid or is his reaction the product of shoddy writing?
 * In this case, Jesse's just stupid, he didn't even realize he had to attend the classes he had to go to the office of the registrar to get into (ok, I just went to college, no idea if it's the same elsewhere)
 * There were undoubtedly pre-printed programs listing all the members of the performing Glee Clubs and since Unique was the clearly intended lead of the performance, the name Wade Adams would most certainly be at the forefront. Maybe not a dead give away to everyone in the audience, but plenty of people would get it. And yes, Jesse is book dumb but he's not show choir dumb. There's no way he would demand that a performer leave the stage in the middle of a song, maybe between songs, but not during a song, so yeah, more bad writing.
 * Is it me, or are tropers a little too quick to jump on the "bad writing" bandwagon? Just watch the performance and Jesse's body language. His initial reaction was to pull Unique off the stage, but once he saw her kicking ass and everyone loving it, he quietly reconsidered.
 * It may just be an automatic reaction to Jesse, who as a character (like Figgins) often seems to exist for the sole purpose of having the more logical fans tear their hair out in clumps.
 * Wade, though usually masculine, is somewhat gender-neutral. Unless the audience/judges knew Unique or had radar for detecting cis/trans-ness, they'd think the lead singer was a cisgender girl with a name akin to Logan, Jordan, Jamie, Jessie/Jesse, Charlie, etc.
 * How about this then, Vocal Adrenaline has a very active (and one assumes, involved) Booster Club which likely knows who is in the club, especially those who are good enough to be featured performers like Wade/Unique, some of whom probably won't take kindly to Jesse/VA putting a trans person in a featured performance.
 * How was Vocal Adrenaline able to pull off "Boogie Shoes" (a funk number) when it was said in season one (in "Funk") that they wern't able to pull off funk numbers ?
 * Finn decides to be an actor, and then says he'll go to New York with Rachel? Why not, you know, go to Hollywood?
 * Because he just watched Saturday Night Fever in which Tony Manero wants to go to Manhattan and make something of himself. This is what Finn does. He sees Burt being a mechanic and he wants to be a mechanic. He looks at pictures of his father in his fatigues and he wants to be a soldier. He rides along with Puck on a pool cleaning job and he wants to clean pools. Now he wants to be Tony Manero and wants to go to The Actor's Studio (which he can't because it's a graduate level program). Finn doesn't know how to dream, he just echoes everyone around him.
 * Kurt and Rachel want to go to NYADA. Finn wants to go to The Actor's Studio. Quinn wants to go to Yale. Why is it that money never seems to be an issue for any of these kids when it comes to planning for college? Their families can't all be rolling in money and it isn't as though any of them have jobs. Having your dreams is one thing, but having the resources available is completely another matter, especially when things like college and the associated tuition, books, room and board, etc costs come into play.
 * Ivy League for Everyone. In fairness, the Fabrays were heavily implied to be very rich and Russel got caught cheating so he likely got taken for a hefty sum in the divorce and The Berry's seemed to be doing okay for themselves as well from what we've seen, but Kurt and Finn, yeah, both wanting to go to private academies and paying for both of them at the same time by a pair of blue collar parents.
 * Student loans, federal and otherwise. Also, grants and scholarships. Frankly, if someone has the drive and determination, money isn't an issue. They will still have to pay at some point, but a life time of happiness is worth the debt. Also, typically collages will have some form of housing and food program available on-campus. Books and supplies while not covered per say in tuition are often times factored into any student loans a student may wish to take out and so a student will get a little extra to cover books and such.

Dance With Somebody
How did they do a Whitney Houston show without doing her biggest hit, "I will always love you"? Is it because the song wasn't written by her?
 * It came across as if being Quinn's boyfriend would require Joe to have premarital sex. The really simple answer to that is that Quinn, despite what happened with Puck, has always made it clear she sincerely believes premarital sex is a no-no. I suppose that could have changed, but Sam's answer should have been somewhere along the lines of, 'Well, Finn taught me this trick to help me cool down, here's what you do. Otherwise, don't worry, she's not going to pressure you because she shares your beliefs.' Quinn's response, if one goes with the assumption her views haven't changed, would have been to point out they share the faith he was afraid of giving up. There's really no conflict on that front. They could date, and they'd either eventually break up or fall in love and get married, giving them license to have guilt-free, no-threat-to-the-faith sex with one another.
 * Furthermore, what was with Sam's apparent assumption that premarital sex in a relationship is an absolute must? As someone who has not yet had sex with her boyfriend of a year and a half, and who is waiting for marriage to do so for non-religious reasons, I got really angry with the message that sent. Even ignoring people who do abstain from sex for religious reasons, what about those who want to avoid risks of pregnancy or STDs, or who are asexual, or who have not yet had sex for any myriad of other reasons? (And even if it is for religious reasons, as long as they aren't forcing others to abide by their personal viewpoint, what harm does that do really?) Glee's blaringly obvious "abstinence is for schmucks, weirdoes and people with severe mental health issues ONLY" stance is really getting under my skin.
 * Do you get mad about the opposite stance that's seen in a lot of media? There's more out there preaching abstinence than Glee's stance. And one makes a lot more sense than the other, to be honest. Plus, Sam is one character and he's flawed as all Glee characters are. What he said wasn't portrayed as true and good and gospel, it was portrayed as something he said that the other character took to heart (because he is also flawed). A character saying something doesn't make that the creator's belief.
 * As a matter of fact, yes I do. I hate the preachy, close-minded "my way or the highway, I am right and everyone who thinks differently is wrong" attitude no matter what viewpoint it is attached to. (And for the record, I think abstinence-is-the-best-answer messages are awful and dangerous. I am in favor of comprehensive sex education, widespread availability of contraception, etc. My personal choices are not indicative of what I believe everyone else should do; they're simply what fits best for me and my personal situation in life.) Both sides of the argument have valid points and both deserve to be respected and presented in a plain, unbiased way. Also, to reply to your last point, I would believe that his words weren't what Glee as a general rule tries to say, if it was inconsistent with what the show usually says about abstinence whenever the issue comes up, but that isn't the case. Any time abstinence gets mentioned it's treated like something that's somehow unhealthy and wrong. (Example: the scene in the second season when Gwyneth Paltrow's character calls Rachel "frigid" and is never called out for it. Or the episode this season when Artie tells Rachel and Blaine that they NEED to have sex, and him saying so is never treated as being out of line and unnecessary.) I just would appreciate it if the abstinence viewpoint, no matter the reason someone has for holding it, was afforded a little more of that openmindness that Glee claims to love so much.
 * Calm. Down. At no point did Quinn and Joe actually have sex. The only thing they established is that yes, the attraction exists and if Joe were to act on that attraction, he shouldn't beat himself up over it. They still have every right to choose not to have sex.
 * With all due respect (and I do mean that sincerely) I am being calm. Also, the show did sort of imply that sure, they can choose not to have sex if they want to, but there's something somehow wrong with it if they do ("You either have to choose to be close to Quinn, or close to God, you can't have both" or whatever it was that Sam said). And just to clear things up in case I wasn't clear before: I am in no way angry about this because I feel like their message is wrong or that they should be preaching abstinence instead. The reason I am upset about it is because of the way abstinence, and those who abide by it, are portrayed on a show that purports itself to be "accepting" and "openminded" and "wants kids to learn to be happy with who they are." A person's choice to have sex does not make them any less of a person, or a bad person by any means. I believe that with all my heart and I am glad that Glee is trying to put that message out there in contradiction to all of the belowmentioned hateful messages surrounding sex. I just don't get why Glee - whether intentionally or not - is simultaneously pushing the message that the choice to NOT have sex DOES make you less of a person somehow. I am sorry if what I said got misconstrued.
 * Glee has a history of doing this, though. Marriage equals children. A relationship equals sex. It's irritating, to say the least.
 * When did they imply that marriage=children? Because Will personally wants kids at some point in his life? That hardly speaks for the other married couples or single parents on the show. And not all the relationships included sex (Tina and Artie, Quinn's romances except Puck, Rachel and Jesse, etc). I'd argue that teenage girls are constantly hearing from the media and society that they're sluts if they give up their V-card before marriage. It's refreshing that someone is saying No, you're not. It's not an attack against you and your beliefs, it's an attack on the idea that abstinence is the only option.
 * Again, where is Sugar? This makes two weeks in a row that she hasn't been there without even the slightest explanation.
 * Sugar's a guest star, meaning they pay her on a per-episode basis, as opposed to paying regulars whteher they're present or not (cough Jessalyn Gilsig cough). Sugar doesn't really have any place in the story arcs right now, so there's not really any reason to pay Vanessa Lengies to just stand there and look pretty. She'll come back when she has something to do.
 * I understand that but in-story it makes no sense for the character to miss two weeks of school without explanation. Mike and Matt did virtually nothing in the story for all of season one, Harry and Dijon were guest stars and yet they were there every episode except when the plot needed Matt out for the Rachel/Schue thing in "Ballads". It wouldn't be an issue if they'd just mention that she was off on vacation with her rich dad or whatever, but they don't.
 * As far as Kurt is concerned, Blaine is going to be coming to New York every weekend? Uh... who's going to be paying for that? Blaine's not exactly rolling in money for plane tickets, and it's a 10-hour drive. And it seems profoundly unfair to make him do all of the traveling, too, especially considering Kurt is leaving family behind.
 * The same way they bounce all over Ohio without a care to travel times or gas money?
 * Blain went to a private school that probably cost $30,000 a year. Even if he flew weekly it would cost a lot less then $30,000 over the course of the year. What I wonder is what in-universe reason will they come up with for Blain staying at McKinley next year without Kurt. A school like Dalton would look way better on his college transcripts then the local public school.
 * It was because they already had Mercedes sing it in "Heart".

Choke

 * What would Puck do in LA with $500? Rent a room at the YMCA for a week?
 * Am I missing previous signs, or did the domestic violence come COMPLETELY out of nowhere? It's not like I follow the show for the quality writing or anything, but is domestic violence really the only way the writers could come up with to make Beiste's character relevant again?
 * Au contraire, mon ami. They wanted to do something with domestic violence (remember that Glee lately is a preachfest), and Beiste's character was the best uhm... candidate they could find for the role of abused woman.
 * Ditto for Puck's father. How is it we got a whole episode about Blaine's brother that was essentially filler, but Puck's dad—whom Puck clearly resents for being absent for most of his life—got all of 5 minutes?
 * Sigh. I've defended this show numerous times on the accusation of student/teacher inappropriateness. I went to a school where teachers did give out cell/home phone numbers and email addresses. Hugging was common between everyone. Some kids did form bonds with teachers akin to the one between Finn and Will. But a teacher apologising to students for not telling them that she's a victim of domestic abuse? That is utterly indefensible. Just, why? Who in the writing room thought, 'hey, let's not only have this character, a victim of DV, not only be subjected to fat jokes but let's also have her bizarrely and in a somewhat victim-blaming way apologise to these students for not sharing a painful part of personal life'. She didn't put them in any danger; none of them were routinely coming over to her house. Hell, she wasn't even guilty of being snappy towards them, unless quietly leaving during their performance counts. It was Sue and Roz who were rightfully so firm with them.
 * The apology wasn't because she didn't tell them, it's because she lied about it, which was setting a bad example for the kids.
 * Wait, she warned the girls about not informing about their boyfriend being abusive while she was talking to Santana and Brittany?
 * Agreed, that would have been the perfect time for them to point out that not all abusers are male.
 * Is Shannon supposed to be portrayed as right or wrong in giving Cooter a second chance? On the one hand domestic violence is never okay, regardless of whether it's a man or a woman. But on the other a single incident that happened when he was drunk isn't really enough to write him off as a completely irredeemable monster, and he does seem genuinely apologetic.
 * Sounds bad enough to me. I can't bring myself to hit anyone in anger, especially not a woman, especially not a woman I love, and especially not over something as stupid as dirty dishes. The fact that he was drunk only means that he has no self control (Using alcohol to excuse idiot behavior has long been a peeve of mine. Knowing your limit is part of being a responsible adult.) So yes, going back to him was pretty damn wrong. This is confirmed by the fact that she felt the need to lie about it.
 * True, people can apologize and change. This one was initially a little wary of the storyline since it did seem so odd. But some of the things that changed my mind included the fact that Cooter was getting upside over dirty dishes being in the sink for one day and hitting her (plus his sudden outburst when she leaves). This is sort of anger is unreasonably strong for a small matter. If Beiste had revealed she was cheating or something, his anger (but not the hitting) could be justified. But it's dishes and she did them later. In one of her flashbacks, we also hear a very mufflied Cooter degrading her which is re-confirmed in the scene where she leaves - the sum total of what he tells her is that she's ugly and no one will love her because of it. Again, when you're angry, yes, you're going to say things that aren't nice. But there's a marked difference between getting angry with someone because they have an annoying habit and saying so ("Would you put the toilet seat down?") and simply insulting and threatening them (emotionally or physically).
 * For that matter why was it only these five girls who had to sit through this lesson? Why were Quinn and Rachel excused from it? Why were all the guys excused from it? If we're going to preach at the girls about how they can't let a man beat on them, why not throw some preachiness at the boys about, y'know, not hitting girls? Furthermore, how does this message apply to Brittany, Santana, Blaine, and Kurt? Is it then okay, in Glee World, for one male domestic partner to hit another male domestic partner? Because the message of this episode was very, very specific, and said nothing about homosexual relationships.
 * Given how they think Klaine is perfect yet they're writing it as an emotionally abusive relationship (shaming your boyfriend so much he apologizes by singing a song about how he's nothing without you) and Brittana has been wrong ever since 'Sexy' (yes, Brittany, Artie's an asshole for saying you were stupid but Santana is a saint for coercing you into cheating with her and you're a genius for agreeing!), I think they think same-sex couples are exempt from this.
 * I love you for that Artie line. I can't for the life of me understand how the writers convinced so much of the fanbase that a mediocre 3rd grade insult was so much worse than a betrayal of trust and the cheapening of a relationship.
 * Um... Klaine isn't emotionally abusive.. Kurt was mildly cheating on Blaine with Chandler. Of course he had the right to be upset! Didn't you watch the office scene? Just because you may not ship them doesn't mean that they're abusive...
 * Not the poster above, but The First Time did show Blaine is emotionally abusive. He forced himself on Kurt, and Kurt ended up apologising for it while Blaine simply used his drunkness as an excuse. As for the phone thing, it's not an excuse, but he did the same thing with Sebastian that Kurt did. The only difference is that, at least, Chandler never insulted Blaine right in front of Kurt. And when Blaine made it clear he was uncomfortable with it, Kurt cut contact, whereas, Blaine didn't until the slushy incident.
 * If Shannon cooked dinner, why didn't Cooter wash the damn dishes himself? If anything, she should have been the one throwing punches if she's expected to cook and clean afterwards. Of course that would have been wrong too, but this imbalance was never even brought up.
 * That's the whole point of domestic violence. Control and power and the uneven balance of such. The dishes being dirty is irrelevant.
 * Shouldn't there be more to their audition than just a song? I mean, this is an acting school after all not American Idol, their singing voices are important but do need to be able to act as well. Shouldn't there be some test of their dramatic talents as well and not just their singing voice? I mean, I get that Rachel completely blew her audition when she choked on the song thus it would have been pointless to continue, but shouldn't Kurt have had to recite a monologue or do a dramatic reading or something?
 * Based on what they say about the judge, the implication is that they're auditioning for vocal performance. In any case, many musical theatre productions/programs save the "acting" part for callbacks. Not all do, but it's common enough that it's not really anything out of the ordinary.
 * Correct me if I'm wrong, but did Brittany say that she had her FIRST student council meeting? Isn't it a little late in the year, even in Glee world, to be having the first meeting?
 * I think it meant that she'd been to her first student council meeting, as in there had been others but she hadn't been to them.
 * It's Brittaney. Nuff said.
 * What happened to the Kurt/Blaine storyline from last week? Blaine mentioned that he didn't like that they only talked about NYADA, so in this episode they... only talked about NYADA.
 * To be fair, it was the audition, the Big Moment Kurt's been building up for this whole school year. Blaine had to play the supportive boyfriend at this point.
 * Ok, I understand NYADA is Rachel's dream school and (supposedly in-universe) the best one for Musical Theatre, but seriously? She didn't apply anywhere else? No one ever just applies to one college. I know choking for her was horrible and destroyed (although given it's Glee, something will probably turn around) her chances of NYADA but there are other schools. In New York. With Musical Theatre programs. It's not like she's not going to college and stuck in Ohio forever.
 * Even if she was stuck in Ohio, she could still go to college and major in theater, then make her way to New York.
 * Well, when you're that young, your dream seems like it's a guarantee. You feel invincible and that you can do no wrong. She might have applied elsewhere but NYADA is where her heart was. No matter what kind of backup she might have ostensibly had, she just had what she thought was her perfect life go awry.
 * Back when they were doing West Side Story, Shelby told Rachel not to stick with "safe" songs for auditions and to not be afraid to take risks. Is Rachel's Aesop Amnesia THAT bad? I know she has to spend every season relearning not to hog the spotlight, but this was the same damn season!
 * Happens in real life, sadly.

Prom-A-Saurus

 * So it's now seemingly a tradition at prom to have the King and Queen dance sung by people who were nominated for Queen. It's a good thing that either or both of them weren't bitter about the loss.
 * Court nominated couples are required to share at least one dance. Why? How? There are no nominated couples. They don't run as a ticket, people vote for King and Queen independently.
 * Where did Rachel's bangs go? It's explicitly stated that it's less than a week since the blown NYADA audition.
 * I'm confused. How do you get rid of bangs? does it take more than a week?
 * Bangs are actually not hard to style out of your face once they've reached a certain length, thanks to the magic of bobby pins and straighteners. The ends of her bangs are curled toward her face most of the time, so they're actually a little longer than they look, making them easy to style to the side if they aren't curled up.
 * Wait, so apparently Kurt never saw Blaine without gel? It seems I hallucinated "Blame it On The Alcohol" and "Prom Queen" and "Mash-Off" where he didn't have gel in his hair, AND Kurt was there all three times...
 * Santana and Quinn have had dream high school careers, huh? Because evidently everyone dreams of getting pregnant at 16 and losing their friends, family, and home. Everybody wants to have the one boy they genuinely care about constantly choose someone else over them. Everyone wants to have the world ignore their problems until they're on the edge of a nervous breakdown. Everyone wants to have a near fatal car wreck and spend months in a wheelchair. Little girls everywhere dream of being a deeply repressed lesbian and allowing themselves to be used by as many guys as will have her just to prove how straight they are. Everyone dreams of having to watch the girl they love date someone else once they manage to finally admit that they like girls. Every girl in the world wants to be outed in a crowded school hallway and then again on television and having their grandmother disown them. Yeah, those are dream lives those two are leading
 * I'm pretty sure having a perfect freshmen year, being captain of the number 1 cheer program in the country AND getting into yale/full ride scholarship balances out all of those things.
 * We don't know anything about their freshman years so you're only assuming they were perfect with nothing to back it up. Secondly, Yale/Full Ride represent hope for a better future but they in no way negate the massive amount of pain and sorrow the girls have been through. Neither Quinn Fabray's nor Santana Lopez's lives have been remotely dream-like and you and the writers suggesting otherwise proves a startling lack of empathy.
 * Agreed. Calling their high school careers dream-like is objectively false.

Props

 * Why did Tina choose now to go on her tirade? Even though I agreed with every word that came out of her mouth and have been screaming for more Tina solos since the first season, a week before Nationals was not the time to start shaking things up.
 * People do tend to wait to the last moment to explode.
 * Yeah, she was pretty clearly acting out of anger. Longstanding frustrations just sort of bubbled over when Rachel was given yet another solo. I seriously doubt there was any sort of thought process to it.
 * What was with Mike siding with Rachael and calling her "one of a kind"? Tina was completley right and Mike's attitude was disgusting.
 * Mike didn't necessarily disagree with Tina, he most likely felt that a week before Nationals was not the best time for this.

Nationals

 * Was anyone else bothered by the notion that Wade couldn't "summon" Unique? If Unique is who Wade feels like he truly is then wouldn't being Unique come naturally to him? I don't know, maybe I'm wrong. I certainly don't claim to fully understand what it's like to be Transgendered.
 * Unique is also an alter-ego remember. Unique is Wade's showstopping diva personality
 * This Headscratcher section should have a Rule of Drama disclaimer at the top just like the Rule of Funny disclaimer on the iCarly Headscratcher page.
 * Wasn't the theme of Nationals supposed to be "Vintage"? I have a hard enough time buying that "It's All Coming Back to Me" as vintage much less "Edge of Glory" and "Starships" two songs that came out LAST YEAR.
 * Jesse did give that one line during his conversation with Rachel about how the set list had to be 33% vintage. Meaning, only one third of the songs in each group's set (or one song, since they only seem to get three songs each) would have to actually be vintage. Presumably, this means that Vocal Adrenaline met the requirements with just "Pinball Wizard", and New Directions met them with "Paradise by the Dashboard Light".

Goodbye

 * Glee, Kentucky created/raised a lot of stars. Its not a musical and acting dead zone. Billy Ray Cyrus, Miley Cyrus, Tom Cruise, Johnny Depp, Laura Bell Bundy, George Clooney.
 * Indeed. It was a rather Family-Unfriendly Aesop that New York and LA are the only cities in the country worth pursuing your dreams in. Santana threw away a full-ride scholarship in a big city for absolutely no reason other than the fact that some of her friends are going to New York and LA, even though she never stated any desire to go to either.
 * If she wants to be a singer/actress/showbiz type (which is what appears to be the case), there's not much to do in Kentucky.
 * Fair point, but does your average high school teenager know that? Furthermore I don't think she wanted to be a cheerleader anymore, not for another four years anymore and the scholarship was contingent on that.
 * So... Kurt blows his audition out of the water... and doesn't get in. Rachel chokes twice, then harasses the head of NYADA... and gets in. What. The. FUCK!!!
 * Obviously we needed another catalyst for Finn and Rachel to break up again. And that also means more Klaine for everyone! Because there's no way Klaine could have been a long-distance relationship, or anything.
 * I assume we're supposed to see it as Kurt nailing his audition (fairly easily) and then resting on his laurels while Rachel fought tirelessly for a spot at NYADA, refusing to give up even when she blew her audition.
 * Yes, because it makes so much sense to harass and stalk your auditioner when she praised your audition, telling you that the Tony-winning originator of the number would have been impressed. No, this was just RIB shitting all over Kurt. Again.
 * This really made me mad and makes no sort of sense. Even when looking at it that way.
 * Kurt not getting in makes sense. Not that he didn't deserve it but they established that NYADA only accepts about 20 people a year into its musical theater program. There were two people who auditioned from this one dinky school, much less the rest of the country (or even the rest of the world) so it is entirely plausible in that scenario that he could do everything right and still not get in. Rachel... well the show does live on Rule of Drama, but to be fair her paper resume was pretty packed and not taking no for an answer is sort of necessary for a successful career in show business. Not that Kurt did anything wrong, per se, but that Rachel did more right or got lucky or both.
 * Sorry, it still makes no damned sense outside of Rule of Drama. If youve got two applicants from a rinky dink school and one of them chokes twice and the other one blows the audition out of the water then choosing the choker because she's persistent doesn't make a whole lot of sense.
 * It wasn't an either or thing. It wasn't picking one person from this school over the other. It was picking a girl who was in 14 clubs, the lead in the school play, captain of the National Champion Glee Club with great grades who refused to give up on her dreams. Her pig headed determination to succeed in spite of initial rejection set her apart from a huge field of candidates. They probably saw a hundred auditions with people as talented as Kurt and Rachel musically, but how many of them showed the determination to make it that Rachel did? Talent alone is not always enough to make it in show business and it stands to reason that it's not the only qualifier for admission to NYADA.
 * Persistence, determination and so on are all fine and well - and those things will ensure that you survive the people element of show business, but you're still absolutely not going to make it if after all that you fail to deliver under pressure when it counts.
 * The breakup... WHY?! It! Makes! No! Sense! Did Finn just lose every bit of his self esteem? What happened to them being attached at the hip for the last 13 (?) months?!
 * What happened is that the writers loved us all along! Well, loved the ones who never liked Finchel. Clearly the whole marriage thing was just a setup to make their breakup all the more sweet.
 * The breakup made plenty of sense, possibly the smartest thing Finn did all series. He knew Rachel deserved a fresh start in New York with nothing holding her back, and he wanted to pursue his own dreams in the military. Breaking up was a major Tear Jerker but ultimately the right thing to do.
 * It makes every bit of sense. Their relationship has been increasingly toxic since they got together. They got engaged for all the wrong reasons. Being together for a year by itself doesn't justify staying together.
 * OP: Let me rephrase this. I hated Finchel and knew it would die. But it was way too sudden.
 * I'm sorry, are you new to Glee?
 * This troper totally gets why they broke up, but not why it happened the way that it did. Rachel thought she was on her way to her wedding, and instead finds her entire world spinning on its head. Finn could've I dunno, broken up with her before she got all dressed up.
 * Again, given that this is Glee, which of those two scenarios do you think would be more dramatic?
 * I'm more annoyed that Finn all but dragged Rachel onto the train.
 * Why are long distance relationships treated as impossible and not worth the effort? Sure, it'll be hard but if you're two minutes away from MARRYING somebody, wouldn't it be worth it to at least try? Rather than decide that since they can't immediately move into a house together and have to spend some time apart that it's better to just throw everything away. Was the possibility of a long distance relationship ever even discussed?
 * Long distance relationships are fine if you have a common goal, like if Kurt had gotten into NYADA and he and Blaine tried to do long distance because Blaine also wants to go to New York but he just has another year of high school left, but for Finn and Rachel, life was leading them in two very different directions. Kurt can go back to Lima to visit Blaine on holidays and long weekends and Spring Break, and before either of them know it a year is up and they're together again. Finn is headed to boot camp for three months and after that he could be sent literally anywhere in the world possibly for several years. There's no indication as to when or even if they'd ever see each other again. They have no endgame plan for when they'd be together again. That sort of long distance thing is almost certainly doomed, especially since Finn and Rachel didn't have the most stable or healthy relationship to begin with.
 * So what is Kurt going to do? One can assume he's moving to DC with his father, but the fact that it wasn't directly addressed leaves a huge unanswered question when the finale wrapped everything else up.
 * Go to a local college and audition again at the end of the season I suppose.
 * Or takes over running the tire shop while his dad is in DC, maybe he puts his sense of taste and fashion into customizing the cars while he goes to a local school while preparing for next year.
 * It's not the series finale, just the season finale. They have to leave some things for next year.
 * There is "leaving some things for next year" and there is "completely let it hanging because of the Finchel Plot Tumor", that was the later.


 * Okay, you know what is worse than a girl giving up all her dreams in order to be with her man? The Man making the decision for her!
 * Yep, it would be just as bad if Brittany or Blaine told Santana or Kurt that they have to break up, knowing that the latter would throw away their whole lives for them, because they've been so obviously blinded by the most insidious of human emotions, love. Also, this is no longer a "Just bugs me" page.
 * Indeed. Contrary to what your first year Women's Studies class may have said, not everything is appropriate to use as a means to rail against patriarchy.
 * In this instance, I agree that the sentiment is that Rachel was too scared to let go and embrace her future and not that all women are too weak or whatever, but it can be hard to take that out of the context of this show which is ripe with misogyny at pretty much every turn.
 * YMMV as some fans find the show to be pretty equal opportunity when it comes to negative gender-based stereotypes - which isn't particularly braggable either.
 * It's not about gender stereotypes, it's about a consistent double standard in regards to gender. Outing Karofsky was portrayed as horrible and vicious but when Finn outed Santana it was shown as being done for her own good. The single fathers on the show are consistently as amazing, stand-up guys whether they are (Burt) or not (Puck) but the single mothers on the show range from the well-meaning but struggling (Carole) to out of her depth without a man around (Shelby) to overbearing (Puck's mother) to completely crazy (Quinn). Every girl in Glee except for Sugar is a cheater. The female history teacher was fired for being incompetent and was replaced by Mr. Schuester who is equally unqualified to teach history. Holly Holiday is treated portrayed as a joke and yet she's no less effective a teacher than Mr. Schuester. The list goes on and on.
 * Santana was already going to be out. Finn (stupidly) figured that it was an all or nothing deal at this point.
 * I'm not entirely sure what that statement is supposed to mean but regardless, it doesn't change the way the two incidents were portrayed. Outing a girl, fine, outing a boy, crime against humanity.
 * That's the thing, with Santana it wasn't. The little things in the episode imply that was torn up about it and very mad at Finn. But Karofsky's outing is portrayed so brutally for a suicide plotline. Does it come off as sexist? Looking at it correctly yes it can come off as sexist. But I just think its inconsistent writing.
 * No one was mad at Finn in that episode. He never once got called to task for outing her to the school. No one ever once said that singing all these song at Santana and basically forcing her to be okay with being outed was in any way a bad thing. Okay, Brittany had a scowl on her face through most of it but I guarantee you that wasn't in the script and was entirely an acting choice on Heather Morris's part. The show is incredibly sexist no matter which way you look at it. In this respect the show isn't inconsistent, it is in fact very consistently misogynist.
 * In my opinion, the Santana outing was just poorly handled because the writers were scrambling to equalize the Kurt storyline. Additionally, any attempts to make her sympathetic was (for me) scuttled by all her previous character development that had me praying weekly that she'd die in a fire (Hey, remember when she blackmailed the other closeted gay teen with outing?). For crying out loud, Santana was willing to casually tell anyone who'd listen that she and Britney slept together all the time in the first season. when they were still both one dimensional "mean girls". And this is the growing problem with Glee, characterization and storyline is casually tossed aside in favor of drama or anvillicious aesop. It just plain doesn't make sense for her to be all of a sudden super angsty and secretive about being gay (or bi) when it's already been established that she doesn't really care who knows. The only revelation in that storyline should have been that she actually loved Britney. If they wanted to examine the lesbian side of the gay teen equation, they should have used another character and devoted just as much time and development to it as they did with Karovsky.
 * Santana never publicly acknowledged their relationship as anything more than best friends until after she was outed. Brittany was the one blabbing that they had sex.
 * Secondly, since at this point everyone in the Glee cast has swung wildly back and forth from Complete Monster to Big Damn Hero several times, it's pretty easy to claim misogyny if you look at only the qualities of the female cast. But let's look at the boys: Finn is a hypocritical dumb jock and a cheater - with no dreams or aspirations of his own until recently, Puck is a cheater who impregnated his best friend's girlfriend and is otherwise motivated largely by his junk, Artie is a manipulative straw misogynist (whenever they need him to be), Will Shuster is a ineffectual spinelesss man child, Figgins is no doubt the cause of many a broken TV. Jesse is literally a villain For The Evuls, Kurt, as much as I like him is manipulative and petty, Puck's dad is a deadbeat, Finn's dad is a drug addict. Quinn's Dad is a hypocritical cheater. There's the original coach who was so pathetic and morally bankrupt, he was willing to manipulate a woman into marriage by preying on her insecurities, and on and on....Christ, now they've added a wife beater to the mix.
 * Yes, all of those guys have all of those negative qualities but the difference is that with the exception of Quinn and Puck's Dads and Cooter, the show still wants us to see them as good people. Finn is almost constantly played as the hero despite his actions. Puck has the entire club rally around him so that he can graduate (which no one does for Brittany) and gets his whole horrible history with Quinn retconned in the last episode. Kurt gets to say horrible things about everyone without ever apologizing and we're still expected root for him. Finn's dad is a drug addict but the show wants us to believe that he was still a good man (which I don't necessarily disagree with) what with Finn trying to get his discharge status reversed and joining the army to honor/redeem him. Will is incompetent and spineless and yet he was just named Teacher of the Year and he's marrying the woman of his dreams despite the terrible way he treats her.
 * If I'm not wrong, the girls have had more than their fair share of redeeming moments too. Santana becomes a much nicer and caring person by season 3, is willing to stand up for her love for Brit in public, and even has some sweet moments with Rachel, whom she used to bully mercilessly. Sue develops a good cop/bad cop routine with Shue and practically becomes Team Mom. Emma finally overcomes her touching issues. Rachel's still ambitious, but cares deeply for her friends and tries to find a way to stay with Finn even when she chases her dreams. Quinn goes from wreck to Yale student and gives Puck that boost to graduate. Beiste is a straight-up badass who finally walks out on her abusive husband. But all this "sexism" talk is besides the point. The show's point is not "men good/women bad" or vice versa. It's that all these characters are incredibly great but also incredibly flawed human beings.
 * The difference being those women have changed and grown into better people and thus earned their redemption. The guys all get their hero moments just by virtue of their supposed awesomeness.
 * There's actually no difference since none of the characters have remained the same since the beginning of the show. They've all had growth and instances of having to earn their happy endings and instances of just having it gifted to them (and instances of having growth undone suddenly to serve the plot). Glee can't be consistently misogynistic, because Glee has issues being consistently anything.
 * That said, even if Finn's actions weren't chauvinistic (and that's open to debate), they were still paternalistic. He was acting more like a parent than a partner. Many would probably feel that he should have consulted Rachel about this, and shouldn't have deceived her.
 * Speaking as someone who does not like Finn whatsoever, I have to say I understand why he did what he did, at least the waiting until the last minute to tell her he was joining the army thing and breaking up with her for her own good (definitely not the shoving her onto a train alone right after part, that was no me gusta). He's found something that means something to him personally, something he really wants to do and he's already tried to do it once before and gotten talked out of it. He knows she's against him doing it and he knows if he gives her a chance, she'll probably talk him out of it again, so he's plays it close to the vest and only tells her at the last minute. He knows it could be years before they ever see each other again, so he doesn't want her waiting on him to come back and limiting herself. The putting her on a train to spend the next eight or so hours alone and miserable about their break-up, pretty shitty. The rest of it though, I get.


 * How is Sam not graduating? He's old enough to have been working at a strip club, so he has to be 18. How many 18 year olds are Juniors?
 * He doesn't have to be 18 to work at a strip club. He just has to have a really good fake ID and poker face.
 * They haven't mentioned it again since his first appearance but originally they said that Sam was dyslexic and that he struggled with his grades so it's entirely possible that he was held back a year in school before they figured out that he had a learning disorder, in which case he would be 18 and still a Junior. Or, y'know it was a complete Ass Pull so that they were only graduating half of the Glee Club instead of most of it.