10/6/2009

in

Will's idea to inject some competitive spirit into glee club backfires, and the Terri-Will-Emma-Ken "love square" gets more complicated.

Rachel Kolb

Episode Summary:  
The episode opens with the glee kids getting lazy at rehearsal. This leads to a flirty moment at lunch between Emma and Will involving mustard. The glee kids are complacent because they find out their competition at sectionals is a deaf school and a half-way house-esque school. Sue suggests creating competition amongst the glee kids to stir things up, and Will thinks that the idea isn't half bad. Will announces that the guys and girls of glee club will compete against each other in a musical mash-up. For those who don't know, a mash-up is a combination of two or more songs with subject and musical themes. Soon after, Kurt has the best line of the night: "I don't see how lightning is in competition with an above-ground swimming pool."  
Sue writes in her diary and laments about her day. She tried to make a smoothie out of beef bones, but her smoothie maker breaks. Unfortunately, Quinn did not do so well at cheerleading rehearsal because she's tired from glee club and being pregnant. Sue finds a way to blame it on Will, so she decides that if she cannot destroy glee club, she will destroy Will.  
Sue tells Terri that Will and Emma have something going on between them, and Terri gets a job at the high school as the school nurse to keep an eye on Will.  
Finn gets a voice-over monologue and recaps about all of his recent problems. He likes Rachel despite the fact that he is dating Quinn, he is captain of the football team, and glee club is pushing him over the edge of what he can handle. He is falling asleep in class, and he got killed on level 2 of his favorite video game.  
Meanwhile, Rachel tries to snap the girls out of complacency, but her attempts fail. Mercedes convinces the girls that they have nothing to worry about, and they decide to wing it.  
Finn goes to the nurse's office to catch a nap, and Terri prescribes Finn some pep pills to give him an extra boost. Drug abuse might not be funny, but Finn on pep pills is hilarious! He brings back pills for all the guys, and then all of them, high on pep pills, perform Bon Jovi's "It's My Life" mashed up with "Confessions" by Usher. The boys seem to have it in the bag unless the girls can pull their act together before tomorrow.  
Rachel talks to Quinn and kindly asks her to come back to glee club. For the first time, Quinn is remorseful for the way that she treated Rachel, and Rachel tells Quinn that she should trust the glee club to stick by her when the pregnancy isn't so easy to hide.  
Ken stops by Terri's office to talk about the Will and Emma situation, and Terri convinces him to propose to Emma. Ken initially says he cannot possibly do it, and Terri gives him pep pills.  
The girls are freaking out about having to do their number the next day, and they can't figure out how the boy's pulled off the performance that they did. Kurt tells the girls that the boys were all on pep pills because even though he's been grouped in with the boys, his allegiance remains with the girls.  
Rachel confronts Finn about using pills, and Finn tells her that she's just jealous that the girls are going to lose. She balks at this accusation and tells Finn about her vigorous exercise routine. Every morning, she wakes up at six and works out on her elliptical machine to the strains of Matthew Wilder's "Break My Stride."  
Meanwhile, Will is going nuts having Terri at work, and he snaps at Terri that he needs his space. Terri gives Ken the last push he needs to propose to Emma. Ken buys her a cubic zirconium ring because he remembered how much Emma was affected by "Blood Diamond." Emma responds with a panicked, "This is a dream, this isn't happening, this isn't happening" Ken tells Emma that he cannot clean the whole world for Emma, but he promises to keep Emma's life "clean of sadness."  
The girls, now all pepped up on pills, perform a mash-up of Beyonce's "Halo" and "I'm Walking On Sunshine." Miley Cyrus would have been proud of all the hair whipping going on. After the girl's number, Will walks with Emma and asks her if the rumors about Ken proposing are true. She asks Will if she has any other options, and he asks, "Is that a reason to marry somebody?" Emma looks him in the eye and says, "That's not what I'm asking." Terri witnesses this moment and decides to pay Emma a visit.  
Terri corners Emma in her office and tells Emma that she has no chance with Will. She then tells Emma to marry Ken because even though he isn't her dream guy, he's not that bad and he's available.  
Quinn tracks down Terri in the hallway and tells her that she's considering Terri's offer. Quinn has no success, however, when she tries to convince Terri to cover her expenses for maternity clothes, doctor's visits, etc.  
Emma walks into the gym locker room despite all of the germs and scent and tells Ken that she will marry him. She does not want a ceremony of any kind, and she still wants them to live apart, but she will marry him. Ken says that her proposition is even better than he could have imagined.  
Will tells Rachel that she was hypocritical to scold him for using pep pills when she did the exact same thing, and after some pressing, Rachel agrees. They both decide that the best plan for everyone is to withdraw both of their teams from the competition.  
Terri gets fired for giving the kids pep pills, and Will blows up at Terri for her irresponsible behavior. He tells her flat-out, "How can we raise a child together when I can't even trust you with a group of teenagers?" The principal, however, also decides that he cannot trust Will's judgment right now, so he assigns a co-director to the glee club: Sue!  
Emma tells Will that she has accepted Ken's proposal, and he unconvincingly says, "That's great." The two of them walk away, but then they both turn back and look at each other sadly.  
The episode ends with Rachel throwing away her pep pills and hopping back on her elliptical machine because after all, nothing is going to break her stride. Ain't nothing gonna slow her down, oh no. She's got to keep a'moving!  
  
Final Thoughts:  
Despite the girls' upbeat number, tonight's episode was a sad one. The cracks in Will and Terri's marriage are deepening, but Ken's proposal has made Will and Emma less of a possibility. The rehearsal complacency was a realistic problem and a familiar one for anyone who has ever been in a performing group.  
There were only two purely happy moments in tonight's episode. The first moment was the conversation between Quinn and Rachel. Quinn, after having been so cruel to Rachel, now has to rely on Rachel and the rest of the glee club to accept her and help her as she deals with her pregnancy. The other moment was at the end of the episode when Rachel rejects drug use and goes back to exercise and positive self-talk.  
I enjoyed tonight's episode, but "Glee" tonight felt like it was channeling some of the bittersweet moments from season 2 of NBC's "The Office." Yes, Emma and Will are adorable, but neither of them is able to admit their true feelings. Yes, the boys and girls put on great performances, but they pulled it off while they were on pep pills. On the outside, the characters in "Glee" are walking on sunshine, but below the surface, there is a lot of hurt going around.
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