Funk Up Your Journey: Glee Season 1 Wrap-Up

So, I realized this weekend that I had made pretty much one of the most egregious mistakes ever - I totally left out anything on the season finale of Glee. Furthermore, I didn't talk about the episode from the week before either! What kind of Gleek am I? I am so ashamed...

Before I continue, it's important to note that there are SPOILERS ahead. Notably, there are not only spoilers for these particular episodes but a lot of storylines are wrapped up so there may be spoilers for mid-season episodes as well if you haven't been keeping up. So, this is my obligatory SPOILER ALERT! SPOILER ALERT! SPOILER ALERT! SPOILER ALERT! Furthermore this post will include a lot of video recap which speaks for itself so I apologize in advance for any lack of a witty rapport.

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To rectify said mistake, I shall now confer upon all of you the fantasticalness that has been the end of the first season of Glee.

Let's start with the Funk episode.



Now, I have to say that I care very little for the funk genre of music. There's something about it that is so horribly 70s that makes me want nothing to do with it. Furthermore, it tends to seem exceptionally fabricated and camp to me (granted, most of the people who grew up with that music would say the same about today's pop music), but it's just the way that I feel personally. Now, that being said, Glee takes it to a place where I can really relate to this style of music. This seems to really be the musical strength of the show. They could sing "Mary had a Little Lamb" and based on the context they would make me love it. There's something to be said for the power of visuals and storytelling and these spill over into the music that the show puts out for our enjoyment.

While the episode's music turns out great, I don't think I necessarily cared for the plot very much. Here's why: the Jesse St. James storyline for whatever reason kind of fell into a black hole and then came back to slap us in the face. In the episode "Bad Reputation," Rachel hurts all of the guys - Finn, Puck, and Jesse - by having them star in the awful, awful video and rendition of Run, Joey, Run but each thinking they were the sole star. At the end of the episode we see Jesse walk out of the choir room, like everyone else, quite hurt. However, this is never really explained to us, but apparently in Funk, we find out that he had actually completely left the glee club, something that was never really flushed out, and I had to comb back through the episodes to piece together an understanding of it. More confusingly, he has moved back to Carmel High to be in Vocal Adrenaline, though he and Rachel had seemingly made up as he helped Shelby get in touch with Rachel. The last we saw Jesse, he had put on the tape of Shelby singing, "I Dreamed a Dream" for Rachel. Yet, now he's completely slighted and back at Vocal Adrenaline? My guess is that this is mostly a function of some scenes that never made it into the final aired versions. Supposedly when the episodes are released outside of iTunes over the summer, they will have extended content, most likely including some scenes that makes this whole void of a storyline much more understandable.

So here we are in Funk, with Jesse and Vocal Adrenaline performing "Another One Bites the Dust" to psych out New Directions. Honestly, compared to past Vocal Adrenaline numbers like "Rehab" and "Mercy," it didn't do much for me. What did do it for me in this episode? Two things. The first is Quinn's solo performance of "It's a Man's World." Now, there's something slightly disturbing about the fact that it include teen mothers who are all very pregnant dancing around the glee club choir room, but that aside, Dianna Agron continues to blow me away. In some of her early songs like, "I Say a Little Prayer" or "You Keep Me Hangin' On" her voice comes across as a little weak or breathy, but here, you can see that the girl has some amazing raw talent and soul. Yes, I have to admit that, like Mercedes, I also was like, "Um, what?" when Quinn announces that she wants to do a funk number, but this totally made me take it back!



Now, the other song that makes me really love this episode and somewhat redeems it's crappy storyline elements is the final number, "Give Up the Funk." Now, when I first saw that this was on the song list for Glee: The Music, Vol. 3, I have to say that I wasn't sure what to think. Basically there were two ways that it could have gone - completely horrible trainwreck or mountain of flaming awesomness. Which way did it go? Definitely the latter.



Also, although you may think it's totally dubbed in, that actually is Chris Colfer (Kurt) at the beginning of the song. He confirmed it on his Twitter page, noting that even the other castmates didn't believe it was him at first. The lines at the end from Jesse and the girl from Vocal Adrenaline bring the episode full circle and give us lots of hope for regionals. That being said, I don't have much else about this episode considering I didn't even like it THAT much, at least compared to the others, so let's move on to the awesomeness that is Journey!



Now there are a couple of things right off the bat that let us know that this isn't going to be the simple tour down the yellow-brick road that we would like it to be. Fresh off of the Cheerios' win at nationals (which Kurt is a part of by the way), Sue Sylvester is asked to be one of the celebrity judges at regionals along with, we later find out, Olivia Newton-John and Josh Groban (who have both had guest spots on Glee in previous episodes), and the Ohio TV anchor who was also a judge at Sectionals. This immediately sends everyone in the Glee club into a panic. How could they possibly even place when Sue, who has spent the entire season trying to sabotage and destroy the glee club, is one of the judges? We would later find out that this was actually the least problematic thing facing them at regionals. First, let's start with the 6 minutes of your life that should always leave you smiling. If it doesn't, you may, in fact, be a jerk. I'm just sayin'.



I don't really know what I can say here. "Faithfully" was actually the first Journey song that I ever fell in love with and I think Finn and Rachel killed it (note: this is right after Finn tells Rachel that he loves her and hopes to have a second chance with her - this is the first story line that gets some closure in this episode). Second, the mash-up of "Any Way You Want It / Lovin', Touchin', Squeezin'" is now on repeat in my iTunes. Lastly, and I think most importantly, I was surprised that Glee not only brought back but revamped and possibly topped "Don't Stop Believin'" which was kind of the inaugural song for the series and the one that really put it on the map. However, here we see that the song has evolved from the initial 6 voices that made us love it (Rachel, Finn, Artie, Tina, Kurt, and Mercedes) to the entire Glee club, most notably showcasing Puck and Santana. Again, I would just like to point out the fact that it's a total travesty that they hid Naya Rivera's voice under a rock for the majority of the season. It's absolutely amazeballs! Yes, I love Mark Salling's body voice too but hers is one of the show's great gems. At any rate, was like musical closure to see this number to have grown and evolved just like the characters in the glee club had throughout the season and it totally rocked my socks.

The other major number of the episode was Jesse St. James (Jonathan Groff) and Vocal Adrenaline performing Queen's "Bohemian Rhapsody." Again, like many songs that show up in Glee, I honestly never really cared for "Bohemian Rhapsody" before. I know, I know, that's like some great travesty against music, but it was just never my thing. I would like to say that this performance helped that, and it did a little bit, but it's just hard to cheer on Vocal Adrenaline when we've been groomed to hate them all season. The song overlaps quite nicely with Quinn giving birth; I'd just like to say that the fact that Quinn gives birth in the course of one song is definitely preposterous and while you could say that there's a time difference, the rest of the glee club is shown in the waiting room during the montage, however, I chalk this up to just one of the things that Glee takes a bit of realistic license with and that I have to accept. That being said, you can judge for yourselves (note: This is one of the few songs throughout the season that airs in its entirety and takes up pretty much entire segment of the show):



Now, since I've warned you of SPOILERS! I'll just go ahead and say that unfortunately New Directions doesn't even place at regionals. Vocal Adrenaline takes first place (BOOOOOO!) with Aural Intensity taking second. This leaves us in doubt as to what will happen to the glee club (though given that the show has already been renewed through season 3, it would be ridiculous to think that the club was going to get canned). Ironically, it's Olivia Newton-John and Josh Groban who end up sinking New Directions' chance at winning. Their cynical attitude leads them to choose the big production effects of Vocal Adrenaline over the "rag-tag bunch of misfits" from New Directions. Now, can we say that New Directions truly deserved to win? It's hard to say. Realistically, the glee club is in fact made up of misfits who have been together for less than a year and for the better part of that hated each others' guts. However, their talent is impossible to deny. It could be that they didn't have the stuff to stop the production juggernaut of Vocal Adrenaline but also the cynicism of the judges feeds into most of it. Back to that ironic part. Sue? For everything she did, she ends up letting her integrity as an educator and coach direct her decision though Will will likely forever think that she's a horrible monster who voted against New Directions for the sake of hurting them.





So basically we see that Glee will return to us for another year (actually 2!). We wrap up the major storylines of the season:

1) Finn and Rachel getting together
2) Quinn's pregnancy (and the baby's subsequent adoption by Shelby - awesome!)
3) Will and Emma (I didn't mention this but Will confronts her and wants another chance, though she'll supposedly get together with her dentist)
4) New Directions vs Vocal Adrenaline
5) Sue vs. the world.

All in all, it wasn't the ideal outcome. New Directions didn't place at regionals. But for a storyline perspective, I can't say that it was a bad decision. Let's say that they had won, then what? Where do you go from there if you set the bar that high? Would they then go on to win nationals? That would pretty much kill the premise of the show in two seasons. This way, we can see New Directions start another year with a new-found respective for each other and their craft and continue to bring us joy in music and hyperbolized stereotypes. Loves it! Can't wait for season 2! Until then, stay Gleeky!

Lady GleeGlee aka Glee goes GaGa for GaGa

Alright, I'm just going to come out and say it. Tonight's episode was probably my personal favorite of Glee so far.

Now, I know there are a lot of people who 1) Dislike GaGa (how dare you?!) 2)Dislike Glee and/or 3) Will dislike this particular episode of Glee regardless of their Gleek status. I acknowledge number 3 while anyone who falls within numbers 1 or 2 should reevaluate their feelings and come back (Note: if you return with feelings still in-line with numbers 1 and 2, repeat and try again). You may be asking yourself, "Why does he like it so much if he's willing to acknowledge #3 for other people?" The answer is relatively simple: this episode strikes an emotional chord with me even though a lot of its storyline is kind of lame.

Before we move on, note that there are some decent SPOILERS ahead so this is SPOILER ALERT for those of you who haven't watched the episode or even haven't been keeping up with the last few. SPOILER ALERT, SPOILER ALERT, SPOILER ALERT! My job is done here. Now, on with the theatricality.

Let's start with the latter part of my answer. Face it. The "high school dress code squelching individuality" premise that leads us to the awesomeness of GaGa is rather weak, though perhaps not totally unexpected when you're dealing with a show that relies heavily on archetypes and severe stereotypes to make its point. That reliance isn't necessarily a bad thing (though I know a lot of people see it that way), you just have to take it for what it is. Remember, the show is a raging satire. You have to take it that way. Taking it too seriously is to doom it to failure. There are way too many things in life to be serious about. Glee is not one of them. Take it easy and enjoy the ride.

Reverse tangent and back to the point. The storyline here isn't incredibly coherent and you can tell that we're in the doldrums leading up to the season finale with the culmination of a nearly a year of awesome with the much anticipated regionals episode ("Journey"). We do, however, see the convergence of several story lines coming to a somewhat reasonable conclusion: Rachel meets, talks with, and gets some closure with her mom, Kurt and Finn explode on each other (mostly Finn being an ass - more on this later), and Puck finally learns what it means to have fathered a child with Quinn. These are all things that have been brewing in the "back nine" of Glee and we've all been wanting to know what would happen. Yet, throwing them altogether at once makes each one of them slightly less satisfying to see. The whole episode could have just as easily been about only Rachel/Shelby or Kurt/Finn and it would have been stronger. That being said, I still enjoyed everything story-wise, perhaps just less than I would have otherwise.

Now on to first of the two parts that made me really love this episode. Simply put - GaGa.



I mean, how can you not love Glee going GaGa? Bad Romance was fantastic, complete with decked out GaGa attire (we have a jumper!). All of the ladies of Glee looked fierce and totally worked it! Can we talk about how Naya Rivera's (Santana's) voice has been the best kept secret on the show? Or how Dianna Agron can bring it like nobody's business? Perhaps most impressive was Chris Colfer rocking the GaGa heels. I mean, I don't know how he did it quite honestly. I know that some of the best gays have taken turns in their mother's heels, but not those ferocious foot monsters! At the end of the day, the Glee Cast version of Bad Romance will be rocking my speakers for quite a while. As far as Poker Face goes, I know that a lot of people have hated it. All you have to do is search Twitter with "Glee" and "Poker Face" to find that probably well over 1/2 of the people who commented thought it was sacrilege. I, however, think it worked well in the context of the show. I saw a lot of similar comments on the iTunes page for Glee: The Music, Vol. 3 - Showstoppers. Everyone thinks that Glee ruined Poker Face. First, it's pretty much inspired by a version that the Lady herself often performs live as opposed to the original version:



Here it seems to work to remind us that Shelby and Rachel, while mother and daughter, won't hold back when it comes down to regionals. Show choir is srs bznss after all. And while "I Dreamed a Dream" from last week's episode was technically a duet between Idina Menzel and Lea Michele, this takes on a different quality because we can actually singing to each other instead of simply about each other.

This brings up an important side note about the songs of Glee. While we can listen to them on iTunes and usually buy them a bit in advance, often it's the emotional attachment and response that comes with the story that we see played out in the episode that really makes these songs worth listening to. Sure, they're great on their own, but when they remind us of what it was that accompanied the song, they're that much better. Just sayin'.

Without much more fanfare, I also have to say that I loved the guys of Glee doing "Beth." Along the lines mentioned above, it takes on a different meaning when you understand why it is that Puck is singing it (and can we mention how hot Mark Salling is? I mean, come on. Puck sundae? Yes, please and thank you).






We finally see him take on some redeeming qualities that we haven't seen for a while (since his attempts to raise money for Quinn and the baby). Also, entirely unrelated to the singing itself, Dianna Agron keeps bringing humanity to Quinn that I would have never thought possible at the beginning of the season. Her facial expressions during the song made me want to run and hug her. However, that would have resulted in an awkward moment with my TV screen, so I simply teared up instead.


Now, on to the second part of what made tonight's Glee one of my personal favorites. In a way it's rather bittersweet, but the Finn vs. Kurt storyline really made this episode connect with me. Perhaps this is because I just identify with Kurt on a lot of levels. While I was never flamboyant in the way that Kurt is portrayed, I shared a lot of fears, loves, and trials. I was lucky in that I never had overt issues with any of my friends when I came out to them (at least not in an in-your-face kind of way) in much the same way as Kurt did. I'm fairly certain that a lot of this had to do with selective friend-picking. Yet, the Kurt/Finn explosion when they start sharing a room really reminds us that it's not always kitties and rainbows (no pun intended... or is it? no, not really) even when things look okay on the surface. Up to this point, Finn had seemed to be kind of comfortable with Kurt being gay, and flamboyantly so. Sure, they had awkward moments, but nothing that suggested a blow-up like this was coming our way. When we see the worlds of gay and straight collide in a closed space, though, the tables turn and we see the real issues spring up.

The truth of the matter is that, like Finn, I've seen so many straight guys that are comfortable with their gay friends only up to a point. There's like an invisible line that you toe where it's okay to be gay as long as you aren't letting it show too much, as though simply being in the presence of "the gay" risks exposure to the gay cooties. I experienced a lot of this in college. Whether or not it was real or perceived doesn't make a ton of difference. Simply the perception that it exists means there's probably some truth to it. Moreover, it's even harder when you feel like you can't really be yourself around someone you consider to be one of your closest friends and even worse when you're trying to suppress feelings for said friend because you're trying to respect them (a la Finn and Kurt). All of this I know from personal experience and all of it is echoed in tonight's episode (and some of the one leading up to it). Then to see Finn finally explode was both painful and heartbreaking because it somehow seems to confirm what can be lurking under the facade of calm "tolerance" that many straight guys seem to express. Remember, there's a big difference between "tolerance" and "acceptance." Does that mean all guys are this way? Not at all. This is a fictional television show, after all. But it's one of those deep dark fears that it taps into.

During the fight, Finn drops "faggy" all over the place and this is perhaps what stings the most. A lot of people use "gay" or "fag" and try and justify it because they say it's harmless and isn't derogatory. But, especially today, you would never use the "N" word casually (unless maybe if you're black - there's a stage where minority groups will recapture derogatory words for themselves and gays are getting there with "that's gay" and "fag" but that doesn't mean that it's okay for the majority to use it, especially when it maintains the negativity) or "retard" when talking about someone who is mentally handicapped. It's the insinuation behind the usage that makes it hurtful moreso than it being directed at a particular person (in this case, Finn never calls Kurt a "fag" but it doesn't matter). If someone is doing something and you say, "Pfft, that's gay," you've probably said it because you think that person is doing something dumb or out of place or distasteful. The insinuation though is that it's all of those things because it's gay. Thus, there's an underlying belief that being gay is a negative thing. Is all of this conscious? Probably not. That doesn't mean it isn't hurtful, though. Sure, you can say that we're always having to be politically correct, but if you're saying that, you're probably in a majority group where you never have to worry about your feelings getting hurt. Wait until you're on the other end of it and see how it feels and then we can talk.

The two ways the episode digs us out of that hole is with Kurt's dad and Finn at the end of the episode. Kurt's dad here personifies what I've always wanted in a friend - someone who would be willing to stand up for me no matter who or what I was with the utmost veracity. It left me speechless and puts Finn in his place. Lastly, Finn's appearance in the red GaGa dress at the end to come to Kurt's rescue was both priceless ("That's why I'm here... in a shower curtain...") and heartwarming. As a bit of GaGa trivia, it was the dress that she wore when she met the Queen (of England). Fitting that Finn should wear it to come to the defense of his gay friend =P. Why is it that you can break my heart and mend it in under 25 minutes? Why, Glee? WHY?!?!

Anywho, until next week remember to watch out for jumpers!

"Theatricality"

Ok, I was thinking I'd try and keep the blog posts to one a day or slightly less. In this case, I'll make an exception. I just finished buying my Glee: The Music, Vol. 3 - Showstoppers (Deluxe Edition) and it made me so excited for tomorrow's episode of Glee!

If you've been living under a rock and haven't heard of Glee, I cannot in good conscience allow you to continue on in such a sad, sad existence. As an intro, here's the teaser for tomorrow night's episode "Theatricality."



More awesomely, here is the video of the Glee cast, who is currently on tour (sad panda that they're not making it to Boston. NYC road trip anyone?) performing Lady Gaga's - Bad Romance, complete with full on Gaga attire!



Now, although I believe that everyone should be involved in this awesome phenomenon of Glee, I wouldn't personally recommend hopping on the Glee train if you haven't been keeping up. The characters' storylines are at a point where they'd seem even more preposterous than they always are if you hadn't seen where they started.

Before people start getting on their TV soapbox, the important thing to remember about Glee is that it's completely over-the-top satire whose stereotypical archetypes only exist to meet that end-goal of poking fun at anything and everything about high school. At any rate, if you're a Gleek, tune in tomorrow. I usually miss the TV airing of it, but I'm sure it'll make it into Wednesday's blog post after I get a chance to watch this episode that I'm about to pee my pants over. Until then, watch out for jumpers, and get your Gaga on!