Glee: Bieber Fever

This week’s episode revolved around four storylines: Sue’s diminished will to live; Rachel’s desire to be famous; the love triangle (now a love square) with Finn, Quinn, Sam, and Santana; and letting the new girl find her voice in the Glee club. Rachel’s continued attempt to make herself a star by paying Brittany to dress like in Rachel’s “sexy schoolgirl librarian chic” style was a hilarious secondary storyline, and every joke was a winner. The secondary storyline with the new girl was disappointing, mostly because she can’t actually sing. In any case, the other storylines are worth commenting on.

Sue’s depression came from her Cheerios losing Regionals after her three stars quit for Glee Club, and her “Sue-icide” attempt led Emma to suggest that she join New Directions for a week. How Emma and Schu didn’t realize that Sue’s new desire for a singing career was a farce was beyond me, but she was in true Sue form when she attempted to tear the team asunder from the inside when she pitted Rachel and Mercedes against each other in a Diva-Off. “Take Me Baby or Leave Me” from RENT was amazing and, unsurprisingly, both girls have so much fun by the end that they’re totally friends again.

Because Schu didn’t like Sue’s response (“Where was the HATE?”), he takes her to sing with children at the local hospital, because apparently pediatric cancer and cuteness are endemic of Lima, Ohio. In any case, I guess Sue has a weakness for people with debilitating illness, be it Down syndrome or cancer. The whole sequence was painfully heavy-handed, even by Glee’s standards. It made Schu once again annoyingly perfect (he has great hair, an amazing voice, a rockin’ bod, AND HE SINGS TO TERMINALLY ILL CHILDREN WITH LOVABLY DOPEY FACES AND A LACK OF HAIR?!) and took Sue so out of character that I was reminded of how much I love Jane Lynch as a person. In any case, Sue isn’t fundamentally changed; she decided to take her new love of Glee to coach Aural Intensity, which will either be a hilarious turn in the show or the reason the show jumps the shark, so keep your fingers crossed.

I’m really into all the drama being stirred up within the Glee Club, with Quinn cheating on Sam with Finn and Sam cheating on Quinn with Santana. Sam’s attempt to win Quinn back by channeling his inner-Beiber (which, really, was his outer-Beiber because I barely noticed that he had changed his hair at all) was fun, if grating on the ears, and I was really glad that this didn’t turn into an ill-advised Beibs-themed episode. Two Justin Beiber songs—which, admittedly, were more satire than cover, given that even the gothic girl swooned over Sam’s weirdly-combed hair—is more than enough for me. But it’s fun to watch these characters go through the drama of high school dating without the wholesome commitment of Boy Meets World or the sluttiness of One Tree Hill. Plus, any episode with no less than four jokes about the size of Chord Overstreet’s mouth is a good episode, especially when they come rapid-succession from Santana. Sometimes Glee has those moments where the hilarity is non-stop (see, for example, the conversation where Sue convinces Kurt he’s straight) and Santana’s conversation with Sam is one of them. That one about licking giant stamps? Or how he should unhinge his jaw to swallow Finn alive? GENIUS. The mouth jokes are so relentless it makes you almost feel sorry for poor Chord until you remember that God made up for his freakish lips with those killer abs and arms (ladies, am I right?).

Overall it was a great episode, even with the Justin Beiber songs and even though the so-called “anthem” was a My Chemical Romance song (gross) (Editor's Note: Awesome!). Again, it was another episode where the whole thing is great besides the music. As Finn said, it’s great to see Rachel “focused, and take-no-prisoners” and trying to be the leader of New Directions again. We’ll see if she leads the team into total oblivion with her idea for writing their own songs; after all, what’s Glee without Journey covers?

This entry was posted by Sam, on Monday, February 21, 2011. You can leave your response.