Glee: Drunkity Drunk Drunk

We were all waiting for it to happen, weren’t we? These Glee kids are supposedly all in high school, so it was only inevitable that we’d run into an episode about drinking and partying. And, of course, in true Glee form, the group’s experimentation with the sauce coincidentally comes the same week that Principal Figgins asks New Directions to sing a song during his Alcohol Awareness Week.

The group discovers the joys of alcohol when Rachel’s dads go out of town and Puck convinces her to host a party and raid the liquor cabinet rather than provide only two wine coolers for everyone. From there, hilarity ensues, all while Rachel is wearing that ridiculous 1970s nightgown thingie which, honestly, takes the simultaneous grandma/toddler look a little too far (there is such a thing as too much lace, Rachel). While Finn and Kurt decide not to partake (Finn needs to drive and Kurt needs to not get sloppy in front of Blaine), the rest of the group slowly descends into stereotypes of female drunkenness, which, while probably sexist, are still pretty hilarious. In any case, the party really heats up when they play a short-lived game of Spin the Bottle, which, sadly, results in no Blurt (Kaine?) kissing, but rather in an unexpected Rachel/Blaine kiss so earth-shattering that they just have to sing “Don’t You Want Me Baby”.

The next day, the members of the group, all dressed in Mary Kate sunglasses and hung over to the extreme (Tina: “When I shut this locker it’s going to sound like a gunshot.”), decide to continue drinking and perform “Blame It On the Alcohol” to wild praises from Schue. What’s actually interesting here—and what I think the show does well in addressing teen drinking—is that the group thinks alcohol is harmless so long as they have a designated driver, so Schue enlightens them on alcohol poisoning, and later, the terrible effects of drunk-dialing.

Rachel is so incredibly turned-on by her kiss with a gay man that she ends up downing a couple glasses of Rosé and calling Blaine up to ask him on a date, which he agrees to. Kurt is, of course, devastated, and tries to help Blaine remember that he is, in fact, gay. Kurt actually gets called out twice in this episode for playing the gay card and trying to paint himself as the victim. Blaine chastises Kurt for not being supportive of his endeavors to try something new and explore his sexuality (after Blaine kisses Rachel soberly, he realizes he’s gayer than a handbag full of rainbows, so Kurt’s pretty justified in this one), and when Kurt’s dad catches the fully-clothed Blaine in Kurt’s bed and reprimands Kurt for having an unauthorized sleep-over, Kurt tries to insinuate that his father is being homophobic (which is ridiculous given that good ole Mike O’Malley has been nothing but adorably and dopily supportive). I like that Kurt, while he’s certainly been the victim of bullying, is being shown that he can be biased, judgmental, or overly sensitive, too. Nobody on this show is perfect (besides Blaine) and Glee doesn’t let any character get off easy.

Meanwhile, Schue gets drunk with Beiste, tries to drunk dial Emma, accidentally drunk dials Sue, yadda yadda yadda, it was unexciting and unimportant. When the time finally comes for New Directions to sing their Alcohol Awareness song (as Figgins calls it: “’Tick and also Tok,’ by rapper Ke Dollar Sign Ha”), they all end up puking on each other (Question: Since when does puke look like grey slushie?). Figgins thinks it was all planned and Schue gets them to agree not to drink until after Nationals.

In sum, it was a pretty meh episode: not great, but not terrible. Kurt and Blaine are again the most compelling part of the show, with Rachel taking up a close second. Hopefully the return of Gwyneth Paltrow as Holly Holiday—this time subbing as the Sex Ed teacher—will stir up some more exciting musical numbers. This episode makes me excited for Regionals and the song-after-epic-song awesomeness that is a competition episode on this show. While I’m glad plot is taking precedence over theme-based songs, I’d still like something a little more riveting than Schue and Beiste singing “One Bourbon, One Scotch, One Beer.”

This entry was posted by Sam, on Tuesday, March 01, 2011. You can leave your response.