Glee – Gwyneth Paltrow livens thing up

At the risk of being pilloried, I am going to admit that I am not a big Gwyneth Paltrow fan, but her presence on this week’s Glee actually livened things up and made for a pretty enjoyable episode. They pretty much had me right from the beginning with Sue’s plot to take over McKinley, and then the Glee Babies! They were so cute and made me think of the Muppet Babies cartoon. But after a week without Sue, it was great to have her back in all of her devious glory, however improbable the plot was. It was still funny and I absolutely loved how Coach Beiste managed to one-up her when Sue tried to disband the football team by asking who the Cheerios would cheer for without them. Good move!

I’m actually glad Gwyneth’s Holly Holliday showed up, or else we would have had to put up with more insufferable behavior from Rachel, who thought she was taking over glee and had the nerve to ask them what songs they wanted to hear her sing! I also liked how the people behind the show were actually poking fun at their own penchant for choosing less contemporary songs for the glee club to perform (although it was pretty funny that Rachel’s idea of a modern song was a number from Chicago). Bringing in Holly was a way to get the kids loosened up and allowed them to finally tell Mr. Shue that they’re tired of doing songs from the Stone Age. The little bits with Will saying they need to find another Journey song were priceless.

The one thing we didn’t need was the return of Terri. Will’s illness was a good way to bring her back into his life — Emma certainly would not have been able to deal with him being sick — but she’s basically an adult version of Rachel, completely self-centered and totally unlikable. One can only hope she’s gone for good — no offense to Jessalyn Gilsig — but I’m sure she will make good on her threat to make Will regret dumping her. But, hey, maybe with her around, Rachel will seem less irritating.

It was nice to see Blaine make another appearance, although Kurt’s treatment of Mercedes may be seen as unforgivable. I know a lot of people are going to continue to call Kurt a jerk (and worse) because of this, but when you meet someone new, your friends usually do take a back seat until that newness wears off. And Kurt was right in telling her she was substituting tater tots and him for a real boyfriend. I’m glad she opened her eyes and decided to ask the guy Kurt chose for her to go on a date.

It was also good to see the bullying story from last week continue. I almost thought for a second that Dave was actually going to be civil with Kurt, but the threat he made if Kurt revealed the kiss was bone chilling, and Chris Colfer’s expression at that moment was very real. For me, the episode had some good laughs, some good drama, some good music (still not sold on the Singin’ In the Rain/Umbrella mash-up though) and a lot of the absurd courtesy of President … I mean Principal Sue Sylvester.

“Do you know what this is?” – Sue
“A toilet brush.” – Mercedes
“It’s broccoli. And when I showed it to Brittany earlier, she began to whimper thinking I had cut down a small tree where a family of Gummi Bears lived.” – Sue

“Rachel, you suck! Oh my god, you’re like a total drag. Has anyone ever told you that?” – Holly
“I have.” – Puck, just passing by.

“Look at this crap. Foam fish sticks? Principal Sylvester is only serving pre-digested food now to give us more energy. I mean do I look like a damn baby bird?” – Mercedes

“Mr. Shue taught me the second half of the alphabet. I stopped after M and N. I felt they were too similar and I got frustrated.” – Brittany

“Guys, practice your bipolar rants. See, history can be fun!” – Holly as Mary Todd Lincoln

Clacked by Chuck Duncan
on Nov 17, 2010 @ 00:02 EST5EDT