Was anyone else as annoyed by Glee this week as much as I was? This was another of those episodes that I really hate – the ones where they get the rights to a particular catalog of music, in this case Fleetwood Mac‘s “Rumours” album, and try to build a story around it.
And what was this week’s story? It was all about rumors, of course, and how they will tear the glee club apart. Except they won’t because all will be forgotten and forgiven by the end of the episode. Case in point, Rachel and Finn staking out a seedy motel because the school’s newspaper, The Muckraker, is back in business courtesy of Sue (natch) and printing “blind items” about various glee clubbers is how Sue plans to destroy them (this week). One item intimated that Quinn was cheating on Finn with Sam. On the stakeout, Rachel and Finn see Kurt and Sam exit the motel room believing now that Kurt is cheating on Blaine.
But a second stakeout lends more credence to the rumor when Quinn is seen exiting the same hotel room. Accusations fly and are deflected, which only makes the situation worse and puts poor Sam in the middle of everything. Turns out his family lost their home, Kurt was giving him some clothes and Quinn was helping take care of his younger brother and sister. In the show’s one really heartfelt moment, Finn and Rachel showed up at the motel with the guitar Sam had pawned that the kids had all pitched in and bought back for him.
Some other new business this week that I really thought had some potential to be funny but turned out not to be was Brittany’s heretofore unknown YouTube show, Fondue for Two (which sometimes includes more than two guests). In the first episode, Brittany decided to tell Mercedes and Tina that Santana plays for the other team, but when word gets to the Muckraker staff, she says she meant that she used to be a Cheerio and now she’s a member of New Directions. I didn’t buy for a minute that she didn’t know what “playing for the other team” meant because there was just something off with Heather Morris’ performance. I did feel sorry for her, though, when Artie called her stupid for not realizing Santana was manipulating her.
And then there was Sue. The scenes with the kids learning how to make up stories for the paper were inspired, but then there was the totally bizarro scene with Sue and Terri Schuester at the coffee shop where Sue was first dressed as David Bowie and then in the blink of an eye she was Ann Coulter, all the while saying she was losing her mind. All that was missing was the cartoon sound effects of her zipping off camera to change and back on in the new costume. I’m pretty sure I’ve seen Bugs Bunny do that more than a few times. Oh yeah, and April Rhodes was shoe-horned into the plot too, but it really didn’t seem to matter.
Three more episodes till the season finale. Just three more.
Music on this episode, available at iTunes (purchasing from these and the Amazon links helps support CliqueClack):
Clacked by Chuck Duncan 
on May 04, 2011 @ 05:00 EST5EDT
I haven’t caught many episodes this season after I gave up on the show after only a couple episodes into season 2, but when I saw they were doing Fleetwood Mac, my curiosity got the better of me.
Rumours is such a great album, and I have never appreciated just how great the voices of Buckingham, McVie, and Nicks were until I heard the Glee singers try to take them on in this episode. I thought most of the covers were absolute hacket jobs with the exception of Go Your Own Way. Am I alone here?
And I can’t believe they only featured The Chain as a quick piece of background music.
Ugh…
I’m not as familiar with the album as others, and thus don’t think I’ve ever heard the majority of the music tonight. But I did think Morrison and Chenoweth were great with Dreams (natch), and enjoyed Santana’s performance of (whatever that song was).
Chuck: I actually thought this is one of the better examples of them shoehorning a particular catalog into a plot though.
*POST AUTHOR*
To me it was still like “hey guys, we got the Rumours album, now how can we build a show around that … and toss in Kristin Chenoweth too?” I think I’m just tired of the Rachel/Finn/Quinn triangle especially now that Quinn has reverted to her early season 1 personality.
Sorry Bob, but I think you’re alone on this one. I think that the entire cast did the Rumours album complete justice, especially Santana’s version of Songbird (watching the emotion on her face, and hearing it in her voice as she sang to Brittany broke my heart… GREAT job by Naya Rivera!), and Artie’s version of Never Going Back Again. I think I actually prefer Rivera’s version of Songbird better! Shocking to me, considering I am old enough to remember the Rumours album, to own it, and to have loved and cherished it for decades. And if Glee has exposed Fleetwood Mac to a new generation who may fall in love with their music as I once did, then I say thank you.
Santana’s song was the best the show has done recently, it was also the only decent part of this episode.
*POST AUTHOR*
Naya Rivera knows how to sell a song and really is becoming one of my favorite people on the show. I did like the group number at the end just because of how it played into Sam’s story. After Santana singing to Brittany, it was the other more heartfelt (and thankfully upbeat) moment of the episode.
Just revisiting the whole “death” issue for a moment here, please. While I still think Chuck’s prediction of Karofsky is spot-on, I think at this point I would prefer it if Sue were the one to kick the bucket. They’ve painted an already flat character into a corner and the show is better without her, but judging by season 2 making the show better apparently isn’t the aim.
*POST AUTHOR*
I was thinking about the death episode and while I still think Karofsky is a likely candidate, I’m putting Burt Hummel on the death watch list now. He’s already had one heart scare and Kurt has a “family” now to comfort him. It would have been way too depressing if Burt had died the first time and Kurt was left an orphan. But, yeah, as much as Sue bugs me now, she has to be there for the conflict. I’m also putting Sue’s sister on the death watch list too. Maybe that will be the one thing to break her and make her human again.
I see you’ve been putting some thought into the deaths on “Glee” and I have to say Burt sounds like a good pick, too. Sue’s sister deserves better, but anything to bring some dimension and humanity to the character of Sue, please! She has less depth than most cartoon characters and the last time I even remotely enjoyed seeing her on screen was the Christmas episode where she did the whole “Grinch” schtick.
*POST AUTHOR*
Not as much as it seems! LOL Karofsky has been my pick since before I even knew there was going to be a death episode, but I had him targeted since the bullying started and especially once he kissed Kurt. I just figured it was going to be too much for him to handle. Burt just came to me in a flash and then Sue’s sister followed, but that one wouldn’t resonate with the glee club as much as Burt or Karofsky. Although, now with Sam’s situation, could it be him?
*POST AUTHOR*
Now that my curiosity is piqued, I’ve done some digging online and … no one seems to have a clue, although it seems to have been confirmed that it’s a female character and that there have been casting notices for Becky’s mother and a priest. So, it could be Becky or it could be Sue’s sister. Coach Beiste is also a candidate with Terri Schuester bringing up the rear.