Glee - 111 - Hairography

Original air date: November 25, 2009

Oh man, so this one I remember liking in its initial run. Basically, when I find a show that I love, a show that makes me ridiculously happy and smiley when it's on, I see no faults in it at all. I enjoy every episode without question and don't see any flaws. So, when this aired and I was excited and happy to talk about it, I was a little shocked to find that other people didn't. Is it my favourite episode this season? No, but I still had so much fun with it that I was shocked to hear people complaining. Let's take a journey together and see if I am still as kind to this little episode.

We open with Sue confronting Will about how she's cheerleading coach of the decade but also to request the glee club setlist as per their arrangement in Throwdown where she took a step back but wanted to be included in setlists and such. Will thought she'd lost interest but Sue insists she still cares and threatens to go to Figgins if she doesn't get it.

Will then narrates about how he's never quite sure where he stands with Sue and then it shows him teaching the kids choreography and catches Brittany filming it.

Nice save, Brit

Then we cut to Sue asking Will who they're competing with and what their zipcodes are. This prompts Will to suspect (quite rightly) that Sue is leaking the setlists and everything to the competing glee clubs so they'll have an edge at Sectionals. He complains to Emma who suggests that Will ask the other directors if Sue is leaking point-blank as they won't lie as well as Sue, or something.

Off Will goes to Jane Adams Academy to do just that. This is supposedly the "rough school" where all the girls are in Juvenile detention or just out of Juvenile detention or something. Glee director Eve (the celebrity who is guest-starring) is clearly annoyed at his appearance and accusation that they'd cheat. She then lays into him about how of course the privileged school thinks that the underfunded school of troubled kids would cheat and that they're poor and underfunded. Will tries to sympathize with the underfunded arts but Eve's not buying it. She calls his kids privileged misfits and I can't stop laughing at the memory of Schue telling the glee club that they're all minorities because they're in glee and just...Will, stop it.

Will apologizes for making assumptions and to make it up to them, he offers up their auditorium for the Jane Adam's girls to practice in. Cut to them performing Bootylicious by Destiny's Child for our glee club and Will looks like he's made a huge mistake. I like the performance but I don't get why he looks so intimidated by it. Rachel doesn't either and she tells him that the girls weren't that good and that they were just doing "Hairography" (title drop!) to distract from the fact that they're not very good dancers and just so-so singers.

Cut to Will getting the bright idea for the glee club to sing Hair for Sectionals. He's even picked them up wigs so that the boys can have long hair to flip around too. Rachel's like WTF dude? And tries to tell him that this is a very bad idea but Will is sure that he knows everything and that working on a brand new number to perform at Sectionals is totally the best idea ever.

In the hallway, Puck gives Quinn a parenting book that he stole for her just in case she wants to keep her baby. Puck says no pressure and this makes Quinn reconsider him as a partner and reconsider giving her baby up. She narrates about how hard her life is and that maybe she wants to keep the baby but with Puck. She wants to take Puck for a test drive but distract Finn while she's doing it.

Cut to Quinn picking Kurt's brain but he rightly calls her out for this being the first time she's spoken to him directly. Quinn mentions that it's about a makeover and Kurt immediately is in because they're like crack to him. He then starts giving her pointers about her look until she clarifies that the makeover is for Rachel. Kurt loses interest because this is a teen show where we have to pretend like the obviously very pretty girl is somehow a completely hopeless project because she's just sooooo ugly.

Oh man, this gorgeous woman is just too hopeless for a makeover!

In fairness, I did laugh at Kurt's comment that Rachel somehow manages to dress like a toddler and a grandma at the same time. Quinn points out that this is exactly the reason she needs the glow up. Kurt agrees when she says that the way Rachel dresses could cost them at Sectionals.

At home, Will tries to touch his wife in bed and she flips the fuck out because, if you remember, she's supposed to be preggers but is totally not. Somehow she convinces him that he's not really trying to be intimate because if he wanted that, he'd ask her how she's feeling about being pregnant. He agrees and they go back to sleep after a brief exchange about just that. Terri then narrates about how guilty she's feeling and that she's only lying to keep them together but how she wishes they could be close again. I'm not buying it but they've got to stretch this plot out somehow and explain how a man can go months without you know, touching his wife and finding her out at all. She decides that she too needs to find a distraction for her man.

Kurt is making over Rachel by waxing her brows. Rachel asks why Kurt volunteered to do this and in his usual blunt fashion explains that she needs something to distract from her horrible personality. He mentions that he finds her room off-putting too. Rachel asks him what kind of makeover he was thinking of for her and Kurt says he wants every guy to do a double-take when she walks past. Rachel admits that there's only one guy she wants that from, Finn. This upsets Kurt since we found out that he too harbours feelings for the dopey jock. Kurt then suggests that she do a Grease makeover to attract him.

Next day, Terri surprises Will with a car project. She's bought him an old sports car/muscle car, I don't know cars, ok? For him to fix up. While they're there, her sister walks by with Quinn and are almost spotted by Will before Terri distracts him with a kiss.

Cut to Terri chewing her sister out for almost getting them caught and her sister is like, yeah she called me to drop a bombshell on us. Quinn then says that she's keeping the baby and basically, Terri is screwed.

Will is in a meeting with the coach of the deaf kids' glee choir who is upset that they extended an invite to Jane Adam's but didn't invite them. The big joke of this scene is that Will is trying to talk to him but he's deaf so he can't hear and yells at him to talk louder. It's...a bit uncomfortable, I'll admit. Anyway, Will agrees with his complaint and invites his kids to come on down.

Terri is telling her sister about how she wants to come clean to Will. Her sister tells her to drink more and relax because she has everything figured out so she doesn't have to come clean. Awesome. Her big plan is to ask Quinn to babysit her nightmare children to completely put her off the idea of raising a child, thus giving them the baby that they need to keep the charade up with Will.

Rachel walks down the hall in her new outfit and honestly, this part kind of confused me. So, she's walking down all hot looking and Finn is suitably wooed. She invites him to her place for some extra practice to which he readily agrees. Checks out. Then Rachel walks away confidently, meeting up with Kurt who seems pleased that they've achieved their objective. This confuses me because I assumed from the last scene that Kurt would sabotage her because he likes Finn too. I expected him to be shocked this worked. However, I think what we're supposed to surmise is that he wanted to attract Finn so that he could humiliate her harder later? I think that's what we're supposed to assume, it just seems like a big chance for Kurt to take if his objective was to set her up to fail.

Anyway, Finn rushes over to Quinn to tell her about how he's got plans Friday night which she's totally cool with because she is babysitting. She then goes to invite Puck to help her babysit.

In glee club, Brittany is told to show everyone how to do hairography and describes it like "cool epilepsy" which is such a Brittany thing to say.



Will sees Sue looking in on them and goes to confront her. The kids notice this. Will accuses Sue of spying on them to leak his setlist to the competition. She denies everything and says that she's embarrassed that he was asking the other coaches about this. She then calls him out on using hairography as a way to distract from the fact that he doesn't think they have a chance. She's kind of right here about his lack of confidence in his kids. The kids saw the entire fight.

At Rachel's house, she is getting made up in the bathroom while he waits on her bed nervously. She suggests singing You're the One That I Want from Grease and pops out in full Sandy gear. They sing just the beginning of the song again which is a tease because everyone complained that they wanted the full song since they sang it in the first episode. Finn stops everything because he's uncomfortable and says she looks like a sad clown hooker. That's super harsh but it made me laugh. I'm sorry, Rachel. He tells her that the look isn't her and admits that he likes the way she usually dresses. Then he says that he had the same conversation with Kurt earlier in the week and Rachel realizes what happened. Finn apologizes for even coming since he's with Quinn, even though he really likes her.

At the babysitting gig, the kids have managed to tie Quinn and Puck up. Puck is texting nonchalantly much to Quinn's annoyance and asks him to help them get free. They get loose and Puck says he brought his guitar so they could sing them a lullaby. Quinn asks the kids if they want to see "a real, live music video" and I think she's overselling this already. The kids agree which leads to a kind of uncomfortable performance of Quinn singing Papa Don't Preach by Madonna and she's dancing sexily but like her audience are three kids under 10. Yikes. She does fine with the song but it's just kind of creepy. The kids love it which only adds to the creep factor.

Terri and her sister are super impressed because not only did Quinn and Puck get the kids to bed but they also gave them a bath. Terri's sister thinks Quinn is an exorcist.

Will is blabbering about his car and how excited he is about fixing it up when Terri's sister's husband asks him what he's going to do when the baby comes since he can't put a car seat in that thing. This thought finally sobers Will.

Quinn is happy about how well the night went, despite Puck being kind of distracted with his texting Mike Chang. Puck claims he was totally into it and that the night completely proved they could do the parenting thing together. Quinn looks super pleased.

Next day at school Rachel confronts Kurt about setting her up. Kurt says she should thank him for showing her that her schoolgirl crush is just a fairy tale. Rachel clues in that Kurt likes him too and that's why he sabotaged her. Kurt denies this and says he was just trying to show Finn that she's not a viable second choice. Rachel says second choice or fiftieth, she's still ahead of him because she's a girl. Kurt then throws a truth bomb on the situation and says they're both delusional because Finn is with Quinn and they're having a baby together so the two of them need to get over him and move on.

Santana tells Quinn to stay away from her man. Quinn is confused until Santana clarifies she means Puck and that she and him were sexting all night. Quinn is crushed to learn that Santana was the one texting Puck while they were babysitting together.

At glee club, the McKinley students perform a a mash-up of Crazy in Love by Beyonce and Hair from the musical Hair. The hairography looks ridiculous but the mash-up is a lot of fun. The deaf kids clap politely. Rachel thinks it didn't go well at all and Will says it's just rehearsal.

The deaf kids choir performs Imagine by John Lennon and it's honestly super moving. Mercedes agrees with me and she joins in with them, leading all of the glee kids to join their competitors and sing in harmony. Each kid pairing with someone from the deaf choir to learn their signing and the whole scene is very sweet and uplifting. Even if, it's kind of rude to like take over their performance. The deaf kids do seem cool with it though so I'm willing to let it slide. The message is clear, these kids are competitors but they can still get along with each other and stand together in peace. It suitably shames and moves Will to realize that his kids are much better and more confident than him. I mean, try not to be moved:



Quinn confronts Puck about lying about the texts. He's super gross about it and says that he wants to be together but that he expects to be able to cheat since she won't give it up to him. I hate all of this and his stupid gross face.

Quinn goes to Terri to promise the baby to her since Puck is like the absolute worst. Will walks in and is surprised to find Quinn in his house. Terri says that they are just sharing pregnancy stories which still makes Will a little confused but not enough to question further. Quinn then hugs him because she feels awful for lying but also because she's hoping he'll be a good father to her baby.

Will then shows Terri that he sold the car he was restoring for a tidy profit so he could buy a family car for them and the new baby. He doesn't want to be distracted from them anymore. Whoops.

Quinn asks Finn if they can be in love again and Finn confesses that he went over to Rachel's house on Friday but that nothing happened. Since Quinn also kind of lied about her Friday plans, she quickly forgives him and they walk off happily. Rachel and Kurt both see and are crushed but they share a look of solidarity with one another.

Will apologizes to Sue because of the hairography stuff and admits she was right. He then gives her their setlist. She's happy with his choices but says she doesn't recognize the last one which is odd but we'll put a pin in this.

Will tells his glee club that they are stripping everything back and forgetting about hairography. Their last number will just be them sitting in stools and showing off how amazingly awesome their voices sound. Rachel is super happy with this choice.

Cut to, Sue giving their setlist away to the other coaches we met this episode. Don't Stop Believing and Proud Mary, are the two songs she gives to them. She's going to arrange it so they perform first so it looks like Will stole the performances from them. Eve is offended by this but Sue talks both of them into it.

Back to the glee club, they are practicing the new addition that Sue had never heard of. Why was I confused? It's True Colors by Cyndi Lauper. I'm sorry but does Sue live under a rock? How does she not know this song? It's huge. Anyway, it's a nice song and Tina gets to sing the solo! Yay for giving her something to do! Spoilers, she will not get to sing this song at Sectionals. She does nothing. Like always.

So, aside from the mild discomfort at the deaf teacher scene, I still don't find anything I dislike in this episode. It's actually pretty enjoyable. I remember people saying they really didn't like it but for the life of me, I don't exactly remember why. Is it high up on my list? No, but it's serviceable and still pretty fun. If anything, the songs are not that great this episode and if that's the reason people watch this show then I can see why it would be boring to them. I actually liked this show for the funny banter and that side of it delivered so I'm still happy. I'm very stoked for the next episode though so stay tuned for Mattress.

Comments

  1. I don't remember having strong opinions about this episode, but I will say that the sooner all the Lying To Your Significant Other About Pregnancy plotlines end, the better. I hate hate hate them both.

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