Glee - 112 - Mattress

Original airdate: December 2, 2009

This is it, we are at the penultimate episode of the first 13 and arguably most solid episodes of Glee's entire run. One more episode until it all goes to Hell. It was a pretty rapid slide downhill and yet the show always offered me a little taste of something I held on to, hoping it would get better only for them to drop it entirely. For now, let's just enjoy Mattress for the goofy fun it is and the merciful conclusion to the implausible fake pregnancy storyline. Let's go!

 Will is in the teacher's lounge and joins Emma and Ken again. Emma informs Will that it's the 50 edition of the school's yearbook this year so everyone wants to look their best. She then segues into their wedding plans and Ken mentions that it's the same time as Sectionals. Will is disappointed and Ken quickly interjects that they're not moving their wedding date which is completely fair but the show wants us to assume Ken is awful for this. Look, I don't like Ken that much but honestly? He's getting the short end of the stick a lot and I really can't begrudge a man for being annoyed that his future wife might want to rearrange their wedding plans around a high school glee club because her male friend that she obviously likes wants her there. Sorry guys, Ken is in the right here. Even if he got a major discount for the venue because it's the anniversary of a grizzly murder that happened there.

Enter Sue to be her Sue-y self and tell them what losers they are. She gloats over getting work done to look great for all the photos the Cheerios are going to get. Will mentions how excited the glee kids are to get their photo taken and Sue informs him that they aren't getting a picture this year. Sue convinced Figgins that because their picture gets vandalized every year it would be best for their self-esteem to not have one at all. Both Will and Emma are outraged.

Meanwhile, Kurt is meeting with the glee kids, sans Rachel to discuss the yearbook pictures. He brings over some Thunderclaps of the past and shows them how badly all the other glee photos were trashed. Apparently, one guy had a nervous breakdown and is now a homeless man who sleeps in front of the public library who barks at Brittany's mom. Another girl's photo was defaced with a knife in her head and a few years later met the same deadly fate. Kurt is basically like, let's be happy there are no yearbook photos this year since bad shit could happen to them. They agree not to fight Figgin's decision. Enter Will who promises them that he will fight for them to have photos. They are not happy.

I can't really blame them

Figgins and Will argue over the photos until Figgins relents on the condition that Will pay him $1000. That is some serious bullshit that doesn't sound realistic in any way. Apparently, that's what it costs for advertising which is gross because he's treating students from his own school as a business that should have to pay for an ad space rather than a part of the school like the rest of the clubs. Will asks how much for a quarter page and it's $325 which is slightly more manageable but still ridiculous. And apparently, it's only enough room for two members of the club? Rachel storms in at that moment to fight for the photo but Will assures her they are in the yearbook. I feel like I'm saying apparently a lot.

Anyway, Rachel is super happy because as she explains, she wants to be in as many yearbook photos as possible because it's practice for when she's famous and having to deal with the paparazzi. We get a montage of all the various groups she's joined which is a pretty funny gag, especially the Muslim Students Club and the Black Student Union. Although, she's most excited for the glee club pictures becasue she's proud of the work they've done and wants to be remembered the most for Glee.

The guys' faces in the last two are the best

Quinn meanwhile, misses being part of the Cheerios because she felt like she belongs. She's done playing the victim though and decides she wants to fight her way back on the squad so she can show her future kids (excluding the poor baby she's carrying now) that she truly belonged and left her mark on the school. 

Will is asking Terri for help choosing a tie to wear to photo day. Terri wants to watch TV. I can relate. Will needs her help and so Terri offers her advice on the ties and Will talks to her about the whole glee club photo situation. She's sympathetic until Will tells her the astronomical cost of the ad space for the photo. Once again, she's the bad guy for saying no to his silly suggestion and honestly? I can't really blame her. It's her money too and they don't have a lot of it. Why should she let him piss away money that could pay a bill on a yearbook photo that won't get looked at for years? 

Will, being the shitty husband he is, buys the ad space anyway. He asks Figgins not to cash the cheque until Thursday, further illustrating how little they can actually afford this extravagance. 

Rachel tries to convince Kurt to form a GayLesbAll (Gay and Lesbian Alliance) so she can have another club to get a picture of. I don't think they'd get it in this year's yearbook so it seems odd and they clearly just wanted Rachel to say this line for a quick joke. It's a quick breath chuckle at best. Will announces that he managed to get them a picture and most of them are not impressed. He then tells them that only two people can have their pictures taken and most of the kids are happy with this.

Next day, Rachel gets up in front of them, ready to make her case but before she can begin, Mercedes nominates her and she's voted as team captain unanimously. Will is sad that everyone voted for Rachel, including Rachel but everyone else is happy with her representing Glee Club by herself. Rachel is pumped. 

Will rants to Emma about how the Glee kids don't seem to be proud of their club. Emma tries to give him some advice about encouraging her to look for her own co-captain and then says it won't matter when they win Sectionals. She then apologizes again for not being able to go and Will throws in his two cents about the fact that Ken intentionally planned things that way. For her part, Emma shuts this down and praises Ken's good qualities (albeit a bit non-believingly) but at least she's trying to show that she made a commitment and will not stand for Will making that accusation about him. Will apologizes for stepping out of line and promises that it won't happen again.

Will calls Rachel in to talk to her about trying to find a co-captain for herself. Rachel assures him that she's on it and proceeds to ask everyone she can think of if they'll work with her. They all turn her down. Brittany's being the best of the bunch.

Brittany is my Queen

Finn is the last person she asks and he's also not feeling it. He is equally not interested but she convinces him that he's a born leader and this somehow convinces him to agree to co-captain with her. She is more than thrilled.

We then cut to our first song of the episode, Lily Allen's Smile which I absolutely love but it's a weird choice of song to practice smiling to, you know when Rachel was going on before about glee club needing to project positivity because that song is decidedly not positive. It's a song about smiling because someone who fucked her over feels like shit. I mean, they are smiling a lot while singing it but the message of the song is:

At first, when I see you cry
It makes me smile, yeah it makes me smile
At worst I feel bad for a while
but then I just smile, I go ahead and smile 

I guess you could say it's a song finding the positive in someone else's negatives? 

Cut to Finn immediately getting bullied by Karovsky and his friend over being in the glee club photos. They start to draw on his actual face and ask if he wants a hitler stache or buck teeth and Karovsky threatens to write loser on his forehead. 

Rachel is waiting for Finn at the photoshoot but he's obviously standing her up so she reluctantly agrees to do the shoot alone. The photographer asks her to smile and she tells him that she's really upset because her co-captain bailed on her. Then we get this really nice scene where Rachel is looking at herself in the mirror and talking herself up in her head. She asks herself to remember the song about overcoming adversities and sings just a little bit of it to herself. 

I don't know why I love this moment so much but I do
It's so simple and so sweet.

That's it and I love it so much because it's so simple and nice. Later seasons of Glee would have her sing the whole damn song while dancing around the room with big spectacular light shows around her and I just want to savour this nice simple moment while I can.

Once she's psyched herself up, she poses for the pictures with a nice smile. The photographer takes two shots and is done, much to her disappointment but he has to go as he's got to get to a casting call. Rachel is instantly intrigued and then starts crying. This makes the guy super uncomfortable but she snaps out of it and lists off everything she can do and how willing she is to do whatever it takes, asides from nudity and cruelty to animals to break into the business. The guy is interested but says he needs lots of other people too. Rachel can help with that.

She calls the glee club in order and is icy to Finn when he shows up. He tries to apologize but she's uninterested in his excuses because he's a coward. She then takes charge and explains to everyone about the commercial she landed for them. They ask her what the commercial is for and she tells them it's for mattresses. Oddly enough, this excites everyone and they are all on board to be stars in a mattress commercial.

Cut to the kids prepping to shoot the commercial, they are all wearing identical pyjamas and are pumped. Mercedes thinks she's going to be famous and get a record deal. They read out a really cheesy script and then ask if they can perform a song instead because the script is pretty atrocious. The camera guy wants them to do it as is but the mattress store owner wants to see what they can do. So, the kids perform Jump by Van Halen and it's a lot of fun. The owner loves it and so that's the commercial they go with. This is one of the more iconic and fun songs of the series.

Oh snap! Will is looking for his pocket square in their bedroom and he finds her early fake belly so it's finally going down!! Will finally clues into why his wife would refuse to let him touch him. So, this storyline is absolutely ridiculous because there is no way this could ever actually happen in real life but I guess for narrative purposes, it does show how dysfunctional their marriage is and how it couldn't possibly work and also, this scene still manages to be a gut punch.

Will asks Terri what he's holding and for her part she's very cool under pressure, quickly and matter of factly telling him it's a pregnancy pad for trying on maternity clothes so you can see what they'll look like when you're showing. Will isn't buying it and demands she pick up her shirt. Terri refuses and Will gets a little kind of frighteningly mad. I mean, I get it, that's a super betrayal but damn, it gets uncomfortable because it looks like he's going to hit her at one point. He rips the damn fake belly off of her and demands why she did this to them. She admits she thought he was going to leave her and the baby was the only thing keeping him here. He calls BS because he was in the marriage because he loves her. She then says that it didn't start off as a lie, she really did think she was pregnant but then was told it was a hysterical pregnancy and she didn't know how to tell him. He asks what she expected to do once the due date came and she fills him in on the Quinn plan. She begs him not to leave but he's not having it and storms out of the house.

Alone and dejected, Will settles in for an uncomfortable night at the school when he notices a stack of mattresses conveniently left in the choir room from the mattress store owner as a gift to the kids. Will opens one and uses it to sleep on so he's a little less uncomfortable for the night. This will screw him over in a bit.

Sue is doing a Sue's Corner about how she wants unattractive people to stay home so she doesn't have to see them on her day off. As she's leaving the studio, she catches the glee kids' commercial and she's not impressed.

Quinn demands back on the squad the next day at school but again, Sue is not impressed. She refuses Quinn's request and informs her that the glee kids have stepped in it with the whole commercial thing.

Figgins confirms that they have indeed stepped in it because glee clubs can't do professional commercials and qualify for Sectionals amateur status. Will offers to give the mattresses back but one of the mattresses was used so they can't return them. Sue asks why Will would have a used mattress in his office and accuses him of sleeping with Emma but Will admits that he and his wife are getting a divorce and he slept at the school last night because he couldn't be at home. Figgin's apologizes for Will's personal troubles but his hands are tied, as they are often wont to be. Glee club is over.

Sue gleefully writes about her defeat of the glee club in her diary when Quinn bursts in to her office in full Cheerios uniform. Sue still refuses to let her rejoin the squad and Quinn calls her a hypocrite since she got the glee club disqualified for accepting swag and she accepts swag for the Cheerios all the damn time. Sue agrees to let her back on the Cheerios but Quinn isn't done. She demands that Sue give up one of the Cheerio's six pages in the yearbook and give it to the glee club free of charge. Sue agrees to the terms, impressed by Quinn's ruthlessness but she is not kind about it. Quinn finally realizes how little she doesn't want to be part of the squad and tells Sue that she quits. Good for Quinn.

Will is crying to Emma about how he shouldn't have used the mattress so that the kids could still be in Sectionals. Emma tells him that he needs to give himself a break. She says that he'll figure out what to do about his kids but that he should focus on his own life right now because divorce is a big deal. Will is affronted because he never said anything about getting a divorce...except that he did to Sue and Figgins and you better believe that's what Sue is running around telling everyone. So, why jump down Emma's throat about this. He asks her if she'd divorce Terri in his situation. Emma agrees that her methods were wrong but she understands her intentions and says that Will is a lot to lose.

The glee kids don't want to go to Sectionals without Will but it's done. He accepted the mattresses so he's withdrawing from Sectionals so that they can still go. The kids still aren't keen on this idea but Will says that they are really good and prepared for the competition. If they can't win without him there, then he hasn't done his job. The kids apologize to him and he knows. He tells them to get dressed up for their photo and take it with pride.

We see a montage of this happening as the kids sing Smile by Nat King Cole and it's very pretty. We end the episode on the glee kids' photo getting defaced by Karovsky and his friends which is a pretty bittersweet end to the episode. They got their picture but it got defaced as usual and Will can't take them to Sectionals.

Poor kids

This was a solid episode, I'd rank it pretty high in the first 13, not as good as Vitamin D but still, solid none the less. I love that we don't have to deal with the fake pregnancy storyline anymore so the rest is just gravy but really good gravy, you know? It doesn't hurt that all the songs used this episode were really good. I much preferred when the show used them sparingly. 3 songs this episode is all it took, and one small little sung line. The story was much richer this way, even if the plots were kind of fluff or silly, at least they were developed. 

Next time we take a look at Sectionals so we definitely get more songs out of it and that's ok because of the plot and I'm looking super forward to it.

Merry Christmas to all my readers and friends!