Glee - 212 - Silly Love Songs

 Original air date: February 8, 2011

We're back at it with Glee and they were feeling pretty good after their ratings boost *BIG FOOTBALL GAME* special episode and I have to admit, I do appreciate that they're trying to continue some type of story here. There is a lot of insane shit waiting for me so I have to be happy with the relatively normal storylines I'm getting right now. But I will warn you, my hatred for Blaine and Darren Criss burns as bright as the sun so, if you like him, I'm sorry in advance. Actually, no I'm not sorry at all because he's a boring, useless character that got shoved to the forefront just because he had a big fanbase from the internets. 

We start the episode with Puck confessing his love for Lauren Zizes and I can't decide how I feel about this storyline. I feel like they think they're empowering Lauren with this but at the same time, its couched in really, really rude and mean commentary about her weight. Like, I think they wanted to write a story about how a girl is desired for her personality and strength but that they are so horrifically stunted as people that the only way they could think to make jokes about it was to attack the very thing they think they are being so brave at giving her a relationship for, her overweightness. And yes, I think the writers of Glee are horrifically stunted people that don't have the amount of insight or empathy needed to tackle storylines like this. And lets be clear, the main joke is that Puck has fallen for an overweight girl and isn't he just silly for doing that? It's like they saw Shallow Hal but missed any good intentions that film was trying for and just went, wouldn't it be funny if our suave ladies man fell for a fat chick and no one could understand why because well...*snickers and points* So, yeah, I'm pretty sure I hate this. Let's see if they salvage this.

We then get treated to Finn bragging about how awesome he is for winning their football championship and that he's a hot shot who all the girls drool over. I feel like we've seen this before and it's right before we get to see Finn become kind of an irredeemable douche. Considering I already hate him, how much deeper can the writers make him go? Oh, he's not satisfied with all the other girls at the school who want to date him, he's decided he's going to steal Quinn from Sam despite ending his previous relationships because they cheated on him and being damaged from that. Cool. 

Oh boy and now we cut to Kurt and Blaine looking at Valentine's merch. Kurt is not into it but Blaine is apparently a hopeless romantic. Blaine tells Kurt that he thinks he's falling for someone that he's been talking to for a while and asks if it's too over the top to sing to them. Kurt is like umm no, please sing to me. Blaine then orders them coffee and gets Kurt's coffee order correct while also wanting to split a dessert with him. Then he pays for them and Kurt is now enamored with Valentine's day.

Mr. Schue is assigning them homework for Glee club because that's the lazy thing the writers have settled on to give us the theme of their episode. They could have just written a Valentine's episode and had the kids sing love songs to express their budding new feelings or lost feelings or whatever to drive the plot and characterization but fuck nuance. This is glee. We do your homework for you because they assume their audience is a bunch of brain dead morons and to be honest, we are watching their show so I guess the jokes on us. Anyway, the kids have to pick a song they think is the most romantic and sing it to someone special and just, what kind of assignment is that? I would have loathed this in high school because I was a dateless loner. Who the fuck would I sing to? This would send my anxieties flying wild. 

Finn interrupts to be arrogant again. Basically, bringing up that no one was slushied and takes full credit for it too so he's not humble. He then says he wants to help raise money for their club by opening a kissing booth. Mercedes points out that he's not being selfless, he just wants to kiss a bunch of girls. Bingo. Santana chimes in that his kisses aren't even worth a dollar but she'd pay a hundred to jiggle one of his manboobs. Corey/Finn is not fat so I really hate this kind of mean-spirited humour and it definitely flies in the face of whatever they're trying to do with Puck and Lauren. But it's fine because Santana's a bitch, right? And this time, she actually gets called out for it so it's all good. Lauren calls her a bitch which Mr. Schue tries to slow down but everyone starts airing their grievances with her and it ends with Rachel saying that the only job she'll have is working on a pole and ooof. I'm a Rachel fan, I will defend her from most stuff but I hated that. I hated it a lot. That's some cold-hearted, slut-shaming, misogynistic crap. It shows two things, this show is definitely written by only men but also, even girls are prone to internalizing a lot of horrible stuff about our own gender that takes a long time for us to unlearn. As a teen, I would have found that line funny, reveled in Santana's humiliation even. Now? After years of coming to terms with the crap I internalized because I wanted to be a "cool girl" and "not like those other girls" I just find it insanely distasteful and over the line. That line is what should have gotten Rachel's part shit canned from her but here? Will does nothing. What does the viewer then take away? Santana got her comeuppance and its ok because she's just a bitch anyway. I don't like it. Poor messaging. 

Rachel, I love you, but this is not a good look

Brittany tries to console Santana outside the glee club and it's clear she's upset but what's clear to me is that the writers clearly realized they went too far with that line and didn't want to develop this yet so they have her crying played as a joke because she's complaining about how she just tries to be helpful to everyone and tell the truth but they all just suck. It's clear they want her to be a Cordelia type character but they don't even have Joss' level of understanding and that's pretty fucking sad considering everything we know about Joss and women. 

Lauren talks to Puck about how he stuck up for her in glee club but Puck doesn't want any thanks. He knows she can handle herself but he does really want to take her to Breadstix for Valentine's. Lauren is not amused and tells him that she's not desperate and if he really wants her, he's going to have to woo her. This is clearly the part where they think they're making this statement about her which is only undercut by literally everything else in this episode, just wait.

Meanwhile at the Dalton Academy, Blaine has called an emergency meeting of the Warblers and I could not care less. These are the worst characters ever and I have no use for any of them in my life. I feel like they wanted to develop the rivals better this season because of the complaints about Vocal Adrenaline but let me tell you, giving them more scenes does not make them more interesting. They are literally nothing. Who are the Warblers? I cannot name you a single one beside Blaine and Kurt. Why do I want to see a musical number from them every episode? Answer, I do not. I know people love this guy because of Harry Potter Musical or whatever but I just don't care. I never watched that, I have no interest in watching that, and given my hatred for this character, I never will. I'm sorry to everyone else involved in that production, I'm sure it was awesome and you had a great time, but I just cannot with how insufferable Blaine is. He's aggressively boring and plastic. He is a ken doll brought to life to be mashed with Kurt's character because they wanted him to have a love interest. And this is really only to tell us that oops, Blaine doesn't love Kurt, he loves this random guy from The Gap that he knows and he wants the Warblers to help him sing to this guy. So, on top of the Warblers already being a superfluous add on to our already bloated cast of characters, I now also have to care about Blaine's romantic interests? PASS.

Cut to Kurt at a sleepover with Mercedes and Rachel and he's telling them how devastated he was to learn that his crush once again did not love him back. At least this time the guy is gay? Progress? Anyway, Rachel tells us her horrifying plan to spend a hundred dollars on Finn kisses and just no. You're so much better than him, Rachel. Move on. Anyway, they encourage Kurt to go to the performance anyway to scope out his competition. Mercedes says that they don't need love because they have talent and encourages both Kurt and Rachel to focus on their talent for now. It's honestly a really nice moment and I wish they had more character bonding stuff like this.

Next we cut to Puck serenading Lauren in glee club to...SIGH. Fat Bottom Girls by Queen. I'm not saying this is a bad song, I quite like it. It's a jam and it gets you pumped but it fails on two key points in that it is not a romantic song, nor is it what you sing to a girl to show that you like them. What the actual fuck? They picked this song specifically because lol, Lauren is fat and I don't care that they have Lauren call it out, they don't go hard enough into why. The fact that Puck thought that was an appropriate song to sing to her to woo her is insane. I'm glad that Lauren told him that it made her feel like crap but this show is not good enough at really following through with that message because ultimately...that's their joke. I hate it.

We cut to Finn at his kissing booth surrounded by ladies. Becky has even paid for a kiss, he kisses her on the cheek which is sweet because she gets very excited by it but I'm weirded out by the entire concept of kissing booths. Are they a thing that really happens or just made up for tv? I just can't see this many people being interested in paying to kiss someone they don't know. I don't know, I think it's my demisexual brain not comprehending the whys of this but it just sounds unappealing to me. I'd avoid those at all costs, especially if I had a crush on someone who was doing it simply because I could not handle the embarrassment of them offering me a cheek kiss while others get it on the mouth and honestly as we're about to learn kissing a bunch of people on the mouth consecutively, even for a brief moment is a recipe for disaster.

Quinn confronts Finn and claims to know that he's only doing it to kiss her again. I don't get why she's all we can't do this when she kissed him last episode especially when she seems to like the idea of Finn wanting her to kiss him. It's not that it couldn't make sense, it's that you are almost forced to come up with your own interpretation of what happened between her kissing him last episode to this point where she's pretending to be shocked he wants to do it again because the writers don't think we need to have development or character motivations. This is the plot for this episode and we need x to happen and the characters to behave this way to get it to happen. It's exhausting trying to figure this stuff out. Like, Santana being upset that Puck wants to date Lauren, as if they are dating or she was even interested in Puck to begin with. They were never really shown together but all of the sudden she's like, I'm with him! Anyway, back to Finn and Quinn he calls Sam a boy and asks her to admit she wants to kiss him instead. Quinn walks away while Finn smirks like a douche. 

Does anyone else want to wipe that smirk from his face?

Sam has seen them interact and calls Quinn out for kissing Finn. Quinn denies it so then he gets upset that she didn't kiss Finn at his booth and is apparently the only one who hasn't. Why is this happening? Not everyone is going to do a kissing booth, it isn't that weird that Quinn wouldn't want to pay to kiss her ex. I hate this. Sam says he knows she's ambitious and that she'd want to be with the star quarterback to up her status and that he's not dumb. So, to convince him that she's not in to Finn, she says she's going to go and kiss Finn. I don't even know. 

Cut to Rachel paying to kiss Finn because of course she'd want to kiss her ex. She gets a kiss on the cheek. The ultimate embarrassment and exactly why I'd never do this. She gets pissed and Finn gets upset because she said she was over him. They go to the side and argue and she asks why he can't forgive her and the answer? Because she cheated on him. In the exact same episode he's trying to convince Quinn to cheat on Sam. Now, this could be an interesting bit of character development if the writers really wanted to work on that, I could see this whole, needing to validate himself after being cheated on by seeing if he could get a girl to cheat with him but this is Glee and we're not going to get that amount of depth, I assure you. Rachel apologizes profusely and says she only cares about him. Finn then confusingly gives her a belated Christmas gift. It's a star necklace and he tells her that they need to be apart and she needs to shine. So basically Mercedes advice but a lot more brutal because she essentially just got bought off. 

Next we get Artie singing Pretty Young Thing by Michael Jackson while Mike Chang dances because they're celebrating that they both have hot girlfriends. Which...again is not a particularly romantic song, did the kids not listen to Will? I mean, fair. Anyway, both Brittany and Tina love it. Cool. 

Santana presents Puck with a receipt from Jared's because she bought herself an expensive necklace. She's expecting him to reimburse her and take her to Breadstix for Valentine's. Puck is not interested and she insults Lauren who overhears. This results in a very poorly choreographed, shot, and edited fight scene that's supposed to be funny but because of the aforementioned problems, isn't. Bieste breaks it up and hauls a shaken up Santana to the nurse's office. Puck begs Lauren to go out with him and she tells him that if he makes a formal presentation, she'll consider it. I feel like we saw this before. She already said she needed to be wooed. Why will she even consider it after Fat Bottom Girls? Do you see what I mean about that moment of her hurt not mattering? 

Quinn shows up at the booth and pays to kiss Finn but Sam wants to watch. They kiss and see fireworks. Quinn pretends it was nothing and Sam seems satisfied so they walk away. However, Quinn quickly rushes back, saying she forgot her purse and asks Finn to meet her in the auditorium later. 

Now we get to see Blaine and the Warblers performing When I Get You Alone by Robin Thicke. It makes a lot of sense that this performance is the most awkward thing to watch and the recipient of the song is trying to get away from the whole thing. Outside The Gap, Jeremiah comes out and says he got fired and that he basically outed him because no one there knew he was gay. Kurt says that with the hair they probably did. That little aside is ignored so that Jeremiah can basically rip Blaine's heart out and I'm sort of here for it? It's funny is what I'm saying because Blaine is presented as so perfect that it's funny when he doesn't get what he wants. It's honestly the most human they've ever been able to make him. Also, I side eye Jeremiah because he tells Blaine that they got coffee together but that they couldn't date because he'd go to jail as Blaine is a minor. I'm just like...if he's a minor why are you getting coffee with him at all? Do you find convos with high schoolers that engaging? Have a seat right over there, Jeremiah, we all know you only turned it down because you were publicly outed as having a teenager into you. 

Santana jealously watches all the other couples being cute together and laments being alone. She then notices some looks between Quinn and Finn and figures out that they are fooling around together. I know they're trying to be funny but she gleaned a lot from just a look. Also, she wants revenge but not on Puck or Rachel or hell, Lauren? She chooses Finn and Quinn because....they look happy? They were the first two people to call her out? This doesn't make much sense but they wanted a way to get Quinn and Finn exposed but if that were the case, have them be the only ones being rude to her or the most rude. This script really needed a few more drafts, is what I'm saying. I know that's hard on a tv schedule but like, just a once over? 

Cut to Santana talking about volunteering at a hospital. She is even wearing a sexy candy striper outfit which I feel like is not a thing they'd want you to wear in a hospital but whatever. The nurse tells her about a mono patient but warns her not to go in. Santana doesn't care because she's gone through mono a lot (the implied joke here is that she's a slut which is why the writers didn't write any fallout from the characters who were overly mean to her at the beginning and that's why she's had mono so much). She then kisses this patient and then immediately goes to Finn's kissing booth and kisses him. The irony being, she'd have gotten a lot more people sick than just Finn and Quinn but who cares about the unseen other girls, right?

Puck asks Lauren out again and she again says she needs to be wooed and I feel like I'm trapped in hell watching the same scene play out over and over again with neither character learning anything. Puck says he sang her a song which...how did he think that went well when she told him it made her feel like crap? And she says it was offensive but seems playful about it??? This...this actually could have been good, if they'd just tried and focused on this, it might have been interesting. He could sing her the song, she could tell him it made her feel like crap, he could realize how shallow he's been, boom. Instead, the message is "you look the way you look and I'm embracing that" and it feels insanely gross and like they think she should just accept Puck being shitty about her weight because he's skinny and she should be happy he's chasing her. Nope. Hard Pass. He asks her to Breadstix with a ring pop and she agrees.

Quinn meets Finn in the auditorium and admits that she was praying for the strength not to come. She then tells him that he's making her a cheat which was the exact thing she was that made him break up with her in the first place and break up with Rachel. Finn says that it hurt him because it meant that they didn't really love him...so why are you going back again? His reasoning is that she came because she doesn't love Sam and again, with some further development this could be a compelling story for him where he's trying to reclaim his self confidence by becoming the person who people cheat with rather than on. Quinn doesn't want to dump Sam until she's sure about her and Finn. They kiss.

Blaine now hates Valentine's Day and is super embarrassed about the whole performance they did and that he made up the whole thing in his head. Kurt then gets real with Blaine and tells him how he feels about Blaine and that he thought he was the one Blaine wanted to ask out. Blaine now feels extra clueless and admits he has no idea what he's doing with his love life and that he hasn't had a boyfriend yet. Kurt says he hasn't either. They decide to be friends much like in When Harry Met Sally. So...wait a few decades and then get together?

Cut to Puck making out with a random chick in a parking lot. This is the person I'm supposed to ship with people? Ok. He's also making out with a married waitress so...this show really likes showing that women cheat a lot. I don't like that messaging. It's implying that women are always in the wrong with cheating and I'm not saying that women are innocent and never cheat on men, it happens, but I am wondering if the writers were cheated on by a woman and have thus internalized some unpleasant assumptions about all women as a result because this theme pops up a lot and casually. 

Finn hands the $324 he made kissing "every girl in the school" (insert the Sure, Jan gif here) and hands it to Will who shits all over it by saying it will only pay for half of a ticket. He then brings up Tina to sing My Funny Valentine from the musical Babes in Arms, I think. Now, like Tina's character or not, Jenna Ushkowitz has a very pretty voice and so people were starting to wonder why Tina hasn't been singing much at all lately. I think the last she got a solo was Dog Days Are Over from the Sectionals episode. It's not a lot but with the wait between episodes I guess it felt a lot longer especially since we have to endure the Warblers every episode which meant this newcomer got more solos in this short time than Tina or most of the other cast we've been following since day 1. Who the hell did Darren know?, is what I'm asking. Anyway, here is her solo:

This is the first performance that actually fits the theme of the episode and it's a joke. The worst part is that Jenna is not a strong actress and we'd already been set up with the fact that Santana gave Finn mono and that whole kissing booth thing so I honestly couldn't tell if she was singing terribly because she was about to be sick or just because she was so overcome with emotion that she broke down crying. Judging from the end, I think she was supposed to be overcome by emotion but jesus, was that uncomfortable to sit through. There's your Tina solo, I guess. Fuck you? 

Both Finn and Quinn look sick and ask to be excused. Santana points out that it looks like they have mono and that it's spread the easiest by kissing. Sam says that they just shared a peck but it's obvious that they did more since they're both ill. Oops. They go to the nurses office where Quinn complains that both times she cheated, she was punished and how the universe must be telling her something. Finn isn't done with her yet which sounds really gross but Quinn thankfully says she is. And no sooner did we try to explore this relationship, Quinn is saying that Finn is still into Rachel. When? When did you see this? He's hated her since before Christmas and shown no signs of still liking her. Quit telling us things and actually show it!

Puck confronts Lauren about standing him up because apparently he cares even though he made out with some random waitress the night of? Like, he couldn't be that hurt by it. He claims to not be one of those guys that would hurt her and I do like that Lauren points out that he got Quinn pregnant last year so he kind of is (and unbeknownst to her, he made out with some random girl which is fine but don't claim to be one thing when you're very clearly a player). He finally tells her that he likes her because she's a badass like him instead of focusing on her curves and she gives him a chance but only as friends at first. He agrees.

Rachel is comforting Finn in the nurses office which is making me sad because it looks so desperate and she's better than this. I hate that they write girls like this, hanging on for a scrap of attention from a guy who is not that great to begin with. She also has severe self-esteem issues because she keeps saying Quinn is pretty, prettier than her and when Finn tries to tell Rachel she's beautiful she says she knows Quinn is. Does Rachel have a crush on Quinn? It kind of seems like it. She asks Finn if he actually kissed her and he admits it. She asks what it feels like when he kisses her and he admits he saw fireworks. She asks if he saw that when he kissed her and he's silent. She thanks him for giving her the strength to move on but now suddenly Finn is trying to say he still likes her? 

Rachel then sings Firework by Katy Perry which again...isn't romantic. I get it as a song for her to express she's moving on and embracing loving herself but as far as the assignment goes, it's not a good pick. That's why that stupid set up fails. Don't do that part. Write it out.

We cut to Rachel alone at Breadstix only to be joined by her friends and Kurt welcomes them all to his lonely hearts club dinner. But instead of Kurt singing, we have to endure Blaine and the Warblers singing ANOTHER song, Kurt in the background. You may not like Kurt's voice but he's arguably one of the main characters so why the hell is he being shoved aside for Blaine?? I hate it. It's such a cute song though, Silly Love Songs by Paul McCartney but I could do without this being a Warbler song. 

We see most of the glee cast bopping along and there's a weird exchange between Santana and Sam which like, I'm sorry did he and Quinn break up? You didn't show us that. I guess we can infer it as she got mono from Finn but like, this show is giving me couples whiplash. I don't even remember Sam and Santana being a thing so if it happens, it's super brief or my memory sucks and that is also super plausible. This show really does just feel like the writers have a bunch of Barbies in a box with character names written on them and they just kind of mash them together to see who looks cute or not but get bored and switch them out constantly. It's very hard to get emotionally invested in a Ryan Murphy show. Next episode is Comeback and I remember nothing about it. Should be great!