It's been a year since I talked about the last episode of season 3. Sorry for making you wait so long and sorry for that lame joke, but whoa man was the Christmas season busy for me this year. I'm only now just settling down into the less busy routine but hopefully I can get both wrap ups done this week and kind of catch up from there.
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| Our original glee cast members (and some extras) together for the last time. |
So, season 3 of Glee. There are issues, obviously, even the best shows can never be perfect all the time but for Glee this was probably the strongest the show has been since the first 13 and it's the strongest the show will ever be. This has been nice but also insanely depressing to think that I've left the last good season behind because I had so many complaints and it's just mostly all downhill from here. Why do I do this to myself, you ask? Well, I actually do really like this show and I really like storytelling in general so I have so many thoughts when things don't work well and I'm more passionate when it's things that I know could be so great but are failing to live up to their potential. I hope it inspires people to create their own works and maybe give some of these critiques a good think through so you don't fall into the traps this show does. The biggest issue this show faces though, is the writers' lack of empathy.
Why does empathy matter in storytelling? Because if you can't place yourself in someone else's shoes, how do you hope to write about how they are feeling about something or reacting to something. Yes, this show started out as a dark comedy but somewhere along the way, the tone shifted. It didn't have to be a bad thing, per se, but it needed to have more consideration given in how to cover certain topics. Case in point is Quinn's storyline. This is a teenaged girl who got knocked up the first time she had sex, she lost all of her status and her spot on the cheerleading squad while both Finn (the assumed father) and Puck (the actual father) got to continue their football careers and dating lives, and she got kicked out by her parents. Not to mention the mental and physical trauma of going through childbirth while still pretty much being a child. All of those experiences will fundamentally change a person and there is no getting around that but Ryan Murphy is such a non-empathetic, uncurious person, that he refuses to want to explore that amount of depth and character growth. He wanted a mean girl character to get her comeuppance and have everyone still hate her but Diana's acting surpassed that and the viewer's own empathy forced his hand. Yet still, he didn't want to explore it and resented Diana for forcing him to. So, we get a weak storyline where Quinn wanting to reconnect with Beth is played as her being evil and mean and that isn't a story that anyone wanted and honestly? Even if someone did that, their actions are very much informed by their trauma. I'm not saying I wouldn't hate Quinn had her plan worked, but I'd know that what she needed before all the bad decisions she made, was some compassion and help. No one was giving that to her, even when they pretended to care, they went right back to shaming her and telling her she sucks and is desperate. Somewhere in Ryan's past, a blonde cheerleader was mean to him and goddamn it, he was determined to make us hate her too. This fundamental incuriosity Ryan has makes the show, and any other show he does, suffer for it.
Speaking of, I don't know what Idina Menzel did to him to receive such heinous storylines. Not only was she depicted as a bit cruel to Rachel, essentially saying she has no interest in being her mother, she is also harsh with Quinn about getting to see Beth. Worst of all, she has an affair with Puck. Now, this type of storyline is par for the course for most teen shows. I had a bit of respect for them when they had Rachel get a crush on Will and he turned her down, even if his methods of doing so were sus, but then they turned around and gave us an actual teacher/student relationship and I don't think they were prepared for how done with this type of storyline everyone was. They kept justifying it in the text, saying Puck was 18, so it's fine actually. You guys are all just haters! I've done my spiel on power dynamics, I've written blog posts solely about this storyline epidemic in teen shows, so I'll not rant more about it only just add this to the pile of evidence that Ryan Murphy lacks empathy to fully grasp these types of relationship dynamics and how they are toxic. By the end of this plot, I was glad Shelby was leaving us and that's sad because I like Idina.
The first half of this season was a bit messy but felt very grounded in high school shenanigans. Even the second half explored this well, even if they threw in a few bizarre curveballs like Quinn's car crash and semi-paralysis, but it helped the show a lot to focus on this. I really think had the whole show been centered around high school struggles via juke box musical, this show could have been great. It's where it's the strongest anyway. I really liked the run for class president arc, and Rachel and Kurt's quest to get into NYADA. Those were the storylines to follow. West Side Story was neat as high school musicals are a big part of the teen experience. The show also pulled away from the adults quite a bit, including Will which was the correct choice at this point. It sucks because I really did like Will's character at one point and I preferred a lot of the adult storylines at first. There was a time I was more annoyed at this retooling but even as an adult, I think this choice was the correct one. It's like how Saved by the Bell used to be from Miss Bliss's perspective but then they retooled under another station and it became all about the teens and say what you want about how dated that show was, it was also clearly the correct call. Will, as a character, sucks at this point. No one is rooting for him. He has nowhere left to go and at this point, I'm rooting for the kids to win more than I'm rooting for Will to because of his weird attempt to relive his high school experience.
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| Anyone else remember this? Zach actually wasn't the central focus to start I mean, he was the main kid but the show was more about Miss Bliss |
Then we get to the Rachel and Finn relationship which I'm not the biggest fan of. I'm not sure any ships really grabbed me that hard in this show but this one holds the least of my interest. There are a ton of Finchel shippers so your mileage probably varies and I don't want to take that away from you. I will say, that I still don't fault the actors because there were a few moments this season where I was actually sold on this ship, so they're capable of it when the writing is better. I was happy that they kept them together this season because, honestly, I'm so over the make up/break up dynamic that so many tv couples have. Case in point, their breakup at the end of the season was pretty great. I hated that it happened only on Finn's terms and that he did it right before she thought she was getting married, shit move right there, but I appreciate that he did it to push her to her dreams. It was mature and pretty tragic and I really think it would have had so much more weight to the whole thing had they not already broken up a couple of times before this. It just felt like, again??? And don't you know, they break up again next season. Do they want this couple to be end game or not because, as it stands, they're just writing a toxic couple who's friends are all secretly begging will just end it already. I don't think this relationship could ever be salvaged for me.
The thing that drags this season down, and honestly this whole show in general, is their need to throw in way too many characters. This season gave us Harmony (who was criminally underused), Sebastian, Coach Roz, removed and added back Sam, Sugar Motta, Rory, Joe, and Unique. Not to mention bringing Shelby in longer term and a few one off side characters. It all feels like too much in an already packed to the brim with underdeveloped characters as it is. If you ask me, which you didn't but I'm going to tell you anyway, I'd scrub Sebastian from this season (sorry Grant, it's not your fault) and develop Harmony as the true first foil to defeat. She was way more interesting and that voice was killer. Rory and Joe can also go or just be nice quiet background extras for the glee club. Not all glee club kids need to be main characters. Sugar is a pleasure and was used just the right amount. A nice background character who says funny lines from time to time and bankrolls the club when needed. Unique was also fine and I think it's good that she will be back for next season.
Get rid of Coach Roz because she's superfluous and we don't need another Sue. Sue didn't need Roz as a nemesis because if they'd actually bothered to plan out their season, they could have had her and Shannon at odds over Cooter for longer. Instead we get a rivalry set up between them only for Shannon to turn up married the next episode and Sue being like "meh". This show suffers so much from lack of planning and they don't even try to hide it.
As much as there were all the usual flaws showing up, the near perfect ending this season got at least somewhat makes up for it. Honestly, this felt like a series finale for me and I would have absolutely been fine with that. Our beloved club as is, finally won Nationals and with a performance that actually felt deserved and earned. I applaud them for having them just pick some god damned songs and practice them already because they seemed to trap themselves into the idea that their performances always had to be spontaneous because of the first 13 ending. That Sectionals performance was amazing but wholly unbelievable that they could have pulled it off and looked that tight. It was fine for a one off but it has less and less payoff the more they go that route. Rachel's plotline to impress Carmen, paired with this being most of our club's last performance added enough emotional weight that we didn't need another rehash of trying to find new songs last minute. I'm so glad they didn't do it again because I loved their performances and I loved seeing their triumphant walk down the school hallway. I was in tears. It made up for a lot of the bad I had to sit through. It was the perfect closure on our club.
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| I teared up at this whole scene |
If I had to pick the best episode this season, I think it's Nationals for me. The absolute worst this season had to offer? Extraordinary Merry Christmas. Hands down, the absolute worst thing I had to sit through this season. I can take almost anything this show throws at me, Finn believing his grilled cheese is Jesus? Ok, fine. Brittany gets a cavity and sees herself as Britney Spears? Whatever. An Irish kid pretends to be a leprechaun to get into Brittany's pants?? Um...gross but sure. Having to sit through a 45 minute episode about almost nothing but a lame Christmas variety show that was dated even for me, let alone the younger viewers who were into this shown was a monumentally terrible choice. I hated every second of sitting through that episode. The other episodes had problems but that thing was unsalvageable. I would scrape it from existence if I could.
Still, this season had some strong moments, from Santana accepting herself and winning Brittany's love again, Quinn getting into Yale, Brittany winning class president and then forgetting to do any work for it, Unique's introduction, Rachel getting into NYADA, and the club finally winning Nationals. It's all so nice. There were rumours that Rachel, Finn, and Kurt were spinning off to their own show that would follow them to New York and honestly? I would have been so there for that. I honestly could have given up Glee and hopped over to that, graduating with the characters I liked because you just can't recreate the old show but Ryan's vengeful spirit strikes again. Chris Colfer made the mistake of mentioning this in an interview, that they wouldn't be back for next season of Glee, and Ryan blew a gasket. He scrapped the plans for a New York show and instead, opted for a messy combo show that would be set in both Ohio and New York, a thing no one wanted. Either follow the cast we like, or get a whole new cast. It doesn't make sense to keep both settings in one show. But they did it and to add insult to injury, instead of following the characters we already liked, they decided to bring in more characters and essentially just rehash the old characters? It's a hot mess but we will get to that with season 4. So long, Glee, we hardly knew you. It's Glee 2.0's time to shine...well not shine so much as suck.
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