Yeah, I still watch Glee. Shutup. There’s probably something deeply wrong with me that I continue to watch a show that makes me angry, but there you have it. So here’s what you missed on Glee.
Dave Karofsky, Kurt’s tormenter-turned-admirer has been on a redemption arc. He went to a new school, hung out in a gay bar, and began to accept himself, even if he still couldn’t bring himself to be out like Kurt. Then, last week, he confessed his love for Kurt, who turned him down extremely kindly, considering Dave made Kurt’s life hell for two seasons and then threatened to kill him. “Gee, I’m sorry, buddy. It’s just I’m dating Blaine, and also? YOU ARE A DICK.”
Naturally, some jock from his new school saw Karofsky with Kurt at Breadstix and, as expected, Dave walks into the Thurston Dragons’ locker room to a nice three-letter F word on his locker, which is followed up by a barrage of social media torment. And, while Blaine emotionally sings a song for Kurt that he wants the glee club to perform at regionals (meaning it will never make the set list), Dave finds a nice suit to put on and a belt to wear around his neck as he prepares to shuffle off this mortal coil.
This is really dark territory, and I turned to my uninterested boyfriend at commercial and said, “Are they really going to pull the trigger? Are they really going there? Are they doing a teen suicide on this show?”
No, silly, only old people with Down’s syndrome die on Glee. Karofsky’s father finds him just in time and while he is in the hospital for the rest of the episode, he’s going to be okay. Thank goodness, since this means we can shoehorn two more Very Special Episode issues into this episode—one about getting married too young and another about the dangers of texting.
Rather than allow the episode to focus on Karofsky’s (near) death and its effect on others (like Sebastian, who feels so bad for his biting comments at Dave’s expense that he calls a complete cease fire and dedicates the Warblers’ regionals performance to Karofsky), they jam these scenes in between ridiculous B-plot BS about Finn and Rachel being absolutely unable to wait to be married because “life’s too short.” I mean, I know Rachel’s primary characterization is making everything about her, but jamming that story into an episode that could have easily spent the entire duration dealing with the issue of teenage suicide (DON’T DO IT! Sorry. I’m a child of the 80s. We can’t help ourselves), was so weird and ADHD and OMG YOU DON’T ALWAYS NEED A B PLOT, GLEE. I hate to say it, but if you’re going to go there? GO THERE. Had this show had been brave enough to off Karofsky and spend the rest of the episode exploring the ripple effect of that kind of tragedy with even a speck of earnest, this would have been a fantastic episode. It was a wasted opportunity.
And, of course, the show has to leave us with a cliffhanger for the hiatus, so why not wedge in another special message about the dangers of texting and driving? Quinn, on her way to Finn and Rachel’s wedding at the Justice of the Peace, receives several frantic texts from Rachel, who is holding the wedding so Quinn can be there as a bridesmaid. Rather than ignoring her phone and focusing on the road, Quinn leans over to respond and gets T-boned pretty horrifically. Of course, we won’t know until I begrudgingly tune in again on April 10th how bad the accident was. But don’t worry, I”m sure she’ll be fine, because in the land of Glee, nobody has to die in order to transmit a Very Special Message to its teenage viewers.
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