Gleecap - Mash-up
Glee is going on a small break after last night because of some sporting event where all the players takes steroids and hit tiny balls with a plank of wood, so savor this recap, as it features Sue dancing, Emma singing, Will breakdancing and enough purple slushie to make a grape-flavored ski resort.
In the lunch room, Will is approached by Emma and Ken. Even though Emma isn't wearing the ring or telling anyone, even her mom, they're getting married. Ken has managed to convince Emma that they have to be in the same room when the marriage is certified, so they're going to get married on the beach in Hawaii, where no one knows them. With all that sand? I don't think Emma's thought this through very much. What was my first clue? She's MARRYING KEN TANAKA.
Ken says he wants a first dance after the ceremony, but they can't decide on a song. Emma wants "I Could Have Danced All Night" from My Fair Lady, and Ken wants "The Thong Song" by Sisqo. That song was a number one hit, ladies and gentlemen. I demand to know what dope you were smoking, because I'd never heard this song until last night and I just am...baffled. Ken and Emma want Will to try to mash up their songs into something they will both like, and they need dance lessons, too. Well, mostly Emma, because Ken Tanaka said something about athlete's foot and I blacked out at that point for a bit because I have a real problem with feet. The point is, Will and Emma will be spending time really close together, dancing, which thrills Emma.
In the music room, Quinn towels Finn off and laments their fleeting popularity while Kurt and Mercedes observe that if Finn and Quinn aren't safe, none of them are safe in the coming slushee war. Shue comes in and awkwardly recaps the last episode as an explanation for why they're behind in preparation for sectionals. I really hate when writers can't seamlessly incorporate exposition into the dialogue. It always makes me feel the way I do when I see drug commercials where some ladies are out at a club having cosmos and talking about birth control and then one of them launches into the list of side effects. Anyway, Will wants the kids to do some more "unexpected" mash-ups, and he's giving them "Bust a Move" to work with. He is also patently ignoring that Finn is soaked and smells like a Mr. Sketchy marker. Both Finn and Puck turn down the chance to take the lead, and Rachel voices her shock at the lack of balls in the room. No worries, Will will take the solo. He break dances and it's awesome, but the best part is when he's miming the image of a girl with curves at Kurt, who mouths "OH. MY. GOD." in disgust and huffs away.
After the title screen and the bell, Quinn and Finn are in the guidance office with Emma. You'd think they might be asking advice about the baby thing, but they just want to know how to be cool, and figure Emma might have picked something up in her years as a guidance counselor. She doesn't have any pamphlets on being popular, but tries to get down to the root of the problem. While Quinn talks about toxic assets and how her mom's popularity got her into Arizona State, Emma gets distracted by Will's hotness and mutters something about sunglasses being sexy, then tries to pass it off as advice to the kids. Celebrities wear sunglasses everywhere! Finn likes this idea, because he can also sneak peeps at boobs. Emma comes to her senses and tells them to be themselves because that's the most important thing, and those of us who were the show choir freaks in high school I'm sure can vouch that this is a super awesome high school survival technique. Very character building.
After school, Emma walks the halls of William MicKinley in an ugly 80s gown with a cathedral train and arrives for her dance lesson with Will. Apparently she and her sister were obsessed with Lady Di, and this awful replica was her sister's wedding gown. The thing is, she never practiced dancing with it on, and as a result, the reception ended with a huge fight that made the cops cry, and a divorce three months later. Will says they'll start with Ken's selection and the move in to Emma's, and he starts playing "The Thong Song." I think this is supposed to be a dance lesson, but it's really just Will showing off his love for bad hip-hop and b-boy dance movies while Emma giggles and blushes until Will trips over her gown and Emma comes tumbling after. They have an awkward moment and Will helps her up and suggests she find a new dress. Ken Tanaka has witnessed the whole thing and is Not Amused.
At practice, the team challenges Finn's calls and his leadership because of his role in Homo Explosion. He reminds them that glee club helped them actually win for once, but it's been a while since then, and the memory has faded into a lot of ribbing for Finn's bi-curious explorations. When one of the players suggests Finn wasn't man enough to knock up Quinn, a brawl ensues. Ken breaks it up and asks where Puck is. He's working on something for glee club, and when more gay-baiting jokes are thrown around, Ken says something about football being a war, and no one man can win a war alone, even if he has nukes strapped to him. I think Ken needs to watch the History Channel a little bit more. But the point is, teamwork: they do not has. Ken adds an extra practice on Thursdays at 3:30, which just happens to be when glee practices, and that practice is mandatory. Ken is making them all choose: football or glee club.
In her bedroom, Rachel sings into her hairbrush to "What a Girl Wants" by Christina Aguilera. Her accompanist is Puck, who asks to stop because his ears hurt. Mine too, dude. But then he asks Rachel to make out, and since she's already dressed like a school girl would dress in the first 10 minutes of a porno, she agrees. There's an explanation for Puck's sudden interest in Rachel. Apparently, the Puckermans have a tradition to get in touch with their Jewish roots—a family dinner of sweet and sour pork in front of the television for a viewing of Schindler's List. During the last viewing (as Noah's young sister runs screaming from the room during a particularly violent scene), his mom wonders why Noah can't meet a nice Jewish girl. That night, Rachel comes to him in his dream, or at least he's pretty sure it's a dream, since there's no way Rachel could climb the side of his house in her bare feet. He takes this dream as a sign from God to ditch the shiksahs and find himself a nice Jewish girl, even if she's kind of a meshugginah.
The next day, Slusheecam follows another slushee down the hall to Rachel, where it again does not hit her face. It's Puck, and he's giving it to Rachel, remarking that he knows grape is her favorite, because one time he saw her lick her lips after he doused her with one. He then asks to work together on a mash-up, leading us back to the present, where he and Rachel are making out in her bed. He didn't realize it would be so easy to get her to make out, but what he doesn't know is that she's picturing Finn while she's doing it. She stops and says she can't, even if they are a couple of fine lookin' Jews, because Puck doesn't have the chutzpah to sing lead. And then he rolls up his sleeve to make Rachel admire his guns and I pass out from his hotness, AH MAH GAH. By the way, Miss Banshee doesn't think Puck's hot, and I need you all to harass her until she listens to reason.
But if this didn't convince her, I don't know what can: the next day, when Shue asks someone to step up and show him what they've been working on, Puck presents his tribute to a musical Jewish icon, staring meaningfully at Rachel, and launches into "Sweet Caroline" by Neil Diamond. It has a country flair that I actually like in this instance, but as good as it is, the rest of the club's reaction takes the cake. Rachel is smitten, Finn is jealous that Rachel is smitten, Santana is pissed that Rachel is getting the attention, and everyone is too busy with that to notice that Quinn appears to be seeing her sekrit baby daddy in a new light.
Later, Quinn and Finn are doing their best TomKat impression in the halls, congratulating each other for their strength to wear shades inside, when a ring of slushee-toting football players stops them at the door and surrounds them, then gives them a 360-degree, grape-flavored ice shower. The player that insulted Finn's manhood at practice tells him he'll get a lot worse if he chooses glee over practice. "Bros before hi-hos, dude. Remember that."
On the news, Sue does "Sue's Corner," and in addition to telling us how Sue "Cs" it with regard to marrying one's dog (not having sex with one's dog, just marrying it, you sicko), she also introduces this week's C Plot. See, Anchorman Rod, who smells like scotch, is interested in a woman with a little backbone and Sue seems like his kind of lady. Sue accepts a date for fondue and seems almost...sweet.
And then, in the next scene, I'm certain at first that someone is hallucinating, because Sue is in the music room swing dancing with Will. While Jane Lynch is certainly not poised to win Dancing with the Stars any time soon, the whole thing is adorable and ends with Sue doing a cradle lift of Will and the two of them bursting into fits of laughter. WHAT IS GOING ON HERE?
Will does some more pharmaceutical-ad-quality exposition, explaining how nice it is to be on good terms with Sue after all that meanness last episode, and she says she has put that all behind her. Also, she's in love, after one date with Rod. She realized it over a game of Battleship. "You sunk my battleship, Rod. You sunk is hard." Then Rod tells Sue he likes to swing and I'm sure this is about to end up in a very big, embarassing misunderstanding, but it turns out he does indeed want her to compete with him in a swing DANCING competition, thus the dance lessons with Will, whom "Irma" recommended very highly to Sue. Sue says her days of trying to sabotage the glee club are over. We've just replaced this school's regular Sue Sylvester with a sweet and compassionate Sue Sylvester replacement. Let's see if anyone can tell the difference! Yeah, I see this dynamic lasting. The old Sue comes back briefly to backhandedly express her sympathy with Will for his sham of a marriage and the fact that Coach Tanakasan is gunning for Will's downfall, what with the ultimatum he issued to the ambulatory men of the glee club. And what kid's going to choose glee over football?
Will confronts Ken about the scheduling conflict, and Ken says it's a morale issue. When Will presses him for the real reason, Ken reveals that he knows Emma's in love with Will and Ken is merely a not-very-consoling consolation prize, while Will is clearly eating up the attention Emma gives him. Will admits he hasn't discouraged Emma's crush and says he'll take care of it, but Ken indicates things are not cool between them—he's going to let the kids decide which of them is the consolation prize.
In the halls, Rachel and Puck walk arm in arm as Rachel bores him to death with Tony Award trivia. As she tells Puck how proud she is to have him on her arm, Puck takes a slushee to the face. In the bathroom, Rachel helps him get cleaned up and he apologizes for having ever done this to her. He now realizes how humiliating it is. He also doesn't want to ever feel it again, which means they'll have to break up, and he's choosing football over glee club. He says he feels like such a bad Jew as he puts on a yarmulka. Aww, Puck, don't despair—guilt is as Jewish as gefilte fish.
Meanwhile, Will is at a bridal shop with Emma, who is trying out a new dress to practice in. It's an adorable A-line dress with opera length gloves, and Will is clearly dazzled. They decide to try it out for dancing, and Will starts a recording of the instrumental version of "I Could Have Danced All Night." They dance as Emma sings along beautifully. The bridal shop retail workers look on enviously.
"Yeah, you can dance in it," Will says with a sigh, then snaps out of it and remembers he's supposed to stop leading her on, abruptly announcing that he has to get going to prepare for "the showdown." Emma doesn't know what he's talking about, and Will explains that Ken has put it to the members of both the glee club and the football team to choose which is most important to them. If even one of the boys chooses football over glee, they don't have enough members to compete at sectionals.
One minute before 3:30, Artie, Kurt and the girls of glee wait to see what choice the football players will make. Will joins them in their clock watching, and as soon as they think they've been abandoned, enter the two dudes whose names I never remember because they're total Red Shirts. A minute later, Puck joins them and Rachel asks if he's sure about this. He is, and they hug. So that leaves only Finn, who we see walk onto the football team in full gear and approach Coach Tanaka.
Slusheecam! A slushee approaches Artie, Tina, and Mercedes, who all are wearing slickers and pull their hoods over their faces to brace for the blow that never comes. Around the corner, Rachel and Kurt stand at their lockers, each in rain slickers of their own. The bearer of the slushee is Finn. "Do it," Kurt bravely orders.
"I really don't want to, honestly. I know how picky you are about what products you use on your face," Finn replies. Mercedes tells Finn he better not slushee on her man Kurt's face, and Rachel says Finn's clearly already made his choice, so why wouldn't he? He insists he has no choice, but still can't do the deed, so Kurt grabs the slushee and takes one for the team. "Now get out of here. And take some time to think whether or not any of your friends on the football team would've done that for you." Finn walks away stunned as Kurt orders the girls to take him to a day spa, stat, and they drag him into the girls' bathroom for clean-up.
At WOHN-TV, Sue walks into the news anchor set in a red zoot suit to find Rod making out with his co-anchor. Rod asks what she's doing there. She's come by to show him her zoot suit, which he indicates only the man wears in swing dancing. "Further embarassed," she replies. Rod does the, "oh, you didn't think we were exclusive, did you?" thing that jerkfaces do to make you feel like you're the asshole in this kind of situation. Rod can't be caged in. That's why he got his tiger tattoo. He asks if they're still on for the dance, and she says, "no," as she walks away. As much as I feel for her in this moment, I know that's the end of the softer side of Sylvester.
In the bleachers during football practice, Puck is missing football. Rachel approaches and says she hopes he didn't make his choice because of her, because they're totally not going to work out. She's hung up on Finn and was only using Puck to make Finn jealous. Furthermore, she's pretty sure Puck's hung up on Quinn. Puck says it doesn't matter, since Finn and Quinn are never breaking up, and wonders what's wrong with him that he can't even keep a chick like Rachel. No offense, of course. Rachel tells him girls don't like him because he's kind of a jerk. No offense. She hopes she and Puck can still be friends, and he reminds her they weren't friends before as he storms off.
On the field, Will approaches Finn and they toss the football around as Will encourages Finn to come back and to choose what his heart wants, not what people pressure him to choose. Finn goes on again about all the pressure on him, and that Will wouldn't understand. Will tells Finn he understands—out of all the kids, Finn reminds Will the most of his younger self. Finn, desperate for a father figure, is surely affected by this, because he approaches Ken in the locker room after practice.
Quarterbacks are supposed to be leaders, he begins. And being a leader means seeing things others don't, like a future where things can be better. That's what Thomas Jefferson did, and that guy from the Terminator movies. Finn sees a future where being different is good, and where it's just as cool to sing and dance as it is to play football. He doesn't want to choose anymore, and Ken isn't enough of a meanie to make him choose. He gives in to being consolation prize yet again, and tells Finn to tell the other guys they no longer have to choose, either. I feel bad for Ken, and I really want him to invest in some long pants.
Back in the school halls, Sue tells Will she'll need to see the setlist for sectionals after all, and if it is one minute late, she will go to the animal shelter, buy him a kitten, let him fall in love with said kitty cat, and then on a dark cold night, she will steal away into his home and punch Will in the face. "Didn't work out with Rod?" Will astutely hypothesizes. "No it did not," Sue answers, but she's not done. She walks up to Quinn, kicks her off the team, and calls her a disgrace. Quinn is devastated.
Downtrodden, Will goes to Emma's office and tells her he's tried, but he can't make her song and Ken's mash up. That's because they don't go together, Emma acknowledges, even though they're both great songs. We are clearly talking about more than their wedding song choices, of course.
Finn is back in the glee club, and he's brought everyone a slushee as an apology. Kurt observes that they're called slushees because the empty calories make your butt look slushy if you have too many. Finn proposes a toast to Mr. Shue and Artie apologizes that none of them have completed their assignment to do that "Bust A Move" mashup. Will says that's okay, since they all got the gist of the lesson, and anyway it was really just an excuse for him to breakdance in a tight t-shirt for the hormonal ladies at home. Shue asks if Quinn is okay. Poised on a stool in street clothes, no longer a Cheerio, Quinn honestly answers that of course she isn't okay; her future is coated in purple syrup and ice. Will says she'll have 11 friends waiting to help clean her off, which is nice and all, but a small consolation to Quinn, I'm sure. Will gets a brainfreeze and says he can't imagine getting a slushee to the face. With that, the kids stalk him with their slushees and shower him. He takes it like a champ and, behind closed, slushee covered eyes, orders, "All right. From the top."
Anyway, that's a wrap for this week. Glee will be back in two weeks with a new episode. Meanwhile, if you need a fix and get tired of watching the reruns on Hulu, it's been confirmed that the cast of Glee will be singing the National Anthem at Game 4 of the World series on October 31st. Take that, NBC.
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Puck is DELISH.
That is all.
Posted by: Fawn Amber | October 22, 2009 at 02:57 PM
OK, I think Puck's a hot hottie who needs to take his shirt off more often and I'm a lesbian, so Miss Banshee is clearly confused. That's ok, though,that's what interventions are for.
Posted by: Andrea | October 22, 2009 at 03:26 PM
I used to read recaps of shows I didn't watch (for whatever reason.) I *watch* this dang show and I still read your recaps. (Obviously, you do a bang up job...I'm just laughing at my clear obsession to this show.)
p.s. Puck is magical Glee hottness.
Posted by: Mrs Chaos | October 22, 2009 at 04:02 PM
No lie, I start watching for these recaps the minute the show ends. Perfection.
Puck needs to come clean my pool, NOW. And, needless to say, I don't have a pool. Not to mention the boy can crooon! And when he clenches his jaw, he has these totally hot cheekbones going on... How can his hotness be denied?
Posted by: Julie | October 22, 2009 at 04:28 PM
Y'all are delusional. That boy isn't hot.
Posted by: missbanshee | October 22, 2009 at 05:18 PM
mmmm...Puck-a-licious!!
Posted by: Dana | October 22, 2009 at 05:47 PM
MizBansh... Puck is hott. Srs. I get the vapors when he takes me to the gun show. The only reason Amber doesn't know this is because she's too busy with her own swooning.
Posted by: Andrew | October 22, 2009 at 08:22 PM
Dude, Sweet Caroline? I was licking my TV screen, for reals. The boy is FOINE. Miss Banshee needs to get those eyes checked.
Posted by: Jenn_C | October 22, 2009 at 09:29 PM
Yeah Puck is yum. Yummy, yummy yum. But I love Finn more. And Schue. He's just so dang cute. And last night was extra bad for songs that get very deeply stuck in one's head.
Posted by: Heather | October 23, 2009 at 01:29 AM
To be fair to Ms Banshee, who I have never met before, I had no concept of Puck as hot. At all. I was like, whatevs.
Then he launched into Sweet Caroline.
I can't imagine being immune to that. Rowr.
Posted by: Kim | October 23, 2009 at 09:30 AM
Oh yes, I remember thinking a some point in this episode that I just couldn't imagine how I could not have realized just how HOT Puck was until then. H-O-T.
Plus, was I the only one who was a little creeped when Mr. Shue sang the part about wanting to "sex her" while he was touching Quinn?
Posted by: Stacie | October 23, 2009 at 12:36 PM
Stacie, I was a little creeped too! But then I got back to watching Santana glaring and listening to the sweet sounds of the singing Puck. I had to be reminded of it, but Santana broke up with Puck over his credit score- so she's probably pissed that he's AWESOME in addition to being pissed that Rachel is getting the attention.
Posted by: anna | October 23, 2009 at 02:15 PM
Yes, like Stacie I think I didn't really notice the hotness until this episode but it is SO there! And then he sings Sweet Caroline, oh yeah, I may like him more than Finn now...
Posted by: Shelley | October 27, 2009 at 09:22 AM