About Last Night: Glee Season 1 Finale

We know it, we love it, it's Glee.  I shouldn't have to say more than that.  But after last week's fairly disappointing episode, can Scheuster and the gang bring it back for Regionals?  More after the jump!  (spoiler alert)



After last week's "Funk" episode (which had approximately 1 and a half songs that you could actually call funk) I was starting to get a little worried about the direction the show was going.  And let me tell you the beginning did not soothe that feeling in the slightest.  In spite of all of the confidence everyone built up last episode, we see the club at the start of this episode acting like whiny despondent bitches, as if they had never had anything in the show boost their confidence about anything ever.  I realize that maintenance of plot continuity is not exactly the top priority for the makers of the show (the explanation two weeks ago that their piano player is just "always kind of around" made me laugh until I cried), but at this point it was starting to get ludicrous.  After all, how many times has the team triumphed over Sue Sylvester in the past? How is this any different?  Anyway, I was all set up to be really disappointed in this episode as a finale until they decided to just ignore the stupid despondence, head off to regionals (keeping there from being any more obnoxious "tension buildup" between Vocal Adrenaline and New Directions) and do a Journey Medley.  It may seem played out (didn't they, you know, open the show with that?) but their addition of the mashup of Lovin' Touchin' Squeezin' and Any Way You Want It was in a word, superb.

Hell, they could just make the show a Journey covers show

and I would have no problem with that at all.

Of course, I would be remiss if I were to not mention the Vocal Adrenaline cover of Bohemian Rhapsody.  Let me start by saying that I loathe, detest, despise, revile, etc. this song.  Don't get me wrong, I love Queen, and I felt almost cheated when last week's episode only gave us a verse and a half of Another one Bites the Dust.  Plus, the decision to sync Rhapsody with Quinn's birthing sequence was... unsettling.  Something about the lyrical content of the song and the ridiculous "galileo figaro blah blah who gives a shit" just seemed off.  Talking about being on trial for killing a man while a teenage mom gives birth? WEIRD.  They did manage to save the number for me when the shot faded out on Quinn holding her child  as the "any way the wind blows" conclusion was softly crooned.  It was a touching moment that brought me back around from a scene I was really prepared to hate based on the merit of the song.  Still, that's Glee for you: still capable of surprising you every now and again.

However, we don't watch Glee ONLY for the musical numbers.  There are other reasons.

Ok, reason.

The use of Sue Sylvester last week and their attempts to humanize her were another aspect that raised about 50 different red flags for me.  However, the means through which Sue Sylvester is barred from influencing the final outcome (shut out by Olivia Newton John) and thus forced to vote for New Directions was a moment when we truly realize that she cannot survive without a nemesis, lest she realize what a small fish in a shitty pond she is.  Her reveal that she got New Directions one more year, however, displayed way too much of her human side for way too long.  I like Sue because A) every single line that comes out of her mouth is generally pure gold and B) she's really easy to enjoyably dislike as a villain with no clear motivation other than general hatred of anyone not her.  So as she gave her speech about how Will was a good teacher and a powerful force for the kids I was cringing.  This was not what I wanted at all.  Then she concludes it with a line about wanting to puke in his mouth and the blunt, deadpan delivery that I love from ms. Lynch made me forget all of that and feel confident that they won't ever let her become TOO human.

The Will and Emma plot was not resolved in any kind of final way (I mean, he did confess his love, etc. but that's where they left it) but I'm glad to see that they're going to take some time to figure out where that's going to go, because there is a real chance that it could be the essence of banality, and Emma is way too much fun (and adorable) a character to fall into the depths of the banal.  Giving Shelby Quinn's baby was a solid (if not a tad predictable) choice, and I hope that means that we'll be seeing more of Idina Menzel on the show because seriously, the show would never be able to do any wrong in my eyes again if Idina Menzel got a permanent spot.  Quinn's reconciliation with her mother was... stilted, and I felt that it could have been deepened more (for a hard hitting sequence like we experience with Kurt and his dad or Finn and his mom) rather than, "well your dad cheated on me, so we're cool, right?"

Also, while To Sir, With Love was sung incredibly well (I barely noticed any autotune), I'm a little tired of group numbers featuring the club sitting on stools while there are cliched emotional shots going by in a montage of "enh".  And concluding the episode with Somewhere Over the Rainbow? Screw you, that song has been done, re-done, re-re-done, and re-re-re-done to death.  I don't care what new twist you put on it, it is still just plain awful as a song.

But this episode wasn't about the numbers.  Hell they mostly rehashed artists they had already addressed throughout the season.  This episode was a shout out to the enormous and unexpected fanbase that made this wonderful show a possibility, and left us with almost no clue of where they were going next without resorting to cheesy cliffhangers.  The bottom line is that, while this was not the strongest finale I have seen in my life, it left me satisfied and interested to see where they will go from here.  And really, what more could a guy ask for?

Besides the obvious, I mean.