By Demian
As is this show's wont, tonight's installment blew a metric assload of episode-specific exposition at us within the hour's first 73 seconds, so let me see if I've got all this -- you should pardon the expression -- straight.Whereas normal high schools have to settle for boring back-to-school shit like Homecoming Court, McKinley apparently treats its children to a Pick The Most Specialest Magical Unicorn contest every fall, and dear little dimwitted Brit-Brit has decided that St. Gay Of Lima is the most specialest magical unicorn of them all. So, she's taken it upon herself to act as his campaign manager and came up with an array of appropriately bedizened candidate posters for her new best friend and hero, but St. Gay Of Lima balks at all the glitter and the rainbows and the Kurt-riding unicorns because he all of a sudden doesn't think people should be defining him by his sexual orientation. Whatever, Mary.
Meanwhile, Carmel High fired Dustin Goolsby from his job as head coach of Vocal Adrenaline because Vocal Adrenaline came in second at Nationals in New York in May, and now nobody wants to take the job at Carmel because of The Pressure, so Mr. Schue decides this means he cannot direct this year's gala musicale production as planned because Vocal Adrenaline now has a big, fat target on its back, so he'd rather focus on winning Nationals and running something called "Booty Camp," which basically amounts to remedial dance lessons for New Directions' differently abled students, and by "differently abled," he of course means Finn and not Artie, because: Duh. Finn suh-huuuucks at the dancing. For whatever reason, Mr. Schue transfers responsibility for this year's gala musicale production to Emma, Coach Beiste, and the aforementioned Artie, so they'll be the ones conducting the auditions.
Also meanwhile, Quinn Fabray and the Skanks have taken to shaking down hapless underclasspersons for their lunch money in the can, so Sue decides to recruit Quinn to star in an anti-arts Sylvester For Congress campaign ad entitled, I believe, "A Day In The Life Of The Girl From Whom the Arts Stole Everything." You know, because of the pink hair and the Seacrest tattoo and the menthols. Quinn agrees, but that's not all! Because also also meanwhile, Al Motta, the fabulously wealthy furniture-mogul father of tone-deaf self-diagnosed Asperger's wench Sugar, flew to New York to recruit Rachel Berry's surrogate mother Idina Menzel to establish a competing McKinley High Glee Club that will feature his obnoxious offspring in all of the leads. So, Idina Menzel moves back to Lima with Quinn's tiny little bastard of a daughter and Drama Ensues.
How does it all shake out? Like this: St. Gay Of Lima decides to butch it up and audition for Tony in this year's gala musicale production of West Side Story, and that little escapade goes about as well as you'd expect it to for someone named "St. Gay Of Lima" who regularly wears clothes like this. Unfortunately, in the process, St. Gay cock-blocks his dreamboat boyfriend, Blaine, from trying for the same role because of The Possible Drama Inherent In Such An Endeavor, so poor Blaine ends the evening all spluttery and forlorn when Artie, Emma, and Beiste insist he read for the lead. Good thing St. Gay Of Lima finally learned How Very Important It Is To Accept Yourself For Who You Are, though, because otherwise, I guess this Big Gay Subplot would have sucked my Big Gay Ass. Alas, we still don't know if everyone else in school thinks he's the most specialest magical unicorn of them all, so I guess we'll have to wait until week for resolution on that one.
Meanwhile, all of the other subplots failed to hang together for more than thirty seconds after they were introduced. Somehow, Rachel and her freshly returned surrogate mother bonded over Bernstein, Quinn decided to turn her life around in order to regain custody of that tiny little bastard of a daughter of hers, Sue's up nine points in the polls over her probable opponent in the general election, and FINN STILL SUCKS WITH THE DANCING.
Featuring a gross easy-listening version of "Somewhere" from West Side Story, performed somewhat inappropriately by Rachel and Idina Menzel (and seriously, between this and their "Poker Face" duet, what the hell is going on with those two?); "I'm The Greatest Star" from Funny Girl, deployed as a wholly inappropriate audition piece by St. Gay Of Lima; "Something's Coming," also from West Side Story, deployed as an entirely appropriate audition piece by Dreamboat Blaine; and this song from Franco Zeffirelli's version of Romeo And Juliet, deployed at an appropriate moment of high Shakespearean drama.