By LTG
Welcome back, fellow Gleeks! It's a brand-new year at McKinley High, bringing lots of changes. Trouty Mouth, a.k.a. Sam, has left the school. Lauren Tuna, a.k.a. Lauren Zizes, has quit the glee club because it was damaging her coolness factor. And Quinn, a.k.a. Christian Barbie, has turned into Rizzo from Grease, complete with pink hair and nose ring. However, unlike Rizzo, she has no interest in singing, and quits New Directions. And even Santana's pleas of Cheerio solidarity can't get her to change her mind. Oh, and Will and Emma have apparently moved in together.
In terms of actual plot, there are four stories. First, and as always, New Directions has to recruit more members. Unfortunately, Will's harebrained scheme of placing purple pianos around school only attracts one auditioner, who turns out to have the musical sensibility of a howler monkey. and because she can't dance as well as Mike Chang, Will is forced to give her the boot.
In addition, Sue is running for Congress in a special election. She decides that her main platform will be opposition to public funding for the arts in schools. Since she's decided to declare war on the arts, Will decides he has no choice but to declare war on her, and he turns into a gay activist, glitter-bombing her at Cheerios tryouts. This causes Sue to renew her attempts to obliterate the glee club, and she orders Santana to destroy the purple pianos. After Santana lights one piano on fire, Will demonstrates his testicular fortitude for the third time in the episode by ejecting Santana from New Directions.
Meanwhile, Kurt has spent the summer trying to convince Blaine to transfer to McKinley. Blaine does spend the first few days of school at Dalton, but he eventually succumbs to Kurt's charms, transfers to McKinley, and joins New Directions. I sure hope his parents don't mind losing that nonrefundable first semester tuition.
Finally, Rachel and Kurt tell Emma, in her role as guidance counselor, that they plan to attend an arts school in New York City after they graduate. She sends them to a mixer for potential applicants to a highly selective performing arts program in the city. They head to the mixer fully confident that they will be able to intimidate other students out of applying, but are themselves highly intimidated when confronted with a showstopping production number. But in the end, they pull themselves together, and swear that they will both get into that school.
Featuring Tom Jones' "It's So Unusual," sung by Blaine, The Go-Go's' "We Got the Beat," sung by New Directions, an arrangement of "Ding-Dong! The Witch Is Dead," most famously performed by Barbra Streisand, performed here by (who else?) Rachel and Kurt, "You Can't Stop the Beat," from Hairspray, performed by New Directions, and a mash-up of "Anything Goes" and "Anything You Can Do," performed by an army of Rachel and Kurt clones, featuring The Glee Project's Lindsay.
Watch a video recap of this episode, courtesy of The Morning After: