By Demian
Previously on Pee-Wee's Playhouse: "Voice."
Will, having been summoned to the Maharishi's lair, pokes his portable Superfund site of hair-care products through the principal's door to wonder waht gives. Maharishi Figgins wastes not an instant in introducing Will to the school board's newest member, and it's that beloved international star of stage and screen Neil Patrick Harris! Well, it's actually "Bryan Ryan," but Bryan Ryan is being played by that beloved international star of stage and screen Neil Patrick Harris, and I don't think I really needed to spell it out for you like that, but whatever, and where was I, again? Oh, yes: Beloved International Star Of Stage And Screen Neil Patrick Harris pivots in his chair to offer Will a chipper, "We've met!" and Will instantly finds himself hurtling headlong into a...
...FLASHBACK! "Bryan. Ryan!" Will's voiceover narrates, positively dripping with loathing and contempt as it reminisces, "We went to school together, and he made my life a living hell. He was two years older, dated every girl I liked, got every solo..." And by now, the visual's caught up with the flashback's piano vamp to reveal a bemulleted Bryan Ryan dueting on The Monkees' "Daydream Believer" with a perkily permed blonde atrocity who's sporting some rancid black acid-wash jeans beneath one of The Limited's deathless takes on early-'90s plaid grungewear, and she's accessorized this with a black braided belt I've no doubt she picked up with her employee discount at The Gap, and I'm so distracted by the sheer hideousness of her outfit and hair-don't that I nearly miss the amateurish sleight-of-hand Flashback Bryan Ryan pulls to yank a colorful bouquet of feather flowers out of his nasty grey-on-grey checkerboard-patterned Cosby sweater, and oh, my God, make it stop! Make it stop! Though to be fair, no one else in the Flashback McKinley Music Room's looking any better, what with the veritable cornucopia of trashy Baja hoodies and eye-searing print button-downs on display, not to mention the various Ohndrea Zuckerman wannabes liberally sprinkled about the scene. (And no, I had no idea Original Recipe Link Larkin was featured in that clip when I chose it, but his presence does make the selection seem rather serendipitous, don't you think?) One of the unfortunate Ohndrea Wannabes is, in fact, seated right to Flashback Will, who's grinning through a mouthful of braces like the pimply fourteen-year-old idiot he's supposed to be at the moment until Flashback Bryan Ryan's mighty feat of prestidigitation leaves him gape-mouthed with awe. "What's the matter, Schuester?" Bryan Ryan snides. "Cat got your talent?" Um. What?
By Demian
Smear forward to the present, where the evil Bryan Ryan explains his presence in this evening's episode like so: "I'm here to do an audit of our curriculum, Will -- we may need to cut some of our district's art programs." Maharishi Figgins assures Will it's all a mere formality, but Bryan Ryan hastens to differ, announcing that he's probably going to axe the Glee Club first. Will, of course, is flabbergasted and outraged, but does manage to splutter, "But you were in the Glee Club! Show choir was your life!" And strap yourselves in for a massive information dump, kiddos, because we're about to get all of Bryan Ryan's tumultuous backstory. "It was, Will," Bryan Ryan agrees, rising from his seat to roam about for his monologue, "and after I graduated, I hit the big time: I was a featured soloist at Kings Island in The Doodle-Dee-Doo Music Revue -- we were a smash -- then for three years I did the cruise ship circuit!" Maharishi Figgins has become positively enraptured by this point, just so you know. Hee. "But when that dried up," Bryan Ryan continues, sadly, "I realized I had been sold a bill of goods, and nine years later, I woke up on a urine-stained mattress in the West Lima crack district." Bryan Ryan pauses for a dramatic moment to let the sordidness of his fall from eighth-tier showbiz grace sink in. "Then," he perks up, "something amazing happened: I was introduced to Jesus." Maharishi Figgins -- whose apparent devotion to Our Lord And Savior was introduced at the beginning of the season, then dropped until the first of these back nine episodes -- positively plotzes at Bryan Ryan's revelation, and even though Jesus was actually Bryan Ryan's "Honduran social worker," the Maharishi remains smitten. It's very disturbing. And funny. In any event, with Jesus's help, Bryan Ryan straightened up, put down the crack pipe, married the lovely Wilma Ryan, and now runs a successful used Hummer dealership. "Don't make that face," he chides Will. "Global Warming's a theory." And now, four nights a week, Bryan Ryan runs "a show choir conversion group."
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By Demian
Smear back to the group's most recent meeting, where Sally O'Malley babbles something worthless about Miss Adelaide and topless auditions and drugs before they completely waste John Michael Higgins on a pointless cameo, and then we...
...smear forward to the present, where Bryan Ryan says, "I just wanna have a talk with your kids -- make sure you're not building up their hopes, just to have them knocked down." Will has little choice but to agree, so the thing we know, we've been bounced over to...
...the music room, where Mr. Schue's reluctantly introducing Mr. Ryan to the Glee Club. And when he's done, Bryan Ryan takes to the center of the floor to instruct, "Take out a piece of paper, and on that paper I want you to write down your biggest dream." Rachel, of course, scrawls "HUGE STAR" in her notebook. Meanwhile, The Puckasaurus scribbles out "3some" while Quinn carefully inscribes, "NO STRETCH MARKS." Glad to see at least one person here has his priorities in order, though I could have sworn he'd already achieved that particular goal with Orange April and Gaylord Weiner eight months ago. No matter, though, for this little exercise is simply an excuse for Bryan Ryan to smash the Glee kids' hopes and dreams into a thousand million tiny little bitter pieces, which he proceeds to do by first abruptly crumpling Artie's sheet of paper into a ball and pitching it in the trash, after which he brusquely informs them all, "Your dreams are never going to happen! Ninety-one percent of you will spend your entire lives living in Allen County, Ohio, so unless you wrote down that your dream was to work for a mid-market health insurance provider or find an entry-level job in an elderly care facility? You're going to be very disappointed." And even though Bryan Ryan's just made an excellent point, we're supposed to hate him because he's being so smarmy and condescending about it. Which, you know, is a shame, because his point is even better: "Showbiz dreams are the most unrealistic of them all." Bryan Ryan then holds his supposed old archrival up for special ridicule by noting, "Will Schuester, here, is a prime example -- he used to have that glimmer of hope in his eyes that I can see right now in all of yours, but he couldn't make it happen for himself, so he now has to try and convince you all that it will happen for you." "Guess what?" Bryan Ryan rhetorically continues. "His dream didn't work out, and neither. Will. Yours!" Single-T Tina dissolves into single-t tears. Brittany, however, is sitting there with a broad, guileless smile on her face. HA! Mr. Schue rises to make threatening noises, but Bryan Ryan simply smirks and notes, "You've made my decision about which program to cut a lot easier." Hey, wait a minute! Isn't McKinley High's show choir an unfunded extracurricular activity, anyway? The implacable title card seems not to care, so neither will I.
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By Demian
Over on the relatively new school library set, Artie struggles to reach a copy of Godard On Godard that's been erroneously shelved amid a clutch of tawdry HarperCollins romance novels that some genius seems to have categorized into the Agriculture And Related Technologies section of Dewey Decimal System. Single-T Tina, by now thoroughly recovered from her earlier Bryan Ryan-induced crying jag, steps over to help him, and wonders why Artie's reading up on the master of the French New Wave. "I was figuring," Artie admits, "that since I'm never gonna become a star as a performer, maybe I could become one behind the camera." "Did you know Christopher Reeve directed a movie after his accident?" he notes before prompting, "In The Gloaming?" "I didn't see it," Tina shrugs. "Me neither," Artie immediately grimaces. "Too depressing." Hee. True, Artie. True. The two then launch into an awkwardly scripted discussion of their dreams that I totally don't care about because this show's not going to be throwing any focus on these two characters again for at least another six or seven months, so long story short, that piece of paper Bryan Ryan crumpled into a ball and pitched into the trash? Tina snaked it from the garbage can after the meeting and found out Artie'd written "DANCER" on it, so she proposes they concoct a wheelchair-appropriate choreography routine for this week's Glee Club assignment. Artie hesitates, but eventually agrees to the plan. !
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By Demian
Down in the school's dance studio, Rachel pirouettes into her own subplot of the week when the divine Jesse St. James materializes at the end of the barre. After the two exchange somewhat strained pleasantries, Jesse St. James asks, "What were you just rehearsing?" Rachel haltingly explains that her dream has always been to play Evita, Funny Girl, and Laurey from Oklahoma! on Broadway, and that she was just practicing the latter's famous Dream Ballet sequence, as is her wont when she's feeling a little stressed. And now that they've gone and mentioned Oklahoma!, I have to admit I'm a little disappointed they didn't figure out a way to incorporate the lovely "Out Of My Dreams" into this episode, though I've a feeling if they had, they would have gone for the far more aggressive version with Josefina Gabrielle and Natalie from The Facts Of Life. You know, from the 1998 London revival where they turned Laurey into a lesbian, and everybody thought it was a brilliant and daring reinterpretation of the character, rather than a strange and inappropriate and off-putting mistake? That one. Though, you know, in that revival's defense: Hugh Jackman. Woof. Then again, his accent annoyed, he's not the best dancer to toss into the Dream Ballet, and he looked awfully silly in those ill-fitting chaps -- historically accurate though those chaps must have been, I'm sure.
Anyway, Jesse St. James makes like the perfect and perfectly dreamy boyfriend he might or might not be when he says exactly the right thing at this moment, which is this: "That's not a dream. A dream is something that fills up the emptiness inside -- the one thing that you know if it came true, all the hurt would go away. You singing 'Don't Cry For Me, Argentina' in front of a sold-out crowd isn't a fantasy. It's an inevitability." Awww! Can he please stay? Through season at least? Please? Rachel melts almost as quickly as I just did, and she buries her troubled head in his welcoming chest as he draws her in for an embrace. "I thought you'd never come back," she whimpers, for their last argument was indeed gruesome and seemingly final. "And miss all your drama?" he smiles. "Never." Awwwwwwww!
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By Demian
And after that lovely little moment that may or may not have been sincere on Jesse St. James's part, the bell rings, and the two amble out into the hallway, where Jesse wonders what Rachel's real dream is. "When you lie awake at night," he asks her, "what's missing?" "My mom," she admits, and I'm calling it right now: Idina Menzel is Rachel's birth mother, and we will receive confirmation of this before tonight's episode is over. And now that Rachel's conundrum of the week has thus been so efficiently established and resolved, let's jump with the camera as it leaps back to...
...the music room, where Single-T Tina taps her troubles away, and I have no problem informing you all that Jenna Ushkowitz is no Matthew Morrison. Hell, she isn't even Rita Moreno, and Rita Moreno -- God love her -- can't tap-dance to save her life. In any event, Artie's there with her, and they've affixed taps to the big wheels on his chair so he makes appropriate noises when they spin around, but Artie's deeply dissatisfied with the results. "I sound like someone put tap shoes on a horse and shot it," he half-smiles, trying to make light of the moment. He then asks Tina to fetch a pair of canes he borrowed from some random we'll never see who happens to have cerebral palsy, and he makes to stand with them, reasoning that the "super-human upper-body strength" he's developed from years of wheeling himself around should allow him to drag himself across the floor. Of course, he's wrong, and Kevin McHale's burly thirtysomething stunt double -- you know, the one with the remarkably broad shoulders and the unusually healthy forearms -- face-plants into the linoleum the instant Artie attempts to propel himself forward, and if I cared at all about this subplot, it would all be so very, very sad, but I don't, so it isn't, and !
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By Demian
...the present, where Jesse St. James just wants to make sure he's got this straight: "Are you saying your fathers impregnated Patti LuPone in the Marriott in Akron? Was Mandy Patinkin in on this?" HA! And as Rachel whips out a series of photographs that supposedly prove Patti LuPone was mourning her lost daughter for most of the mid-1990s, I'll note that I've done a little research of my own, and the Encores! production of Pal Joey ran for all of three performances from May 5th through the 7th. In 1995. In April of 1994, Patti LuPone was actually indulging in a very long and terribly chic European-style nervous breakdown because Andrew Lloyd Webber fired her from the Broadway transfer of Sunset Boulevard. Ooops! Maybe they'll get it right the time. Then again, it's called "Google," idiots, and it took me all of three minutes to dig that crap up. How much are you guys getting paid for these scripts, again?
In any event, none of this actually matters, because Idina Menzel is Rachel's birth mother, a fact for which we will receive confirmation before tonight's episode is over, and !
Gary Wright croons "Dream Weaver" as the camera pans through a dimly lit bar to land on Will and Bryan Ryan perched on a pair of adjacent stools, sucking down a couple of beers. "You were a big deal at McKinley," Will remembers, somehow managing to mask his loathing of Bryan Ryan with tones of admiration as he continues, "You were one of those dudes where all the guys wanted to be you and all the girls wanted you." "Not all of them," Bryan Ryan snorts. "Really?" Will retorts, amicably enough. "Who was the one that got away?" "Ter(r)i Delmonico," Bryan Ryan replies, and Will executes a perfect spit-take across the bar while I rush over to the Internet Movie Database to check on the spelling of his ex-wife's given name, because I haven't seen her wonderfully psychotic ass on this program in what seems like years, and I can't remember if it's one R or two. And by the time I've returned, Will's already told Bryan Ryan about the breakup of his marriage, and there's some blathering about how Glee Club saved Will from himself, or some such bullshit, and then we finally -- finally -- get to the point of this scene: Bryan Ryan has been living a lie. A filthy, disgusting, perverted lie. You see, despite his earlier protests to the contrary, Bryan Ryan desperately misses performing, and has taken to sneaking off to New York three times a year to see Broadway shows. "I have a box of Playbills hidden away in my basement," he sobs, deeply ashamed, "like porn!" Or, you know, like photos of your very special "travel assistant," your utterly unqualified Homeland Security advisor, your underage Congressional page, your exceptionally vigorous meth dealer, or that nice undercover police officer you met in the Minneapolis airport, am I right? Is this what's passing for humor in this episode? Seriously? Seriously? Ugh.
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By Demian
In any event, Will furrows his brow at Bryan Ryan's shocking revelation, and he rises from his stool, crosses to the jukebox, and punches the buttons for Billy Joel's "Piano Man," which immediately begins playing even though "Dream Weaver" wasn't anywhere close to being done, but whatever, because Bryan Ryan actually soloed with this number at Sectionals in 1992, and the two launch themselves into a boozy karaoke sing-along like the lightweights they currently are, much to the apparent delight of the other patrons in the far blurry background of the shot. And Will and Bryan Ryan harmonize pretty well together at one point, but let's face it: We've been sitting here for almost a half a goddamned hour already, and we've yet to see a single goddamned sparkly musical number, and I WAS TOLD THERE WOULD BE SPARKLY MUSICAL NUMBERS. Will eventually gets Bryan Ryan to promise he'll try out for a local community theater's production of Les Miserables that Friday, and we head into this evening's commercial break wondering what the hell is going on with this evening's tedious pacing. Is it deliberate? And if it is deliberate, can we have whoever's responsible fired before they get a chance to pull this crap on us again? Huh? HUH?
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By Demian
School. Single-T Tina catches up with Artie, apologizes for yesterday's fiasco in the music room, pushes into his hands a ream of research she conducted last night on the Internet regarding alternative therapies for spinal-cord injuries, exhorts him not to give up on his dream, kisses him in the middle of a massive lens flare, and !
Rachel's exceedingly chaste boudoir, where Jesse St. James waits patiently while Rachel ransacks the "little Rachel Berry Museum" her fathers keep in the basement for papers and artifacts related to her birth and early years. She finally arrives from below with two bankers boxes that hold, among other things, a jar of her baby teeth, an ultrasound showing her in fifth position in her mother's womb, the trophy she won at her first singing competition when she was eight months old, and the analog cassette tape labeled "From Idina Menzel To Her Biological Daughter, Rachel Berry" that Jesse St. James surreptitiously slipped from his pocket while Rachel's back was turned. DUN! Delightfully devious Jesse St. James immediately leaps to play the thing on Rachel's ancient boombox, but Rachel rises to her feet in protest, pleading that it's much too soon, and that everything's happening too fast. Jesse makes wounded noises, but Rachel will not be swayed, and she banishes him -- temporarily -- from her boudoir. !
Lima Theatre Guild. As volunteer carpenters lug pieces of the Les Miz set from one side of the stage to the other, a solidly built matron auditions for the musical's rotund director with a badly mangled version of "Big Spender" from Sweet Charity. Meanwhile, out in the auditorium, Will and Bryan Ryan are horrified to realize they both intend to try out for Jean Valjean with -- of course -- "The Impossible Dream" from Man Of La Mancha. The two quickly descend into loud bickering, with both laying claim to Dream On" as their alternate audition piece, and the petty yowling reaches such volume that the rotund director halts the solidly built matron's caterwauling to order Will and Bryan Ryan onstage for an Aerosmith duet, pronto, and finally we get a goddamned musical number up in this ungodly mess of an episode.
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By Demian
And that musical number is, quite frankly, fantastic. The two start off on opposite sides of the stage -- silently snarling at each other like they're about to launch themselves into an especially fey reenactment of Gunfight At The O.K. Corral, even going so far as to twirl their microphones like six-shooters -- and then it begins, with Will turning the first few lines of the song into a mocking indictment of Bryan Ryan's rapidly fading looks and foolishly squandered potential, and he's so overpoweringly awesome doing so in his little vest and white V-neck t-shirt and just-baggy-enough chinos that when Bryan Ryan finally picks up the verse, I can't take the guy seriously as Will's rival in anything. It probably doesn't help matters much that Neil Patrick Harris's performance here is reminding me of what I've seen of his turn as that whiny little bag of hipster shit in Rent, and because I hate both that whiny little bag of hipster shit and the so-called musical he rode in on, Will wins. Hooray! Also: Commercial!
We arrive back from the break to find Single-T Tina wheeling Artie through the mall, where he's just optimistically bought himself a pair of tap shoes, and I was going to bust on the idea that a mall in Allen County, Ohio, would host a Capezio outlet, but it turns out there are three stores in Delphos, Ottawa, and Wapakoneta that carry the brand, so what the hell do I know? Anyway, Tina's about to head up to the mall's second level to fetch them some soft pretzels when Artie stops her with, "I need to tell you something -- I went to the doctor yesterday, and he started me on all the therapies that you researched for me, and guess what? They're working." With that, Artie rises slowly from his chair, and we have officially entered the Dream Ballet portion of this evening's festivities. Oh, come on. Like you really thought this bit was actually happening when the episode aired.
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By Demian
Dream Artie inserts a CD into a rack of players on display in the mall atrium, and when "Safety Dance" by Men Without Hats comes flooding out of the speakers, Artie leads a suddenly appearing flash mob composed of several dozen teen-esque mall patrons (plus one old guy) in a ridiculously exuberant routine that quickly overwhelms all of the atrium's available space while a giddy circle of less-agile shoppers bops along to the infectious beat on the sidelines. Some have insisted on the boards that each Glee Club member has a Dream Ballet counterpart, but the only ones who are immediately apparent to me are Dream Tina, Dream Butt Lunch, Dream Gaylord, Dream Brit-Brit, Dream Lady Face, and -- for one hot second -- Dream Brassy Hag. It's mostly an immense amount of fun, but the choppy editing that leaps across multiple angles of the action destroys the dance's momentum, and that problem's only made worse when they shift from the standard film cameras to simulated hand-held cell phone shots like you've no doubt seen incorporated into the hundreds of flash-mob videos now on YouTube. In fact, when they whip out the supposed cell phone shots, the entire number transforms into a mash-up of my two least-favorite music videos of all time, "Praise You" by Fatboy Slim and "You Get What You Give" by the douchetastic New Radicals. Though I probably shouldn't complain too much. Especially because I'm extremely likely to forget all about this dreadfully paced mistake of an episode as soon as I've submitted the recap.
And in the end, after Dream Artie most awesomely surfs atop the crowd towards the song's final note, he drops back into his chair, and the camera cuts away to a wide angle of the atrium, showing Real Artie trapped in a sort of enforced passivity at the center of an unceasing flow of the mall's pedestrian traffic until Single-T Tina returns with their pretzels. "You okay?" she asks, having noted the strange, faraway look on his face. "I'm gonna dance one day, you know," Real Artie replies, still smiling at his little fantasy. Yeah, don't bet on it, kid.
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By Demian
We zip over to Sue Sylvester's office, where there follows a scene between Sue and Bryan Ryan that's so drearily earnest in its arguments for parity in the funding of physical education and arts programs in the public schools that it ends up completely out of whack, tonally speaking, with the rest of the series, and it is such a bizarre aberration that I'll be speeding through the major points. Long story short, Bryan Ryan has come to understand how important arts funding actually is, as exposure to the arts improves math, foreign language, and reasoning abilities, and he now seeks to reduce the Cheerios budget because that one squad is gobbling up, like, 75% of the high school's resources for extracurricular activities. Sue, naturally, is outraged at this latest assault on her award-winning cheerleaders, and counters that the decline in our nation's physical education standards has not only led directly to an unprecedented obesity epidemic, but has also negatively impacted the problem-solving and social skills of an entire generation of American children. And when they're finally done thus lecturing the audience, we return to the Glee I originally signed up for. "You're an impressive woman," Bryan Ryan admits. "I can't tell you how much you turn me on right now -- have you ever heard of the term 'anger sex'?" "The only kind I know, Bryan," Sue replies, matching his simmering level of low-key and slightly dangerous ardor while getting right up in his face. "I should tell you I'm married," he warns. "Not a problem," she shoots back. "I'm still cutting half your budget." "You win some, you lose some." "Should I lock the door?" "No, I got a secret room upstairs. Like Letterman." HA! And yes, if it's ever referred to again, I will be calling it "Sue Sylvester's Secret Annex," because: Ew! Commercials.
And by the time we return, night has fallen. Along with about eight inches of rain, by the looks of the monsoon now raging outside Idina Menzel's car. From points unknown, a dangerously wet Jesse St. James hops into the passenger seat and -- without even offering his evil mentor so much as friendly hello -- blurts, "She has the tape, but she won't listen to it!" Idina Menzel's all, "That cursed brat! Oh, what a world, what a world! Who would have thought a sheltered little diva like her could destroy my beautiful wickedness? Ooooh! Ooooh!" Or maybe she gets a fretful look on her face and babbles, "She has to listen to it -- that's the point of all this!" "I'm doing my best!" the dangerously wet Jesse St. James protests, dripping all over Idina Menzel's upholstery. "Look, when you told me to seduce her..." Here Idina Menzel abruptly cuts Jesse off to correct him. "'Befriend' her was the word I used, actually." Jesse: "Whatever." Heh. "The thing is," he explains, "I was into it because I thought it would be a good acting exercise, but now I think I kind of like her." Of course he thought it would be a good acting exercise. Of course. Hee! "I don't want her to get hurt," he stresses. Idina Menzel assures him that their current plot should last no longer than one additional week, after which Jesse St. James can return to Vocal Adrenaline where he belongs. Jesse St. James helpfully confirms what everyone in the audience knew all along by noting, "I don't understand why you can't just go up to her and say, 'Hi! My name's Shelby! I'm your mom!'" And strap yourselves in for a massive information dump, kiddos, because we're about to get all of Idina Menzel's tumultuous backstory. Long story short, she signed a contract with Rachel's dads that stipulated she have no contact with her biological daughter until Rachel's turned eighteen. "She has to come to me," Idina Menzel emphasizes, adding, "That's why she has to listen to the tape -- once she hears it, she won't be able to sleep until she finds me." And we'll just go with that, because the first half of this boring episode nearly killed me, and I haven't the strength at this point to question Idina Menzel's addled reasoning. Besides, I'm pretty sure Idina Menzel could knock the living crap out of me.
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By Demian
In any event, Idina Menzel proceeds to offer Jesse St. James the entire sordid tale of Rachel's conception, birth, and contractually obliged abandonment, and it all seems like an unnecessarily extreme example of super-icky teacher-student oversharing to me, but again: Idina Menzel can kick my ass. So, Idina Menzel was young, she needed the money to move to New York to pursue a theatrical career, and surrogacy seemed like an easy way to get it. Naturally, her theatrical career failed, and because of her single-minded devotion to her job, her walls now "are lined with trophies instead of wedding pictures," but in spite of all that, she has but one regret: That she never got to know her daughter. "You get her to listen to that tape," she insists, sounding more than a little desperate and unhinged. Dangerously wet Jesse St. James solemnly nods his head, then vanishes back into the rain.
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By Demian
School. Artie wheels himself into Emma's office -- her necklace is to die, by the way -- and informs the guidance counselor that he'll be requiring a prescheduled weekly meeting with her for the foreseeable future in order to prepare for his inevitable... you know what? Screw this shit. Artie hands Emma that ream of research Single-T Tina pulled off the Internet one night last week and claims it proves he'll be walking again soon, so Emma's all, "They didn't go and change the meaning of the phrase 'crippled for life' when I was busy coordinating my adorable little outfit this morning, did they? Because if they didn't, then I'm pretty sure it still means that you're never going to get out of that chair, kid. Ever." Only she's much kinder about the entire situation than I was just there, of course. And because he ate stupid for breakfast this morning, Artie is crushed, and sadly wheels himself out of there. Or something like that. !
Music Room. Bryan Ryan, with all the fervor of a new convert, has raided the Cheerios budget to embark upon a mad spending spree through The Jazz Hands Catalogue (yes, I checked and no, it doesn't exist) and now bestows upon the Glee kids such choice goodies as a set of custom-made New Directions jean jackets, some "rad tearaway dancewear," and the sheet music from every Broadway show produced in the last fifty years. Cue Sue, who enters to announce she's "over the moon" for Mr. Schue. The rotund director of Les Miserables, you see, just happens to be the guy she's contracted to provide the Cheerios with dry-cleaning service, and Sue -- ever sneaky, ever fabulous -- obviously coerced the guy into awarding Mr. Schue the part of Jean Valjean. And Bryan Ryan? Sue secured for him the role of "Townsperson," who gets one line at the end of the second act: "Hooray!" Hee. Her seeds of dissent thus so masterfully sown, Sue exits, and not an instant goes by before Bryan Ryan announces that he's cutting the Glee Club from the district's budget for good. With that, he flounces on out of there with his choice Jazz Hands goodies in tow, leaving a freshly beleaguered Mr. Schue to sigh his way into this evening's final commercial break.
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By Demian
Lima Theatre Guild, and let's get this asinine storyline over with, shall we? Bryan Ryan's pacing the lobby, assiduously rehearsing his single line when Will breezes in to announce he's resigned from the musical. The part of Jean Valjean is Bryan's, if the latter still wants it. Of course he does! And while we're at it, consider the Glee Club funding restored! Whew! What a relief! !
Rachel's Exceedingly Chaste Boudoir. Rachel emerges from her en-suite bath to find Jesse St. James standing at her ancient boombox with "From Idina Menzel To Her Biological Daughter, Rachel Berry" in his hot little hands. Not taking no for an answer this time around, he places the cassette in the deck, presses Play, and skedaddles. "Hi, baby," Idina Menzel's recorded voice begins. "It's your mom, and I pretty much think this says it all." She begins to sing "Song For The Crazy Cat Lady With The Eyebrows And The Hair," and as I dropped a stealth link to the tune earlier in the recap, I'll not be doing so here -- not because I can't be bothered to copy and paste a bit of HTML code, but because I hate Les Miserables with the fiery passion of a thousand blazing suns, and I am therefore feeling petty. After this wretched episode is over, I intend never to listen to a single note of its score again. At the moment, though, I'm happy enough following along as Idina Menzel and Rachel share the vocals on this particular piece, as both ladies are bringing it to the fantasy staged duet that ensues. Pity the material's so far beneath their talents. And in the end, Rachel weeps, left all alone in her exceedingly chaste boudoir. Too bad she doesn't have a couple of preternaturally supportive gay dads she could talk to about this. Hey, wait a minute!
School. Out in some random hallway, Single-T Tina's begging Artie to reconsider. You see, he's decided that it's time to face facts, and the facts indicate he'll never be a dancer, so Tina should partner with a different guy in the club for her little tap routine. "But I want to dance with you!" Tina insists. "The fact is," Artie sighs, "any of the guys in there could dance my part better than me without even rehearsing." Pause. "Well, except Finn." HA! It's funny because it's true. Artie eventually convinces Tina he's right, but she makes him promise he'll still sing the song for her.
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By Demian
Music Room. Mr. Schue announces that the Glee Club has been saved! Again! Yay! !
Tina steps forward for her presentation and -- after she shares an anguished glance with Artie -- informs everyone that her dance partner for the afternoon will be... Butt Lunch! Or Gaylord. I still can't tell those two apart sometimes. Hearty applause all around.
And in the end, the camera rises on the auditorium stage for this seemingly endless episode's finale, "Dream A Little Dream Of Me," which I should think everyone would be familiar with by now. Artie sings, Single-T Tina and Gaylord (or Butt Lunch) dance, various Glee Club members wordlessly express emotions appropriate to their situations, Mr. Schue pretends to care, and we finally cut to black.
week: Gaga! Surprisingly enough, it looks like it's going to be a hell of a lot of fun. See you on June 1st!
Demian is not cool with that. You may ask him why via demian_twop@yahoo.com.
See what Joss Whedon said about directing NPH in this episode.
Watch this episode here, discuss it in our forums, then see the show's Worst Musical Moments.
See what made the cut in this list of TV's 50 most shocking moments ever.
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