So this was a weird one, with lots of little things happening, but nothing really huge. It's all about people losing the things that make them special, voluntarily or involuntarily. Puck loses his mohawk when his dermatologist has to shave his head to examine a mole. With the mohawk goes his mojo. So he decides to get it back by dating the school's most popular girl -- Mercedes. She's not interested until he woos her with a smoking rendition of "Lady is a Tramp." They date until he gets his cool back, at which time she dumps him for being a jerk. But not before she goes toe-to-toe with a very pissed off Santana in a face-off both musical and physical.
Rachel loses her singing voice, which totally freaks her out, because she's certain she's nothing if she can't sing. That fear goes away when Finn introduces her to a football buddy who is paralyzed from the upper chest down due to a football injury. This magical dude has realized that he's more than football, and has found a reason to live. Rachel finds comfort in this -- especially after she gets her voice back.
And Kurt? Kurt voluntarily gives up the thing that makes him special after deciding that not being butch enough is preventing him from having a closer relationship with his father. So he wears flannel and chews tobacco and makes out with Brittany and goes so far as to sing Mellencamp. I know, right? But it still doesn't bring him closer to his father. Which causes him to launch into a truly epic performance of "Rose's Turn." And if you didn't think it was awesome, I don't want to know you. At the end of that performance, Kurt has a lovely, tear-filled reconciliation with his father. And that was awesome, too.
Previously, on Glee, I revealed way too much about my personal life. And it was the most polarizing episode ever. Until the week, which became the most polarizing episode ever. That is, until people started having street brawls over this episode. Glee has achieved what I thought was impossible -- every episode is the most polarizing episode ever. Although, I think this episode may have the very best and very worst moments ever on this show.
Buzz, buzz. Hair clippers in some short dark hair. And then we get the POV of someone walking through the halls of McKinley High while people stare in confusion. That POV walks into the music room, where the Glee Club is getting ready for rehearsal or something? (I guess this supports the notion that some people have that for at least some scenes, Glee Club is the equivalent of homeroom.) And the stares continue. And then the camera saves us from trying to figure out who's not in the room by spinning around and showing us that the POV was Puck's. And (for the 1% of the audience too stupid to feed themselves) that Puck is now sans mohawk. He walks past a staring Brittany and Santana. Brit-Brit whispers to Santana, "Who is that guy?"
Cut to sometime after rehearsal. Puck and Santana are alone in the music room. Puck: "My mom found a mole on my head when she was washing my hair on Friday." Santana, along with the entire viewing audience, asks, "Your mom still washes your hair?" Mrs. Puck was freaked out over the possibility of cancer, so she sent Puck to the dermatologist, who shaved off the mohawk to he could see the mole more clearly. I'm freaked out over the psychosexual implications of what we're learning about Puck and his mother, but I lack the power to send the two of them to a psychiatrist. Puck considers himself to be maimed: "I feel like that guy who lost all his hair and then lost all his strength?" Santana: "Samson?" Puck: "Agassi." Heh. And now Puck is upset because losers in the hallway dared to look him in the eye. He can't believe that his power to terrify was contained in his mohawk. Santana: "Actually, I don't know if it's the missing mohawk or the whining, but I am totally not turned on by you right now."
Puck walks outside, near a school bus. He realizes that he's being trailed by a bevy of nerds. And then another group of nerds, led by Jewfro, heads him off. Jewfro tells him that his new hair makes him look like a toddler. And then the nerds proceed to pick Puck up and throw him in the conveniently placed dumpster. Not only does Puck not resist, he seems resigned to his fate. In fact, it looks like he's decided to nap in the dumpster while his voice-over continues on with the rest of the scene. VO: "I'm human garbage. I should just lie here until the truck comes and let it crush me to death. What's the point of living when I suck so bad?" And then he hears the beautiful sound of some people clapping while Mercedes sings. He does his best Kilroy impersonation, sticking the top of his head out from the dumpster, where he sees Mercedes and some other Cheerios hanging out. The VO continues: "Wait a minute. That black chick used to suck and now she's all kinds of popular. If she can straighten herself out, I certainly can. But how? I'm not becoming a Cheerio. Wait. I don't need to be a cheerleader, I just need to date one. Get ready, black girl whose name I can't remember. The Puckster about to make you his." As we hear those last lines, Mercedes notices Puck staring at her from the dumpster. He catches her eye and winks. She looks mighty confused. I'd be confused too, if Oscar the Grouch started making googley eyes at me. Title card.
Rachel is putting bottle after bottle of pills down on the piano. Will asks her what's up, and she explains that she's taking vitamin supplements three times a day because she's exhausted. And she tells him that's because every song she sings in Glee Club is a solo. She continues, as we flash back to a rehearsal: "As you know, I have perfect pitch. Which also means I have a very sensitive ear. None of them were singing." The choir is warming up, and we see a bunch of them doing a completely lackluster job with their "mi-mi-mis" and their "ma-ma-mas." So Rachel had a talk with Lauren, the president of the A.V. club, who also happens to be the female wrestler from the Old Maids Club. She and Rachel are having a clandestine meeting in the stairwell. Lauren is almost offended at the simplicity of Rachel's request, which is that she bug the choir room to get proof that the other kids aren't singing. As some random student walks up the stairs, Lauren shoots him a sidelong glance and asks Rachel, "Who's this guy? Who is this guy?" And then she won't say a word until the potential eavesdropper is gone. Hee. After demanding payment in the form of candy, Lauren agrees to do it. Someone should explain to her that cash can be used to purchase items like candy. The bug is installed, the recording is made (on these big reels of tape -- in addition to learning about currency, Lauren should bone up on digital technology), and Rachel listens to the tape to figure out exactly which voices are missing. The best thing about this is that we get lots of close-ups of Rachel doing her warm-ups, which she performs with a deranged eyes-wide pageant glare. The end result of this is a list of five club members that aren't singing, which Rachel hands over to Will.
Mercedes is at her locker. Puck gives her an appraising look and saunters up to her, and then delivers this gem of a speech: "Hey sugar. Listen, I got a proposition to make. I did some research. Blacks and Jews have a history of sticking up for each other. And Wikipedia says that King Martin Luther loved the Jews." Mercedes can't even begin to count how many offensive things were contained in that statement; I can't begin to count how many funny things there were. Puck tells her that the point is that he needs to regain some popularity, which he thinks they can do if the two of them join forces. He proposes some light making out, noting (truthfully) that he's pretty easy on the eyes. Mercedes: "Baby, I just am not attracted to you. Plus, I know what you do to the girls you date. You knock them up, and then you hang them out to dry." Puck points out that he wasn't dating Quinn, he was just screwing her behind her boyfriend's back. And he tells her that Quinn is aware that he can't be tied down: "I'm a sex shark. If I stop moving, I die." She cuts him off before he embarrasses himself further, telling him that they have nothing in common: "You're top 40. I'm rhythm and blues." You just come over here, Puck, and I'll introduce you to the joy of dance remixes.
Music room. Mr. Schue is telling the kids how disappointed he is in them for slacking off. He also clearly told them the source of his info, since the other kids are pissed off at Rachel for ratting them out. She tells them to shove it; she's sick of carrying their weight, especially since it's just a month to Regionals. I was going to complain about this show's inability to ever stick to a timeline, but I realize that there are actually just four weeks left until the end of the season, so "a month" is as good a fictional timeline as any other. Will wants to know why the kids stopped singing. For Finn, it was because all the male leads started going to Jesse. Which, I guess, means that in his mind there's never been any need for Kurt or Puck or Matt or Mike to ever sing a note, since they never get leads. Santana says that her sole job is to look hot, not sing. Quinn blames her laziness on the baby hormones. Brit-Brit: "There are so many lyrics." Will starts moralizing -- a chain is only as strong as its weakest link, they're all in danger of losing their voices, so their assignment for the week is to come up with a song that represents their own voice and sing it as a solo for the entire club. And although he stresses that they're all going to be doing that, don't start to think we'll actually hear solos from more than a handful of kids.
Kurt and Mercedes walk out of the music room. He's very excited about the assignment, since he's very confident that he knows his own voice. He also tells her that he has the same vocal range as a 16th-century castrato. "But you know what I have that he doesn't?" Besides the obvious, you mean? Oh, Kurt actually means a song by Ms. Whitney Houston. And then his father, Burt, enters the school, sees him, and calls out to him. Kurt looks terrified to see his father, assuming that something must be wrong for him to have shown up at school like that. The look on Kurt's face almost makes me wonder if Burt had to come get Kurt at school on the day his mother died. No, Burt is actually there because he's taking Finn to a baseball game at the suggestion of Carol. Kurt wants to know why he wasn't invited to the game. Burt: "Are you kidding me? Every time I sit down to watch a game, you start in on the fact that all the players are wearing stirrup pants." Kurt, agitated: "Because there's never an excuse for stirrup pants." And then Finn appears to tell Burt that he's ready. Burt leaves, telling Kurt he'll be home around midnight. Kurt looks so stricken by this development.
In the music room, Puck is trying out his best pickup lines on Mercedes. "Girl, you got more curves than a Nissan ad." It's like he's channeling Larry from Three's Company. Mercedes is not impressed. Will enters and tells the kids it's time to start singing. Rachel jumps up to grab the first spot. She tells them she's going to sing "The Climb" by Miley Cyrus, since "it's about overcoming obstacles. In my case, the obstacle is you, my lackluster teammates who refuse to carry their own weight." You know, I feel like it's been quite a while since we've seen the Tracy Flick incarnation of Rachel. And then Rachel starts to sing -- horribly. Or, a little better than Miley Cyrus. The best thing, as always, are the reactions of the other kids. They all look pained. Except Brittany, who is smiling and nodding her head along to the music. Will interrupts the song to tell Rachel that she's lost her voice. And her panicked look takes us out to our first commercial.
One of the ads is for The Good Guys. I may have to watch that show, just because it's the first time in history that Bradley Whitford hasn't played a smug, self-satisfied, yuppie prick. This is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.
Kurt is inspecting his pores in a hand mirror at his locker when Sue walks up to him. "Hey, Ladyface. I noticed you weren't at Cheerios practice yesterday, and I don't look kindly on absenteeism." Kurt apologizes and blames his absenteeism on yesterday's emotional shock. And then he proceeds to explain that he's worried that he won't ever be close to his dad because he's gay. Kurt, just because Sue let you style her for a music video once doesn't mean you should share your feelings with her. Sue proves me right by asking Kurt how he could possibly know that he's gay since he's never kissed a boy or a girl. I don't know about Kurt, but I found the erections and wet dreams to be a pretty good indicator. Whoops, there I go with the oversharing. Anyway, back to Sue's rant: "You see, that's the problem with your generation, you're obsessed with labels. So you like show tunes. That doesn't mean you're gay, it just means you're awful! You know, there's only one person in this world who can tell you what you are." And all those after school specials and self-esteem filmstrips were lying to you -- it's not you, it's Sue Sylvester. And, she tells Kurt, she hasn't quite made up her mind about him. Kurt gets a brainstorm -- he can use the Glee Club assignment to somehow solve his problem. Sue: "Yeah, you know what, I checked out of this conversation about a minute back. So, good luck with your troubles, and I'm gonna make it a habit not to stop and talk to students 'cause this has been a colossal waste of my time." As she walks away, a couple of Cheerios throw themselves out of her way. Bye, Sue. See you in thirty minutes.
Cut to Kurt's basement bedroom/fashionable SoHo studio. Burt, in flannel shirt and jeans, comes down the stairs at Kurt's request. Kurt emerges into view -- baggy jeans, flannel shirt, down vest, and some kind of hideous cap on his head. He was looking for Burt's thoughts on his song choice -- "Pink Houses," by John Mellencamp. Burt is a calmer person than I am, because he neither faints nor does he ask what this impersonator has done with the real Kurt. Instead, his eyes pop open a little wider for a second, and then he notes that he didn't think the song was really in Kurt's wheelhouse. But Kurt thinks he should support a Midwestern guy who wrote a song about such bold interior decoration ideas. Burt tells him that the song is really about how the '80s were a tough decade. Kurt suggests they go for a couple of burgers and talk more about it. Burt: "Sure, but I gotta be honest with you. That's pretty much what every Mellencamp song is about. But you know, I'll get my coat. Anything to help you out." Kurt looks actually happy as his father walks away.
Doctor's office. Rachel is there, in a gown, lying back on the exam table. My God, one of her gay fathers could pass as Finn's identical twin. No, wait, that actually is Finn. Which makes me wonder where Rachel's dads are. You know, let's just pretend that Terri has kidnapped them and has them locked in a basement somewhere. Not only does it explain their absence here, it also explains why we haven't seen our psychotic little princess for more than 30 seconds in six episodes. Rachel is terrified that the doctor will tell her that she'll never sing again, because without her voice she's nothing. Finn tells her that there are actually many awesome things about her -- but then he can't actually name any. But just as Finn tells Rachel that the doctor is very unlikely to tell her she'll never sing again, the doctor walks in and tells her that she'll never sing again. But he's just joking. Actually, she has tonsillitis and an inner-ear infection. He's able to tell that this has actually happened many times in the past -- but I guess only at those times that Rachel had absolutely no reason to sing for a week or so at a time, or she would have gone through this all when she lost her voice some other time. He tells her that her tonsils should come out, but she doesn't want to let him butcher her throat and possibly ruin her singing voice. He tells her to take some antibiotics, "unless you think they're going to adversely affect your dance moves." Rachel asks Finn what he thinks she should do. He suggests asking her boyfriend. I suggest asking her fathers. Although at least the show has bothered to think of an excuse for Jesse's absence from this scene and this entire episode -- it's spring break week at his old high school, and he's gone on vacation with some of his friends. Finn asks Rachel if she really thinks Jesse will stick around if she turns out to be "a vocal cripple." Rachel tells him that she cares about Jesse deeply and knows that the feeling is reciprocal. And then she goes behind a curtain to change, giving Finn a chance to see her naked silhouette. While singing "Jessie's Girl."
The song segues to the music room, where the other kids are all enjoying it while Rachel is freaking out. Mostly because Finn won't stop staring at her and dancing around her chair. And then Finn finishes and Puck volunteers to go . He opens the music room door and a bunch of African-American, brass-toting musicians walk in. Mercedes asks what they're doing there, and Puck says that he invited his "brothers from the jazz band" to help him out. First, he left out his sisters, who are also there. Second, I thought the Glee Club quintet were all part of the jazz band? I'm so confused. Puck: "Since I shaved off my mohawk, I started seeing things differently. Last week, I joined a black church. And I recently downloaded every song Sammy Davis, Jr., ever recorded on iTunes. He was a black Jew, you know. And my inspiration." And then he starts singing "Lady is a Tramp." He's wearing black jeans, a black button-up shirt, and a black pinstripe vest. And a fedora. And he's laying down some smooth dance moves. What I'm saying is, I'll be in my bunk.
Okay, we're back. As Puck sings, Mercedes goes from freaked out to digging it. And Santana goes from digging it to giving Mercedes the stink-eye. If there was a special Emmy for stink-eye, Naya Rivera would surely win. Both for quantity and quality. Halfway through the song, Puck pulls Mercedes up to sing with him, and she really does have hints of Ella Fitzgerald in a few lines. Ads.
Hallway. People are checking Mercedes out with some admiring glances as she walks to her locker. But she's caught up short when she sees Quinn standing there. Mercedes thinks she needs to be apologizing or explaining why she's into Puck, but Quinn tells her to go for it, since it will keep Puck out of her hair. He won't stop talking about video games, and his mother won't let Quinn eat bacon. Which is relevant because that's where Quinn is living, for everyone who's been wondering since episode 13, when Finn learned that he was not the baby's father. But St. Quinn does want to make sure Mercedes is not going to be hurt by Puck, who they both realize is using her. Mercedes doesn't mind, since it just reminds her how hot she is to have a total stud wanting to use her for her popularity. She reassures Quinn that her heart is safe. Quinn: "I'm not worried about your heart. I may be okay with this, but not even Puck is going to be able to call off Santana." Mercedes flashes back to Santana glaring at her during Puck's performance and (I'm guessing) gets goosebumps.
Music room. Kurt, still in flannel, vest, and cap, and a kind of Midwestern redneck drawl, offers to sing first. He does a fine job with "Pink Houses," but it's just kind of scary ... wait, is he chewing? Oh, Kurt. Once again the reactions are great. Everyone is kind of nonplussed. Except Rachel, who's leaning over to her neighbors to ask what the fuck is going on. And Brit-Brit, who is smiling and nodding along, as always. Applause is weak, and Kurt notices that Will doesn't seem very happy. He asks if anything is wrong, and Will tells him that the song didn't seem to capture Kurt's true voice. Kurt refuses to be pigeonholed: "I'm not a box. There are more than four sides to me." Kurt, a box has six sides. If you had four sides, you would be a tetrahedron. And you really should stop borrowing Brittany's geometry notes. Will tells Kurt not to try to change who he is just because he thinks it will make his life easier. Everyone takes a break, and Brittany grabs Kurt on his way out the door. "So, you're pretty much the only guy in this school that I haven't made out with, because I thought you were capital-G gay, but now that you're not, having a perfect record would mean a lot to me. So, let me know if you want to tap this."
Finn is at his locker when he sees Rachel walking down the hallway. She's wearing her pajamas and a huge cardigan, her hair is a total mess, and she's eating a bowl of cereal. Again, where are her parents? If she's sick, why is she at school and not home resting? Did they go on spring break with Jesse? Because there's no way I believe two gay guys would let their daughter leave the house looking the way Rachel does. Rachel complains that it's been three days and her voice isn't better, which means she'll have to have surgery, which will ruin her life. Finn tells her stop feeling so sorry for herself. Rachel: "Why don't you get it. I am my voice. I am like Tinkerbell, Finn. I need applause to live." And then Finn tells her he has someone he wants her to meet. Commercials.
Kurt and Brittany make out on his tasteful white leather sofa, with a row of tea lights on the coffee table. Brit-Brit keeps moving her hand up Kurt's ass, and he keeps pushing it back down to his thigh. He tells her that her lip-gloss tastes like root beer. And then: "Can I ask you something? What do boys' lips taste like?" Brittany, God bless her, is not put off at all. "Usually dip. Sometimes burgers. Or my armpits." That's because she loves for guys to kiss her armpits. But how does she know what her own armpit tastes like? And then Burt walks down the stairs. He almost turns around and leaves, and then interrupts to ask them if he's interrupting something. Kurt and Brit sit up, and Burt tells Kurt how confused he is. "I came home to find this note on your doorknob. 'Do not enter under any circumstances, I'm making out with a girl.' And I just thought it was the start of one of your murder mystery dinners." Best of all is that Kurt put that message on a custom-made "do not disturb" sign. Kurt tells Burt he really needs him to respect his privacy, since he and Brit were "just having sexual relations." Burt finally looks like he doesn't know what to do about his teenage son, and gestures for Kurt to come talk to him a little more privately. Burt basically wants to know whether Kurt is gay or not. Kurt claims that he's discovered that he and Burt have a lot in common, including the love of vaginas and breasts. Burt tells Kurt that he's free to be whoever he is: "Just let me know when you make up your mind. I'm gonna do the best I can, but I'm good either way." Burt leaves, but not before telling them to be careful and use protection if things get serious. Brit-Brit: "Does he mean like a burglar alarm?" I have to think that Burt wouldn't be so cavalier about Kurt possibly having sex if he actually thought it was going to happen.
In the hallway at school, Puck is boring Mercedes and me with his chatter about the revolutionary nature of some feature in Super Mario Brothers 3. Not only is it supremely nerdy, but my personal nerds tell me that he's wrong -- the thing he's talking about is from some other game. Mercedes tells him that she agreed to date him because of his great arms and the serious musical chemistry that they share, but that she has needs beyond hearing about his video game theories. Namely, right now she needs a frozen coffee drink. Which he realizes actually means he should get her one. As he walks away, he notices that Jewfro averts his gaze. So Puck throws him against the wall and asks why he didn't look at Puck. Jewfro explains that it's because dating Mercedes has made Puck so cool that everyone is terrified of him. "Some of the guys who threw you in the dumpster actually transferred today out of fear of retaliation." Puck looks happy but surprised -- although, wasn't this his plan all along? It's either bad writing, or Puck is dimmer than I thought. You be the judge. Puck is so happy he doesn't beat Jewfro up, but he does steal his lunch money to use to buy Mercedes her coffee drink.
Puck walks down the hall, and Mercedes has noticed his treatment of Jewfro. As has Santana. So Mercedes calls Santana on her cell phone and the two of them walk down the hall and sing "The Boy is Mine" to each other. Or with each other. The song moves back and forth from classrooms and hallways to the music room, where at first they seem to be singing just to Puck. But then we see them singing the song for the entire Glee Club. So, for one of them, this song is the song that represents her true voice? I might actually believe that about Santana. And then at the end, there's a little pushing and shoving, which Will breaks up. That song was just crazy weird. Although Puck sure enjoyed it. Commercials.
Dumpster. Puck and some other meatheads have the nerds queued up into a dumpster-tossing assembly line, throwing them in one after the other. Mercedes sees him and asks what the hell he's doing, and he tells her that he's restoring the school's natural order. She doesn't like it, but he tells her she has to accept it, since the two of them are part of the system that requires that nerdy kids be thrown into trash receptacles. I think that system is based on the writings of Locke and Rousseau.
Okay, so here it is. The crap scene that makes me want to vomit until I die from dehydration and/or the destruction of my esophagus, whichever comes first. Finn and Rachel are at the home of Finn's Magical Cripple... I mean, Magical Handicapable friend. He's a guy Finn knew in football camp who one day got hit and suffered a C4 spinal injury, which means he's lost all feeling from about his shoulders down. Rachel wants to know why Finn brought her there. Oh, I don't know, maybe to ambush you and make you feel like a shitty person? And to make his friend feel like Cousin Geri, starring in her own After School Special? No, the real point is that Shawn (the Magical Handicapable dude) thought he had nothing but football until the day he lost it, after which he discovered that he had other things to live for. Including singing. Rachel goes from being totally freaked out when she first gets there to really appreciating the lesson learned from Magical Handicapable dude. Commercials.
Hallway. Mercedes is out of her boring Cheerios uniform and is back to some of her normal great threads. Puck asks her where the uniform is, and she tells him that she quit. Flash sideways to Sue, telling Mercedes that nobody quits Cheerios. "You either die or I kick you off." Mercedes tells her that it just wasn't her. For once, Sue actually has a good reason to be upset, since she built her routine for Nationals (which are in just a few weeks) around Mercedes doing ten minutes of Mariah Carey runs. Sue: "Guess I'll have to take to the mike and deliver a diatribe. Probably something about immigrants." Back to the hallway, where Mercedes tells Puck that Glee Club has taught her to be true to who she is, and who she is turns out to not be a popular cheerleader with a boyfriend who treats nerds badly. She tells Puck he should look into being who he is, because she doesn't think he's actually the mean jerk he pretends to be.
Brit-Brit and Kurt walk down the hallway holding hands. She compliments his soft hands. Kurt: "The secret? Duck fat." They pass Artie and Tina, who are freaked out by this blatant display of heterosexuality. Brittany: "Seriously, they feel like a baby. Now I know what it's like to date a baby." And then Burt calls out Kurt's name. Because he's there to take Finn out for hoagies and the motocross excursion that Finn won by catching a foul ball at the baseball game. Kurt, losing the drawl and the deep pitch, asks Brit-Brit to go away. And then, pretty quietly, he asks Burt if he ever thought that Kurt might want to do those things. Burt tells Kurt that he and Carol think it's good for Finn to be able to hang out with Burt. Burt promises to hang out with Kurt as much as he wants, "just not tonight." Burt leaves. And then, we come to a moment so great it requires a new paragraph.
As Burt walks away, we hear the opening bars of "Rose's Turn." (Actually, the middle bars, since we're skipping the first two minutes, in which Mama Rose has a psychotic break with reality and fantasizes that she's become a big vaudeville star.) And then Kurt starts singing the song. With tears in his eyes and pain in his voice, he sings the first bit at Burt's retreating back. And then he turns and strides purposefully down the crowded hallway, singing all the way. When we get to the "I had a dream" bit, Kurt's on stage, in a spotlight. And he's lost the flannel, trading it in for a great lavender shirt, a silky blue scarf, blue belt, and plaid pants. And a pair of combat boots that are up to his shins. Thank God. I couldn't take one more minute of that redneck chicless. Instead of singing about being abandoned by daughters and boyfriend, like Mama Rose, Kurt sings about feeling abandoned by his dad (and, to some unspoken degree, his mother). And poor Rachel gets name-checked in the song, but only because "Rachel Berry" can be made to rhyme with "Gypsy Rose Lee." When we get to the "when is it my turn" bit, more lights come up and we see that Kurt is in front of a red velvet stage curtain. And then the curtain comes up to reveal his name in lights. And he transforms from furious to fabulous, complete with Fosse-like dance moves, the signature adjustment of the front lock of his hair, and some great high kicks across the stage. He finishes with a roar and collapses to his knees.
I know that what I'm about to do will invite an avalanche of hate mail the likes of which I haven't seen since I said I didn't like Penn and Teller and I was denounced as an enemy of magic on some e-mail list for magician nerds. (And yes, I do know that "magician nerds" is redundant.) But still. I have spent the last several days listening to "Rose's Turn" as performed by some of the leading lights of Broadway and American music, and I think that what we saw on this show was one of the best ever. So, Ethel, Tyne, Betty, Bette -- you have just been schooled by a nineteen-year old boy in his first role ever. Patti, you held your own due to your utter and complete commitment to depicting the full depths of Mama Rose's insanity. And as for you, Bernadette I do not want to see your face right now. What did poor Mama Rose ever do to you that she deserved that kind of treatment? Okay, bring on the hate mail. (And you magician nerds can send me more hate mail too, if you like.)
Back to the scene. The fantasy lights go away (but not the clothes, thankfully), and we hear the sound of one hand clapping. I mean, one pair of hands. Burt's hands, to be more precise. "That was some serious singing, kid." Kurt asks what happened to the hoagies. Burt tells him they blew it off. When Kurt bitterly suggests that Finn must have been disappointed, Burt tells him that he understood once Burt explained that he needed to spend time with Kurt. Kurt claims that he's fine. Burt: "Kurt, I'm dumb, but I'm not stupid. And I have no idea what that song was about, but 'fine' don't sing like you just sung." Burt starts to talk about they both knew it would be difficult for him to adjust to Kurt being gay. Kurt tries to turn it around, apologizing (again, bitterly) for being such a disappointment. Burt, to his credit, is not taking crap from his son and makes it clear that he and Kurt both know that's not what he meant. And Kurt, to his credit, knows he's being irrational and that is dad is working hard. It just cuts him to the quick when he sees how easy it is for Burt to be friends with Finn, because he doesn't think he and his father will ever have that kind of ease in their relationship. Burt realizes that was why Kurt was acting like such a redneck, and Kurt tells him that he was trying to demonstrate that he'll work just as hard as Burt to make their relationship work. Burt: "You don't have to work, at anything Kurt. Your job is to be yourself. And my job is to love you, no matter what. That, and a majority ownership in a tire store, that's all we got." Kurt tells his father that he misses him, and they hug and say, "I love you." As always, these two actors are amazing together.
And now the scene that makes me want to have my corpse cryogenically frozen until the distant future, when they have found a cure for death by dehydration and/or destruction of the esophagus so they can revive me and I can vomit some more. Rachel has arrived at Magical Handicapable Shawn's house. She wants to thank him for his Magical Handicapable wisdom. And she wants to offer to give him singing lessons. Which makes him realize that her voice came back. Way to rub it in, Rachel. He suggests they sing right there. So she takes his hand and they sing "One" by U2 (which she calls "classic rock," causing everyone over the age of thirty-five to curse her with a righteous fury). She starts the song, and then he takes over. And then we get instruments and a full stage version with the Glee Club. Which is either a fantasy or their big number for Regionals, who knows. Finn is on lead. And then we cut back to Rachel and Magical Handicapable Shawn. And the one perfect tear rolling down Rachel's cheek. And the bile crawling up my esophagus. Credits.
I have not been able to grade this episode. On the one hand, the sheer stupidity and utter hatefulness of the Magical Handicapable dude subplot deserves an automatic F. Or lower. But the show gets credit for casting an actual quadriplegic actor for the role. It was great to see Puck and Santana both get big songs. And Kurt's subplot deserves an automatic A-plus, both for acting and writing. And a thousand gold stars for "Rose's Turn." But still, I can't reward that vomit-inducing Magical Handicapable bullshit. So no grade for you, Ryan Murphy.
LTG is a full-time pension lawyer and still a part-time enemy of magic. You can reach him at ltg.jon@gmail.com.
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