Never Been Kissed

S02E06

Puck gets sprung from juvie a little early thanks to his smooth ways with the parole board, so Mr. Schue decides to celebrate by having New Directions split up to compete in "The Second Annual Boys Versus Girls Tournament." Kurt again makes to team with the ladies, and if he looks especially put out this time around when Mr. Schue orders him back with the guys, well, it's because White Boy Jock Meathead's been especially brutal with the between-classes abuse as of late. Mr. Schue himself witnesses one particularly violent body check into a locker and decides to try to accommodate Kurt a little bit as far as this week's assignment is concerned by dictating that the girls perform boy songs while the boys perform girl songs. Initially, this pleases Kurt, but when the Glee Guys balk at sporting a set of cunning marabou boas to trill Diana Ross tunes, Kurt flounces off in a pout to spy on the first of the club's two recently announced Sectionals rivals, The Dalton Academy Warblers of Westerville.

Of course, while at Dalton, Kurt meets Blaine, a superfantabulous gaylet who's comfortably out amongst his peers, mainly because The Dalton Academy is the gayest all-boys school you're likely to see in your entire lifetime, but officially because The Dalton Academy has a strict no-tolerance policy for bullies like White Boy Jock Meathead. The wee Mr. Hummel is instantly smitten and, armed with several of The Superfantabulous Gaylet's superfantabulous platitudes, he returns to McKinley determined to stand his ground the time White Boy Jock Meathead takes a whack at him. And because Glee would be nothing were it not for its clichés, it turns out White Boy Jock Meathead's been such a massive cock all this time because he's secretly gay himself, and nursing a massive meathead crush on Kurt. Kurt has the gall to act as if he's never seen this particular plot twist anywhere else on television, and things are rather ominously left up in the air when White Boy Jock Meathead immediately retreats back into the depths of his closet after his entirely unsurprising revelation, so expect a few more wacky hijinks from him over the couple of episodes.

In news of far lesser importance as far as this episode is concerned, Lady Lips Von Bieberhausen, Frankenteen, and Single-T Tina take to picturing Coach Beiste in a variety of scantily clad and extremely amusing positions as a way to cool down when their mackery sessions with Quinn, Rachel, and Gaylord Weiner get a little too hot and heavy, and through a variety of contrivances, Coach Beiste finds out about it. Deeply insulted, and with her authority thus so miserably undercut, Coach Beiste decides she has little choice but to resign, much to Sue's cackling delight and Will's guilt-ridden dismay. In the end, however, saintly Will manages to pep-talk (and smooch) Coach Beiste back onto the faculty, and all is forgiven when the Glee Guys dedicate their mash-up performance to her.

And in news of absolutely no importance to anyone, Puck takes Artie under his wing to fulfill the mandatory community service obligation ordered by his parole officer. I'm sure various lessons were learned by everyone involved, but I can't for the life of me remember what any of those lessons were at the moment. Too bad.

Featuring an overproduced a cappella version of Katy Perry's "Teenage Dream" as performed by that all-gay all-boys school, a strummy al fresco version of Bob Marley's "One Love/People Get Ready" as performed by Puck and Artie, a bizarre mash-up of Bon Jovi's "Livin' On A Prayer" and The Rolling Stones' "Start Me Up" as performed by the leather-clad vixens of New Directions, and an even more bizarre mash-up of The Supremes' "Stop! In The Name Of Love" and En Vogue's "Free Your Mind" by the fleet-footed Glee Guys.

McKinley High Locker Room. Frankenteen's minding his own business, chilling in the hot tub when one of the assistant coaches dumps a Gatorade bucket full of ice into the adjoining metal whirlpool bath. Lady Lips Von Bieberhausen presently appears, strips off his shirt, and settles himself into the chilly waters as Finn dudes, "Duuuuude! How do you stand that cold tub?" "Used to cold showers dating Quinn," Sam shrugs a bit mopily, and off Finn's rather dimwitted dumbstruck expression, we smear sideways to...

...a recent round of mackery between Quinn and Sam, held under the watchful eye of Quinn's Blessed Virgin Mary statuette. Sam lets a hand go wandering down Miss Quinn's bare thigh, which is of course a tremendous no-no, and when she delicately yet firmly plucks his offending appendage from her bare skin, Lady Lips turns on the charm to mumble a few incomprehensible words regarding his desire for "a little something-something." "A little something-something always leads to something more," she primly reminds him, making brief reference to her late bout of uterine-related unpleasantness before assuring him, "When we're prom king and queen, it'll feel just as good as a little something-something." Sam, thoroughly unconvinced of that, drops his head backwards in frustration, and we smear back over to...

...the locker room, where Finn commiserates, "Been there, dude -- actually, still there now." He puzzles over their shared predicament for a moment before squinting, "How did we find the only two girls in high school who won't put out?" "Whaddya do, though?" Lady Lips shrugs again. Finn admits he thinks "about the opposite of what [he's] doing," and by way of illustration, we smear sideways to...

...a recent round of mackery between Finn and Rachel, held under the psychedelic eye of Rachel's Hair poster. Miss Rachel starts nuzzling at Finn's neck, leading to all sorts of distressingly familiar facial contortions on Finn's part. Fortunately for everyone involved, just before the top of his head explodes, Finn remembers the mailman. Denim Carole's shrieks of terror are as hysterically funny now as they were when first we heard them a year ago, but that's not important at the moment, because what is important at the moment is the fact that Finn's successfully averted yet another embarrassing accident. With an easygoing smile plastered across his incredibly dumb face, he rolls on top of Rachel for a little more nuzzling as we smear back over to...

By Demian

...the locker room, where Lady Lips eyebrows, "I've never actually almost killed a civil servant before." "Well," Finn allows, "you have to find something to be your own buzzkill -- you know, something that is totally not hot." On cue, Coach Beiste enters to loom over scrawny little Artie in the far background of the shot, brandishing an athletic supporter and roaring, "I don't care! If you're on this football team, you'll wear a cup!" Finn gets An Idea, and grins. "Hey," he conspiratorially murmurs to Sam, "you ever notice when The Beiste gets all fired up, her underpants go right up her butt?" The camera zooms in on Coach Beiste's derriere as she picks at her rage-induced wedgie. "Looks like I found my mailman," Lady Lips supposes. "Yes, you did!" Frankenteen all but giggles. Title card.

Hall. Kurt and Single-T Tina float towards their class swathed in a smug cloud of self-satisfied sartorial superiority until White Boy Jock Meathead slams Kurt into a locker. Well, actually, Max Adler sort of taps Chris Colfer on the shoulder, and Chris Colfer positively hurls himself against a nearby bank of lockers like the overly emotive attention-whore drama queen we all know he secretly is. Kidding! I'm totally kidding. Seriously, though, Adler barely touches Colfer, and the whole Bodycheck-Into-Locker effect's coming from Colfer slamming his open palms against the metal as loudly as he possibly can. It's really kind of funny once you notice it. It also makes this evening's woeful tale of physically abusive high-school bullying almost impossible to take seriously, but that's something I'll likely get into later. For now, though, I should probably get used to typing White Boy Jock Meathead's actual character name, which is "Dave Karofsky," because he'll be figuring heavily into this evening's abovementioned woeful tale. And it figures that dicksmack would be named Dave, doesn't it?

Music room. Kurt and Tina arrive just as the second bell rings, and as they take their seats, Mr. Schue welcomes back the errant Mr. Puckerman, who as you'll recall was sent to juvie for all of two weeks for knocking over an ATM. As Puck's fellow Glee Clubbers offer the delinquent a round of applause, Mr. Schue condescends, "I hope your time in juvie has taught you a lesson or two about right and wrong?" "Are you kidding?" Puck snorts by way of response. "I ruled that place -- all I did was crack skulls and lift weights all day." "Wow, what a catch, I can't believe I ever let you go," Quinn drolly deadpans as Mr. Schue calls for an impromptu drum-roll from Finn, for he's just received notification of New Directions' competition in this year's Sectionals. "First," the strangely bespectacled Mr. Schue announces, "the a cappella choir from the all-boys private school in Westerville, The Dalton Academy Warblers!" "Okay, hold up!" Santana Lopez interrupts, a deliciously wicked grin spreading across her face as she snickers, "Like, a million awesome gay jokes just popped into my head!" The camera pulls a rack focus to capture Kurt's supremely disdainful "Bitch, please!" reaction shot, and I'd approvingly note this episode's attention to the sort of soul-crushingly casual everyday homophobia exemplified by Santana's statement were this episode actually interested in the sort of soul-crushingly casual everyday homophobia exemplified by Santana's statement, but this episode isn't actually interested in that sort of thing even though that sort of thing is depressingly far more common than actual physical abuse, so forget I said anything about it, and where the hell was I?

Oh, yes: The second team to beat is "The Hipsters, a first-year club from the Warren Township Continuing Education program," which happens to be "composed entirely of elderly people getting their high school GEDs." "Is that legal?" Rachel protests. "How are we supposed to compete against a bunch of adorable old people?" Mercedes grumps. "Brittle bones," Puck darkly warns before elaborating, "Give one of those little old ladies a good-luck pat on the rear, it'll shatter her pelvis!" I'd protest the soul-crushingly casual everyday ageism exemplified by Puck's statement, but this episode isn't interested in that, either, so I'll skip ahead to the bit where Mr. Schue announces this week's challenge: "Since it seemed to get you guys jazzed about Sectionals last year, I wanna make this week our Second Annual Boys Versus Girls Tournament!" Joy. The kids are pumped at this news, though, and I suppose that's what really matters. Mr. Schue orders the class to split up accordingly for their initial strategy sessions, and Kurt of course moves to join the girls, and Mr. Schue of course grunts for Kurt to redirect himself to the boys' side of the room, so Kurt rather pissily plants himself in the middle of all the football players and sulks until the bell rings.

Hall, where Puck arrives at Artie's locker and we arrive at the subplot I'll likely be ignoring for the rest of this recap. Long story short, Puck finagled an early release from juvie by promising the parole board he'd throw himself into community service as a way of making amends for knocking over that ATM. Because picking up trash on the side of the road is too "ghetto" for our dear Mr. Puckerman, he instead vowed to aid this "cripple" he knew who needed some help, and his probation officer went for it. "I'm your community service?" Artie realizes, not exactly displeased with this asinine turn of events. Puck confirms this -- in so many words -- and he wheels "Professor X" into the cafeteria to steal food just as Dave Karofsky gently nudges Kurt into another row of lockers.

"What is your problem?" Kurt screams, to the utter indifference of the several hundred students now swarming around him on their way to lunch. "You talkin' back to me?" Karofsky snarls, getting all up in Kurt's grille. "You wanna piece of the fury?" Karofsky seethes. Kurt and his twee little clockwork bowtie are all, "A piece of the who in the what, now?" so Karofsky menacingly explains that "Fury" is what he named his fist. "Well, with that level of creativity," Kurt sneers, "you could easily become the assistant manager at a rendering plant." Says the kid whose father is a mechanic. "I don't know what that is," Karofsky predictably replies, "but if I find out it's bad, The Fury's gonna find you!" With that, Karofsky again gently nudges Kurt into a row of lockers and clomps off, conveniently passing the just-arriving Mr. Schue as he goes. Mr. Schue takes stock of the situation, makes note of Kurt's apparent distress, and drags everyone's favorite little fashion plate into...

...his office, where Mr. Schue rather limply offers tea and sympathy while Kurt bewails his miserable existence. Or something like that. "Is there anything I can do?" Mr. Schue wonders. Kurt stares balefully at Will all, "Are you kidding me with that shit, you fucking retard?" before forcing himself once again to rise above it all and too-graciously reply, "No, this is my hill to climb alone." Martyr. And because I kind of hate both of them in this scene, let's cut to the central point of the whole thing, shall we? Mr. Schue notes that Kurt's general demeanor has taken a turn for the worse as of late -- which, you know, father in a coma, and all that, moron -- and Kurt notes that Mr. Schue is "too quick to let homophobia slide," but because Kurt then starts bitching about Mr. Schue's "boring and repetitive" lesson plans, Mr. Schue decides his teaching methods are the reason for Kurt's gloomy mood, so he...

...skips back to the music room to announce that the boys must perform girl songs while the girls perform boy songs. "The more opposite your choice," he explains, "the more points you get." "Don't worry, gentlemen," Kurt excitedly tells the football players, "I have this one under control."

Smash cut to Kurt slapping a pointer against a betasseled idea board, upon which he's pasted a cut-out of himself sporting a rather Cher-like feathered headpiece. "Obviously for this medley to work," Kurt lectures as the football players stare at him all befuddled and such, "I'm gonna have to sing lead, and of course when you're singing Diana Ross, Bob Mackie-esque feather boas are a must!" "Isn't this lesson about opposites?" Artie thinks to wonder. "I mean, you in a sequined gown and a feather boa is exactly what you'd expect." Kurt makes to protest that he said nothing about sequined gowns, but Puck for one is not buying it, and he suggests Kurt make himself useful by putting "rat poison in old folks' Jell-O" or spying on "The Garglers." "The Warblers," Kurt testily corrects. "Whatever," Puck shrugs. "You can wear all the feathers you want -- blend right in!" Kurt, outraged, huffily snatches up his idea board and flounces, leaving Gaylord and Finn to shoot worried looks at each other for some reason that's never explained.

Later that evening, Lady Lips and Miss Quinn indulge in another round of mackery beneath the watchful eye of her Blessed Virgin Mary statuette, and just as Sam starts making googly eyes, he flashes on a soft-focus image of Coach Beiste, clad in a slimming black negligee, blowing kisses as she butchers a side of ribs with a meat cleaver in the McKinley High locker room. It's a sublimely bizarre visual. It's also far too sophisticated for some pasty little twerp like Lady Lips to have concocted on the fly, but as it's the first real laugh I've had this evening, I'll go with it. "Say my name!" Quinn croons into Sam's ear, and Lady Lips's legs go all wobbly, so he conjures up the soft-focus image of Coach Beiste in full Cheerios regalia demanding the same thing. "Beiste!" Sam whispers, enthralled. Quinn makes a tremendous stink-face at her boyfriend's unwitting faux pas and squints, "Are you okay?" "Yeah!" Sam dreamily replies. "I could do this for hours!" Not if this commercial break has anything to say about it, you dolt.

Sue's office, the following morning, where we find Quinn rather urgently relating the events of last night. "There we were, making out," she breathlessly states, "and he said it: 'Beiste!'" "I think he was picturing making out with her!" she adds, subtly repulsed. "That is the most horrific image I can imagine," Sue declares. Quinn babbles that she needs help -- she's done everything she can to rehabilitate her image by pulling down straight As and dating the cutest guy in the school... "Who'd rather be dry-humping She-Hulk," Sue interjects. "Oh, dear God, why did I say that?" Sue scolds herself. "Now that's what I'm picturing. You know what kind of disgusting images I'm gonna have to look at to get this out of my head? I'm gonna have to go straight to the wound care center. Have to stare at some wounds." Hee. Quinn blows all of that off to plead that she doesn't know what to do about the whole sordid situation, but Sue of course spots an opportunity and quickly formulates a plan to rid McKinley of her latest arch-rival once and for all. "We need to go public with your pain," Sue decides, "get people talking about this, make Beiste into the Mary Kay Letourneau." I'm kind of frightened that Microsoft Word includes "Letourneau" in its dictionary, but that's not important because Sue's also decided that Quinn needs to give Sam a piece of her mind. "Loud, and in public," Sue instructs. "Show him who's the boss!" "Oh, man!" Sue moans. "Now I'm picturing the two of them making out during an episode of Who's The Boss?" I bet it's the episode where Alyssa Milano gets her first period. Am I right, Sue? Huh?

By Demian

Out on McKinley High's massive outdoor patio -- and in the middle of a heavy November rainstorm in Ohio, no less -- Puck decides to teach Artie a lesson in badassery by... busking during lunchtime. No, seriously. Can you see why I'm ignoring this subplot? In any event, Puck whips out his acoustic, and he and Artie perform a strummy version of Bob Marley's "One Love/People Get Ready," with Puck all the while silently intimidating various nerd clusters into tossing their lunch money into his guitar case. Oh, and McKinley's seldom-seen steel drum brigade makes a very special supporting appearance. God, this sucks. And in the end, Puck and Artie decide to blow the $300 they've just earned on dinner for four at BreadstiX, the other two in their party of course being Santana and Brittany -- Santana because Puck wants to get some, and Brittany because Artie's feeling guilty about how he treated her way back at the end of "Duvets." Got all that? Good. !

By Demian

The camera goes all spinny while staring straight up into an intricately wrought skylight somewhere posh before twirling down a spiral staircase to find shady Kurt attempting to blend in with all of the shouting, smartly uniformed gentlemen now swirling about him. He's taken Puck at the latter's word, you see, and motored on over to Westerville to spy on Dalton Academy's Warblers. Flustered by all of the activity -- and sucking mightily at the whole spying thing, by the by -- Kurt stops one of the smartly uniformed gentlemen to wonder what gives with all the extremely masculine frenzy. The smartly uniformed gentleman introduces himself as "Blaine" and explains that The Warblers are throwing "an impromptu performance in the senior commons," adding that such performances "tend to shut the school down for a while." "So, wait," Kurt frowns, not quite believing what he's hearing, "the Glee Club here is kind of cool?" "The Warblers are like rock stars!" Blaine smiles, all sparkly eyed and neatly pressed and liberally scented with something fresh 'n' sensuous by Kenneth Cole, and Kurt is, of course, instantly smitten. So am I, to be honest with you, because Darren Criss sure does clean up real pretty. Shame his character had to be introduced in this decidedly sub-par episode.

In any event, Blaine claims he knows a shortcut to the commons, and he grabs Kurt by the hand, and there's this completely ridiculous and totally over-the-top shot of the two of them running -- hand-in-hand, and in slow motion -- through an exquisitely appointed side hallway until they arrive at the commons, where they burst through the paneled doors to find the room already aswarm with Blaine's thoroughly manly classmates, several of whom are moving the backgammon tables to one side so The Warblers might have more space in which to sing, and I'm sorry, but this is all really, really gay. Like, Brideshead Revisited gay. And not the wretched 2008 movie adaptation of Brideshead Revisited, either, despite the similarity in costuming with all of these navy prep-school jackets and their contrasting piping. No, I'm talking the original delirious 1981 Brideshead Revisited miniseries kind of gay. Like, if that version of Sebastian Flyte started singing Katy Perry songs with all of his bestest Oxonian buddies gay. Only, you know, without all of the overbearing Catholicism and the dissolute drunkenness and such. That kind of gay.

Meanwhile, back at McKinley, Gaylord's just told Tina about Sam's cool-down strategy. "That is hilarious," Tina grins. "Let's get a room!" With that, she drags Gaylord into McKinley's bizarre astronomy classroom so they can do it under the stars, or something like that, and Television Without Pity's forum boards get a lovely little shout-out when Tina calls Gaylord her "very own SituAsian," and when things get a little too hot and heavy for Tina, she pictures Coach Beiste in a pink tutu performing barre exercises while puffing on a fat stogie. Not as funny as butchering ribs whilst sporting naughty negligee, but better than the rather clichéd Cheerios outfit. "Beiste!" Tina whispers, enthralled. Gaylord makes a tremendous stink-face at his girlfriend's unwitting faux pas and squints, "What did you say?" "Nothing!" Tina lies, instantly freaked out, and she bolts from the room in a mad panic, leaving Gaylord alone to repeat the coach's name with an expression of utter disgust on his face.

Out in the hall, Quinn follows Sue's instructions to the letter by conducting a very loud and very public argument with her boyfriend between classes, all but forcing Sam to shout, "I'm not cheating on you with my football coach!" "Can we talk about this in private?" he pleads. "Why?" Quinn snots back. "Am I embarrassing you?" "It's not what you think!" Sam insists. "What I think," Quinn announces for any and all to hear, "is that I'm not putting out for you, so you're getting it wherever you can, including the locker room, with The Beiste." Coincidentally enough, The Beiste herself happens to be passing by at this very moment, and she goes, "What's this?" "'This,'" Quinn snots once again, "is a lovers' quarrel, and it's your fault!" "Watch your tone with me, missy!" Coach Beiste immediately retorts. "You crap on my leg, I'll cut it off!" Quinn whatevers and flounces off, allowing Gaylord an opportunity to storm up and order Coach Beiste away from his woman just as Mr. Schue arrives to witness all the hi-larious hijinks. "What the hell's going on around here?" Coach Beiste growls before stalking off. "What is going on?" Mr. Schue repeats. Another asinine subplot? Oh, sorry -- my bad. It's actually another commercial break.

And while we were gone, Mr. Schue somehow managed to browbeat the truth out of Lady Lips and Gaylord, and he now berates them for using Coach Beiste as some sort of boner-killing anti-fantasy. "What if Coach Beiste were to find out about it?" he seethes. "Think about how hurt she'd be!" "It's not personal," Sam lamely counters. "Of course it's personal!" Mr. Schue spits. He argues that Coach Beiste is as much of an outsider at the school as the Glee Club is, noting that no one appreciates her or her talent "because they decided that she's too different." "And for you guys to abuse that," he continues, disgusted, "even in private? Is the opposite of everything we're trying to achieve in here!" "I need you to stop," he emphasizes, "and spread the word to all the other Glee guys -- and girls: This ends here and now, and Coach Beiste can never know about this!" Abashed, Gaylord and Lady Lips agree.

Meanwhile, back in Kurt's private little exquisitely appointed gay fantasia, Blaine and two of his smartly uniformed cohorts have spirited Our Dear Mr. Hummel to another of Dalton's choice interiors for a little kaffeeklatsch over some tasteful scones and lattes, and Kurt makes the eminently understandable mistake of assuming all three of the Dalton boys are gay. The Daltonites chuckle at this for a bit before Blaine notes that while he himself actually does bat for Kurt's team, the other two gents have girlfriends. "This is not a gay school," one of the others claims despite all evidence to the contrary before explaining, "We just have a zero-tolerance harassment policy." "Everybody gets treated the same," the other one who isn't Blaine agrees, "no matter what they are -- it's pretty simple." Kurt of course bursts into tears at this, so Blaine quietly asks for a little private time with the intruder from McKinley. Once they're alone, he gets Kurt to open up about how horrible things have been for him back in Lima, with specific mention made of Karofsky for reasons which shall become clear towards the end of the episode. Well, clearer, I suppose, for those of us who already suspect that Karofsky's just another great big self-loathing closet case, what with all of the attention they've been heaping upon him thus far in this episode. Your call.

In any event, Saintly Blaine absorbs all of Kurt's many grievances and, after a thoughtful pause, he confesses he endured much the same at his old school. "It really pissed me off," he admits, "and I even complained about it to the faculty, and they were sympathetic and all, but you could just tell that nobody really cared -- it was, like, 'Hey, if you're gay, your life's just gonna be miserable! Sorry! Nothing we can do about it!'" "So, I left," Blaine shrugs, sounding more than a little wistful and disappointed in himself, "and I came here. Simple as that." "So, you have two options," he continues, perking up again as he flips the topic back onto Kurt. "You can stop blowing all of your cash on those ridiculously expensive designer clothes you wear all of one time before you wad them up into wrinkly little balls that you toss into the back of your closet and use those thousands upon thousands of dollars to transfer to Dalton already, or you can refuse to be the victim, which is easy for me to say because I have spectacularly wealthy parents who pulled me out of an obviously abusive situation and sent me to the one school on the planet where gay boys who sing show tunes get treated like rock stars."

I might have embellished a little bit.

Meanwhile, back in hell, the Glee Gals work on their costumes for the big showdown until Puck wheels Artie into the music room, and as I'm trying to ignore this subplot, I'll simply note that Puck and Artie ask Santana and Brittany to dinner at BreadstiX in the rudest manner possible, and leave it at that.

Teachers' lounge. Will's alone, pouring himself a cup of abusive public school coffee when Coach Beiste wanders in to wonder what gives with his weirdo Glee kids, what with the way they've been mouthing off to her recently. "I'm the coach here," she needlessly reminds him, "and if the students here don't respect me, I can't do my job." Newsflash, Beiste: Some of your students will never respect you because they abhor what you represent, which is the fact that athletics are far more valued than academics in every single goddamned high school in this country, so go cry into your $14,000 hot tubs and leave me the hell alone.

Wow. Where the hell did that come from?

Anyway, you know how Will told Gaylord and Lady Lips that Coach Beiste could never find out that the kids were using her as some sort of boner-killing anti-fantasy? He was lying. "The kids are using you as some sort of boner-killing anti-fantasy," Will basically tells her. And instead of reacting as any sane adult would -- you know, by going, "Pfft. Teenagers are assholes, and the world would be a better place if they all dropped dead, am I right?" -- Coach Beiste Takes! It! Personally! and storms from the teachers' lounge in a massive funk, with useless Will shouting apologies at her quickly vanishing back. Way to go, Hair Gel.

BreadstiX, and because I am doing my best to ignore this stupid subplot, I'll simply note that Puck talks a big game about how he ruled the juvie lunch line before he decides they're all going to dine and dash. Artie quite rightfully realizes that's a really shitty thing to do to a waitress, and hangs back long enough to slide her enough money to cover both the check and the poor woman's tip. Unfortunately, Puck catches Artie in the act, and they break up. I think. I mean, I'm pretty sure. !

Music room, the following day (I'm guessing). The lovely leather-clad ladies of New Directions perform a deeply ugly mash-up that Frankensteins "Start Me Up" into "Livin' On A Prayer," and as it's patently obvious by now that nearly all of tonight's songs have nearly nothing to do with tonight's plot, I don't have much to say about it, other than to note that Dianna Agron and Naya Rivera look unreasonably hot in their metal-vixen catsuits. Especially Agron, who's, like, illegally hot, because looking that good with Axl Rose's bandana plastered all over your forehead has got to be a crime somewhere in this world. Oh, and in the middle of it all, Kurt gets a text message from Blaine that reads, simply, "Courage," which has absolutely nothing to do with anything else that's going on in this scene, so I can't for the life of me figure out why they decided to shoehorn it in here, and is this over yet? It is. And just as it ends, Becky runs in from the hall with an important missive for Will from Sue: "AUDITORIUM NOW."

Auditorium, now. Will ambles down the center aisle to find Sue standing astride center stage. "Take a good look, William," Sue magnificently instructs, "because Sue Sylvester's got two things to show ya!" "To my left," she notes, directing our attention to a megaphone-shaped contraption on one side of the stage, "I have one confetti cannon." "To my right," she continues, helpfully pointing towards an identical contraption on the other side of the stage, "you'll find another confetti cannon." "You know what that means?" she prompts. Will looks dumb, so she answers her own question with, "We. Got Beiste. Fired." Will gapes as Sue adds, "And my full budget is restored!" With that, she presses the red button on her confetti cannon remote, and a screen-obscuring cloud of glittery Mylar shreds bursts forth to litter the auditorium at large. Sue cackles in triumph, and it is a beautiful thing to behold.

Meanwhile, Will's brain has finally clanked and thunked and wheezed itself to life, and he splutters, "Wait. What?" "Well, actually," Sue admits, "she quit, but I'll take the W, and it was your kids who made it happen, Will! It finally occurred to them to stop singing all that nonsense about how awesome it is to be alive or ugly or whatever the point is you guys are always trying to make, and instead? They just got mean!" Sue beams at him at this point, and offers him a deeply heartfelt congratulations. Hee. "Wait," Will blurts, because he's still not getting it, "Coach Beiste quit?" "I just said that, Annie Sullivan," Sue replies. "You want me to sign it into your palm?" Here Sue politely excuses herself -- but not before ordering Will to clean up her magnificent Mylar mess, of course -- leaving Will to stare slackjawed at her departure until the bell rings.

Out in the hall, Kurt's still getting all pie-eyed over Blaine's terse little text message when Karofsky arrives to bat the phone from his hands and gently nudge him into yet another row of lockers. Kurt howls with outrage and chases after the guy, eventually arriving in the otherwise deserted locker room for tonight's big confrontation, and I have to admit: The more I watch this scene, the more I hate it. Not because it trots out and reinforces that tired old cliché that insists all violent homophobes are secretly gay themselves -- that I can deal with, because it's an idea that's been floating through popular culture for decades, and it's not going to go away anytime soon, no matter how much evidence piles up to refute it. And I don't hate it because Chris Colfer's shrieking all of the nasty insults flying out of Kurt's mouth to the point where I want to slap Kurt across the face and tell him to shut the hell up already, although I maybe might possibly hate it a wee tiny bit because of that. No, I think I really hate it because the individual beats within the scene just don't add up to that supposedly earth-shattering kiss for me. It could be the dialogue, or it could be missteps in the direction and the editing, but it makes no sense for Karofsky to plant a big old sloppy wet one on Kurt at that moment. And yeah, you can argue that Karofsky's motivation will never make sense because Karofsky's so monumentally screwed up that he's acting like an insane crazy person all the time, every single day of his life, but I'm not buying that. Something Kurt says or does to him in this scene, at that moment, has to push Karofsky into that kiss, and I'm simply not seeing it.

So, yeah, another F for Feh with an A for effort, because whatever you want to say about this scene, you have to admire them for having the balls to air it on primetime broadcast television as part of a show that -- for better or worse -- has found itself firmly targeted against the teenage demographic over the last year. But to recap: Karofsky gently nudges Kurt into yet another row of lockers, Kurt chases Karofsky into the locker room where they scream at each other for an increasingly uncomfortable period of time, and when it looks like Karofsky's about to punch Kurt's lights out, Karofsky kisses Kurt instead. Kurt is shocked and appalled, Karofsky is sickened and repulsed, and the audience heads into the commercial break wondering if they're really going to drop this entire storyline week to squeeze in a guest appearance from Gwyneth Paltrow just because that hag's got a movie coming out.

Music room. Mr. Schue's getting all self-righteous and indignant on the children's collective ass because Coach Beiste quit, even though Coach Beiste quit because he took it upon himself to tell her she's a boner-killing anti-fantasy. Shut up, Will. And actually, Coach Beiste can shut up, too, because as I believe I mentioned before, no sane adult would react to the news Will gave her by quitting their damn job. "Oh, really? You say a bunch of snot-nosed little shits can't imagine having sex with me? Well, I guess that means they can all go fuck themselves." Rachel's quite rightly having difficulty understanding how she got Coach Beiste to quit, so Finn and Sam are forced to detail that whole boner-killing anti-fantasy thing, much to the disgust of the others in the room. Santana Lopez in particular has little sympathy for anyone involved. "Can I just say," she wisely interjects, "that this is what happens when people don't put out?" "If everyone just put out," she sagely continues, "we would have a winning football team." Brittany nods her head in solemn agreement, because on this point at least, Brittany is no dummy.

Unfortunately, The Maharishi barges in from the hallway at this point to spoil all the fun by ordering Mr. Schue and Puck to his office, where Puck's probation officer awaits, and as I really am doing my very best to ignore this entirely and brutally stupid subplot, I'll cut to the chase: Hanging with Artie does not, in fact, count as community service, and if Puck doesn't make immediate arrangements for another assignment, he'll be sent back to "The Mondale School For The Boys." Puck flips out, knocks The Maharishi's pencil sharpener to the floor, and bolts. !

By Demian

Kurt's locker, where he's already set up a shrine to Blaine that is not creepy and inappropriate and stalkerish at all. Karofsky gently nudges Kurt into his own locker this time around, and Kurt melodramatically falls to the floor, where he and his hideously expensive cowl-neck sweater and his yellow boots look very, very sad for a very, very long time until we skitter over to...

...the music room, where Mr. Schue has invited Coach Beiste to witness the Glee Guys' performance. The Glee Guys babble apologies at her until Mr. Schue gets all helpful for once in his life and suggests they get to the goddamned song before everyone drops dead from old age. Only he's a lot nicer about it than I was there. The boys then launch themselves into a horribly misguided mash-up that combines "Stop! In The Name Of Love" with "Free Your Mind," and none of these fools can dance. Either that, or whoever's in charge of the choreography called in drunk this week. Coach Beiste looks almost as horrified as I do at this point, and I wouldn't be surprised if this wretched mess makes her quit all over again. Unfortunately, when the hatefulness finally passes, Coach Beiste is contractually obliged to claim she adored it, and everything ends with the most awkward group hug I've ever the misfortune to witness on TV. Wow. How did an episode that started so well end up sucking so badly?

week, Gwyneth Paltrow guests as Mr. Schue's substitute when most of the faculty contract Mexican Influenza. The good news? Terri's back, and two lucky ladies get to perform Chicago's "Hot Honey Rag." The bad news? Gwyneth covers Cee-Lo's "Fuck You." Pity the poor sap who has to recap that piece of crap.

Demian's wondering if you're a porn star, or a drag queen. You may forward your answer to him at demian_twop@yahoo.com.

By Demian

Out on that external stairwell no school in the snowbelt actually has because of lawsuits, Kurt and Blaine -- who's wearing his Dalton uniform, because Wardrobe apparently couldn't find him some normal clothes for this episode -- climb up to the landing to confront Karofsky regarding the latter's closeted ways, and as this is just a spectacularly idiotic idea on everybody's part, I'll simply note it goes about as well as you'd expect, and it ends with Kurt name-checking this episode's official title when he gets all depressed and such and admits to Blaine, "Up until yesterday, I had never been kissed." Poor princess. At this point, I'm so sick of Kurt's version of the bullshit angst-ridden teenaged high-school romance crap that I'm gonna channel Santana, here: Get yourself a fake ID, honey, hustle your ass down to Somewhere In Time, and put out already. Get it over with! Jesus!

Lair Of The Beiste, otherwise known as "the locker room." Coach Beiste packs a banker's box with various bits of her coaching paraphernalia (and a plant) until Will sneaks up behind her to accuse her of quitting, and as the scene that follows is so completely insulting on so many different levels, I'll once again be cutting to the chase: Will gives the coach a pep talk, but Coach Beiste resists because she's a forty-year-old (LIAR!) boner-killing anti-fantasy who's never been kissed, so Will hikes his tongue down her throat, and she agrees to remain at McKinley. Yes, that's really what happens, and no, I don't know what they were thinking with that, and yes, it's ludicrous that a fortysomething would base her sense of self-worth on what a bunch of snot-nosed little shits think about bangability, and no, I don't understand how Will condescending to offer her a chaste peck on the lips amounts to anything but a slap in the face, but consider this: They were pretty much following Santana's advice here, right? Maybe I shouldn't have been so hard on this scene.

Subplot I Really Am Doing My Very Best To Ignore, Even Though It Seems Like I'm Trying To Avoid All Of Them At This Point. Puck and Artie meet up in the hall, where Puck fills Artie in on recent events and admits that juvie terrified him. Artie thinks all of that over for a bit, then proposes the following: If Puck agrees to pick up trash on the side of the road for the six weeks, Artie will tutor him in Geometry. For whatever reason, Puck's down with that, and he and Artie head towards this evening's final number BFFs 4EVAH. Which might be redundant. !

By Demian

Demian's wondering if you're a porn star, or a drag queen. You may forward your answer to him at demian_twop@yahoo.com.