Turns out Sue stashed all of the Cheerios' million-dollar budget in an off-shore account right before she got the boot after her spectacular failure at Nationals, so New Directions must somehow scrounge up the $5000 needed to travel to New York City for the phase of their own competition. Mr. Schue (dare I say it?) gleefully suggests selling saltwater taffy to raise the necessary funds, sparking a spirited rebellion from the club's "neglected" members -- Artie, Single-T Tina, Gaylord Wiener and Brit-Brit -- because they're short a mere $250 to hit a Brainiacs competition in Detroit, and nobody's so much as offering to lift a musically inclined finger in their aid. What's that? You didn't know McKinley had a Brainiacs team? That's okay -- no one on this show knew McKinley had a Brainiacs team, either, until Ian Brennan horked it into existence all over this week's script.
Anyway, Will feels guilty about the whole situation -- of course -- so he consults current flame Gwyneth Paltrow, who suggests holding a fundraising concert for the forsaken Brainiacs. Naturally, Sue gets wind of this and summons a slapdash League/Legion Of Doom/Evil consisting of Sandy Ryerson (a.k.a. "The Pink Dagger"), Dustin Goolsby ("Sergeant Handsome"), and Crazy Terri ("The Honey Badger") to her lair, where she quickly assigns specific nefarious tasks to each of her new minions so that she might destroy -- once again -- the Glee Club.
Well, Sue quickly assigns specific nefarious tasks to The Pink Dagger and Sergeant Handsome, because giving Crazy Terri something entertaining to do was apparently far beyond anyone's abilities this evening. In any event, Dustin's to break up Will and Gwyneth while Sandy calls together a Heckling Club made up of Becky, Jewfro and Kloset-Kase Karofsky's African-American Partner In Crime Whose Name Continually Eludes Me, the former to sap Mr. Schue's spirit, or something, and the latter to mock the Glee Clubbers in general until they all run into a corner and cry. Alas for poor Sue, only one of these devious ploys works, and even then Sandy's Heckling Club fizzles out once those particular kiddies receive a grotesquely condescending lecture from precious, precious Gwynnie about how You Should Never Say Anything Mean About Anyone, Ever. Shove it up your recently redesigned ass, GOOP.
That Charice person from the season premiere does drop by from Carmel to offer up her six hundred Twitter followers as Benefit Audience Bait in exchange for a spot on the lineup, but that all falls to shit when Sergeant Handsome yanks his protégé at the last minute, and New Directions ends up performing for an audience of Kurt, Blaine, and absolutely no one else. Doesn't matter, though, because after a series of remarkable contrivances, Sandy Ryerson forks over the $250 the Brainiacs need to go get themselves slaughtered in a drive-by, anyway. Like Santana Lopez couldn't have asked her father for the cash in the first place. Hell, like the Glee Club couldn't have asked Santana Lopez herself for the cash in the first place.
And in the end, Precious Precious Gwynnie breaks up with Will and saunters off into the sunset because even Glee can't afford to keep paying her fee. Bye, bye, Gwynnie! Make sure you drop yourself off a cliff on your way out.
Featuring that Charice person murdering Eric Carmen's "All By Myself," a song that was a hell of a lot funnier when Emma did it way back during Season One; "I Follow Rivers" by wicked Swedish changeling Lykke Li, as more-or-less performed by Single-T Tina; Gaylord Wiener dancing to Jack Johnson's "Bubble Toes"with a mop dressed up like Cardinal Ratzinger; Shut The Fuck Up offering us her thoroughly unnecessary rendition of Adele's "Turning Tables"; and Mercedes wailing out Miss Aretha's"Ain't No Way" to close out the evening.
Listen to the Glee version of Lady Gaga's "Born This Way" early.
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I should have known what a disaster this evening would end up being the instant the camera snapped open on Mr. Schue scrawling the following on a whiteboard:
"5,000 x .25 = 20,000"
I just...I just can't. Can we pretend tonight never happened? You know, skip right to the end where I tell you all about week's 90-minute extravaGaganza and then direct you towards the e-mail address I haven't checked in three years? No?
Fuck.
"All right!" the innumerate dumbass now plaguing my television screen with his abject stupidity enthuses as he turns away from the mathematical atrocity he's just perpetrated against all that is right and holy. "We need five thousand dollars to pay for our trip to Nationals in New York!" the innumerate dumbass continues, and he would babble on for several minutes as is his wont, I'm sure, were it not for the fact that Quinn raises her voice at this point to rightly inquire, "What happened to the money we got from the Cheerios?" Mr. Schue's absolutely ridiculous answer to this? "I guess Sue was hiding it in an offshore account in the Cayman Islands, and we're having some trouble accessing some of it." "Well," Mr. Schue admits as Rachel, Lauren, and Mercedes gawp at him from the peanut gallery, "any of it." But fear not, for Mr. Schue has concocted a brilliant scheme to compensate for the missing funds: The children are to go from classroom to classroom selling twenty-five-cent pieces of saltwater taffy to their peers. Twenty thousand twenty-five-cent pieces of saltwater taffy. To the peers that routinely pelt them with iced-over high-fructose corn syrup and shoes.
Are we sure I can't just skip to the end already?
Double fuck.
Santana Lopez, bless her, openly sneers at Mr. Schue as she wonders, "Do you honestly think we can sell twenty thousand anythings?" "I mean," she continues, "we won Regionals for the first time since dinosaurs roamed the planet, and I still got a freaking Cherry Icee facial!"
Smear sideways to Dave Karofsky delivering said Cherry Icee facial at some point in the indeterminate past, and I don't know if it's the thicker consistency of this particular super-strength Slushie compared to the gruel-like weaklings we've seen recently on this show, or if it's the amped-up sound effects we get when the frigid slop hits Santana's face, or if it's the entirely serendipitous way the whole thing sort of geysers up on impact only to rain back down on her in tiny droplets, as if adding delicious cherry-flavored insult to injury, but it's the funniest Slushie attack since the one Puck laid on Rachel way back during the series premiere. Hee. That said, Dave Karofsky's just thoroughly fucked himself, hasn't he? Discuss.
Smear back to the music room, where Quinn agrees that "nobody cares about us," which for some mysterious reason sets off Gaylord Wiener, who huffily gathers up his backpack and stomps towards the exit, pouting, "I can't listen to this!" "You okay?" Mr. Schue asks, conveniently stopping Gaylord dead in his tracks so the latter might lecture his fellows thusly: "You guys complain all the time about being mistreated, but you have no idea what it's like to work your butt of for something and have everyone -- even your friends -- ignore you!" Lauren leans in close to Puck's ear and murmurs, "I'm still trying to remember his name." You and me both, sweetie. You and me both. Gaylord, utterly oblivious to the two of us, of course, gestures for Artie, Single-T Tina, and Brit-Brit to join him on the floor and, once they've arrived at his side, he explains that the four have been part of "the Brainiacs" for many, many months now. Just go with it. "Isn't that the academic decathlon team?" Rachel prompts. Artie confirms this and adds that he and the other Brainiacs went on something called The Smarty Pants Show, where they beat the team from Carmel High to secure a spot at the academic decathlon finals in Detroit week.
"Wait," Mr. Schue interrupts. "I get the three of you being on the team," he begins, gesturing at exactly the three people you think he's gesturing at, "but Brittany?" "Liz Schneider was our fourth," Gaylord admits, "but she got rubella." "Her parents are dipshits who don't believe in vaccinations," Single-T Tina offers by way of explanation. "Brittany was the only person we could find on short notice," Artie adds, noting that they bribed Brit-Brit with Dots.
Smear sideways to Brit-Brit unconcernedly sucking on one of those Dots during the recent on-air competition as Artie's voiceover narrates, "That Sunshine Corazon that Rachel sent to a crack house was on the other team." By now, the camera's swept over to take in the utterly unnecessary guest star in question as she slaughters the contest's "Deadly Cyclones" category. The show, incidentally, is hosted by Rod Remington, but as he offers absolutely nothing of note to the proceedings, I'll be ignoring his presence in favor of focusing on how Brit-Brit saves the day. Quite fortuitously, one of the remaining categories -- among options such as "Defunct Sodas," "Famous Mervs," and "Fat Or Pregnant" -- is "Cat Diseases," and wouldn't you know it? Our dear little Brit-Brit is quite well-versed in that particular subject. In fact, she shows Rain Man-like levels of expertise, rattling off correct responses to questions on feline AIDS, ringworm, conjunctivitis, and kidney failure, thereby vaulting the Brainiacs into a tie with Carmel. And as the tie-breaker comes from the category "White Rappers" -- the announcement of which makes Artie positively beam with sly joy -- well, you do the math.
And once we've smeared back to the music room, Artie concludes his little tale by sadly announcing they'll be forced to forfeit, as they can't afford to travel to Detroit. "Why don't you just have your parents pay for it?" Rachel wisely inquires. And while Single-T Tina's response to that is unsatisfactory in the extreme -- to wit, "The school should pay for it; it's a matter of pride" -- Mr. Schue's response to Tina's response makes absolutely no sense at all: "We just need to sell more taffy!" What? The Brainiacs think the financially taxed school district should cough up the mere $250 they need to travel to their ridiculous finals, so Mr. Schue decides that means the Glee Club should accept responsibility for the costs involved by... you know what? Fuck it. Fuck it to death. Also: Title card.
Thunder rumbles ominously overhead as the clock strikes midnight deep within Sue's lair. "I'm sure you're wondering why I called you all together here in the dead of night when I'm normally out bow-hunting for hobos," Sue begins as the camera reverses to take in Dustin Goolsby, Sandy Ryerson, and Terri Delmonico-Schuester seated in a neat little row in front of her and, after Sue gifts the audience with a brief run-down of her guests' particulars, she continues, "We all have one very important thing in common: We all hate Will Schuester!" Sandy interrupts the proceedings to ask of Dustin, "Are you single?" "I'm not gay," Dustin claims. "I don't care," Sandy replies, angling himself in for a grope while explaining, "You're hunky, and I'm what they call 'Predatory Gay.'" Atta girl. Dustin scoots his chair a bit further away from Sandy as Sue regains control of the floor, and long story short, she's enlisted the others so that they might together destroy New Directions once and for all. You know, again. Some more. Sigh. Sue's proposed name for her gang of four -- "The League Of Doom" -- elicits an appropriate shudder of fear from Sandy, but the general conversation soon collapses into round after dreadfully unfunny round of clueless non sequiturs and nit-picky bickering, so I'll be skipping ahead to the point where Sue assigns each of her new minions their nicknames: Dustin is "Sergeant Handsome" (for reasons I'm sure anyone who's ever looked at Cheyenne Jackson will understand), Sandy is "The Pink Dagger" (which alone among this evening's nicknames will receive no link out, because it is filthy), and Terri is "The Honey Badger." Sue herself will henceforth be known as "General Zod" and, after she equips them all with beepers, the scene collapses yet another dreadfully unfunny round of clueless non sequiturs and nit-picky bickering before ending. !
Cut to Chez Schue, where we find Gwyneth Paltrow warming her bones by the fire as Will scuttles in from the kitchen bearing a pizza he just cooked in the custom-built wood-fired brick oven he just had installed in his backyard on the salary he makes as a public school teacher in the heart of America's Rust Belt. Shut up, Glee. The two settle down across the coffee table from one another to dig in -- oh, who the hell am I kidding? Like Gwynnie's actually going to eat that thing -- and, after they chat about their boring non-relationship for a very lengthy period of time, Will finally manages to pull things back towards this evening's main plot by asking what she thinks of his saltwater taffy idea. To her credit -- hey, credit where credit is due, people -- she thinks it sucks, and she suggests New Directions instead hold a benefit concert entitled "A Night Of Neglect," thereby helpfully name-checking the episode title for those in the audience who thrive on such things. Which is no one, I'm guessing, but there you go. "And you know the best part?" Gwynnie whispers to Will as she leans across the fresh wood-fired brick-oven pizza she has yet to touch.
"We're only gonna do songs by neglected artists!" Mr. Schue shouts out in the music room the afternoon, answering Gwynnie's question for both the audience and the children, the latter of whom never heard it in the first place, but whatever. Of course, Rachel raises a hand to ask Mr. Schue to define "neglected artist." "Someone whose brilliance isn't always appreciated," Mr. Schue replies, so Rachel naturally reaches the conclusion that he's talking about her while I naturally reach the conclusion that the author of that line is talking about himself. Or maybe he's talking about Gwynnie. It's so hard to tell, given where this episode ends up. In any event, Rachel's supposition elicits a deadly side-eye from Mercedes that will become important later in the evening, but for now, Mr. Schue simply bellows a meaningless series of rah-rah cheers meant to boost the children's egos, or something, before we head into this evening's first commercial break.
"You are a terrible spy!" Rachel howls the instant we've smashed over to the auditorium, where the Glee Clubbers have gathered in a tier of seats to glare down as one at the utterly unnecessary guest star mentioned in Finn's question, the latter of whom has placed her infamously Botoxed self in the well at the foot of the stage, the better to look all helpless and unthreatening and alone. Or something like that. Hey, wasn't Jonathan Groff supposed to be back on this show already? Now, there's a villain from Vocal Adrenaline I sure as hell won't mind seeing again. And can you imagine him and Cheyenne Jackson being evil together? I could die, I'm telling you -- just die.
Unfortunately, if Jonathan Groff is coming back to this show, he's not coming back tonight, so I have little choice but to put up with this little fleck of stuntcast nothing for however much longer they've decided to keep her on my television screen. Fortunately, I can do my best to keep her remaining time on this show brief, if only in the recap, so long story short, Ongina swears she's not a spy, and insists she's only there to offer her support to McKinley High's Brainiacs. She volunteers to perform at the benefit, thereby all but ensuring each and every one of her 600 Twitter followers will buy a ticket to the event, and to prove her heart's in the right place, she hops up on the stage to present us all with her rendition of Eric Carmen's "All By Myself," accompanied of course by the magically appearing Tinkles along with those poor mute schmucks from The Jazz Ensemble. As I noted in the recaplet, this song was a hell of a lot funnier the first time we heard it on this show a year and a half ago, and as that's really all I have to say about any of this, I'll simply note that after she's done, the idiots in New Directions agree to place Ongina on the benefit's bill, despite Rachel's strenuously delivered warnings against such action. Mercedes even meekly agrees to get bumped to the middle of the lineup to accommodate the unwanted interloper -- an accommodation Lauren finds reprehensible, as we discover in the...
...very scene! "Hey, Mercedes," Lauren opens, approaching the target of her attentions in the school library, "can I have your shoes? I promise to give you a dirty pair of my flip-flops in return." Mercedes, not getting Lauren's point, tosses back some halfhearted sass about the difficulty she experienced in securing a pair of high-top yellow patent leather sneakers for herself, so Lauren's forced to roll her eyes and sigh, "I'm surprised you didn't just give them to me, considering how little you think of yourself." Mercedes frowns at this, all, "The hell are you talking about?" so Lauren points out (correctly, I think, though to be perfectly honest with you, I really don't care) that Mercedes is "constantly taking the back seat to everyone," and she suggests it's long past time for Mercedes to throw around a little diva attitude of her own, as "respect isn't something you can ask for." "You have to demand it," Lauren insists, like "Aretha and J.Lo and Mariah," the latter of whom in particular has been rumored to turn up for 9 AM appointments at four o'clock in the afternoon, simply because she knows that people will wait for her. "Those kinds of demands are ridiculous," Mercedes counters, taking the words right out of my mouth and delivering them to the audience at large. Well, she took a bunch of words out of my mouth that pretty much mean the same thing, cleaned them up considerably to ensure Glee would not be fined by the FCC this week, and then delivered them to the audience at large, but whatever. Lauren refuses to be swayed, and she argues that Mercedes will know she's achieved the respect she craves only after she sees exactly how far a bunch of hapless saps will bend over backwards for her. Lauren volunteers to act on Mercedes's behalf as her manager, the better to secure for herself "ten percent of whatever we can come up with to ask for," and as understanding finally breaks across Mercedes's face, the Diva To Be shakes Lauren's hand and smiles, "Sister, you got yourself a deal." Commercials.
Will enters the faculty lounge to find Emma scouring the countertops with an electric toothbrush, and as I care nothing at all about this subplot this evening, I'll simply note we learn that Hot Carl is finally divorcing Emma's insane ass, which means these two will probably be sucking face with each other before the season's over, especially because Gwyneth just happens to catch a tender moment between the two of them as she passes by the lounge windows. Are we done here? Good. !
Frankenteen and Quinn -- who were appointed benefit co-chairs by the Brainiacs off camera at some point in the last six seconds -- approach Rachel at her locker and ask if she'd like to head up "Talent Relations" for the show, as one of the performers has been especially problematic as of late.
Smear to Mercedes demanding a barrel of green M&Ms, a "team of humidifiers," and a litter of fresh puppies, the latter of which she intends to use as towels after she takes her post-show shower, and I am not making any of that crap up.
Smear back to the present, where Rachel unloads some utterly nonsensical rapid-fire blibbering about True Stars And Their Many, Many Demands before agreeing to wrangle the benefit's talent and passively-aggressively storming off to do just that. !
Smash-cut to what ended up being Gwyneth Paltrow's only amusing interlude during this entire episode. She's subbing for a world history class, and she stands in front of the students sporting a sleek, chic, burgundy-toned 1940s traveling suit with matching pumps, along with a variety of tasteful yet expensive-looking diamond accessories at her ears, lapel, and wrists. On top of all that, her dark brown wig's done up in a tight, finger-waved chignon, so we can pretty much guess who she's playing at even before she opens her mouth to unleash a tortured Locust Valley Lockjaw while introducing herself as "the world's most famous and stylish divorcée," Wallis Warfield Simpson. "I was married a bunch of times," Gwynnie-As-Wallis reveals while Brit-Brit and Artie take copious notes, "and then I fell in love with Edward The Eighth and made him abdicate the throne!" "I had giant hands," she continues most enthusiastically, if I do say so myself, "so a lot of people thought I was a hermaphrodite, but that wasn't true!" "Others," she confides, "said that I was a Nazi sympathizer, and that was true -- boy, did I think that Hitler showed promise!" Unfortunately, the bell rings before we can hear any more of Gwyneth's delightful lecture -- seriously, I haven't thought about that hermaphrodite rumor in years -- and as the children file out, Gwyneth promises, "Tomorrow, we're going to do Catherine The Great and her pet stallion, Fred, so come early!" And often, I'm sure.
Once the kiddies have left, Sergeant Handsome appears at the classroom door to introduce himself, and Gwyneth thanks him for volunteering his "star" for the upcoming benefit. "I never approved that," Dustin grimaces, but he lets it drop for the moment in favor of commencing with the seduction, and while this whole bit was diverting enough the first time I saw it, none of it really bears repeating now, so let's cut to the chase: Sergeant Handsome offers himself up for Gwyneth's delectation, but Gwyneth politely declines, as she already has a boyfriend -- a boyfriend who arrives just in time to threaten Sergeant Handsome with bodily harm. Dustin promptly exits, though not before urging Gwyneth to consider his proposition, and once they're alone, Will and Gwyneth chat at length regarding their sure-to-be-doomed relationship, and as I totally don't give a shit about that, let's skip ahead to see what happens , shall we?
Crap. Forgot about this scene. Rachel has acquiesced to Mercedes's every demand -- save for the Pomeranian puppy, for which Puck is at this very moment scouring several local pounds -- and yet, Mercedes remains unsatisfied, mainly because Ongina's still scheduled to sing the benefit's finale. Rachel points out that Ongina's fans promise to bring in hundreds of dollars, and that they therefore have little choice but to offer her the last song. After a brief consult with her manager, Mercedes concedes, but insists that, on the day of the benefit, "her feet never touch the ground." "Excuse me?" Rachel squeals. "Did you not see Celine's wedding?" Lauren asks. "Carried in," Mercedes notes. "Cher's comeback tour?" Lauren prompts. "Carried in," Mercedes emphasizes. "Gaga at the Grammys?" Lauren finishes. "Carried. The Hell. IN!" This is asinine. Also asinine? Commercials!
We return from the break to find Kurt escorting Blaine on a nostalgic little benefit-evening tour of McKinley's halls when suddenly, Karofsky pops up from out of nowhere to harass them, because that's what the script told him to do. Fortunately for Blaine and Kurt, Santana Lopez happens to slink around a corner in time to hear Kurt shriek, "You're real brave with your fists, but you're a coward when it comes to the truth!" and she steps forward to intervene while at the same time wondering what this "truth" is of which Kurt has been screeching. "None of your business, J.Lo!" Karofsky sneers, and as if any of us needed the reminder...
...the screen smears sideways for a replay of Dave gifting Santana with a Cherry Icee facial, and I laugh and laugh and laugh some more. The timing on that one was just perfect.
Anyway, once we've smeared back to the present, Santana has well and truly strapped her bitch on to offer Karofsky the following: "First of all, anything you do became my business when you decided to toss that Slushie up in my grille!" Yeah, he's fucked. He's also incredibly stupid, for he chooses at this juncture to snot back that he thinks he can take "a couple of queers and a girl," so Santana quite deliciously pushes herself into his face and smiles, "Two choices: You stay here and I crack one of your nuts -- right or left, that's your choice -- or you walk away and live to be a douchebag another day." "Oh, and also?" Santana adds. "I have razor blades hidden in my hair. Mmm-hmmm! Tons, just all up in there!" Karofsky wisely yields the field and vanishes, grunting, down the hall, leaving Santana alone with the boys. "We could have handled that," Blaine claims, and nope! Not believing that for one hot second. "It was more fun doing it together," Santana grins at him by way of reply, and just when things threaten to get unbearably sappy, Santana receives a text alert on her cell phone. "Oh, crap!" she mutters, darting off towards...
...the music room, where she informs the others that Ongina has pulled out of the benefit, which means that none of Ongina's Twitter followers will be in attendance, either. "I told you she's evil!" Rachel hisses just as Puck arrives to announce that a mere six people have shown up for the concert, and no. Just...no. Counting Blaine and Kurt, Quinn and Puck's mothers, Artie's father, and the fantastic parental duos of Rachel, Finn, Brit-Brit, Mercedes, Lauren, Santana, Tina, Gaylord, and Trouty Mouth, there should be at least 23 people sitting in that auditorium, and I'm not even including Will, Gwyneth, and Sue and her minions, of whom there are at least...oh, fuck it. I can't be bothered with this bullshit anymore, and I still haven't gotten to Gwynnie's grotesquely condescending lecture yet, so this stupidity can kiss my ass, and when it's done kissing my ass, it can kiss my ass some more, and when it's done doing that, it can drop fucking dead.
ANY-way, Rachel insists that the show must go on, so Single-T Tina heads out to the stage to drone, as promised, Lykke Li's unbearable "I Follow Rivers." Fortunately, Sue's heckling minions immediately start hurling invective at her, so Single-T Tina has little choice but to scurry right back into the music room from whence she came, where Mr. Schue rather gratingly decides to turn the whole thing into A Teachable Moment by noting they might find themselves in front of a hostile audience at Nationals. So, you know, this experience is pretty much a good thing as far as he's concerned. Shove it, hairdo.
Still, Mr. Schue decides it might be for the best if they "shut those hecklers up for a number or two," and to that end, he sends Quinn out into the audience with several boxes of saltwater taffy, which she freely distributes to Sandy, Jewfro, Azimio, and Becky for reasons I hope are obvious just as Lady Lips announces "the dance stylings of Mr. Gaylord Wiener as he busts a move to Jack Johnson's 'Bubble Toes,'" and fuck. ME. GOD, Jack Johnson SUCKS. No, seriously: SUCKS! And I swear to the freshly arisen Christ Himself that the fucking radio station they played every single goddamned day in my office in Chicago would feature this fucking song every fucking hour of every single fucking day OF THE YEAR. This and Pablo Fucking Nutini's "New Shoes." Fucking earthy-crunchy Boomer-hipster BULLSHIT, is what it is. AUAUAUAUUUUAAAUUUUUUUGH.
Ahem. Sorry about that. And so sorry I can't go back and watch Gaylord's routine again to let you know how he did, because I'm pretty sure I'll rupture something if I do. For whatever it's worth, I'm nearly certain he was prancing around with a mop at some point so, you know. There's that.
In any event, Gaylord returns to the music room in triumph, mainly because Sue's minions were too busy shoving taffy into their mouths to scream at him. up is Mercedes, but there is, of course, a problem: "Mercedes has left the building," Lauren announces to anyone who's still bothering to listen to her at this point, because "Miss Jones has not appreciated the way she's been treated, and is refusing to go on." "You guys go find Mercedes," Gwyneth calls out. "I'm gonna go deal with the haters!" Joy. Thank God there's a commercial break right now, because I definitely need the few minutes to brace myself for the filth that's about to hit my television screen.
Library. Gwyneth has gathered Becky, Jewfro, and Azimio around a table, and long story short, she pretty much straight-up harangues them like so: "I get it -- we live in a culture of insults. I mean, we're constantly bombarded with these images of people who are richer than us, and happier than us, and have more interesting sex than us, and it makes us feel terrible. You know, we tear them down to feel better about ourselves." Rage. Flaming rage. I hate Gwyneth Paltrow so much, it...it...the...flame! Flames! Flames on the side of my face! Breathing...breaths...heaving breaths! I said it before, and I'll say it again: Shove it up your recently redesigned ass, you incomprehensibly unconscionable HAG.
ANY-way, now that we all know We Should Never Be Mean To Anyone Ever Again Lest Everyone Think We Are Just Jealous thanks to Precious Precious Gwynnie over there, what say we all get back to matters we actually care about, like...well, I was going to say "like this episode," but I haven't cared about this episode since Will wrote "5,000 x .25 = 20,000" on the whiteboard, so whatever. Where the hell were we? Oh, yeah: Precious Precious Gwynnie scares the mean old hecklers away with her magical words, so there's that stupid subplot done with. What's ?
And when it's over, Mercedes's teachers and peers in the audience respond with a most deserved standing ovation. She basks in the adulation for a bit, then hobbles off into the wings -- I told you that dress was too tight -- to cede the stage to Rachel for the closing number. "Are you kidding me?" Rachel replies in that unnaturally intense and overly earnest way of hers. "Nobody could follow that!" "That was the closing number!" she insists, finally giving Mercedes a smile. Mercedes beams back at her, and the two hug, so I guess they're best friends again. Until some contrivance conspires to drive a wedge between them week, of course.
Hall. Will meets up with Precious Precious Gwynnie to process through recent events, and she proceeds to dump his ass. She just accepted a four-month assignment in Cleveland to teach French, you see, and she...what's that? You don't give a shit about any of this crap anymore? Excellent, 'cause neither do I. !
Will reenters the music room to find Sandy standing there in front of the children, who are positively giddy with delight over the fact that he's decided to fund the Brainiacs' trip to Detroit in full. So the power of Aretha can be seen. The children start in with the celebrations long before Sandy has slouched out of the room, and their chants of "Deee-TROIT! Deee-TROIT! Deee-TROIT!" gradually increase in volume until...
...the camera cuts back to Sue's office, because we're still not done with this Legion Of Evil bullshit tonight. "This is a disaster!" Sue sneers, peering at her errant underlings with a sort of vigorous distaste that I can't help but find impressive, especially considering how lame this subplot's been since its inception. "Pink Dagger!" she calls out, and a sorely abashed Sandy can barely meet her eyes as she continues, "Not only did you fail to disrupt the Night Of Neglect, you funded it in full!" Yes, we know that, Sue. Could you please keep this moving? I mean, there are still forty-eight seconds left in this godforsaken wreck of an episode, and we haven't even hit the pointless Smarty Pants finals yet.
"Aretha is my Kryptonite," Sandy mournfully admits, but Sue's already moved on to Sergeant Handsome, from whom she orders an explanation for his pathetic failures this evening. "Hey, I did get them to break up," he protests. "Who knew it was gonna be amicable, and sort of have nothing to do with me?" "I pulled Ongina out of the benefit," he adds. "Don't I get credit for that?" "No," Sue duuuuuhs, and so we are thus left with The Honey Badger. "In my hour of need," Sue croons, "I turn to you -- your time has come!" Batshit Terri's eyes light up -- crazily! -- and we are left wondering if this episode would have been any better had they actually given Jessalyn Gilsig something to do tonight. And then we remember Precious Precious Gwynnie's monstrously self-serving speech to the hecklers, and we start pointing and laughing at ourselves because oh, my holy hell, nothing could have saved this shit.
Smarty Pants Finals! Live from Detroit! Rod Remington's still hosting, for some inexplicable reason, and the Brainiacs' opponents from Riverfront Academy include "D. Lightman," "L. Dobler," "G. LaChance," and "Travis Strong." Just so you know. Naturally, we arrive just as the teams head into a tiebreaker, and after Artie and the gang take a moment to give a shout-out to their Glee peeps, Rod Remington announces the final category: "Hermaphrodite Nazi Sympathizers." DING! Artie and Brit-Brit positively beam at each other with sly joy right before we finally cut to black.
week: An hour and a half of Lady Gaga. God help us all.
Demian needs a drink. You may reach him with cocktail suggestions at demian_twop@yahoo.com.
Listen to the Glee version of Lady Gaga's "Born This Way" early.