The 'F' Stands For 'Freaking Awesome'!

S03E03

Usually when this show tries to do an emotional episode, it's a complete disaster. But tonight they knocked it out of the park. Okay, in no particular order, the following things happen:

First, Brittany S. Pierce kicks off her girl-power campaign for Senior Class President with an amazing singing and dancing extravaganza at a pep rally. That throws Kurt into a tailspin of despair. But he pulls out of his dive long enough to recognize that Blaine will make an ideal Tony in West Side Story, so we don't have to resent him for being a spiteful jerk.

Second, Will is concerned that the fact that Emma hasn't introduced him to her parents is a sign that she's somehow embarrassed to be with him. What he doesn't realize is that she's actually secretly embarrassed by her parents. We learn that she has good reason to be ashamed of them when Will invites them to dinner and learns that they're racist ginger supremacists who do nothing but undermine Emma's mental health. But at least Will comes to Emma's defense and calls them on their shit. Because what she really needs is a man to fix her.

Third, Mike Chang is in trouble with his father for having received an A- in chemistry. Mr. Chang wants him to drop out of New Directions, because it's taking too much of his time and isn't the kind of activity that will get him into Harvard. But Mike secretly defies his father's wishes -- he not only stays in New Directions, but he auditions for West Side Story. And he nails it, earning the role of Riff. He also learns that his mother secretly dreamt of dancing, and that she'll support him in following his own dreams instead of his father's.

Finally, Mercedes' new man has convinced her that she needs to stand up for herself and claim her rightful place as a musical star. She auditions for Maria, and the directors decide they can't decide between her and Rachel. So they have a sing-off. As you do. Even though Rachel believes Mercedes outsang her, the judges decide to cast Maria as a split role so that both divas will get a chance to shine. But Mercedes is insulted by the offer and turns it down, leaving Rachel as the sole star. Mercedes also gets kicked out of New Directions for being lazy and surly, so she ends the episode by joining Shelby Corcoran's competing show choir. Drama!

Featuring Coldplay's "Fix You," performed by Mr. Schue, Beyoncé's "Run the World (Girls)," performed by Brit-Brit, Jennifer Hudson's "Spotlight," performed by Mercedes, "Cool," from West Side Story, performed by Mike Chang (a.k.a. Gaylord Wiener), "It's All Over," from Dreamgirls, performed by Mercedes and just about everyone else, and "Out Here On My Own," from Fame, performed by Mercedes and Rachel.

We open on glee club dance practice (or maybe Booty Camp, although I don't recall Tina being condemned to that). Will sees Mercedes walking in and points out that she's very late. She blames her tardiness on oversleeping, and Quinn reminds her that it's 4:30 in the afternoon. Mercedes: "My alarm clock went off 30 minutes late this morning. Kind of shifted my whole schedule." I'm the king of excuses for being late, and that is one crappy excuse. Mercedes tries to change the subject by asking what Santana's doing there, since she was summarily ejected from the club two episodes ago. She's there because the showrunners realized how stupid it was to pull one of their strongest singers from the club. Or, in Santana's words, because she's re-sworn her allegiance to the glee club behind Sue's back. More importantly, she's there to bring some much-needed bitchiness. As Mike Chang runs Mercedes through a quick warm-up, Mercedes begs off from dancing, claiming to feel sick. Santana points out that she's probably sick from eating right before practice, leading to a little hissy fit from Mercedes about how much Will is overworking them, leaving her no other time to eat lunch. Will calls her out on her attitude, telling all of them, "It's not about doing your best anymore. It's about doing better." Title card.

Schuester/Pillsbury kitchen. Will is in the kitchen, going through Emma's secret stash of bridal magazines when Emma enters the room. Emma: "Do you want me to iron some bacon for you?" Will points out the large box of bridal mags, and Emma thinks fast and tries to blame Terri for hiding them. Except that the box also contains an autographed photo of Vera Wang, made out to Emma. I think Will's stupidity might be rubbing off on her. Will tells her that he's not freaked out by her wedding magazine addiction, since they're clearly on the road to the altar, "and marriage is just one of several milestones I look forward to sharing with you." Does that mean they still haven't had sex? In any case, Will doesn't want to have secrets from Emma, so he hands over his stash. It's a charming little container... of porn. He explains that it kept him off Craigslist while he was a bachelor. But the real point of this conversation is not to force us all to think of Will spanking it to the pictures in an issue of Juggs. It's for Will to ask Emma why she hasn't introduced him to her parents. Emma: "They're dead." Will: "You spoke to them on the phone last night." Emma: "I spoke to their ghosts last night. I have ghost parents." She gives up the lie and explains that she just doesn't want to rush things. And then she rushes out of the room before he can get out the polygraph.

By LTG

Maharishi's Sanctuary of Surveillance. Mike Chang is there with his father, who has just asked Figgins to arrange for random drug testing of Mike. Mike Chang, Sr., stereotypes it up by insisting that something must be wrong with Mike, since he got an A- in chemistry (the "Asian F" of the title). He absorutery won't ret anyting get in the way of Mike attending Harvard. (He doesn't really talk that way, but he might as well with the way the show is depicting him.) Mr. Chang has decided the real problem is Tina -- having her as a girlfriend is distracting Mike from his studies. Figgins has been trying to calm Mr. Chang down until now, but the mention of Tina gets him going: "We agree, sir. Tina Cohen-Chang and her vampire ways have no place in this school."

Smear sideways to an empty school corridor. Figgins is once again accosted by Vampire Tina: "Excuse me from gym all year, or I'll drain your spicy curry blood!" I suspect Figgins is mild curry at best.

Back in his office, Mr. Chang is telling the Maharishi that Mike is either on drugs or has over-extended himself. He wants Mike to quit New Directions, since it's not the kind of activity that will help him get into Harvard. Mike begs for one more chance, and even agrees to pay for a chemistry tutor.

Locker room. Coach Beiste has called the football team together for three reasons. First, she wants to explain why she's walking with crutches: "I kicked a fire hydrant when I found out Ace of Cakes was cancelled." Well, that's a perfectly normal reaction. We focus in on Mike Chang, lost in his thoughts, and miss most of the second announcement from the Panther, except that it has something to do with the boys' "bat caves and [their] bramble patches." Which, based on the coach's gestures, refers to their eyebrows and pubic hair. Third, she reminds them, including specifically Azimio, that they're all dancing in West Side Story unless they are specifically excused. Azimio raises a fuss, but the Panther doesn't care.

Cafeteria. Mercedes' new boyfriend carries his tray towards a table and notices Mercedes and Rachel giving each other a hug. When Mercedes walks up to him, he asks her what he just saw: "You just hugged your arch-nemesis right before the audition. You think before I cleat some dude I hug him? You think Wonder Woman hugs the Cheetah before the Amazonian smackdown?" He tells her that all the times she's made him watch Dreamgirls, she claims to be Beyoncé, but she acts more like Effie White. He thinks she's better than Rachel, and she tells him that he's the first person to ever tell her that. She clearly doesn't read the forums.

And that leads to Mercedes singing Jennifer Hudson's "Spotlight." The song starts in the music room, where it's clearly all in her head, as she circles Rachel like an angry shark. And then it moves to the auditorium, where the song is her audition piece. In both places, Tina and Brit-Brit are singing backup. And Mercedes nails it, but I don't hear the tiniest bit of Maria in her performance. But the directors seem to like it. Emma tells Mercedes that she looks glamorous (which she does, in a black satin dress). Mercedes walks off stage into her boyfriend's arms, while Rachel looks on nervously.

Mike Chang is at his locker when Tina approaches and asks him if he's ready to practice his song for his audition, which is coming up in just one day. How long are these auditions going on? Do they really just see one auditioner per day? Mike tells Tina he's not going to audition. She's surprised, since he's worked so hard on his singing, but he tells her about his Asian F and how upset his father is. She thinks he should just be honest with his father about his dreams of dance, and he calls her out on her own early lack of honesty before she admitted she wasn't really T-T-T-Tina, but was actually just Single-T Tina.

Kurt and Rachel walk down the hall. He's excited, because it's only two days until the deadline to declare that you're running for class president, so he thinks that means it's just him and Brit-Brit in the race, and he's confident he can beat her. And then Santana and Brit approach them. Santana's there to insult Kurt, but Brit wants to ask for Rachel's vote. When she hears that Rachel has already promised to vote for Kurt, Brit asks her, "Oh, so you're comfortable flushing McKinley High's future down the magical poop-stealing water chair?" Brit and Santana point out that the unending string of male senior class presidents at McKinley is apparently responsible for all of the world's ills. To launch her campaign, Brit has called a flash mob during the upcoming pep rally.

And then Brit struts off down the hall and launches into Beyoncé's "Run the World (Girls)." Except that her cheerleading uniform has been magically replaced by a torn football jersey, trucker cap, and black vinyl miniskirt. As she dances down through the school, she gathers more female backup dancers. Every woman who sees her dancing is intrigued, and every man aroused. Including me. You guys, I think Brittany S. Pierce just made me a little bit straight. Finally, she dances right into the pep rally, where more and more girls join the dance. Even Sue can't help but get caught up in the vibe, although she doesn't join the flash mob. (But Quinn and Tina both do.) At the end of the song, someone hands Brit a microphone, and she introduces her as the senior class president. Up in the stands, Kurt looks more than a little terrified. Commercials.

By LTG

Teachers' lounge. Emma and Coach Beiste sit at a table, flummoxed over how to choose between Rachel and Mercedes for the role of Maria. Will joins them, and Emma tells Will that she saw a new maturity in Mercedes when she auditioned. Will, naturally, takes all the credit, thinking that his pushing her at Booty Camp has transformed her. Ass. If they really can't decide, Will thinks he knows what they need to do.

Cut to Emma's office, where she, Artie, and the Panther have just told Rachel and Mercedes that they have to audition again. Mercedes is pissed, but Rachel knows that a callback is common in show biz. Rachel plans to sing "I Feel Pretty." You know, a song from the show that's actually sung by the character she wants to play. What a revolutionary idea. But the directors aren't down with this crazy notion -- they want both girls to sing the same song, one that they directors think will challenge them both: "Out Here On My Own," from Fame. Mercedes better count her blessing they're not making her sing a song that Maria actually sings, because I'm having trouble thinking of anyone less suited to the role than she is. You know who would be a better Maria than Mercedes? Tina. Emma. Crazy Terri. Kurt. Maybe even Howard Bamboo. Anyway, as the two girls leave Emma's office, Rachel tries to give Mercedes a good-luck hug, but is cruelly rebuffed.

Teachers' lounge. The Panther is carbo loading to keep her energy up for all of the activities she's running. She's sitting with Shelby Corcoran, commiserating with her over the fact that no girls other than Sugar Motta have joined her alternative show choir. Shelby leaves when Will comes in, and he sits with Beiste. The coach tells him how proud he should be of the work Emma is doing on the musical, and he shares his worry that Emma is hiding him from her parents because she's ashamed of him. Coach Beiste tells him that he's a total catch, and that he should introduce himself to Emma's parents.

Improbable outdoor staircase. Kurt, dressed like the gayest Civil War soldier ever, is lying in wait for Blaine. He's there to remind Blaine that the cast list is going up on Friday, and to tell Blaine that he knows that Blaine is really the person who should be cast as Tony. And he has flowers for Blaine to prove that he's really okay with it. You can tell they really want to kiss each other, but they both hold back because there are so many other people around.

Booty Camp. For some reason, Brit-Brit has decided to join Booty Camp as part of her campaign strategy. If you were a unicorn, that would make sense to you. Will tells the kids to all stand and perform the dance move they were supposed to practice -- when they get it right, they'll get tapped out so they can stop. It's not long before everyone is tapped out except for Finn and Mercedes. After a little forceful encouragement from Will and Puck, Finn finally gets it. But Mercedes is barely even trying. She claims that her ankle hurts and that she doesn't feel good, but it's really just a bad attitude. Mercedes accuses Will of treating Rachel as his favorite: "You give that skinny, Garanimal-wearing ass-kisser everything!" Mercedes starts to walk out, pushing over a music stand on the way. Will tells her that if she leaves, she's out of the club. And then the lights go down and we're in Mercedes' fantasy world, for a performance of "It's All Over," from Dreamgirls. Mercedes is in a lavender dress as Effie White, while the other girls are all in spangly pink dresses with their Supremes hair piled on top of their heads. And the men are all in suits and vests. The lyrics have been adjusted to the situation, and all of the non-Effie lines in the song have been split among everyone else there. And it's really an amazing performance. And then the lights come back up on reality, and Mercedes is alone on the stage. Did everyone else just walk away while she stood there in a musical theater trance? Maybe someone should have stuck around, just to be certain she wasn't having a stroke or something. Commercials.

Dance studio. Mike Chang is practicing when his mother appears. But she's not a figment of his imagination -- she's really there. And she's there to bust his ass for skipping out on his sessions with his tutor. He's honest with her, and tells her that he wants to be an artist, to feel special, which is how he feels when he's dancing. And his mother turns out to not be an Asian stereotype, as she tells him that her goal is to encourage him to live his dreams, not his parents' dreams. She gave in to pressure from her own parents and gave up on her dreams, and she doesn't want the same thing to happen to him. She tells him that once he knows whether he got the part in the musical, the two of them can tell his father. Mike asks her what her dream was, and she tells him that she also wanted to be a dancer. And then Mike pulls her in close and leads her on a slow waltz around the studio. Aw, Mike's gay for his mother.

Sing-off. But not the good one -- that's on another network. It's Mercedes versus Rachel. They each receive encouraging words from their boyfriends, and then walk to the center of the stage. Emma flips a coin; Rachel wins and says that Mercedes can sing first. And then we get alternating cuts of the two of them singing "Out Here On My Own." If we were judging on ability to make funky faces while singing, Rachel would have it in the bag. But on vocals, they're both pretty amazing. They both get a standing ovation from the onlookers (basically all of New Directions and the football player Jets). But while they sounded equally good to me, Rachel tells Finn that she thinks Mercedes was better.

And then we cut to a determined Rachel striding down a hallway and into the boys' locker room (which is unfortunately empty of naked football players). She's there to discuss something with Coach Beiste. Commercials.

Schuester/Pillsbury residence. Emma arrives home to find the table set with fancy china and a couple of lit candles. She walks into the living room to ask Will if they're having a romantic dinner. He tells her it'll be sort of romantic -- he's invited her parents over. He thinks that's romantic? I don't even want to know what he had in that basket of porn from earlier. Emma's parents, both redheads, are on the couch. They turn around to greet her, and her mother calls her "My Freaky-Deaky." Emma quietly freaks out and walks into another room. Will follows her. She pours some wine and makes plans to get her parents to leave. Will asks her if she's ashamed of him, but she's not; she's ashamed of her parents, who are ginger supremacists. Because that's a thing.

Cut to the dinner table, where Mr. Pillsbury denies being a ginger supremacist -- he's just interested in preserving ginger culture and heritage. Because, again, that's a thing. Also, Mr. and Mrs. Pillsbury are members of a redhead-only country club. Because that's... oh, you know. Mrs. Pillsbury queries Will on his ethnic background, and decides that she approves of him, since there must be some redheaded Vikings in his Germanic roots. Emma is getting more and more stressed as the conversation continues, and she starts scrubbing at imaginary spots on the silver. Mrs. Pillsbury: "Oops, it looks like Freaky-Deaky's coming down with a mean case of the cleanies." Her father thinks Emma's OCD is adorable, while her mother thinks it's weird: "I don't know where she got it."

Smear sideways to Young Emma out to dinner with her parents at Breadstix. Mrs. Pillsbury is upset that they have a Latina waitress (who she calls "Amigo") instead of their normal ginger waitress. And then she hands Emma a baby wipe to rub the nasty non-ginger germs off her water glass.

Back at dinner, Will has heard enough. He points out that Emma's parents are more than a little bit racist. "All I know is that if Emma and I were blessed enough to have a child, I wouldn't care what he or she looked like. And you know what? If my child had OCD, I'd maybe try to show a little compassion instead of calling her a name that makes her feel like a freak." After a stunned silence, Mrs. Pillsbury announces that the beans Will served are a disaster. Mr. Pillsbury: "These beans are what happens when you sit out an election, Rose." Mrs. Pillsbury: "There wasn't a ginger candidate."

Kurt approaches Rachel at her locker. He knows that she told Coach Beiste that she's running for senior class president. Because Coach Beiste is running those elections, a fact I forgot to mention earlier. Kurt doesn't understand why Rachel would stab him in the back like this. But Rachel has decided that she has to win the election for her college applications, because she's convinced that Mercedes has won the lead in the musical. I'm trying to figure out why she thinks she has a snowball's chance in hell of winning. She's probably the only student in the school less popular than Kurt. But Kurt gives her a speech about how she's running just to boost her résumé, while his election would mean something special. So he declares all-out electoral war. Commercials.

Emma's office. The directors have called Rachel and Mercedes there to announce their decision. Coach Beiste: "It was one of the hardest decisions of my life, and that includes when I had to sell one of my prize donkeys to pay my gas bill. I sold Kim, but I kept Khloe." In any case, the directors have decided to double-cast the role. And while Rachel assumes that means she'll get the prime performances while Mercedes gets stuck with matinees, they've actually decided to run the show for two weeks so both Marias get an equal number of evening performances. When Mercedes hears that Maria is the only role that's being double-cast, she decides they're doing it just to spare Rachel's feelings, since she's certain that she won the role fair and square. She doesn't want any pity roles, so she quits.

By LTG

Hallway. Rachel fills Finn in on what we just saw. He (happily) thinks that this means she'll withdraw from the election, but she's decided to follow Brit-Brit's example and try to change the world. She asks Finn if he spoke to Kurt about the election, and he tells her that Kurt wanted to know who he would vote for. And then Finn tells Rachel that he doesn't know who he'll vote for. And he walks away and leaves her standing there. On her own, as it were.

Schuester/Pillsbury boudoir. We've clearly traveled back in time to the night, because Emma is still freaking out over having seen her parents. Will interrupts her major OCD fit to apologize. He tries to stop her hand-rubbing and get her to come to bed. She drops to her knees and he asks what she's doing. Since she's obviously not going to take his dirty penis in her mouth, she's down there to pray. She tells him she usually does it silently, in her head, but when she's really freaked out she thinks she needs to be on her knees to do it. Will: "I wish I could make things better for you. I just don't know how." And then he drops to his knees beside her and starts to pray. Except that his prayer takes the form of Coldplay's "Fix You."

While Will sings, we see Artie post the cast list. Rachel is Maria, and Blaine is Tony. Santana is Anita (the role that Mercedes really should have gone for). Mike Chang is Biff. And Kurt is Officer Krupke. And that's it. Um, they do know there are other characters, right? Bernardo? Doc? Graziella? Anybodys? This'll be the shortest production of West Side Story ever. And then the song moves to the auditorium, where Will sings with the entire club.

And then Mercedes walks into... the other music room? Or wherever Shelby has set up shop. Mercedes is there to join the new show choir.

LTG lives in Boston, where he's a full-time pension and insurance attorney and a part-time Garanimals sales associate. You can reach him at ltg.jon@gmail.com.

What are people saying about your favorite shows and stars right now? Find out with Join the conversation now!