Mash-Off

S03E06

Will and Idina Menzel receive confirmation that their choirs will be competing against each other in Sectionals and, as they're worried the children will declare "World War Glee" upon each other as a result, the two concoct a joint assignment in an attempt to channel the kiddies' roiling negative energies into something a bit more positive, because Will and Idina Menzel are actually filthy New Age hippies. Thus, they decide upon this episode's titular "mash-off," which tasks New Directions and The Troubletones with offering their best respective medley performances in order to win... well, nothing, really, but that's the primary plotline for this evening's installment, so there you go.

Frankenteen and Santana Lopez instantly start butting heads over the whole thing for reasons that remain unclear to me at this point and, after they try and fail to settle things with a entertainingly vicious game of dodgeball between the rival clubs, Finn maliciously outs Santana in the middle of a crowded high school hallway. Things immediately go from bad to worse for everybody's favorite bitchy cheerleader when one of Sue's rivals for that vacant Congressional seat gets word of the outing from his gossipy niece and proceeds to make Santana's supposed sexual orientation the centerpiece of his latest attack ad. Santana somehow manages to keep her head up at first, but when she spots Finn whispering something that may or may not be appropriate into a giggling Rachel's ear, she loses her shit in a most awesomely spectacular way and slaps the smug clean off Frankenteen's face.

In other news, Puck is still romancing Idina, but it's okay, because he's eighteen; Sue Sylvester's own over-the-top attack ads mock Burt Hummel's baboon heart, among other things; Idina learns of Quinn's nefarious scheme to regain custody of Dismal Drizzle and forbids her from ever seeing the child again; Brittany promises to go topless every Tuesday if she wins the student council election; and St. Gay Of Lima spends the hour vacillating between martyrdom and priggery. You know, the usual.

Featuring Van Halen's "Hot For Teacher," as performed by Puck, with backup from Dreamboat Blaine, Gaylord Weiner, and Frankenteen; a medley of Lady Gaga's "Yoü And I" (yes, it has an umlaut in the title, and no, I can't believe how much I fucking hate little Steffie Germanotta for sticking it in there, thanks for asking) and a different, correctly spelled "You And I" from Crystal Gayle and Eddie Rabbitt, as performed by Mr. Schue and Idina Menzel; a disastrous combination of Pat Benatar's "Hit Me With Your Best Shot" and Blondie's "One Way Or Another," ruined despite Santana's best efforts on the Blondie part by the inept Frankenteen's butchering of the Benatar; a somewhat more successful blending of "You Make My Dreams Come True" and "I Can't Go For That" by Hall & Oates as performed by New Directions, with featured vocals from Frankenteen, The Leprechaun, Single-T Tina, and Quinn; and, finally, Adele's "Rumour Has It" paired with her "Someone Like You," as performed by the divas of Idina Menzel's nurturing lady-choir, with solos from Mercedes and Santana Lopez.

"It's happened," Puck's voiceover announces as the camera fades up to find the superannuated teen loitering to his locker between classes at McKinley High. "The lion king Puckfasa has been caged," Puck's voiceover continues as Idina Menzel and her fabulous hair and her swiveling hips round the far corner of the hallway to approach us in ultra-high-glamour slow-motion, and yes, I actually had to research Lion King just now to get that particular reference right because I have no desire to sit through that particular children's movie, ever. "I've been in love before," Puck's voiceover claims, "but this time feels different." Idina shoots Puck A Look as she saunters past while Puck himself practically unhinges his lower jaw to unroll his tongue. "This time feels grown-up," Puck's voiceover insists, hastily adding, "Don't judge me -- I'm eighteen! It's legal!" "Besides," Puck's voiceover argues as Puck turns to follow Idina down the hall, "the age difference isn't that crazy -- just look at Ashton and Demi! Indiana Jones and Ally McBeal? Woody Allen and that Chinese girl!" Stellar examples, all, Puck. By this point, Actual Puck's taken off in one direction while Idina heads in the other, the better for him to race through the halls so he might plant himself directly in her line of vision once she rounds yet another corner, still in that ultra-high-glam slo-mo. "When she looks at me," Puck's voiceover confesses, "I don't feel like a boy anymore. I feel like the man I've always wanted to be -- a family man!"

Cut to fourth-period Geometry, which Puck now lives for, according to his continuing voiceover, as Idina's been subbing ever since the regular teacher ate some bad cantaloupe. Even though Puck knows he's supposed to be learning about "grammars and stuff," all he can actually think about is what color underwear Idina's wearing, and "if she knows how to dance." During that last bit, Actual Puck's gone cross-eyed with something I'm going to interpret as Mark Salling's version of "juvenile lust," and the screen goes all fuzzy for a bit until we've slipped completely into...

...this evening's first fantasy sequence, which involves a whole raft of regular characters reenacting the most immediately relevant bits of this. Idina, naturally, features prominently as the song's titular educator, though she's far more modestly attired for her flashy runway strut than the bleached-blonde beauty bimbo in the original video. Meanwhile, down on the floor, Frankenteen, Dreamboat Blaine, Gaylord Weiner, Santana Lopez, and Brit-Brit join Puck and a host of nameless extras as they all leap up on the desks for some glittery generalized mayhem, and I don't know what scares me more: The fact that all the kids in the original video are now in their forties, or the fact that Mark Salling is older than this song.

By Demian

Eventually, we leap from the fantasy sequence into the real performance Puck's giving back in the music room, with Dreamboat Blaine and Gaylord Weiner providing enthusiastic backing vocals while Frankenteen wisely remains off to the side behind the drum kit. I'm momentarily mesmerized by the rubbery crazy legs Gaylord and The Dreamboat give us at the beginning, and then the two get all kinds of frisky and inappropriate with their mike stands, engaging in a terribly suggestive sword fight before straddling the things so they end up jutting from the gentlemen's respective crotches. By the way, Dreamboat Blaine's neurotic aversion to socks remains constant throughout this sequence. You know, in case you were wondering. It all ends with some ardent headbanging from everyone involved, and as the boys bask in the applause now washing over them from their admiring compatriots in the cheap seats, Mr. Schue rises to his feet to congratulate them all on a job well done before wondering aloud what Puck's intent was when he chose the song. Puck takes a very long moment to stare at Idina Menzel, who has quite conveniently positioned herself on the far side of the glass wall separating the music room proper from the adjacent hallway, before eventually shouting, "I just dig Van Halen!" "Rock on!" Mr. Schue dorktastically shouts back -- though he does not, alas, accompany said shouting with a matching pair of dorktastic devil horns -- and with that, we have little choice but to headbang our way into this evening's title card.

The screen fills with an image of Mike O'Malley looking especially dimwitted and slow as Sue's voiceover announces, "Burt Hummel: He's running for Congress!" More unflattering images of the gentleman in question zip by, interspersed with subliminal flashes of "ARTS EDUCATION" and "TAXES" and a monkey reading the newspaper as Sue's voiceover continues, "Last year, he had a heart attack -- he might have had a heart transplant, and he might have got it from a baboon." Various primates proceed to go apeshit as "INFLATION" and "SOCIALISM" blink past until the camera settles in on that monkey reading the newspaper again, and this time, we can see that the creature's seated in a red-walled room in front of an obscene pile of money. "Baboons are dangerous killers who throw their own feces when they're not tearing off people's faces or admiring their own weird butts," Sue informs us as she appears for the first time on camera for a brief moment before we switch back to yet another unflattering portrait of Burt for Sue's bit of voiceover. "Congress is bad enough. If Burt Hummel thinks what Washington needs is more baboon parts, then he needs a brain transplant." At this point, the top of Burt's head hinges back to expel a tiny and sickly-looking brain. "Watch out, baboons!" Sue warns as the shot cuts back to her, and then this ridiculous political advertisement ends with Sue standing in front of an enormous American flag as she declares, "Burt Hummel and his baboon heart: Wrong on the issues, wrong for Ohio." "I'm Sue Sylvester, I have a human heart, and I approve this message!" she concludes above a disclaimer that reads, "PAID FOR BY ANGRY WHITE PEOPLE TO ELECT SUE SYLVESTER," and with that, we hop over to...

...Will's bedroom, where he and Emma have just finished watching the above on TV. "The man had angioplasty!" Will seethes. "She's telling lies!" he howls. "She's playing dirty, and she's getting away with it!" he wails, and now is the point where the unjustly underused Emma waves her placating hands around in the air and insists, "You have to play nice because if you win by fighting dirty, it's not really winning." Yeah, tell that to Karl Rove, honey. "That's what we teach our students," she reminds him, and Will finally calms down long enough for us to...

...bounce forward to the following morning, where the camera finds Sue polishing one of her many, many trophies over in her office at McKinley High. "What you're doing is appalling!" the just-appearing St. Gay Of Lima bays, and no, honey, what you're wearing is appalling -- what Sue's doing is politics. Sue pretty much tells him the same thing, and there follows a lengthy conversation on the topic, with Sue noting that St. Gay's efforts to win the impending student council election are doomed to fail because he's turned himself into a shrill, shrieking, life-sucking harpy of a killjoy over the course of the past year. Oh, I'm sorry -- my bad. What she actually notes is that St. Gay's running on a "boring" and "tired" anti-obesity platform no one's heard about before tonight. If he wants to win, she argues, St. Gay needs to find a real cause, and then "start flinging poo" at his rivals. St. Gay, of course, is outraged, and he flounces on out of there to go annoy someone else.

Meanwhile, over in the teachers' lounge, Idina approaches Will to discuss the whole splintered glee club situation, which has recently gotten a bit more complicated now that they've received confirmation their rival groups will be competing against each other in Sectionals. "We may get along, but the kids won't," he warns. Idina kindly suggests that "competition may bring out the best in them," but Will knows better, and as a result, he's expecting "World War Glee" to erupt at any moment. For whatever reason, this allows him a chance to wax nostalgic for the friendly mash-up competitions of episodes past, which in turn allows him a chance to form An Idea. "Maybe there's a way to work with all this fighting spirit," he suggests, "and get the kids to channel it into something great." "Talk to me," Idina replies, instantly intrigued, because I guess she hasn't been around long enough to know how much Will's ideas usually suck.

Cut to the auditorium, where New Directions and The Troubletones emerge from opposite wings to meet center stage. Suspicion abounds until Santana guesses their advisors intend to combine the two groups for Sectionals. "Not gonna happen," she goes on to insist, "so why don't you shuffle your busted choir off our stage?" "We can compete without being enemies," Finn foolishly counters. "We don't have to get vicious." "Oh, I think we do, Soft Serve," Santana eyebrows, thereby efficiently setting up this evening's central conflict. "See," she continues, advancing upon him while her fellows from Idina Menzel's nurturing lady-choir cluster around to offer their moral support, "The Troubletones are Three-F: Fierce, femme, fenomenal." "Oh, and guys!" she calls out, addressing her own. "Hurry up -- go get some moist towels! We have to keep Finn wet before we can roll him back in the sea." Amusingly enough, Sugar Motta immediately turns to do as Santana's instructed and must be stopped by an anonymous backup Cheerio before she vanishes from the stage. Hee. "You know what?" Rachel unwisely interjects at this juncture. "Finn is in great shape, and your meanness only highlights your own personal insecurities!" "And your moustache," Santana instantly snaps back with a sweet smile on her face, "is thicker than a Middle Eastern dictator's."

It's at this point of high tension, of course, that Mr. Schue and Idina Menzel appear in the wings to serenade their squabbling show choirs with a perfectly inoffensive medley of Lady Gaga's "Yoü And I" -- and once again: Fuck Lady Gaga and her goddamned pointless umlauts -- paired with Eddie Rabbitt's correctly spelled "You And I," which he originally performed with Crystal Gayle the same year Mark Salling and Cory Monteith were born. It starts out simply enough, with the two accompanied only by Mr. Schue's strummy guitar, but eventually, the ever-mute boys of The McKinley Jazz Ensemble kick in with their instruments in the background, and Idina and Puck take turns plinking out appropriate chords on the Tinkles-free baby grand piano, and the children smile and sway, and Sugar Motta blissfully grooves out with her open cell phone held aloft -- which is apparently what the kids are doing these days instead of flicking their lighters, because kids these days are losers -- and Puck gets visibly thrown when Idina sings something about "lipstick on your face," and St. Gay Of Lima's still dressed like Yasser Arafat, and the urgent matter of Dreamboat Blaine's sock situation remains distressingly unclear throughout, and then it's over. Nattering naturally ensues, and the upshot of it all is that Mr. Schue and Idina Menzel instruct New Directions and The Troubletones to concoct mash-ups of their own, which each group will present during the titular mash-off, with the winner receiving...absolutely nothing, as it turns out. The children find this inordinately exciting, and whoops and hollers abound until we cut over to...

By Demian

...some random classroom later that day, and if this is meant to be the tail end of fourth-period Geometry, someone should let those responsible for this show know that fourth period lets out long before three o'clock in the afternoon. Unless that clock on the wall is broken. Is the clock on the wall supposed to be broken? Whatever. None of that is important at the moment because what is important at the moment is the fact that Puck is using this opportunity to give Idina Menzel the hard sell -- if you know what I mean, and I think you do -- and he's even gone so far as to write out a list of the reasons they should be together, which pulls from his jeans pocket to read aloud. And as one of those reasons involves his claim that Dismal Drizzle needs a father, I'll not be transcribing it. Long story short, he woos her by laying on the charm, tempting her with the prospect of "taking stupid pictures" for their Hanukkah cards and renting an RV to hit Coachella before offering to help assemble some new crib she's ordered for the tiresome infant. For her part, Idina insists their kiss was a mistake, and she reminds him she could get fired for associating with him outside of school hours before propelling him towards the door. Puck pauses at the exit, a merry twinkle in his eye, and beguiles her with a teasing, "You know this is gonna happen!" before disappearing into this evening's first commercial break.

...the hall, where we find Quinn babbling something boring about her asinine Drizzle-centered subplot at a guilty-looking Puck for a while until she enters Idina's office to join The Troubletones for what I'm certain are nefarious reasons. "I'll have to think about that," Idina coolly replies. Quinn looks pissed. And possibly insane.

Elsewhere, The Leprechaun assures Frankenteen that he'll always have the lumbering, slack-jawed, talent-free moron's back as far as Santana Lopez and her hilariously worded put-downs are concerned. Frankenteen replies by explaining the entire concept of "trash-talking" to the clueless lad because Rory's apparently even dumber than Finn is, and then he vows to beat Santana at her own game. She is just going to eat these two idiots alive, isn't she? On cue, Santana materializes in front of them with Brittany at her side to breeze past Frankenteen with a cheery, "Hey there, Orca!" "Hey, Santana!" Finn calls out, commencing with his pathetic attempt to Bring It. "You look like an assless J.Lo!" "You're skinny," Rory dimly offers, just making it all worse, "like all the crops failed on your family's farm!" "That is the lamest thing I didn't understand a word of," Santana assures The Leprechaun before sidling up to the lumbering, slack-jawed, talent-free moron to lecture him like so: "You seriously think that you can out-insult me? I'm from Lima Heights!. I was raised on insults -- it's how mi abuela put me to sleep at night, and she is not a nice lady. You know she tried to sell me once? And it wasn't 'til I got to kindergarten that I learned my name wasn't 'Garbage Face.'" "Then we'll have to settle this another way," Finn frets, trying to think fast and failing miserably. Eventually, however, he comes out with, "Today, after school: Bring your Troubletones." "Are you suggesting what I think you are?" Santana smiles. "Yeah, I am," Finn confirms, setting a stony look of grim determination on his face. "Dodgeball!" Dun-dun-DUN!

Over in the auditorium, Rachel hesitates at the curtain, then steels her resolve and approaches Idina Menzel at the baby grand to ask if she'd sign a prewritten letter of recommendation for Rachel to include in her application to that nonexistent drama school in New York. Idina agrees without hesitation, and Rachel turns to leave, but Idina stops her with a few warm and evidently sincere remarks regarding her obvious and envious potential, so Rachel wonders if Idina might like to pen the entire recommendation herself. Idina would love to, thank you very much, and she opens Rachel's proffered folder to examine the résumé Rachel's prepared. Did you know she's been teaching tap at the Jewish Community Center for the last three years? Neither did I. Idina scans the "impressive" document and idly notes, "I feel bad for all the kids who don't have all these big-ticket items in their CVs -- they don't have one chance in hell of getting into NYADA." For whatever reason, this entirely innocent comment sends Rachel spinning into a visible yet silent shame spiral, and we head into this evening's commercial break wondering what her big fucking problem is this time.

Gym. A painfully tormented Rachel, who's now decked out in one of McKinley High's finest physical education uniforms, approaches the studiously sniffy St. Gay Of Lima and attempts to apologize for ruining their supposed friendship, which is something that must have happened when I wasn't paying attention. Guess it's a good thing I never cared about their supposed friendship in the first place. St. Gay, of course, shoots her down in the prissiest and most imperious manner imaginable, but that doesn't really matter at this point because it's time for...

...DODGEBALL! Finn blows a whistle at center court and bellows, "Let's roadhouse!" -- whatever the hell that's supposed to mean -- and Santana saunters on over just to assure the "Pillsbury Dough-Turd" that it is indeed on. Oh, and you should probably know that Santana and The Troubletones are sporting McKinley Phys Ed Department t-shirts in a most slimming shade of black, while Frankenteen and his fellow New Directions have chosen to clad themselves in a rather unforgiving red for the festivities. The Leprechaun stops by to say something stupid, Brit-Brit bends down to hit Play on the gigantic boom box they've brought along, and with that, we enter what I can only assume is this evening's fantasy sequence, a dodgeball-infused performance of Pat Benatar's "Hit Me With Your Best Shot" combined with Blondie's "One Way Or Another," and while the synchronized aerial cartwheels on offer from the more agile members of The Troubletones are an awesome sight to behold, they've chosen to give the lead vocals on the two songs to Frankenteen and Santana Lopez, respectively, and Finn suh-huuuuuuucks with the singing. Like, painfully bad. Like, so bad, I'm not going to sit through it again to give you a proper play-by-play of the action, because seriously: SOMEBODY SHUT HIM UP.

And when it's over, and The Troubletones have quite naturally triumphed in the actual dodgeball game itself, Santana and her nurturing lady-choir colleagues celebrate by pummeling The Leprechaun with a barrage of dodgeballs. Pause. Rewind. Play. Pause. Rewind. Play. Pause. Rewind. Slow-forward. "Stop it!" shrieks St. Gay Of Lima, screaming in from out of nowhere to kneel at The Leprechaun's side. "He's bleeding!" St. Gay Of Lima shrills, and to be entirely fair, there is a trickle of blood oozing from The Leprechaun's nose at the moment, though I'd be willing to bet you cash money that his nosebleed's the result of his obvious anemia rather than the tender ministrations of Santana Lopez and her nurturing lady-choir colleagues. St. Gay Of Lima screeches some bit of obnoxious, holier-than-thou pap about how they're all supposed to be above such common displays before flouncing off with the scrawny Leprechaun under his wing, and for whatever reason, it all leaves Rachel looking even more stricken and heartsick than before. GOD, Kurt sucks.

The day (I'm guessing), Idina Menzel leads the members of her nurturing lady-choir in a few vocal exercises until Mercedes -- late, again -- barges through the door to announce she's decided upon an artist for their impending mash-up, and that artist would be current multi-platinum British singing sensation Adele, the better to boost this series' pitifully weak iTunes sales thus far this season. Except for the part where Mercedes left out all of the above save for the artist's name. In any event, her colleagues unanimously agree Adele would be an excellent choice for the mash-off, with Santana especially happy that particular decision is now out of the way, for it allows her to focus on her "one-sided battle of wits with the knuckle-draggers."

Mercedes fixes Santana with an unyielding gaze and insists, "Enough -- I'm the leader of this group, and I'm telling you: Lay off those guys." Santana quite rightly gets all, "Excuse me?" at that, and she proceeds to wonder -- loudly -- "Who died and made you queen?" Mercedes argues that the fact that she recruited Santana and the others in the first place combined with the fact that she came up with the idea for their mash-up while Santana "was wasting time trying to figure out how to make Finn Hudson cry" means that she should be named president of The Troubletones, pronto. Figuring out how to make Finn Hudson cry is never a waste of time, Mercedes. Ever. Mercedes chooses to ignore me, as is her wont, and because the script says they must, each and every one of her colleagues agrees with her argument above except for Brit-Brit. Idina therefore confirms that Mercedes has thus been duly elected club president before tediously reminding the group at large, "We should all be focused on winning because we are better, not meaner." Santana initially claims she hasn't time for "this kind of thinking," but after Mercedes plies her with compliments, she agrees to play fair, promising to be so nice that "cotton candy won't melt in [her] mouth." No, that doesn't make sense at all, but it doesn't matter, because Santana's promise is fated to last all of...

...zero seconds, as we discover when she greets Frankenteen out in the hallway with a hale and hearty, "Hey, Tubbs! Can I talk to you for a second?" The Leprechaun foolishly attempts to intervene on Finn's behalf, but Santana puts a quick stop to that with a curt, "Shut your potato-hole -- I'm here to apologize." She redirects her focus on Finn and begins, "Rachel was right -- I haven't been fair to you." "You're not fat," she claims, adding, "I should know -- I slept with you." And here's where it gets really, really good: Frankenteen makes the fatal mistake at this point of visibly allowing his guard to drop, so Santana moves in for the kill with the following brilliant stream of expertly delivered abuse, which I will quote in all its glorious entirety, the better for you to admire and applaud every last syllable. "I mean," the monologue starts, "at some point, I must have liked that you look like a taco addict who's had one too many back-alley liposuctions." Here, The Leprechaun again stupidly makes to interrupt, so Santana silences him with a quick, "Please stick a sock in it, or ship yourself back to Scotland -- I'm trying to apologize to Lumps The Clown." "I am sorry, Finn," she continues, once the alien nuisance has thus been so efficiently dispatched. "I mean, really, I'm sorry that the New Directions are gonna get crushed by The Troubletones. I'm also sorry that you have no talent -- sorry that you sing like you're getting your prostate checked, and you 'dance' like you've been asleep for years and someone just woke you up. Have fun riding on Rachel's coattails for the rest of your life, although you know what? I would just watch out for her come holiday time if I were him, because if I were her, I'd stick a stent in one of those boobs and let the Finn blubber light the Hanukkah lamp for eight magical nights!"

By Demian

Which they presently do, of course, accompanied by the ever-mute members of The McKinley High Jazz Ensemble, to offer us their rendition of "You Make My Dreams Come True" and "I Can't Go For That" by Hall & Oates, with Frankenteen, The Leprechaun, Single-T Tina, and Quinn sharing lead vocals. Incidentally, Frankenteen, St. Gay Of Lima, and The Leprechaun are all dressed as the Hall half of that deathless duo in oversized jackets atop eye-searingly pink t-shirts, while Artie, Gaylord, Puck, and Dreamboat Blaine have donned fluffy mullets and fake moustaches to impersonate the Oates. The ladies, meanwhile, have chosen to go with some sort of leopard-print Madonna-lite thing to hold up their end of this bubbly '80s-inspired easy-listening atrocity, and that's sort of all I have to say about it all at this point, really. Well, except for the fact that The Leprechaun is even worse with the dancing than Frankenteen ever was, which represents a new, mindbending level of terrifying all on its own. Oh, and Dreamboat Blaine? Disturbingly, distressingly attractive when you dress him up like a mid-'70s Castro Clone. Yeesh.

And when it's over, the gals of Idina Menzel's nurturing lady-choir offer New Directions a round of applause while we duck out into this evening's commercial break.

We return to a brief montage of various creatively defaced campaign posters before cross-fading over to the gymnasium, where various characters have gathered to witness the final presentations of the various candidates for Senior Class President, and yes, this election should have been held at the end of their junior year, and no, I don't really care one way or the other about any of it because that black hole of suck otherwise known as "Finn Hudson" outed poor Santana Lopez in the middle of the goddamned hall four scenes, two commercial breaks, and one entire musical number ago, and nobody's done anything about it yet. So, after The Maharishi delivers his standard low-key welcome, the four candidates rise in turn to address those present. First up is Rick "The Stick" Nielsen, one of the hockey-haired, letter-jacketed lunkheads who were giving The Leprechaun so much well-deserved grief a couple of episodes ago, and does anyone really care what he has to say? Didn't think so.

comes our dear little Brit-Brit, who delivers a stirring stump speech decrying the dark tornado menace now threatening this great land of ours before vowing to declare tornadoes and their murderous rampages illegal at McKinley High. And then she promises to go topless every Tuesday if she wins, which brings her a standing ovation from the crowd. Brit-Brit's followed by St. Gay Of Lima, who has both the unbelievable gall and the astonishing stupidity to equate dodgeball with stoning -- which no, and not even, and never, and shut the fuck up, you self-righteous twat -- and then Rachel steps up to the microphone to announce she's withdrawing from the race and throwing her support behind the dour, ignorant scold who spoke immediately before her. Absolutely no one cares.

Well, except for St. Gay Of Lima, apparently, who approaches Rachel at her locker after the assembly to thank her, more or less, and with their friendship thus restored, the two link arms to amble off into this evening's commercial break, and could we get back to that whole outing thing, again? Please?

Crap. For whatever reason, they've taken it upon themselves to give us a little more Crazy Quinn, instead, so I'll keep this brief: Crazy Quinn materializes on Idina Menzel's doorstep, Idina Menzel reads her the riot act for what should be painfully obvious reasons by now, Crazy Quinn calls Idina Menzel a whore, Idina Menzel tells Crazy Quinn to fuck off, and Crazy Quinn leaves. !

McKinley High. Becky runs up to Santana to summon her to Sue's office, now, and when Santana saunters in, she finds the bleak-looking trio of Burt Hummel, Mr. Schue, and Sue waiting for her. "What's going on?" Santana quite rightly wonders. Sue quietly suggests she take a seat, and proceeds to admit, "I'm afraid we have some bad news, and I think I might be to blame." "In my campaign," she explains, "I've said some things that are not true, and I don't feel good about it." "I set the tone," Sue continues, "and now I'm afraid my slanderous chickens have come home to roost." At this point, Mr. Schue offers Santana the phone number of a counselor he knows while Burt Hummel volunteers to speak with her parents, as he has first-hand knowledge of what her family must be going through at the moment. "What are you talking about?" Santana frowns, and the adults present finally get to the point, with Burt Hummel revealing that Reggie "The Sauce" Salazar forwarded him an advance copy of the pizza baron's campaign ad. "Turns out he has a niece who goes to this school," Sue notes, "and she overheard a conversation a couple of days ago between you and Finn Hudson." Santana's face falls as Burt Hummel hits Play on Sue's VCR, and it turns out Reggie Salazar's decided to attack Sue by attacking her commitment to "family values," using "lesbian student" Santana's promotion to head cheerleader as the primary example of the questionable choices Sue has made as of late in both her professional and her personal lives. The ad instantly reduces Santana -- whose image is prominently featured at several points -- to tears, and she blurts out, "I can't believe this is happening -- I haven't even told my parents yet!" before racing out of the room, down the hall, and into...

By Demian

Auditorium. Mr. Schue welcomes everyone to the mash-off, and calls Frankenteen and Santana forward for a rousing game of Rock-Paper-Scissors to determine which choir goes first. Every last one of the children excitedly joins in to shout out, "One, two, three!" and Finn throws Paper, while Santana whips out a cunning little pearl-handled revolver from the many, many folds of her sassy carwash skirt and shoots that worthless, talent-free motherfucker right in the face. Or maybe she just throws Rock, which means it's time for New Directions to take the stage.

And when it's over, the gals of Idina Menzel's nurturing lady-choir offer New Directions a round of applause while we duck out into this evening's commercial break.

By Demian

...this evening's final number, which is a fierce, femme, fenomenal, and furiously angry performance of Adele's "Rumour Has It" and "Someone Like You." Mercedes and Santana trade off on lead, and while Amber Riley handles her side of things as well as we've come to expect from her over the last couple of years, this is really Naya Rivera's number, and the lady slaughters it. The impact unfortunately has lessened upon several viewings, but I gotta tell ya, that first time I saw it when this episode aired live? It broke me. Remember when this show used to do that on a regular basis? Good times.

By Demian

And at the end, when Santana steps forward to the lip of the stage to deliver her final, wrenching note, she happens to glance down into the audience, where she spots that worthless piece of filth whispering something into Rachel's ear. Santana jumps to an entirely understandable conclusion -- you'll recall what she had to say here, I'm sure -- and she proceeds to completely lose her shit, leaping down from Mercedes's side to scream, "What did you just say to her?" "I... said I thought you were great?" the worthless piece of filth haltingly replies. "You're lying!" Santana fumes. "No!" Rachel hastens to interject. "He literally just said that!" Santana, not listening to her, keeps her eyes trained on him and seethes, "Everyone's gonna know now, because of you!" "The whole school already knows," that worthless piece of filth callously snaps back at her. "Not just the school, you idiot!" Santana rages. "Everyone!" "What are you talking about?" Finn whines, and that's it: Santana hauls off and slaps the holy living crap out of his smug, talent-free face. And, thanks to the lovely and talented redgarlic and Titus on the forum boards, you can watch her do it over and over and over again! Hooray! Unfortunately, our joy is of no help to Santana in the moment, and the episode ends with a shot of that poor girl looking shell-shocked and so very, very alone right before everything cuts to black.

week: Thanksgiving! Or, you know, a two-hour installment of some reality show, if you're into that sort of thing. Glee returns on November 29th for a string of new episodes that runs through the middle of December. See you then!

Demian still doesn't have an animated GIF of The Troubletones pounding The Leprechaun with dodgeballs. You may send him a link at demian_twop@yahoo.com, but it would be so much better if you posted it to the forum boards, where everyone else can enjoy it as well.