It's Prom time, baby. The show has finally remembered that Brittany is student council president, just in time for her to decide that the prom theme will be dinosaurs. And that all hair gel will be banned from the prom, since it didn't exist in dinosaur days. Four of the six nominees for Prom King and Queen come from the universally despised glee club -- Finn and Brit are nominated for Prom King, and Quinn and Santana are nominated for Prom Queen.
Rachel, still depressed from biffing her Fake Theater School audition, doesn't want to go to prom -- especially after she discovers that Finn and Quinn are jointly campaigning for king and queen. Blaine and Kurt have their own reasons to skip the prom, so the three of them decide to organize an anti-prom. Unfortunately, only Puck (depressed over failing his test) and Becky (depressed over not being nominated for Prom Queen) take them up on their invitation, leading to the most depressing party since the one the teachers threw for the thumbless shop teacher. Fortunately, Finn arrives to convince them to come back to the regular prom. They all take him up on the offer, except for Becky and Puck, who hang out, play some strip poker, crown each other king and queen of the anti-prom, and then go to the real prom.
Over at the real prom, Finn discovers that Quinn's physical therapy is working and that she has started to be able to walk again. Of course, she kept this to herself in order to milk the sympathy vote. This pisses Finn off (which is what leads him to head to the anti-prom to bring the rest back). But Quinn seems determined not to let anything get between her and the tiara she wants so much. Until, that is, Rachel tells her how much she's still jealous of Quinn's beauty and popularity, and how proud she is to call Quinn her friend. This leads Santana and Quinn to rig the balloting so that Rachel is elected Prom Queen, with Finn rightfully elected Prom King.
Oh, also, we finally get to see Blaine without hair gel. I'm starting a special fund to ensure he's never without product again.
My laptop died and I'm writing this on an iPad without an external keyboard. So there's no way in hell I can give you links to all the songs. But I can tell you that the episode featured Fergie's "Big Girls Don't Cry," sung by Rachel, with backup from Kurt and Blaine; Ke-dollar-sign-ha's "Dinosaur," sung by Brit-Brit; Selena Gomez's "Love You Like a Love Song," sung by Santana; One Direction's "What Makes You Beautiful," sung by the non-Finn, non-Puck, non-gay glee club boys; and Berlin's "Take My Breath Away," sung by Quinn and Santana.
I don't believe anybody got slapped. Some prom.
Some episodes of this show just make me happy. Others make me angry. Occasionally, an episode (say, a certain drug-fueled holiday extravaganza) leaves me baffled. But this episode just bored me, from beginning to end. I mean, if I'm so bored by the episode that even Puck in his underwear can't pique my interest, you've got a problem.
We start with a Rachel voice-over. She's just so sad about screwing up her Fake New York Theater School audition that she's decided her dreams are dead. She just goes on like this forever -- her dreams are dead, the only thing in her life she has to look forward to now is her wedding to Finn and Nationals, she'll never be famous, etc. As she drones on (and on and on), we see her taking down her dream vision board, walking down the school hallway as though she's a nobody and looking at prom dresses. That last one is because she's decided that this one prom will have to stand in for every red carpet she'll never walk down because she choked during her audition. The only interesting thing about this monologue is that, for some completely inexplicable reason, we spend several seconds seeing Rachel dressed like classic Barbra, in leopard-print coat and matching pillbox hat, sitting in the auditorium. Because that's exactly the kind of thing you do if, as Rachel is trying to convince us (and herself), you're perfectly fine with the fact that your dream of stardom is over. Of course, her attempt to convince herself that she's not a loser takes a nose dive when she catches Becky practicing her prom queen wave and Becky tells her to beat it so she won't catch Rachel's failure. Title card.
Maharishi's Lair. Figgins is reminding Brit-Brit (whom he addresses as "sexy teen trollop") that she's student body president and is supposed to be planning for prom. Apparently, even though she's getting F's in every one of her classes, Figgins thinks that having "student body president" on her record will help her get into college. She can't possibly be graduating, can she? Anyway, she's got it covered, because she's already been accepted by Purdue. By which she means the poultry processing plant, not the institution of higher learning.
Oh, and now here's Brit meeting the prom committee for the very first time. It's staffed by three never-before-seen, never-to-be-seen-again students. Let's see, Brit's really stupid, so I think we can guess that the following things will happen in this scene: she'll forget their names; she'll fail to grasp the concept of metaphor; she'll be extra rude to them; she'll ditch all their work and come up with something of her own; she'll call them bullies, even though she's been about ten times ruder to them than they are to her; and she'll mistake one of them for a less popular glee club member. And yes, all of those things happen. What we couldn't necessarily predict was that Brit would decide the theme for prom should be "Dinosaurs." Oy, this show.
Sue's office. Becky is playing the introductory xylophone notes preceding Sue's announcement over the P.A. system of the nominees for prom court. Nominees for king are a mullet-haired hockey player, Brit-Brit and Finn. Nominees for queen are some unknown, Santana and Quinn. As Quinn looks surprised by the nomination, the students listening to the announcement are aurally assaulted by the sound of someone murdering a xylophone. That someone is Becky, who's enraged that she wasn't nominated.
Music room. Rachel is (honestly) telling Finn that she's not upset that she wasn't nominated for queen, because she's aware that the entire school despises her. She's just looking forward to dancing with Finn. You guys, I think she should put her on suicide watch -- she's clearly planning to throw herself under his giant clodhoppers so that he clumsily stomps her to death. Will enters and tells them that Figgins has asked New Directions to perform at prom. Which actually only seems to please a few people. And then Brit-Brit announces the prom theme. "I was inspired by the new girl, [New Guy With Gross Hair Whose Name Demian Can't Be Bothered To Look Up], because she reminds me of a cave man." In keeping with the theme, Brit is planning a paleo menu. And for the sake of historical verisimilitude, she's banning hair gel. For real. She's also decided that the best way to keep the election honest is to have Santana and Quinn count the votes.
Rachel, in her third (non-leopard print) outfit of the episode, is walking down the hall when she's shocked to see that Finn and Quinn have made a joint poster to run for king and queen. She rips it off the wall, runs over to Finn's locker and starts going apeshit on him for thinking this was a good idea. He tells her that he's just trying to help out a friend -- a friend who nearly died coming to their wedding, responding to a text that one of them sent to her. Rachel just can't believe she's going to finish school the way she started it -- on the outside, looking in at Finn and Quinn and their joint popularity. Commercials.
Physical Therapy. Quinn is on the bars, and she takes a couple of small steps on her own before falling over onto the mat. Hurray! Let's tell everyone! Except, as she tells New Guy With Gross Hair Whose Name Demian Can't Be Bothered To Look Up, she'd like to keep it a secret until she can actually take more than a few steps on her own. Is that the Tinkling Piano of Quinn's Impending Insanity I hear? I do believe it is.
Becky strides down the hallway, and we hear her interior monologue once again. The voice still sounds like Helen Mirren, but just a little different. Did someone tell Helen Mirren to try to sound more like Becky? Anyway, she's bummed about not being nominated. And she thinks the election posters are all staring at her, and being stared at is a feeling she doesn't enjoy.
Sue calls Becky into her office to talk about how she's handling the whole prom queen situation. We get flashbacks of Becky destroying several xylophones, and another of her walking past the cafeteria line and knocking everybody's tray out of their hands. Sue tries to reason with her, pointing out that she just didn't have the votes. Also, and this is a quality Sue admires, she's mean and rude to everybody. Sue tries to cheer her up by appointing her Deputy Punch Bowl Supervisor at the prom, but Becky's not pleased. As she demonstrates by smashing Sue's new xylophone on the way out of the room.
Auditorium. Rachel is on stage, where she starts singing Fergie's "Big Girls Don't Cry (Personal)." After the first verse or so, she's joined by Kurt and then Blaine. After the song finishes, they complain about how much none of them wants to be at prom. Kurt's worried he'll get elected queen again. Blaine can't stand the thought of anyone seeing him with his natural hair. And Rachel, as we've established, doesn't want to watch Finn and Quinn get crowned king and queen. All this complaining has given Rachel an idea...
...Which she spins around an announces to the entire glee club in the music room. Nice effect. Anyway, her idea is that they're going to host an anti-prom at Lima's best hotel, the Red Rooster Express Suites. Everybody's invited, but Santana quickly points out that it really just looks like a pity party for Rachel and "the gay Winklevii" twins. Rachel tells her that they've invited most of the underclassmen. Cut to Rachel inviting Becky, who's only interested if some non-boring (i.e., non-Rachel, non-gay-Winklevii) people attend. In the music room, Puck announces that he's in for the anti-prom. He's given up on his dream of spiking the punch bowl, since he's doomed to fail at everything. And then Santana calls out Rachel for not dealing with how upset she is over screwing up her audition. And she points out how selfish it is for her to try to split the group up on the last really big night they all have to spend together. I guess Rachel should put Santana down as a 'no' then?
At the prom, Santana is singing "Love You Like a Love Song," originally performed by Selena Gomez and the Scene. While she sings, Mercedes and Sam are dancing and laughing. Mercedes sees her old man-mountain of a boyfriend dancing with a new girl, and they give each other friendly smiles and nods. So I guess she didn't ruin his life.
Also on the dance floor are Quinn and Finn. She's sitting in her chair, holding his hands, vaguely bobbing along to the music. While he just stands there. But it's not just his normal horrible dancing that's keeping him so stiff -- he's still furious with Quinn for lying about being able to walk. He starts yelling at her to stand up. New Guy With Gross Hair Whose Name Demian Can't Be Bothered To Look Up comes over to calm things down, and Finn accuses him of being in on the secret. There's a little bit of pushing before Sue breaks it up, asking Finn if she's really going to have to eject him from prom two years in a row. He decides to leave on his own. Commercials.
Anti-prom. It sucks, as everyone is well aware. Kurt suggests to Blaine that he'd be okay with it if Blaine wanted to go to the real prom. But Blaine won't give in to Brit-Brit's anti-gelism. He's worried that Kurt won't find him attractive with the giant hair that he'll have without gel. There's a knock at the door. It's Finn. He asks where Rachel is, just in time for her to emerge from the bathroom in her prom dress. He tells her, "I love you, you're beautiful, prom sucks without you." So they kiss and decide to go to the prom. Blaine decides that if Brit sees him, he'll just pretend to be an ice sculpture until she walks away. So he and Kurt are also going. But Becky and Puck decide to stick it out. After everyone else leaves, Becky locks the door and asks Puck if he's ready for some strip poker.
Cut to a slow-mo shot of Finn, Rachel, Kurt and Blaine entering the prom. Don't they know what will happen if prom and anti-prom collide? Streamers, everywhere. It's not pretty. Brit welcomes them as they enter. She's thrilled to see them, but reminds Blaine of the anti-gel rule. So Blaine leaves to ... wash his hair, I guess? I'm bald, so I don't really know from product. And then Artie, Sam, Demian, Mike Chang and New Guy With Gross Hair Whose Name Demian Can't Be Bothered To Look Up are singing One Direction's "What Makes You Beautiful." Oh, look, Will and Emma are dancing in the crowd.
Anti-prom. Seems Puck took Becky up on her offer. She's quite the shark -- she's got him down to one sock and his underwear, and she hasn't lost anything. He asks her if she could lay off winning every hand, but she's too mad about not being nominated for prom queen to be anything but cutthroat. That gives Puck an idea. He puts on his clothes, and then uses a knife to cut two crowns out of six-pack cartons. And then he and Becky crown themselves King and Queen of the anti-prom. She's really happy, so they decide to leave the anti-prom while they're ahead. Commercials.
School hallway. Quinn rolls up to Rachel, who texted her. Rachel wants to apologize for being such a jerk about Finn campaigning with Quinn. It was all about her feeling of insecurity and the way she's envied Quinn as long as they've known each other. But the one accomplishment she'll look back on in high school is that she became friends with Quinn. Santana walks up behind them with two ballot boxes in her hand -- it's time for Quinn and her to count the votes.
There's some stupid bit of business involving Sue, Tina and the punch bowl, and then Sue hears people whistling and cheering. They're cheering the arrival of the King and Queen of the anti-prom. Becky's got a perfect royal wave, and her voice-over tells us how happy she is. And then she distracts Sue so that Puck can spike the punch.
Generic classroom. Santana and Quinn are counting the votes. Brit only got four votes for king, so Santana doesn't want to be queen anymore, which is good, because they both agree that Quinn won by one vote. Quinn realizes that she just got what she always wanted, and she just doesn't care. She tells Santana that the two of them "have really had the dream high school careers." Really? Between the two of them, they've got one high school pregnancy, one being kicked out by parents, one being outed on local TV, and one being disowned by her grandmother. Plus, they were both intimate with Finn Hudson. That's a dream career? Quinn thinks she'd like to finish her dream high school career having made a difference. Commercials.
Blaine re-enters the prom. His de-gelled hair is about six inches tall. He looks like a lesbian math teacher. (Okay, maybe he just looks like my lesbian math teacher.) Brit, after being told that the kid with the giant afro is not a new student, gives him special dispensation to wear gel so people won't turn to stone when they look at him. Blaine wants to run off to re-gel himself, but Kurt tells him he's happy to finally see the real Blaine, "and I want everyone here to know just how proud I am of my brave, handsome, bushy-haired boyfriend."
Time to announce prom king and queen. Figgins calls the nominees to the stage. And then he invites Kurt, as reigning queen, to crown the winners. The prom king is Finn. And the queen is... SHOCK! It's Rachel. Allegedly due to write-in votes (or, as Figgins calls it, prom anarchy). Rachel slowly makes her way to the stage where Kurt crowns her. It's time for them to dance, and they take the floor as Quinn and Santana sings Berlin's "Take My Breath Away." As they dance, Rachel worries that it's all a joke, but Finn tells her that she won because she's beautiful and sexy. Or because two friends cheated for her. And then we see prom photos of most of the kids as Quinn sings. Oh, and Quinn stands up as she's singing, with Santana and the microphone stand holding her up.
What a boring load of crap.
LTG lives in Boston, where he's a full-time pension and benefits attorney and a part-time prom king. You can reach him at ltg.jon@gmail.com.