The Breakup(s)

S04E04

No, that wasn't a makeout-induced fever dream at the end of last week's episode: Frankenteen really has returned from a brief and abortive stint in the army, having been discharged after accidentally shooting himself in the leg, and his unexpected arrival in New York City sets in motion a series of events that eventually leads both him and Idiot Rachel back to Ohio, where Rachel finally grows herself a spine and tells him to get lost, for good. Unfortunately, Finn now seems positioned -- however implausibly -- to step into Mr. Schue's position as Glee Club advisor while Mr. Schue does whatever he's about to do down in Washington, so we in the audience will still be shackled to the ungainly character for the foreseeable future, but it was oddly satisfying to see Rachel rip him a new one after all these years of that endless on-again, off-again aggravation they were calling a relationship.

Meanwhile, Dreamboat Blaine's been feeling lost and alone ever since St. Gay Of Lima flitted off to Manhattan to become Sarah Jessica Parker's fabulous editorial assistant, so he totally does it with some random he pulled on Facebook. Because this is a television show, Blaine immediately feels so guilty about the whole thing that he flies to Brooklyn to confess, and after a lot of shrieking and tears and High Gay Drama, Kurt tells Blaine to go to hell. I think. To be honest, those two were never right for each other, so I wasn't really paying much attention to their scenes.

Elsewhere, Santana Lopez decides to be an actual adult about her long-distance relationship issues with Brit-Brit, and she preemptively calls it off after gently explaining the reasoning behind her decision. Both gals are terribly sad, of course, but leave it to the teen lesbians to take the mature way out of things.

In other news, Will and Emma engage in a little spat over some ultimately unimportant bit of miscommunication while the boring new additions to the cast try and fail to insert themselves into this evening's action.

Featuring a variety of thoroughly depressing songs, including Duncan Sheik's "Barely Breathing," as performed by Dreamboat Blaine and Frankenteen; Demi Lovato's "Give Your Heart A Break," as performed by Idiot Rachel and Dean Geyer's Forearms; a stripped-down and emotionally raw rendition of Katy Perry's "Teenage Dream," as performed by Dreamboat Blaine; an excellent version of No Doubt's mid-'90s angst-athon "Don't Speak," as performed by Frankenteen, Idiot Rachel, Dreamboat Blaine, and St. Gay Of Lima; Taylor Swift-Kennedy's "Mine," as performed by Santana Lopez; and Coldplay's suicide-inducing "The Scientist," as performed by nearly everyone mentioned above plus Brit-Brit, Mr. Schue, and Miss Pillsbury.

The camera snaps open in the middle of the McKinley High cafeteria, where it dodges through a throng of horny, ass-slapping teenagers until it lands on Boring New Rachel, who takes just a second too long to hide her reduced-price lunch tickets from the prying eyes of the just-arriving New Puck. Oops! No worries, though, because he's been on the same meal plan ever since his single mom had to abandon her real estate career thanks to the ongoing Bush recession, and they chit-chat about Mama New Puck's struggles for a bit, but I find it incredibly difficult to pay attention to the words spilling from their mouths because she's boring as hell and he's absolutely adorable. Swoon! He's also younger than nearly all of my nieces and nephews, so I'll be skipping ahead to the bit where the camera...

...whips around to scuttle on over to a distant table, where it finds Brit-Brit and Dreamboat Blaine staring wistfully at the flirty little indigents across the room. "Young love!" Brit-Brit sighs. "Do you remember," Dreamboat Blaine responds, waxing nostalgic, "when you first started dating Santana, and I started dating Kurt, back before everyone was so busy and far away, and things were so much simpler?" "We had so much more hope and innocence," he continues, sounding more than a little bit sad, "and every day was just like Valentine's Day." "We're still young," Brit-Brit points out by way of reply. "Shouldn't we still be experiencing those things?" Short answer: Yes. Long answer: The rest of this episode, which will begin immediately after we pass through this evening's title card.

Improbably Bohemian Bushwick Loft. St. Gay Of Lima stands in the kitchen, frying up some eggs while sporting several hundred dollars' worth of clothing that should never, ever be worn in such close proximity to spitting grease. Soon enough, Idiot Rachel and her ugly new hairstyle -- accompanied by approximately sixteen pounds of eyeliner, mascara and lip gloss -- enter from their bedroom for an early-morning mopefest, and long story short, she reveals that she and the freshly-arrived Frankenteen spoke barely three words to each other the entire evening. Which is a terribly convenient excuse for the exposition dump said Frankenteen proceeds to take all over their nice hardwood floors the minute he, too, arrives from the bedroom, but I think I'm getting ahead of myself. So, Frankenteen lumbers into the kitchen and, after St. Gay discreetly excuses himself, Idiot Rachel gets down to business like so: "I don't understand what's going on. Why are you here, and why aren't you in your uniform?" "Because I'm not in the army," Frankenteen unhesitatingly replies, and we quickly smear sideways to...

By Demian

...a decidedly low-rent basic training flashback to find out why: While he was adapting quite nicely to army life, mainly because he's always been "pretty used to getting yelled at," he accidentally discharged his weapon directly into his thigh -- and no, that is not a euphemism for something filthy -- so...

...they kicked him out after only sixteen days in, after which he decided to go hiking through Georgia for "the last couple months," because all you really want to do after shooting yourself in the leg is march around the middle of nowhere for eight weeks, am I right? We've by now of course smeared back to the present, where Frankenteen apologizes for not contacting her sooner, but as he explains, he was far too embarrassed by the whole situation, and he simply couldn't face Idiot Rachel seeing him as "a Lima loser" once again after he had such big plans for making her proud by redeeming his insulting plot device of a dead junkie father, or something like that.

Idiot Rachel immediately assures him that nothing's changed between the two of them and -- ever the cockeyed optimist -- she invites him to accompany her to class at Fake Drama School In New York so they can start working on getting him accepted into the program. Finn gets a hopeful little smile on his face and asks, "You serious?" She perches on what I dearly hope is his good thigh and confesses, "I love it here, but something has always been missing -- I let you go once, and I'm not gonna let it happen again." Yeah, you get back to me on that one in about fifty minutes, hon.

Lair Of The Lopez. Santana has returned from Kentucky for the weekend to catch up on both her laundry and her relationship with Brit-Brit, and as the two ladies fold their way through her mountain of clothes, Santana complains, "I mean, I'm not jealous -- I just think that it's insane that all Porcelain had to do to get an internship with Vogue.com is take photos of every ridiculous outfit he's ever paired with a Cossack hat and a see-through raincoat, and then show up at an interview where he is lauded as a visionary because his jodhpurs happened to match his riding crop!" God, I miss Santana. Apropos of absolutely nothing, Brit-Brit reminds Santana that she, too, could head off to New York to pursue her supposed dreams thanks to all that money she got from Gloria Estefan at the end of last season. Santana counters that, while her schedule's been crazy these last few weeks, she actually enjoys being in college. And besides, she rather suspiciously hastens to add, she likes the idea that she's never more than a few hours away from Brittany. The gals give each other a sweet little peck on the lips at that, after which Brit-Brit lets loose with a jaw-cracking yawn. "You okay?" Santana worries.

The wacky background music kicks in as Brit-Brit replies, "Yeah," before going on to explain, "I was up late last night reading Desecration: The Antichrist Takes The Throne," which is "the ninth book in the Left Behind series of apocalyptic Christian novels about The End Times and the rise of The Antichrist, whose name is Nikolae Carpathia -- or Barack Obama, depending on who you ask." Santana really hopes Brit-Brit didn't get that particular reading assignment from Mr. Schue as part of some dunderheaded Christian Music theme this week, and she is only somewhat relieved to discover that Brittany's joined this year's version of last year's God Squad along with Lady Lips Von Bieberhausen, Guy With Gross Hair Whose Name I Can't Be Bothered To Look Up, New Quinn, and some random named "Dottie Kazatori," the latter of whom has apparently been acting as Single-T Tina's personal assistant. Brit-Brit invites Santana to the club's meeting the following afternoon, and for whatever stupid reason, Santana agrees to attend.

Hallowed Halls Of Dear McKinley High. Dreamboat Blaine gets a call from St. Gay Of Lima, and there follows a lengthy split-screen conversation between the two during which I become completely distracted by Darren Criss's luxuriant eyelashes, mainly because they're nattering on endlessly about their relationship issues, and since I never gave a shit about their goddamned relationship in the first place, I'll just keep staring at Darren Criss's luxuriant eyelashes until this scene's over.

Fake Drama School In New York. Frankenteen slouches in a far, distant, and hazily-focused corner of some classroom while Idiot Rachel wildly overemotes with her scene partner in the foreground of the shot. Through a voiceover, we learn that Finn's not down with the idea of attending Fake Drama School at all, nor does he feel comfortable with the prospect of living in Bushwick, and his ruminations eventually segue into a duet he shares with Dreamboat Blaine back in Lima of Duncan Sheik's thoroughly depressing "Barely Breathing." The sequence is actually beautifully shot, with lots of gauzy and glamorous close-ups of the gentlemen involved as they slowly realize their respective worlds are crumbling down around their ears, but then Dreamboat Blaine has to conjure up an image of St. Gay dressed like one of the high-kicking chorus girls in Springtime For Hitler, and it just completely throws me out of the moment. In any event, Frankenteen spends most of his time during the number lurking ominously in the background of Idiot Rachel's dance class, but Dreamboat Blaine ends up flirting with a certain "Eli.C" on Facebook via his product-placed iPhone, and when he receives an invitation to head on over to Eli's for a little extracurricular fun, Dreamboat Blaine wastes little time racing out of the high school to go get him some. Atta girl.

My Ancestral Homeland. "I'm not wearing a suit for a night out on the town!" Frankenteen protests. Idiot Rachel and St. Gay, you see, have decided to drag Frankenteen to a showtune bar named "Callbacks" that's quite popular with the gang at Fake Drama School In New York, and I suppose Frankenteen's usual attire is simply not acceptable for so august an establishment. I'm also guessing this means everybody involved has managed to scare up a fake ID, even though Frankenteen doesn't need one, because he's obviously thirty-five years old. In any event, Finn makes some pity-me noises that threaten to bring down the mood in the room, but the sudden and entirely unexpected arrival of Dreamboat Blaine lightens things back up again, and we enter this evening's first commercial break wondering which one of these four people is going to ruin the night for everyone. Hint: It's all of them.

Marie's Crisis. Oh, sorry! Sorry -- we're at "Callbacks," where the evening has already taken a turn for the dire, mainly because "Pasquale" over there at the piano has decided to entertain the crowd with nothing but dirges for whatever strange reason. At a nearby table, Dreamboat Blaine visibly struggles to keep the banter balloon up in the air with St. Gay, while Frankenteen gets harshly and obnoxiously dickish at the bar when Dean Geyer and His Forearms pop up from out of nowhere to make with the nice for the benefit of Idiot Rachel's out-of-town guest. After much unnecessary sniping on Finn's part, Idiot Rachel and Dean Geyer's Forearms head over to the bar's baby grand, where they proceed to offer us what is easily tonight's worst performance, a duet of "Give Your Heart A Break" from noted no-talent cokehead Demi Lovato. Mind you, it's not tonight's worst performance because the two have unexpectedly and inexplicably taken leave of their respective vocal chops for this little number; it's tonight's worst performance because the song sucks.

No one else seems to notice that, though, and Idiot Rachel and Dean Geyer's Forearms receive a warm round of applause afterwards as they make their way back to the gang's table, where a troubled-looking Dreamboat Blaine immediately announces he'd like to sing a song, too. Dean Geyer's Forearms direct Dreamboat Blaine over to the piano, and... Oh, this is sad. And not in the "Holy crap! Why are they violating us with this bullshit?" sort of way we've unfortunately come to expect from this show, but in an actual, honest-to-God miserable, woebegone, brokenhearted, wretched, and deeply unhappy sort of way we haven't seen on Glee in a very long while. Dreamboat Blaine takes a seat at the piano and, after he's settled himself in, he tentatively announces to the room, "Um, hi, everyone. I, um, I wanna sing a song that's very special to me -- this is the song that I sang the first time I ever met the love of my life. Um, so Kurt? This is for you." Idiot Rachel and St. Gay Of Lima kvell over there at their tiny little table, but they're both in for a rude and thoroughly depressing surprise once Dreamboat Blaine launches himself into a stripped-down and emotionally raw rendition of the song that introduced him to all of us. Poor, guilt-stricken Blaine basically suffers an emotional breakdown right there on the stage, nearly bursting into tears at several points, and Kurt's broad, bright smile slowly dies as he realizes Something's Not Quite Right With His Boyfriend. Finn, of all people, is to understand that something's gone horribly awry, and as he shoots a worried glance in Kurt's direction, Rachel finally figures it all out as well, and she uncomfortably averts her gaze from the stage as she slumps back into Finn's arms. Meanwhile, Dean Geyer's Forearms are just lounging around in the background of the shot all, "Jesus Christ, you people are fucked up. Why the hell are we hanging out with all of you, again?" And in the end, St. Gay clutches at his imaginary pearls, all stricken and watery-eyed and such, as Dreamboat Blaine somehow manages to struggle his way through to the song's conclusion.

By Demian

Meanwhile, back at McKinley, Frankenteen lumbers into Mr. Schue's office, where Frankenteen proceeds to burst into tears because he's finally realized what a worthless piece of bloated trash he's been his entire life. Mr. Schue responds by looking mightily uncomfortable in those too-tight jeans of his. Also: Another commercial break.

Music Room. Dreamboat Blaine enters to find Frankenteen perched on one of the cheap seats, but barely have they had a chance to commiserate with each other over their horrible trip to New York when the other current members of The Glee Club bound in from points unknown to greet the prodigal Finn with a suspiciously boisterous amount of enthusiasm. Eventually, Mr. Schue also arrives, and the talk turns to the topic of this fall's musical. Mr. Schue's list of possible titles includes Peter Pan and Fiorello!, much to the confusion and disgust of Guy With Gross Hair Whose Name I Can't Be Bothered To Look Up and Artie, respectively. Not-So-Unique, of course, loudly prefers Hedwig And The Angry Inch, while Single-T Tina opts for either Pacific Overtures, Miss Saigon, or Flower Drum Song, and just when the now-heated discussion threatens to descend into madness, Frankenteen pipes up with a suggestion of his own: "Just do Grease." He takes great pains to remind us all that Grease features the first song he ever performed with New Directions, then argues that they won't receive the sort of blowback from the community that they got when they mounted that ill-advised adaptation of The Rocky Horror Show a couple of years ago, because no one would ever object to a musical about oversexed delinquents that ends with the virginal heroine turning herself into a slut just so she can land a boyfriend. The other children find this an excellent idea, and the expression of pride that washes across Frankenteen's pasty mug when he receives a round of applause for the supposedly Solomonic levels of sagacity he's just displayed all but ensures he'll be assuming control of The Glee Club once Mr. Schue farts off to Washington in a couple of episodes to join that blue-ribbon arts panel of his. Joy.

By Demian

My Ancestral Homeland, the following morning. Frankenteen attempts to tiptoe out of the cavernous apartment unnoticed, but St. Gay Of Lima ended up spending most of his ultimately sleepless night out in the lounge area, so he winds up catching his stepbrother long before Frankenteen's made it to the door. They whine and complain at each other about their miserable lots in life for a while, but since that only makes me want to slap St. Gay repeatedly across the face, I'll be skipping through it all to get to the point: Frankenteen bails. !

Hallowed Halls Of Dear McKinley High, and oh, my God, this is stupid. Long story short, New Quinn invites Boring New Rachel -- and all her "lezzie" friends in Glee Club, of course -- to that evening's meeting of this year's God Squad over at BreadstiX, where Evil New Quinn proceeds to stage a fake Rapture for the sole purpose of torturing both dumb Dottie Whatshername and every single member of this show's long-suffering audience, and the point of the entire exercise -- such as it is -- is to get Brit-Brit to admit to Santana that she's felt left behind ever since Santana decamped to Frankfort or Paducah or wherever the hell it is that Santana's going to college. Get it? "Left behind"? Whatever.

...Bowling Green Tech's comfortable-looking library, where Santana crams for a sociology exam until her lesbian Spidey-sense starts a-tingling. She turns around to find a preternaturally unblinking Virginia Woolf fangirl giving her The Eye, which Santana returns after a moment of hesitation. DUN!

Smear back to the present, where Santana's voice breaks as she admits she felt an attraction to that vaguely predatory presence in the college library. "And that happens," she shrugs, sadly and helplessly, before she moves a little closer to Brittany for what follows. "Let's just do the mature thing, okay?" Santana asks. "This is not an official breakup," she insists, "but let's be honest that long-distance relationships are almost impossible to maintain, because both people are rarely getting what they need, especially at our age." Finally -- finally! -- someone speaks the truth during this episode! Poor little Brit-Brit, however, bursts into tears at that and protests, "This sounds a lot like a break up to me." "You know this isn't working," Santana gently replies before adding, "You know I will always love you the most." This results in another round of weeping from Brittany, who cries, "I love you, too!" as Santana pulls her into a hug, and if I had a heart, it would probably be breaking right about now. Bright side? This clears the way for that Brit-Brit-and-Lady-Lips hookup I know everyone's been positively clamoring for since this season began. Hooray!

Yes, that was sarcasm.

Elsewhere, New Puck breaks up with New Quinn after New Quinn insults Boring New Rachel's mom again. Absolutely no one cares. Including, apparently, the actors themselves. Commercial.

The April Rhodes Civic Pavilion. Frankenteen sits quietly at a music stand, futzing with the score to Grease, presumably, now that he's clearly going to be assuming control of New Directions once Mr. Schue farts off to Washington, and he's quite surprised to see Idiot Rachel emerge from the wings. And I'm sorry, but this new look of hers? Trashy. Trashy and more than a little desperate, which makes it that much worse. I suppose you could argue that it sort of suits the try-anything-new direction her character's been heading over the last few episodes, but I'd only buy that argument if I believed this look of hers was in the process of evolving into something, well... Something less trashy and desperate, but I don't think that's what's going to happen. I think we're going to be stuck with Idiot Rachel, The Horrible Hooker Of Broadway, for a very, very long time.

But whatever, because I'm supposed to be focusing on the end of their tiresome on-again, off-again romance, which I never gave a rat's ass about in the first place, so I'll just keep staring in horror at her hideous new Carrie Bradshaw-influenced hairdon't while they yammer away at each other for a couple of minutes until Idiot Rachel finally grows herself a spine and starts screaming at him for the insulting way he pretty much dumped her at the end of last season. But then Idiot Rachel fucks it all up for me by trying to insist upon how so-called "real men" should behave, or something, so I tune them both out again until The Horrible Hooker Of Broadway finally says, "I can't do this anymore. We're done." And then she gets all wishy-washy about it -- again -- so I stop paying attention -- some more -- until she finally -- finally! -- exits the stage and the episode-ending music kicks in.

The song is Coldplay's suicide-inducing "The Scientist," and when this episode first aired, I thought it was a hell of a strong way to close out the evening's presentation, what with the members of all four of tonight's primary couples materializing one by one to wail their shattered hearts out, but unfortunately, now that I've watched it over and over again about four or five times, the abrupt key change in the middle's just a little too jarring, and Brit-Brit's singing voice is just a little too weak, and The Horrible Hooker Of Broadway's glory notes towards the finish are starting to grate, and it makes no sense at all that Frankenteen would include Mr. Schue, Miss Pillsbury, Santana, and Brittany in this fantasy performance that's rolling around inside that troubled head of his because as far as we know, he's utterly oblivious to any relationship issues those people might be having at this point, but now I feel like I'm being petty. The first time around, it really did seem like the strongest group performance this show's offered yet this season, and I should probably leave it at that. By the way -- and because were I not to mention this, I'm pretty sure some batshit fan would take out a hit -- we get smacked in the face with a series of flashbacks to the relevant couples' first truly significant moments together at a very appropriate moment during the song, including Rachel and Finn's hilariously mortifying makeout session, Will and Emma's clinch at the very end of the now-mythic First Thirteen, Blaine and Kurt's ridiculously over-the-top slow-motion romp through the hallowed halls of dear old Dalton Academy, and a shot I can't properly identify of Santana and Brittany canoodling in the cheap seats over in McKinley's music room. Incidentally, am I the only person who never noticed that gigantic "NO SEX" poster behind Emma's head at the end of "Sectionals" until now?

By Demian

Yes, that was sarcasm.

Elsewhere, New Puck breaks up with New Quinn after New Quinn insults Boring New Rachel's mom again. Absolutely no one cares. Including, apparently, the actors themselves. Commercial.

By Demian

In any event, when it's all over, Frankenteen quite naturally finds himself all by his lonesome on the stage, and he lurches about uselessly for a few seconds until we finally cut to black.

week: Nothing! Well, actually, it's the vice presidential debate, which is pretty much the same thing. The new episode of Glee won't arrive until November 8th, so do try to enjoy the unexpected time off, and we'll see you back here month. Have fun!

Demian still doesn't give a rat's ass about the romantic relationships on this show. You may reach him at demian_twop@yahoo.com.