Here They Go Again

S04E17

After last week's exceptionally eventful installment, not very much of actual importance happens this time around: Lady Lips Von Bieberhausen confesses he's known of Dreamboat Blaine's awkward crush on him since the beginning of the school year, and he's totally cool with it, so no big deal; Santana Lopez moves back into The Improbably Bohemian Loft with very little explanation, and eventually informs Old Idiot Rachel of Dean Geyer's sordid extracurricular activities; and The Horrible Hooker Of Broadway has a snot-streaked confrontation with her filthy whore of a boyfriend that ends with the two of them breaking up, supposedly for good.

The rest of the evening is spent exploring the children's titular guilty pleasures in both words and song -- primarily in song, of course -- but as you'd likely find it impossible to tell anyone what these secret shames say about them as characters, it'd probably be for the best if you just shut your brain down for an hour and enjoy what you can of the musical numbers.

Featuring "Wake Me Up Before You Go-Go" by Wham!, featuring Dreamboat Blaine and Lady Lips Von Bieberhausen as George Michael and Andrew Ridgeley; Barry Manilow's "Copacabana," as performed by Lady Lips Von Bieberhausen; "Against All Odds" from Phil Collins, as performed by Dreamboat Blaine; The Spice Girls' "Wannabe," as performed by Not-So-Unique, Stupid Boring New Idiot Rachel, Pretty Kitty, Single-T Tina, and Brit-Brit; "My Prerogative" from infamous cokehead Bobby Brown, as performed by New Puck; "Creep" by Radiohead, as performed by Old Idiot Rachel and her filthy whore of an ex-boyfriend; and ABBA's "Mamma Mia," as performed by just about everyone, with the most prominent solo going to The Horrible Hooker Of Broadway.

Hallowed Halls Of Dear McKinley High. As Lady Lips Von Bieberhausen slams shut his locker, Dreamboat Blaine -- in full Cheerios drag, of course -- flashes an impressive wad of cash and near-whispers, "Here, and you don't have to thank me." "Dude," Lady Lips dudes, looking mightily confused, "what are you doing?" "I know what you've been up to," Dreamboat Blaine cryptically replies, "and it just has to stop."

Smear sideways to the afternoon. While shortcutting through the cafeteria pantry on his way to the parking lot -- a route that cuts fifteen seconds from his daily routine, in case you were wondering -- Dreamboat Blaine spots Lady Lips Von Bieberhausen shoving packages of dry spaghetti into his backpack. DUN!

"I know your dad's been struggling," Dreamboat Blaine explains back in the present, "and I just want to help -- help you feed your family!" Lady Lips looks deeply uncomfortable, and he spins around to beat a hasty retreat, but Dreamboat Blaine won't let the matter drop. "Hunger's a big problem in this country!" he calls out, giving chase. "Although so is obesity," he realizes, "which is confusing." For whatever reason, Lady Lips decides to stop running and, after securing a vow of silence from Dreamboat Blaine, he cops to his recent bout of pasta-related larceny while insisting, "It's not for dinner -- it's for art!"

Cut to the McKinley High art studio, where Lady Lips Von Bieberhausen removes his hands from Dreamboat Blaine's eyes while asking, "So, what do you think?" "Are those..." Dreamboat Blaine delicately inquires by way of response, "...macaroni portraits?" The camera finally hops around to let us see what the boys are looking at, and yes, Blaine, those really are macaroni portraits. "They're my guilty pleasure," Lady Lips explains, quite conveniently name-checking the episode's title in the process. "My art teacher thinks I'm some sort of genius, like the ugly guy in Shine, except with macaroni." "Is that Emma Stone?" Dreamboat Blaine gasps, amazed. Indeed it is, doll, along with Falcor, a corpse, ZZ Top and St. Gay Of Lima. "The macaroni really captures him," Blaine sighs, getting all misty-eyed. Sam solemnly nods his head, and the two share a respectful moment of silence in honor of Blaine's ex-boyfriend. Hee.

By Demian

And once the moment has passed, Dreamboat Blaine earnestly thanks Lady Lips for confiding in him, then turns to leave. "Not so fast!" Sam yelps, rising to block Blaine's exit. "Now it's your turn," he adds, pushing for Dreamboat Blaine to confess his own secret shame. Blaine of course equates "secret shame" with "that massive Lady Lips crush I've been nursing for the last several months," and therefore insists he's completely devoid of any and all guilty pleasures, thank you very much. Sam calls him out on this obvious lie, and Blaine flails around for a little bit before finally claiming that noted early-'80s travesty Wham! is, like, his favorite band of all time! Because it turns out that Dreamboat Blaine is actually a forty-six-year-old Wisconsin housewife.

In any event, Single-T Tina chooses this embarrassing moment to rap on the art studio's door with news that Mr. Schue's missing in action this week thanks to a particularly vicious case of the writers no longer knowing what to do with him. Or, you know, he's got the flu. Your choice. "Hey!" Lady Lips perks. "Just curious -- are you gonna go over to his house and straddle him while he's passed out and rub some ointment on his chest?" Pause. "That was a phase," Tina frostily replies as Dreamboat Blaine struggles to suppress a sudden burst of the giggles. Heh. "Anyway," Tina adds before vanishing from whence she came, "don't bother coming to Glee Club this week -- it's cancelled." Dreamboat Blaine gets An Idea, turns back to Lady Lips, arches a brow, and smiles, "Not necessarily!" Sam's perplexed expression escorts us into this evening's title card.

Music Room. Various puzzled children arrive to find Dreamboat Blaine and Lady Lips Von Bieberhausen already waiting for them with the usually-mute members of The William McKinley Jazz Ensemble, and when Pretty Kitty questions why they've been summoned to the choir room, Dreamboat Blaine reminds everyone that Regionals are "only a few weeks away." "Even without an advisor," he continues, "we can't afford to miss one week of preparation." "Which is why," Lady Lips jumps in to explain, "we've come up with an assignment for this week!" "Please let it be songs about sweaters," Brittany begs. Alas, poor Brit-Brit! This week's theme actually is -- wait for it -- "Guilty Pleasures!" as Lady Lips has so helpfully scrawled upon the whiteboard. The assembled children greet this reveal with a grim silence. I should note that Single-T Tina looks especially hostile to the idea. Hee!

By Demian

"Come on!" Dreamboat Blaine protests. "We all have some musical shame," he argues, adding, "That secret love we dare not speak?" At that, Artie and Tina exchange A Look Fraught With Significance that's far more amusing than it has any right to be, while New Finn openly scoffs, "And we're supposed to sing one of those songs for Regionals?" "No," Dreamboat Blaine admits, "but Sam and I were speaking earlier -- just, like, shootin' the crap, like two bros do, y'know -- and we felt really safe with each other, so we decided to reveal our guilty pleasures." "And it felt amazing," Sam enthuses, adding, "I mean, letting go of this big secret made me feel so good!" "And we figured if we all share our musical shame with each other, we could all become a more cohesive team for Regionals!" Swell idea, boys -- God knows it's better than anything Mr. Schue's come up with thus far this year -- but you do realize everyone now thinks you're doing it with each other, right? Neither Lady Lips nor Dreamboat Blaine seems to care about that at the moment, mainly because Sam's subsequent call for musical suggestions is met by a series of blank stares from his peers. "Guys," Sam complains, "this is a great team-building exercise!" "Okay," New Puck shrugs, "so you guys go first."

Having thus been granted permission for what they've clearly intended to perform since before this scene began, Dreamboat Blaine and Lady Lips Von Bieberhausen strip off their hoodies to reveal a matching pair of "CHOOSE LIFE" t-shirts, and here we go! The boys of The McKinley Jazz Ensemble swing into a cover of Wham!'s "Wake Me Up Before You Go-Go" featuring Blaine and Sam as George and Andrew, respectively, and despite some clear initial misgivings amongst the other children (most hilariously from the stone-faced Artie), everyone's soon happily bopping around the choir room. Until we all get slapped into a fantasy sequence over in The April Rhodes Civic Pavilion, of course, where the children of The New New Directions do their best to recreate the song's original DayGlo-toned video up there on the stage, complete with black lights and short-shorts and fluffy coifs and fluorescent face paint, and yes, they're all obviously having tremendous amounts of fun, and yes, it's lovely to see a McKinley group number with some actual production values on this show again, but Wham! were the original tuneless Euro-fags, so color me way less than stoked, girl. God, this song is dumb.

By Demian

And when it's over, we return to The Hallowed Halls Of Dear McKinley High, where Brittany bubbles over to Kitty's locker with a bright-sounding, "Guess what? Everyone hates you!" "'Scuse me?" Kitty intones by way of response.

Cut to a quick Brittany-on-Kitty pedeconference down the nearby stairs, with Kitty protesting that she's honestly trying to change her wicked, wicked ways -- really! -- until Brit-Brit stops them both in the middle of the stairwell to lecture Kitty like so: "You're really mean! You tell Marley that she's fat even though your face looks like a soccer ball, and we both know that blondes have magical powers, like doing splits or turning Swedish. You need to use your magic for good and not evil, and that is why I'm inviting you to take off your Joker mask and bare your soul for the world to see." Kitty's all, "And this will be accomplished...how, exactly?"

Cue the opening credits of Fondue For Two. Over in Brittany's boudoir, Brit-Brit gets things started with, "Tonight's guest is McKinley High's biggest bitch -- the girl with the weird lizard ears -- Kitty!" "Two things," Kitty begins. "That cat has about three weeks to live, and this fondue smells like hot, acrid barf." "Thank you so much!" Brittany replies. Lord Tubbington remains silent, but I'm pretty sure he's thinking of ways to smother Kitty in her sleep. "So, Kitty," Brit-Brit perks, "everyone at school hates you because you're a two-faced lying slut who no one can trust!" "True," Kitty concedes before pointing out, "and yet everyone keeps telling me their secrets, so I must be doing something right." Or everyone else is incredibly stupid. "Touché!" Brittany grins, paying me no mind at all.

"I think the problem," she goes on to opine, "is that people haven't gotten to know you yet." "So," Brit-Brit continues, "you, me, and Lord Tubbington are gonna tell our deepest, darkest secrets! Go!" "I like to fart around old people and watch the look on their faces 'cause they just assume they did it," Kitty admits, with a devilish glint in her eye. "That's awesome!" Brittany raves. "Me too! Okay, guilty pleasure: When I look at a white dog or cat, I assume that they're racist. Lord Tubbington's guilty pleasure is Scientology." Sure enough, Lord Tubbington's deep within a tome entitled The Power Of Scientology right this very instant. The two ladies then profess their devotion to all things Bring It On until it's time for Kitty to lay out her most mortifying shame for all to see. "Come on, this is a safe space!" Brittany encourages her. "We're on the Internet!"

By Demian

Cut to Single-T Tina watching the final version of this video on YouTube in the McKinley High library the following afternoon. She leans forward slowly in anticipation of Kitty's big reveal.

"No, it's too horrible!" Kitty protests back in Brittany's boudoir. Brit-Brit suggests Kitty whisper it in her ear. Kitty complies. "Oh my God!" Brittany breathes, suddenly aghast. She pulls away from her guest in shock and horror as Kitty wonders if she's gone too far.

Fake Drama School In New York, Actual Fake Drama Division. "You see?" St. Gay Of Lima's acting professor rhetorically asks of the class at large. "By acting out our secret shames -- like Carly's traumatic sense-memory of potty training -- we become more vulnerable as actors!" As the teary-eyed and profoundly heroic Carly takes her seat amid the heartfelt congratulations of her peers, the professor calls St. Gay himself to the center of the room. "You wanna see some real acting?" St. Gay asks us through the miracle of voiceover. "You're looking at it," his voiceover continues, "'cause this is nothing compared to my real guilty secrets -- and as a gay man, there are so many to pick from!"

Cut to The Improbably Bohemian Loft, where we watch as St. Gay subjects his two roommates -- that would be Old Idiot Rachel and Santana Lopez, despite the fact that they booted Santana out of the apartment only last week -- to an evening of old Golden Girls, Murder, She Wrote, Moonlighting, and Designing Women episodes because number one on St. Gay's list of guilty pleasures is "obsessive marathons of powerhouse women in TV history." Number two would be his "very private Sweatin' To The Oldies sessions" with "the incomparable Richard Simmons" -- this illustrated with the unspeakably vile image of St. Gay doing the pony looking like this -- while number three is, according to St. Gay's Voiceover, by far the worst of all: His boyfriend arm pillow. He ordered it online one night while whacked out on Ambien, and he understands how very "Jeffrey Dahmer" it makes him seem, but he simply can't resist being held in "Bruce's warm, unjudgmental embrace." Yes, St. Gay Of Lima named his arm pillow "Bruce." Make of that what you will.

By Demian

Cut back to the acting class, where the actual St. Gay essays an especially histrionic recreation of some past mishap in his life while His Voiceover concludes, "That's my real guilty secret, and if anyone ever found out -- especially Adam or, God forbid, Blaine, or even Rachel and Santana -- it would totally destroy me." Which of course means everyone will be finding out about Bruce in about five or six minutes, right? Of course right.

"Put some pants on," an urgent-sounding Lady Lips Von Bieberhausen tells Dreamboat Blaine. "I need to talk to you." Heh. Once Dreamboat Blaine is once again decent, the two gents meander through the warren-like maze of the McKinley High locker room until they find a relatively isolated spot to chat, whereupon Lady Lips prepares to confess something he's kept buried for as long as he can remember -- something that's been positively torturing his insides. "D'you...do you have feelings for me?" Dreamboat Blaine hesitantly asks. "What?" Lady Lips gapes. "No!" he protests. "It's a million times worse than that!" Dreamboat Blaine immediately starts backpedalling, pretending his initial question was a joke, and once the two stop talking all over each other, Blaine tells Sam, "Well, until you can speak it, you're gonna be stuck in this shame spiral forever, so..." Lady Lips looks positively miserable for a very long moment, then blurts out, "I like Barry Manilow!"

All other conversation in the locker room crashes to a halt, and several of Sam's scantily-clad peers stare at him with expressions of open loathing and disgust on their faces. For his part, Blaine plunges headlong into full denial, bleating, "No! No, you can't mean that!" but Lady Lips Von Bieberhausen insists, "I just relate to the stories! The breakups! The lost love! Oh, and the rain! And who shot who? It's like he's talking right to me!" Dreamboat Blaine carefully hides the deep disappointment he's so obviously feeling at the moment and, after taking quite some time to consider his response, he suggests, "Well, then I think you need to come out to everyone and say that." "Once you stop hiding," he adds, "you'll feel so much better." "You really think," Lady Lips bleakly wonders, "that I can just stand up in front of everybody and say that I'm a Fanilow?" We'll find out, I'm sure, after this evening's first commercial break.

By Demian

Hallowed Halls Of Dear McKinley High. Stupid Boring New Idiot Rachel, Not-So-Unique, and Single-T Tina stop Brit-Brit and Pretty Kitty in the middle of the hallway and demand to know what Kitty's guilty pleasure is. "None of your business," Kitty snaps back. "Spice Girls," Brittany stage-whispers. Stupid Boring New Idiot Rachel, Not-So-Unique, and Single-T Tina gawp at Pretty Kitty for one very long second, then erupt in ear-splitting shrieks of delight. "We must do The Spice Girls," Urethra Franklin insists, adding, "It has to be done -- and this fierce black woman will be Scary Spice!" "Nothing scarier than a girl with a penis," Pretty Kitty quips. Brit-Brit whaps her on the arm. "Kidding!" Kitty instantly insists, with a bright, false smile stretching her lips out to her ears. The other ladies blink.

My Ancestral Homeland. "This is ridiculous," Santana complains, entering a cramped bathroom that's already playing host to St. Gay at the sink and Old Idiot Rachel in the shower. "If I'm going to be paying a third of the rent," Santana argues, "I'm going to be needing a third of the shelf space." She paws through a salon's worth of toiletries that her roommates have stored in the bath's jury-rigged milk-crate cabinets as The Horrible Hooker screams out, "This is only temporary!" from behind the curtain. "I don't think you need all these beauty products," Santana continues, as if Old Idiot Rachel had never opened her yammering trap in the first place, "'cause they're not really having the desired effect, unless your goal is to look like a reject from The Shahs Of Sunset." Hee. Through a mouthful of toothpaste, St. Gay mumbles something I simply can't understand, and as The Horrible Hooker starts obnoxiously running through her vocal scales, Santana tiptoes up to him to hiss, "What if I just told your B-F-F about her B-F and his manwhoring ways?" St. Gay spits -- like, literally: He spits the toothpaste out of his mouth -- and hisses right back, "We had a pact!" Santana threatens to break that pact, leading St. Gay to seethe something about Old Idiot Rachel not finding out until after her Funny Girl audition. "It would wreck her!" he emphasizes. "Maybe if you made me some space," Santana shrugs, "I'd care a little bit more." St. Gay heaves a tremendously put-upon sigh and begins clearing away his many, many exfoliants. Heh.

Moments later, Old Idiot Rachel emerges from her refreshing rinse clad in nothing more than a towel and an old-lady shower cap. "Oooh-la-la!" Santana sings. "How could Brody give all that up?" The Horrible Hooker snaps at her to shut it, now, as "it's too soon" for teasing. "Everything still reminds me of him," Old Idiot Rachel sighs, before wistfully recalling the first time she and Dean Geyer met, bonding as they did over their moisturizing rituals. "That sounds really not romantic," Santana observes, "and also very, very gay." "Is that why he left?" she pries. "Did he finally admit to having a boyfriend on the side?" "You know," Rachel sadly admits, "he actually didn't even say why."

Smear sideways to Old Idiot Rachel trailing after her filthy whore of a boyfriend as he exits The Improbably Bohemian Loft for the last time. "I don't understand!" she cries out. "Why won't you talk to me?" "We'll always be friends," Dean Geyer replies, and with that, we smear...

...back to the present, where Santana sneers at Dean Geyer's clichéd choice of a breakup line. "You don't need him, anyway," she insists, pointing out that Old Idiot Rachel has plenty of friends right there in the loft. "Friends who mock my looks and undermine my confidence?" Rachel snits. "Friends who cheer you up by playing pranks on your other friend," Santana counters. Old Idiot Rachel is clearly intrigued. "Maybe a mascara moustache for Lady Hummel?" Santana suggests. "Or we could do that stick-his-hand-in-warm-water, make-him-wet-the-bed trick?" she continues. Rachel grins.

Cut to the ladies of the loft marching towards St. Gay's bedroom with a pot full of water. "What the hell is that?" Santana gags the instant they've crossed the threshold. "Kurt," Old Idiot Rachel chides, "that thing is really creepy." A supremely embarrassed and barely awake St. Gay has no choice but to introduce the gals to Bruce. "It's probably safer than trolling Grindr," Santana allows with a slight shrug of her shoulders. I love how she threw that "probably" in there.

McKinley High Music Room. Lady Lips Von Bieberhausen somehow manages to withstand the withering glares of his fellow Glee Clubbers as he admits the following: "I love Barry Manilow -- and not just the Barry Manilow & LoveOnIce tour. I think he's an amazing songwriter and performer, and I also believe he's underappreciated, has amazing hair and has done a hell of a lot of good for this world through his light-rock talent!" "This is who I am," Lady Lips firmly concludes, "and I make no apologies." The other children shift uncomfortably in their seats as Lady Lips pulls on a set of purple-and-black-ruffled rumba sleeves and, with the help of the usually-mute members of The William McKinley Jazz Ensemble, he throws himself into a lusty performance of Barry Manilow's deathless "Copacabana." The other children do their very best to resist the pernicious pull of Barry's sinfully sinuous melodies, but it's of course no use, and they've all soon strapped on their very best cha-cha heels to shimmy seductively around Lady Lips on the floor.

Okay, I'm definitely overstating things, here, because this number is boring as hell. It doesn't help that they've hacked off the far superior second half of the song -- you know, the part where Lola sits there so refined, and drinks herself half-blind -- but it also doesn't help that this is just another barely-choreographed, hop-around-the-music-room waste of my time. If any of the performances tonight demanded the sort of full-blown, camp extravaganza fantasy sequences this show used to be known for, it's this one. And yet, this is all we get. Most disappointing, indeed, Glee. Rest assured, I shall pen a strongly-written letter detailing my keen dissatisfaction to the head of 20th Century Fox Television as soon as I actually care.

In any event, once it's over, everybody else admits they love Barry Manilow, too, and the children shower Lady Lips Von Bieberhausen with applause and affection. Yawn.

April Rhodes Civic Pavilion. Brit-Brit, Pretty Kitty, Stupid Boring New Idiot Rachel, and Not-So-Unique have gathered to rehearse their promised Spice Girls number, but The Glee Gals find they have a bit of trouble with the casting. "I don't think you should be Scary Spice just because you're black," Brittany tells "Mercedes." "I think that it's really racist that the scary spice is the only black one," she adds by way of explanation. Not-So-Unique would give Brit-Brit a piece of her mind, I'm sure, were it not for Pretty Kitty announcing, "Marley should be Posh Spice because you're so skinny, and you make everyone uncomfortable." Heh. Kitty and Brittany eventually claim Ginger and Sporty for themselves, respectively, leaving Urethra Franklin with Baby Spice, of course, but all of these concerns get knocked to the side the instant Single-T Tina arrives with some dire news. "You will not believe what just happened!" Tina pants, practically breathless. "It's so horrible," she darkly adds, "I'm not even sure I can repeat it!"

Smash to The Hallowed Halls Of Dear McKinley High, where Stupid Boring New Idiot Rachel rounds one of the corners in the highest of dudgeon to stomp her way over to New Puck at his locker. "Tell me you're not planning to sing a Chris Brown song!" she shouts. Dun-dun-DUN! Also: Commercial break!

McKinley High Library. Lady Lips Von Bieberhausen enters to find Dreamboat Blaine reading something called Goosebumps: Phantom Of The Auditorium, but that's not really important at the moment because what is really important at the moment is this: Lady Lips claims Dreamboat Blaine is still holding on to one last deep, dark, bitter secret, and he all but demands that Dreamboat Blaine confess said deep, dark, bitter secret in front of everyone immediately, or else. Dreamboat Blaine pouts.

By Demian

In any event, once it's over, everybody else admits they love Barry Manilow, too, and the children shower Lady Lips Von Bieberhausen with applause and affection. Yawn.

Music Room. The Glee Gals tear in from the hall in middle of a very loud argument with New Puck, decrying his musical selection for the evening because Chris Brown is the sort of repugnant nasty no one should ever go near, ever. "He brutally beat up his girlfriend!" Single-T Tina shouts out. "He beat up a window at Good Morning America!" Brittany adds. "He says horribly misogynistic things on Twitter!" Stupid Boring New Idiot Rachel reminds everyone. "What about the Frank Ocean fight in the parking lot?" Pretty Kitty demands. "But mostly," Tina insists, "he beat up his girlfriend Rihanna and then he got a picture of a battered woman tattooed on his neck! That dude is a psychopath!" And oh, what fun it was digging through the last four years of Chris Brown-related filth on the Internet to come up with those five links! I feel like I need a shower.

Bushwick. At some point during the last five minutes, St. Gay Of Lima has magically procured a pair of customized arm pillows for both of his roommates, which he now presents to them with appropriate amounts of flourish and flair. Santana's arm pillow has a boob, which delights her to no end, though she does warn him, "If you ever tell anyone about this, I have no ethical problems with Hummelcide." Atta girl. Old Idiot Rachel seems somewhat less enthused with her gift, mainly because she still misses her filthy whore of an ex-boyfriend, and when she expresses her hope that she and he might get back together someday, Santana steps in to shut that bullshit down with a quickness. "I was wrong about Brody being a drug dealer," she admits, "but I was just wrong about what he was selling." "He was a gigolo," she continues, making it very, very clear. "Like, Magic Mike with happy endings, for money!" Interestingly enough, Rachel immediately asks Kurt two very different questions, almost in the same breath: "That's not true, right? You didn't know about that?" There's nothing St. Gay can offer by way of response, so poor Old Idiot Rachel flees, in tears, to her bedroom. "Why'd you have to do that?" he asks Santana. "It was for her own good," Santana duhs, because obviously.

Cut back over to The April Rhodes Civic Pavilion, and we've finally -- finally -- hit the best musical number of the evening. Dreamboat Blaine sits alone onstage at the piano, and as a spotlight opens up over his shellacked head, his fingers pick out the first few notes of the only Phil Collins song I've ever liked, "Against All Odds," from the movie of the same name. It's a stripped-down performance that sounds as if it were recorded live on the set, much like this character's second version of "Teenage Dream" back in October, but given all the fancy cuts and the twisty tracking shots and the aerial views of the stage we get during the number, I'm pretty sure the track was prerecorded. They just didn't fuck this one all to hell with the Auto-Tune.

Major portions of it are delivered directly to Lady Lips out in the auditorium seats because Blaine apparently suh-huuuuuuucks with the subterfuge, and Single-T Tina shoots a few knowing looks around because she's not an idiot this week, but by the time that string quartet Blaine recruited for this little presentation starts in with their quiet accompaniment in the background, the focus pulls back in entirely on him as Blaine goes to some deeply personal place for the final few lines of the song. Darren Criss has had quite a few misses this season as the show's thrown more and more of the overall musical burden onto his shoulders, but this performance most certainly is not one of them. Just lovely.

By Demian

As for the performance itself, the vocals are droning and monotonous -- which is appropriate, I guess, given the source material -- but they're also beside the point, really, because this number's actually all about the choreography, and if there's one thing New Puck can do, it's dance. Unfortunately, as with so many other dance-heavy routines we've seen on this show, they throw in so many cuts that it's impossible to get a sense of the flow, but whatever. Jacob Artist deserves a better showcase for his talents than this, but it's far from the worst number of the evening, so we'll call it a wash.

When he's finished, New Puck receives a tidy round of applause from the kiddies in the cheap seats, though Stupid Boring New Idiot Rachel looks like she's gonna shred him a new one once they're alone. And as Stupid Boring New Idiot Rachel busies herself throwing New Puck her very best bitchface, we head into this evening's commercial break.

Hallowed Halls Of Dear McKinley High. Pretty Kitty turns a corner and runs straight into Single-T Tina, who's dressed up as V.I.C.I. from Small Wonder for some asinine reason. This is one obscure reference too many for Kitty this week, and she's about to run screaming into the arms of the few normal people she actually knows in Lima when New Puck stops by to apologize for not knowing about "the Bobby Brown thing."

Smear sideways to the afternoon's music room, immediately following New Puck's performance. "You do realize," Artie asks as he rolls himself over to New Puck's side, "that Bobby Brown allegedly got Whitney Houston hooked on crack, right?" D'OH!

"Let me get this straight," Kitty begins back in the present. "You know about Vicky The Robot Girl, but you didn't know about Bobby and Whitney?" New Puck shrugs. "I'm outta here!" Kitty groans, bolting off down the hallway. Single-T Tina follows, leaving New Puck alone with Stupid Boring New Idiot Rachel, whom I forgot to mention was also part of this sequence, because zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz. They make schmoopy noises at each other, I vomit, and the scene cuts over to...

...Fake Drama School In New York, Random Classroom With A Piano In It Division. The Horrible Hooker Of Broadway enters, crosses to greet her filthy whore of an ex-boyfriend, then presses an impressive wad of cash into his hand. "What's this?" he stupidly asks. "I was hoping that I could have dinner with you tonight!" she trills by way of response. Off his wary glance, Old Idiot Rachel too-innocently wonders, "Is it not enough? I wasn't sure what the going rate was these days for male hookers!" Oooooh, SNAP! Too bad the rest of the scene isn't nearly as awesome as that one moment. Long story short, they yell at each other, but she never yells at him specifically for endangering her health with his sordid extracurriculars, so whatever, and then she cries, and then he yells at her some more about the beatdown he received from her flop of an ex-boyfriend, and she has the absolute gall and utter stupidity to look flattered by Frankenteen's felonious gesture, and then she cries again, and then they sing "Creep" by Radiohead.

Okay, they actually wail it, mainly in slow-motion as they tear through the Fake Drama School hallways for whatever ridiculous reason, and to be honest with you, I don't really hate it. In fact, it's a pretty decent duet version of the original song, but it seems so horribly misplaced at this point in their storyline. If there had been an interlude between Rachel learning of his unexpected profession and their final breakup -- an interlude during which they were still trying to make their relationship work -- this song would have been perfect for that, but here? Not buying it. Of course, it doesn't help that we know nothing about his side of things, so we have no idea if this song's appropriate for his situation at all, but whatever, I guess. They sound nice, the visuals are pretty, and she gets to wear a stunning floor-length form-fitting black gown at the end of it, so I guess we should just smile at all that and keep moving.

April Rhodes Civic Pavilion. Lady Lips Von Bieberhausen enters the stage from the wings to find Dreamboat Blaine picking out a few chords on the piano, and the two get to chatting, with Lady Lips eventually dropping the following bomb: "It's okay -- I get it: Your guilty pleasure is me. I've known all year, and frankly, I'm an attractive guy, and you are into dudes, and if you weren't into me, I'd probably be pretty offended." Dreamboat Blaine takes a moment to absorb all that, then wonders, "And you're not freaked out?" "Because I don't want to jeopardize our friendship," he adds, and then they start babbling on top of one another for a bit until Lady Lips cuts through the crap to assure him that "nothing is going to change." They're like brothers, he reasons, and they trust each other, and to tell the truth, "the attention is kinda flattering," so why don't they just hug it out? Dreamboat Blaine is more than happy to comply, and it's a nice little moment until Lady Lips gets an uncomfortable look on his face and asks, "Is that a pack of Life Savers in your pocket?" "Oh, no," Blaine replies, completely and charmingly clueless. "They're breath mints -- you want one?" Heh. So, the boys knock back a couple of Certs, then head back to the music room for one last hurrah this evening.

Meanwhile, over in Brooklyn, St. Gay Of Lima and Santana Lopez bond over a Facts Of Life marathon until Old Idiot Rachel comes slinking shyly through the door with news that her latest romantic relationship is now officially kaput. She thanks Santana for not giving up on her, which is nice, but then she thanks Santana for "getting Finn to come and defend [her] honor," which makes me want to reach into the television set and throttle her dumb ass, thereby proving once again that we can never have nice things on this show. Or something like that.

By Demian

Anyway, the three of them chit-chat a little bit more, mainly about Old Idiot Rachel's current state of mind, which even she herself understands could use a little perking up, so she crosses to the bookshelf to pull out what she assures us is "the best guilty-pleasure movie musical ever," and oh, excellent! They're gonna watch Xanadu, right? That shit is insane. I mean, one of the nine muses comes down from Mount Olympus to help Gene Kelly open a disco-themed roller rink, and then her eight sisters join them for a fabulous blowout of an opening-night party with circus acrobats? What the fuck were they smoking back then?

By Demian

Wait, what? Mamma Mia? Old Idiot Rachel thinks Mamma Mia is the best guilty-pleasure movie musical of all time? Oh, fuck her. Dipshit. Jesus H. Christ!

So, Fucking Dipshit Jesus H. Christ takes Mamma Mia down from the shelf, and of course she starts singing the titular tune, because that's just what you do in situations like this. It starts off slow -- more a mournful ballad, with just a piano to accompany her -- but by the time she hits the chorus, everything's kicked into high gear, and just when Santana and St. Gay jump up from the couch to join her with their arm pillows, we jet over to...

...The April Rhodes Civic Pavilion, where the Ohio children are quite coincidentally performing their own version of the very same song, only they have costumes and choreography and a cute little backup band. Stupid Boring New Idiot Rachel and Pretty Kitty initially split the vocals, ABBA-gal style, but the other kiddies soon take over on various verses, and it's fun to see which of the guys suck at walking in gold lamé platform shoes. (Hint: It's Lady Lips and New Puck.)

From there, the action shifts back and forth between Brooklyn and Lima, with a couple of clever cuts involving hula hoops thrown in one location and caught in the other, and Pretty Kitty lets Artie motorboat her, and New Finn looks astonishingly good in his bedazzled disco-fabulous jacket-and-cape combo, and they should never do that to Dreamboat Blaine's hair ever again, and then the whole thing just cuts out because they ran out of time. I hate when that happens! Well, tonight, at any rate.

week: Nothing! And nothing the week after that, either. The new episode airs on April 11, and then it's a straight run through to the season finale. Have fun!

Demian knows no shame, baby. You may reach him at demian_twop@yahoo.com.