Episode Report Card Demian: C- | 71 USERS: B- YOU GRADE IT Return to Sender
By Demian | Season 5 | Episode 12 | Aired on 03.18.2014
In a hurry? Read the recaplet for a nutshell description! Finished? Click here to close.In Ohio: Everything happens in Ohio this week, actually, so let's try this:
In Glee Club Survival News: Will calls in yet another favor from everyone's favorite orange-skinned alcoholic April Rhodes, so the peppy drunk jets to Lima from her private island in the Caribbean to remind Sue of the endowment she created that grants The New Directions near-exclusive use of the McKinley High auditorium for all time. Of course, there are a couple of problems with this, mainly due to the fact that Will managed to drain all of the endowment's funds to create those ridiculously overelaborate sets he commissioned for rehearsals over the last couple of years, so it still looks like the club's on its way out for good.
In Batshit Bimbo of Broadway News: Old Idiot Rachel returns to Ohio to mourn the untimely demise of her favorite extracurricular activity from high school, but when Mercedes materializes for the exact same reason, Rachel decides to rekindle their old rivalry for reasons which only she and her insane brain will ever understand. Heated words are quickly exchanged, as one would expect, and there's yet another diva-off between the two, but the ladies of course manage to patch things up well before the end of the hour, anyway.
In Ancient Relationship News: Brittany and Santana are probably getting back together, and the old versions of Puck and Quinn finally reach some sort of resolution as far as all of their past issues are concerned.
Featuring Pink's "Raise Your Glass," as performed by April Rhodes, Mr. Schue, with an assist from The Kiddies; "Toxic" from Britney Spears, as performed by Quinn, Brit-Brit, and Santana Lopez, with no assist from The Kiddies; "Defying Gravity" from Wicked, as performed by Rachel, Mercedes, and Kurt, again with no assist from The Kiddies; Amy Winehouse's version of "Valerie" by The Zutons, as performed by Santana Lopez and Brittany, once more with an assist from The Kiddies; Avril Lavigne's "Keep Holding On," as performed by Puck, with yet another assist from The Kiddies; and "Happy" from Pharrell Williams, as performed by Gwyneth Paltrow, April Rhodes, Mr. Schue, Blaine, Mercedes, with one last assist from The Kiddies.
Want more? The full recap starts right below!Hallowed Halls of Dear McKinley High. The Batshit Bimbo of Broadway and Mercedes Jones, having heard of The Glee Club's destruction in the wake of last week's positively disastrous performance at Nationals, wander their separate ways towards the music room, where they will presumably join others in mourning the club's untimely demise. You'd think, then, that these ladies would be suitably downcast and contemplative, and you would be oh so very wrong. Thanks to a pair of dueling voiceovers, we learn that both Mercedes and Rachel expected some sort of official celebratory red-carpet, confetti-bedecked reception from the administration, given the fact that they are "the biggest recording artist" and "biggest Broadway star," respectively, that "this school's ever produced," which makes me think they're both mouth-breathing morons, because what intelligent person would ever expect such treatment from a place run by Sue Sylvester?
Whatever. The ladies eventually reach the choir room, where they are fawned over by various of The New New Directions, which leads to a sudden spurt of voiceover bitchery. "She wrote a couple of songs," Voiceover Rachel snorts, while Actual Rachel sneers. "Big whoop!" "So what?" Voiceover Mercedes counters while Actual Mercedes shoots a withering side-eye in Actual Rachel's direction. "She got cast in a play as an annoying Jewish girl -- what a surprise!" The two decide that the only way each can assert her supposed "God-given superiority" is "to sit front and center in The Rachel Chair" (said chair now most conveniently glowing in the heavenly light of an overhead spot that, hilariously, only Urethra Franklin is able to see) and, after an ungainly dash across the linoleum by both of them, The Batshit Bimbo of Broadway triumphs and settles herself down regally while Mercedes scowls. "Greet each other!" St. Gay of Lima hisses at them from one of the cheap seats on the higher risers, and more catty remarks are exchanged until...
...the ever-useless Mr. Schue steps up to the whiteboard from somewhere else to scrawl "100" in gigantic numbers while stating, "One hundred lessons!" And as that makes absolutely no sense, at all, no matter how many different ways I try to think about it, I'll ignore Mr. Schue's pathetic ass for the moment in favor of throwing focus onto my very dear Old Puck, who's wearing his service dress uniform just to remind us all that he joined the Air Force since last we saw him. "Can I get Finn's plaque when we clear this place out?" Old Puck asks, because of course he does. "No," Mr. Schue replies, "because I'll be needing to wrap it up in that jacket I stole and cuddle with it on those lonely nights when I'm feeling especially vulnerable." Or maybe Mr. Schue claims that "Lillian and Finn belong here at McKinley" before finally establishing this evening's musical theme: "Your assignment is to sing one of the songs we sang in here, but reinvented in some way." Here, we get a wide shot of the room, and I should note that -- in addition to Mercedes, Rachel, Kurt, and Old Puck -- Santana, Brittany, Gaylord Wiener, and Old Quinn have also taken time off from their busy, busy lives to travel several hundred miles back to their old high school to mourn the passing of an extracurricular activity they used to attend a couple of years ago. Dianna Agron looks gorgeous, by the way, and her posture is to die.