Glee: Monster Mash Off

Every week I intend to write about Glee and every week it is just too painful to actually do.  This week...and I'm not sure if it is because there were no attempted rapes in last night's episode or because I can't bare to talk about Adam's little whore storyline on Parenthood...I'm doing it.  But I need to set a few ground rules.  Number one: I will never ever refer to what is about to transpire as a "glee-cap".  That phrase is overused and frankly, not as clever as everyone seems to think it is.  Number two: To avoid the "everything was terrible" scenario that I fear this could fall into, I will be dividing up my reviews into a "The Good, The Bad, The Ugly" kind of situation. Number Three:  If I say something is good, I do in fact mean that it is good for Glee, not by normal television quality standards.  If you want legit quality go watch, well, pretty much anything else.

With all that said, I give you my thoughts on "Mash Off"

The High Notes:

Finn vs. Santana
Is it just me, or is the rivalry between the two of these characters kind of awesome?  Normally in TV world, when characters fight/banter there is either a love/hate relationship going on or they are frenemys destined to one day discover how similar they in fact are.  These two?  It's just pure, cold hatred.  And I LOVE it.  Santana's long rant to Finn about how sorry she was that he was as disgusting as he is was both super harsh and kind of awesome and his pulling her out of the closet was both incredibly cruel and yet seemingly deserved.  Her slapping him at the end of the episode was the cherry on top of a lovely anger sundae, and I really hope we see more rounds of these two in the boxing ring.

"Rumour Has It/Someone Like You" Mash Up

With the whole West Side Story storyline that has been going down in the past few weeks, Glee seemed to have forgotten that fun orchestrations of familiar music is what they do best.  This episode let them get back to their roots and this Adele mash-up reminded me why I even bother to watch the show in the first place.  The two songs were perfectly tailored to each other with Mercedes and Santana taking the lead while the Trouble-tones danced it up.  It also served as the emotional breaking point for Santana which lead to the aforementioned slap of awesomeness. 

Rachel and Kurt Make Up

Rachel and Kurt both running for student body president and hating on each other (not to mention putting Finn in a really crappy position) was a REALLY dumb storyline and I am thrilled that it is finally over.  Plus we do need Kurt to increase his chances of getting into his dream school/spin-off-that-the-powers-that-be-insist-isn't-happening-but-still-totally-is.

That Was A Little Flat

Hot For Teacher

To be perfectly honest, I never like when Glee has characters singing when it isn't an actual performance.  I suppose they have established it as something that they do, but I still sort of view the show as a backstage musical.  The song was just too un-Glee like for my taste and the whole accompanying storyline of Puck's huge crush on Shelby kind of squicks me out.  Like any good Rent-head, I know that Idina Menzel is fantastic, but this all seems like a pretty big waste of her talent.

Sue, Burt and Will Team Up

Yeah, it was nice to see enemies work together to confront Santana, but Sue's declaration that it was her bad example that lead Santana to think that violence was okay will last exactly how long it took to watch that scene.  It is one of my least favorite things about the show...don't have the characters do/say something that should change their character but won't because you need them to be that way for the sake of your story.  If Sue is suddenly a puppy-petting, lollipop eating pinnacle of virtue after this episode, I will eat my hat.  Literally.

"Hit Me With Your Best Shot/One Way Or Another" Mash Up

I actually liked these two songs put together, but pairing up the song with a game of dodge ball was odd and took away from how "dangerous" the writers later wanted us to believe the game was.  I would have just loved to see this done as a legit "mash off", but alas.  It's Glee, so we had to throw balls at each other.

Yikes, That Was Sour

The Class President Speeches

Does no one at McKinley know how to speak?  I get that the writers wanted the kids to seem authentic but when Brittany's speech came off as the most intelligent you knew there was a problem.  Kurt's problem with dodge ball as a bullying tactic, something that was only introduced THIS EPISODE, was a severe writing flaw.  I understand writers.  It's hard when you haven't had some other thing being thrown at our characters all series long...oh wait.  Slushies.  That's right.  That could work.  Or how about Kurt just wanting to put an end to bullying in general?  It's like saying I want to take away the guns but leave the Nazis.  And Rachel's speech where she withdrew from the race and urged people to vote for Kurt was as milktoast as it could get.  Talk about how awesome he is Rachel!  Don't just say "vote for Kurt"!  Fuck this.  I'm writing in Santana's name.  At least she knows how to use her words.

Guest Star Madness

Could we not find a better use for Damian McGinty than having him be Finn's sidekick and the prime target for dodge balls?  Yeah, maybe you should have seen if your Glee-Project hopefuls could act, Murphy and Co., but I know that McGinty is at least charming enough to do SOMETHING.  And poor Vanessa Lengies, who has to tell the same joke every episode.  We get it.  She can't sing and she thinks she can.  Hysterical.  How far we've come from the amazing Roxanne Bojarski, huh Vanessa?  What really bugs here is that Glee got rid of Sam, Karofsky and even the annoying-but-not-this-bad Lauren Zizes for these folks?  Fail Glee.  Major fail.

It's A Numbers Game

So the Trouble-Tones and The New Directions are competing against each other at sectionals, huh?  Not only can I see this somehow not actually being allowed, but is anyone else bothered by the fact that neither group has the twelve members we have spent seasons establishing that you have to have to compete?  Can we at least get a line about changed rules?  Or throw Cameron, Emily and Hanna from Th Glee Project in the back of the room to pad out the group?  SOMETHING?  Also, I'm pretty sure it would not be okay for losing members from one group to join another after they lost, as I'm sure Mercedes, Brittany and Santana will do this year and as Kurt did last.  Wouldn't that be like a great quarterback from a losing team joining another right before the Superbowl?  It just seems wrong, and totally against the rules.  Yeah, I know.  It's Glee-land.  There are no rules.

Bad Egg Quinn

Quinny Fabray.  You used to not suck, and now you do.  I get that you feel like you will be trapped in your life but this whole Occupy Beth thing you have going on seems pretty destined to fail and is totally not what you want. Go find what made you an interesting character, because right now you are totally lost and I have no interest in finding you.

That's it folks.  Until next week, I'm all glee-d out.