You smell like Craigslist.

[ellydash]

Okay, first things first: I have a lot of Sam, Quinn and Mercedes feelings that might be best resolved in their choosing to have a polyamorous relationship. I’m just saying.

First off, Sam. SAM. SAAAAAAAM. I feel like I can’t write his name without threatening some kind of devolution into hysterical typing where I just interchangeably henpeck the letters S, A and M in various orders while shrieking with joy. This dude is legitimately my favorite character, and he’s almost definitely going to get ruined somehow now that he’s back, but until then, I’m just going to put a lot of really happy words about him on the internet. Yeah, he wasn’t perfect tonight – that condescending speech to Quinn about her “rich white girl problems” really bothered me – but I’m so thrilled to see him that I can’t find it in me to spend much time kvetching or, you know, have perspective.

Instead, I’m just going to focus on how starry-eyed the Sam/Mercedes moments tonight made me. The grin threatening to burst on Mercedes’s face when she was walking away from Sam down the hallway; how proud Sam looked during the Troubletones performance; that embarrassed and thrilled reaction she had during ABC: all of it was magic. This is all so unfamiliar to me – getting to see one of your OTPs actually become/be canon. I feel like I should talk to some Kurt/Blaine shippers to figure out how to process it. It’s like eating a lot of really great gouda when you usually don’t have any extra money to buy really great gouda, and you’re overwhelmed by how full you are, but the gouda is just so awesome that you want to keep eating. MORE GOUDA, GLEE. BRING THAT SHIT ON.

Mercedes herself continues to be flawless. She’s grown into her own this season, and she’s done it on her own terms; I especially love that she refused to come back to ND without making sure first that things would be different. It feels weird saying I’m proud of her, because lol fictional character, but you know, I’m really proud of her.

And then, Quinn. I just, Quinn’s storyline leaves such a bad taste in my mouth. It feels all wrong to me, like they’ve just thrown her into the mud and let her wriggle there for episode after episode, without bothering to ask questions about why she’s this messed up. It seems like we’re supposed to think Quinn’s problems have to do with her lack of perspective, judging by the “fix” she got tonight – apparently it’s as simple as getting her to appreciate her youth and the time she has with her friends. But what we’re being shown is Quinn leaping from irrationality to irrationality with no contextual acknowledgement that if she’s this divorced from reality, there’s something majorly, majorly wrong with her, and she needs way more help than her friends can give. It’s frustrating as hell, and I can’t bring myself to care about it as much as I’d like to, because there’s no sense that anyone involved in writing her has any interest in making this psychologically realistic.

The way she reached out to Mercedes at the end, though? That was beautiful. I’ve missed seeing their friendship so much, and seeing them dance together made my heart happy.

Is it heartless to say I didn’t much care for the Papa Chang/Mike/Tina storyline? I feel like that’s probably a very unpopular opinion. I didn’t hate it, but it felt so familiar and overdone, and tbh I kind of understand where Mike’s dad was coming from. Not that Mike shouldn’t embrace his dreams, if that’s what makes him happy, but a solid backup plan is a really important thing when you’re going for a career in the arts (or, hell, the humanities in general), and a little gray area would’ve gone a long way here. It was nice to see Tina speak and do things, too, but would it be too much to ask for her to have her own plotline that doesn’t revolve around her boyfriend? Don’t answer that.

Other things:

- Fuck it, the Troubletones should’ve won. I’m totally biased, and ND was pretty solid, especially during ABC, but the Troubletones killed. The music tonight on the whole was actually way better than it’s been for a long time, and I loved hearing so many different voices in one episode (especially Tina! Yay, Tina!). “We Are Young” was one of those moments where the song paid off because it benefited from storylines and context, and it reminded me that when it comes down it, my real OTP for this show is everyone/everyone.

- Finn did things tonight that were worth talking about, I guess. Whatever, I'm sure they were offensive somehow even though I didn't really pay attention.

- Kurt and Rachel singing along with Harmony. ♥_____♥

- PUCK PUCKERMAN, WHAT IS YOUR HAIR AND IS THERE EVEN A CURE FOR IT ANYMORE THAT DOESN’T INVOLVE A NUCLEAR OPTION. Like, is that an actual life choice Mark Salling made? Did he lose a bet? Are the hairstylists on the show trying to confuse him? Is he hiding all those unsold copies of Pipe Dreams in that waxy wave? I swear, I missed entire stretches of dialogue because I was giggling too hard to hear anything.

- I lost it at Will’s creepy “Hey guys, I’m here now, yeah! Aren’t we awesome? Hey, remember when I was a major character on this show? Wasn’t that fun? That was cool, right?” laugh at the very end. Like, legitimately got teary from cracking up.

- RIP Troubletones. ;______;

Comments

[kitsune13.livejournal.com]

SAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAM! AND MERCEDEEEEEEEEEEEEES!!!! I am so in love, I can't even. ♥ Also, Will's faces throughout the whole episode had me rolling, especially at the end, like you said, but also his little dork-dances during the performance.

Quinn, yes. Ugh. The epic condescension towards her this ep was infuriating (esp from Sam, who usually behaves much better than this). But I was grateful (!) for the small favor of having Rachel, another girl, ultimately be the one who gets through to her. At least it wasn't "straight white dude fixes crazy girl's problems." And Rachel has a perspective that's genuinely relevant, as Shelby's bio-daughter, and the adopted daughter of parents who as a gay couple are often de facto considered unfit.

The thing that was driving me most crazy while watching the episode was the whole WE NEED TO ENJOY BEING YOUNG BECAUSE THIS IS THE BEST TIME OF OUR LIVES OMG. It's a basic fact of lit/media for/about young people that it's always by and for adults primarily, and reflects adult fantasies of what young people are/are supposed to be. And omg, it was so incredibly obvious and clunky that the characters were mouthpieces for the 40-something writers looking back with fond nostalgia at their teen years in that ep. Glee, when it's good, is usually quite smart about examining the cultural construct of "what it means to be a teenager" -- characters like Rachel and Kurt are constantly aware of how much their expectations are shaped by media narratives about teenagers and how much their realities often fail to live up to that. And RIB are also very good at not overtly idealizing the state of being a teenager -- if anything, Glee-when-it's-good is all about how much that often SUCKS. So it's major tonal dissonance (on Glee? My word!) to suddenly be all "be GRATEFUL that you're YOUNG." Because dude, that's a perspective that generally only comes with age and nostalgia. The only character I could buy that from was Sam, because he's been forced out of normative-teenagerhood into responsibilities labeled adult -- and it's almost entirely people who HAVE adult responsibilities that think teenagerhood is something to hold on to.

(One of the things I always appreciated about Will, back when he had, like, characterization and stuff, was that he had a really interesting mixture of that idealizing "best time of my life omg" thing combined with a real understanding, because he sees it every day, of how shitty teenagerhood can be, and yet he still clings to those fantasies of himself and the kids around him. It always struck me as something very real, and embodies the conflict around how we think about teenagerhood in our culture -- especially those of us adults who love and consume (and CREATE!) teen narratives. He was like a window onto those ideas, while still being a real flawed person in his own right. oh, for those glory days when Will was interesting!)

[ellydash.livejournal.com]

The thing that was driving me most crazy while watching the episode was the whole WE NEED TO ENJOY BEING YOUNG BECAUSE THIS IS THE BEST TIME OF OUR LIVES OMG.

If I agreed with you any harder on this, I'd probably rupture something. Honestly, one of the things about this show that first pulled me in was the (relatively) complex way it portrayed being a teenager - how Will and Terri's desperate need to relive their high school "glory days" bumped up against what Kurt, Rachel, etc. were going through. I can absolutely understand a character like Shelby telling Quinn "be happy you're young," but, as seems to be the recurring theme with this show, we're clearly supposed to agree with her rather than see her point of view as necessarily warped by the life she's had. Which, I mean, I'm all about a show where the adults are constantly looking back with regret and longing and all those complex emotions, because that's some good angst right there, but I would've given a lot to hear Quinn tell Shelby that if this is as good as it gets, then the good isn't much good at all.

It's interesting (at least, it's interesting to me!) to think about the way Glee constructs adulthood, in implicit contrast to young adulthood; it's never very positive, or affirming, and most of the adults on this show are or have been absolutely miserable for extended amounts of time. Will's only been happy since he's been with Emma (but we never see him), Emma's never been happy, Sue is lonely and self-sabotaging, Terri was a vortex of misery, Shannon's becoming defined by her need for a romantic relationship and inability to sustain one, Shelby is incapable of setting boundaries and is so desperate for connection that she sleeps with an 18-year-old kid, Judy Fabray is judgmental, Mrs. Chang regrets not pursuing her love of dance, etc. (Burt and Carole are the main exceptions to this, imo.)

Having said that, "adulthood" for Glee gets so wrapped up in the adults' younger selves - Will and Terri's nostalgia for high school was a major plot point in S1, of course, but a lot of Emma's problems stem from her childhood, and I know Jane's said in interviews that she sees Sue as choosing to dominate a high school as an attempt to obtain some kind of control over her own miserable teenage years. Calling them "childish" is imo a reductive and disparaging use of the word that doesn't allow for the ways actual children are capable of growth, empathy, etc., but I think there's something in noting that their relative immaturity both contradicts the whole BEING YOUNG IS AWESOME thing and also simultaneously reinforces a narrative of "don't be in a rush to grow up."