The Troubletones are 3F: fierce, femme and phenomenal.

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Oh, Santana. Fuck. The last ten minutes of that episode were just heart-breaking. Also, so much for that brief period of feeling sympathetic towards Finn!

Something that's bothering me, besides the obvious: the writing this week made Santana even nastier than usual. Yes, she's always cruel, but she was particularly mean, and it was almost non-stop. And I felt like it came across as a passive way to downplay Finn's cruelty in outing her publicly. Not, necessarily, that the writing was actually implying Santana deserved to be outed, but that the show was covering for Finn to keep him from being an out-and-out (no pun intended) bad guy. Oh, sure, he did something really shitty, but he only did it because she provoked him so much!

And I don't buy for a second that Finn didn't understand that there was some risk involved in having that conversation out in the middle of the hallway, despite all that talk about "everyone knows" Santana's in love with Brittany. No, not everyone knows Santana's in love with Brittany; what's common knowledge, or at least somewhat common, is that Brittany and Santana have a sexual relationship, which is completely different. He fired that at her like a weapon, something designed to hurt her and make her stop attacking him, and whether or not he understood the full impact of what he was doing, Finn knew it was devastating. And the fact that he dared to take away from Santana what she absolutely deserves - the right to come out on her own terms, in a time and place that makes her feel safe - is fucking infuriating.

Glee is at its best, imo, when it uses music to heighten the impact of character-driven storylines (it's also at its best when it does absolutely ridiculous, embarrassing and hilarious shit like "Hot for Teacher," but that's another topic). "Rumor Has It/Someone Like You" is a pretty definitive example of what Glee can do when it hits on all targets, and is hands-down the best number they've done this season. Maybe top five overall, in my book. The Troubletones were flawless, the arrangement was wonderful, and Naya Rivera acted the shit out of that number. It was her body language that got to me, in particular; the way she moved, like she was trying to remember her choreography but couldn't quite focus. For some reason, that's what hit me the hardest.

I loved that Will and Sue actually dropped their petty bickering bullshit and acted like adults invested in taking care of one of their students. (Burt, too, but he's generally been good that way, so it didn't feel like something out of the ordinary for him.) And I especially loved that Sue didn't give a shit about the fact that the point of the commercial was to slander her, when everything in Sue's life is always, always about her. Actually, this might be the first time in the history of the show that Sue's shown real, heartfelt sympathy towards someone's pain when she doesn't identify with that pain herself (every time she's been nice to Kurt, he's been going through something that pings her own issues - religious belief, bullying, etc). Too bad I can't enjoy it fully or take it seriously because next week she'll be back to being a sociopath! I can't stand what they've done to Sue - it bothers me like crazy that this once-great character has become an unrecognizable, unfunny wreck of her former self - but that "I'm so sorry" was a sad little flag of interesting potential that, of course, will be quickly forgotten. (Serious question: is Ian Brennan even writing Sue anymore? The rhythm of her dialogue, quality aside, is completely different.)

There's so much to talk about, but I'm going to be brief(er) with the rest of it because I've already babbled on enough:

- The Puck/Shelby/Quinn storyline doesn't seem to be going anywhere interesting, and I say that as someone who was really into the idea of Puck/Shelby, and as someone wants to see another character take more than an observational interest in Quinn's massive, massive issues. Also, is Puck growing a mane?

- The return of Pedowill during HFT! He was just so excited they were singing that number, you guys. So excited. Actually, I kind of loved Will this week, that line about "they didn't leave glee club because of you" from Shelby aside. Earnest, dorky Will is my third favorite Will, after Drunk!Will and Pedowill. Yes, I've thought about it enough to have an order of Will preferences. Shut up.

- Blaine and Kurt supporting Rory in different ways made my heart happy. Two thumbs up for Blaine, in particular, for being such a stand-up dude and encouraging Rory to take the solo when Finn was being extra douchy.

- What was that line from Shelby about how there'd be a lot of people being jealous of Rachel, but she (Shelby) would be "the only one" cheering her on? Did I hear that right? If so, that was cold, unfair, and inaccurate. Also, interesting that Rachel didn't ask Will to write her the letter - although I'm guessing that Shelby's reputation far outweighs anything Will could bring to the table.

- Brittany singing "stop the violence" to Santana, and Santana's reluctant smile? That was really, really awesome, and kind of intimate, actually, in a sweet way.

- Mercedes was ON FIRE this week. She's so confident now - look at all the initiative she's taking, now that she feels like she's valued! ♥___♥

- Figgins's school assembly speeches will never not be one of my favorite things about this show.

- "You're skinny like all the crops failed on your family's farm."

Comments

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Instead of letting things happen organically and trusting that the audience will understand that things aren't always black or white, they create these contrived situations and then turn the characters into exaggerated versions of themselves (and not even that in some cases; sometimes they just go full on OOC) to fit the plot's absurd demands.

Exactly. It's one of the major reasons why Glee is just Not A Good Show, when you get down to it; as fun/effective/moving as it can be a lot of the time, the characterization always serves the plot, not the other way around. They've done this with Finn before, too; this whole Santana thing just feels like a rehash of the "Kurt was asking for it by pushing me too much" justification from "Theatricality." And what kills me is that I don't think our reaction is supposed to be "What the fuck is wrong with you that you didn't learn your lesson last time, Finn?!" but "Oh, shit, Finn, you shouldn't have done that but you were provoked, so..."

The Adele mashup was just perfect. The other thing I loved, and forgot to mention, was the look on Brittany's face - usually Heather doesn't hit the right notes when it comes to serious scenes, imo, but her expression hurt my heart. She looked so, so sad and worried.

I felt like this time it was mostly about Rachel asking national championship choir coach Shelby for help, not mom Shelby.

Agreed! I really did like that part of it, and I liked that Shelby was giving her some validation. That line just stuck out for me as unnecessary and hurtful, even though Rachel didn't really seem to react.