Glee: If You Believe in Yourself, As I Believe in You

If you believe
Within your heart you’ll know
That no one can change
The path that you must go.

Tonight on a very special Glee, Kurt comes out of the closet and we’re all, hem hem, shocked.  But first, we meet Will/Mr. Schu’s parents, played by Victor Garber and Debra Monk, and they are all excited about the prospect of a grandchild.  But we know that Terri isn’t really pregnant (or maybe she’s pregnant with someone else’s child?).  Anyway, Will and his father bond over the need for confidence and even his six months in the Hanoi Hilton and years as an accountant (over his dream of being a lawyer) make Will’s father think Will should have more confidence as a future father than he did when he became a father.

Of course his father doesn’t know that at the next glee rehearsal, Rachel leads a coup to get the best show choir choreographer, Dakota Stanley, to help the group make it to regionals, and this guy is good, he was the understudy of Lumiere on Broadway.  While lamenting his lack of confidence, Will is in the faculty lounge and sees that Sandy is back teaching shop class (from 50 feet away) after former shop teacher Henri accidentally sawed his thumbs off while overdosing on cough medicine.  With Sandy’s Desperate Housewives fanfic on hold, he’s back to prevent a school of nancies by putting some hot wood in these teenagers’ hands.  But before that, they sing a song to cheer up Henri and from the succinct vocal stylings of Will, Sandy, Howard (of Sheets ‘n Things), Henri, and Ken . . . Acafella is born!  Only without Sandy because with him, the group is weird.  After all, this is how they do it, and Terri can’t stop doing Will (once a week!); he thinks she’s turned on by his new boy band gig but she’s really trying to get pregnant so he won’t know she lied.

Back in the glee club, Will’s been absent for six weeks and Rachel is unable to get him back.  The group votes to hire Stanley, and Finn stops out.  Rachel calls him out for not having the confidence to tell her how he feels about her.  So he quits.  And Rachel falls right into Coach Sue’s trap by sowing the seeds of destruction using her ringers in the glee club to disband the group; she needs a fog machine.  Their next target is Mercedes, who’s been longing for companionship and turns to Kurt (and his Sgt. Pepper Lonely Hearts Club jacket) at the suggestion of the cheerleaders.

Let’s get a song in here.  The Acafellas sing “Poison” at a bar and Emma is very excited, and that’s before she learns that Will’s father sold all 17 of their CDs and without his mother having to show her bosoms!  I like her, the mother that is.  Figgins likes the Acafellas and wants them to sing at the next PTA meeting to calm the parents about the prison food Figgins has been serving in the cafeteria (Nutraloaf, anyone?).

Sandy tells the Acafellas that he wants into the group because he arranged for his MySpace penpal Josh Groban to attend the PTA meeting and he’s heard on the blogs that Groban is looking for a new opening act.  Howard is unfamiliar with Josh Groban, and before Sandy can club Howard to death with Groban’s Critics Choice Award, he explains that “[Groban] is an angel sent from heaven to deliver platinum records unto us.”  Talk about lifting you up.

As we see another school sing “Mercy”, Howard and Henri have to drop out of Acafellas.  He recruits Finn to the group and encourages him to stick it out with glee.  Ken is also approached by Puck about joining Acafellas; Puck wants to join so he can meet some hot moms, having developed the habit from his after school above-ground pool cleaning business.  (This reminds me of one of the few interesting parts of Extract but that’s another story.)

Rachel and Tina have a [gay + intervention portmanteau] with Mercedes about her dating Kurt, who they think is obviously gay.  She replies that she doesn’t care and is happy with Kurt, who gets her for what she is.  Until the fundraising carwash, when Mercedes smashes Kurt’s window after he reminds her that they’re not dating and that he’s in love with someone else.  He says it’s Rachel but it’s really Finn.  Mercedes sings us out to commercial with “Bust My Windows,” in front of a dancing team of bikini-topped cheerleaders.  And people thought this show wouldn’t attract straight men!

We return to the next glee rehearsal and Dakota Stanley berates all of them but the cheerleaders.  Most of them walk out, until Rachel compares them all to Barbra Streisand, and they fire Stanley so they can be themselves.  This is a boring B-plot but Stanley’s insults rival those of Sparky Polastri so he’s got that going for him.

Let’s get to the PTA meeting.  Backstage, Sandy barfs at the excitement of Josh Groban sitting in the front row with his little puppy dog eyes.  Acafella enchants the parents with “I Wanna Sex You Up.” The crow goes wild.  After the show, Josh Groban comes back to meet the guys.  He finally meets Sandy and hands him a restraining order to stop calling him, sending him nude photos of himself, and sending Edible Arrangements.  Sandy is upset, the guys are freaked out, and Groban doesn’t hire them even if he likes their work.  So the Acafellas break up, and Will and his father talk about how they both have the confidence to do what they want to do: Will is going back to glee club and his father is enrolling in law school (Harvard?).

Mercedes apologizes to Kurt for damaging his car (that he lost after his father found his tiara collection), and he apologizes for lying to her because (wait for it), he’s gay.  She tells him that he should tell the others in glee club because it’s the one place they can all be themselves.  Speaking of being themselves, Groban is backstage flirting with Will’s mother; oh yeah, Groban is into blousy alcoholics.  Who knew?

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Season 1, Episode 3: Acafellas (originally aired September 16, 2009)

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Photographs courtesy of Fox and IMDbPro