Glee: Return of the Sue

A slow week on Glee, which shouldn’t surprise anyone after last week’s fireworks between Will and Sue.  But it gives us time to explore the softer side of Puck, Will’s conflicted feelings about Emma, and Finn showing once again he’s a good guy.

And so with the pour of a generic Big Gulp (a “Big Quench”), a student walks down the hallway, ready to aim. . . .at Finn! Finn has insperminated (New word alert! Call the OED) Quinn, and it’s payback time for the long-held grievance of one particular student and his pubes.  It seems Finn’s reign of popularity is over.

Coach Ken and Emma are telling Will about their proposed wedding, which to Emma’s chagrin requires them be in the same room together at the same time.  They aren’t inviting Will but they want his help in making a mash-up of “The Thong Song” and “I Could Have Danced All Night” so they can have a first dance as awkward husband and awkward wife.  They also want dancing lessons.

In rehearsal, the gang is debating the start of the Slushie Wars, while Will walks in and talks about his love of mash-ups.  He hands out a new song: “Bust A Move,” but none of the male leads want to sing it, so Will shows them how it’s done, including some crazy dance moves.  It’s awesome, at the very least because it distracts me from the awful lip syncing that’s still going on in post-production.

After the break, Finn and Quinn talk to Emma about their social fall.  They need advice on how to be cool and believe that Emma must have seen a lot of cool people over the years.  Quinn’s comparing her status to being a toxic asset, but Emma’s distracted by Will walking by in sunglasses.  She suggests sunglasses and Finn likes the idea because it would let him look at someone’s boobs without her knowing.

We cut to Emma wearing an over-the-top wedding dress, modeled after the one Princess Di wore at her wedding.  She’s going to her dance rehearsal with Will and wants to make sure she know how to dance in it.  And cue “The Thong Song” and dance moves that Emma’s never going to be able to do, and I’m sure Ken has even less of a chance of doing.  Anyway, Emma’s getting excited by Will’s moves and she trips on him, landing on top of him as they have yet another awkward face-to-face moment.  Ken, of course, sees the whole thing from a distance.

At football practice, we and Finn need to hear some gay cracks about Finn being on glee club.  Ken breaks up a fight with Finn and announces he’s adding another mandatory practice . . . that coincides with glee club practice.  Ken tells Finn (and Puck by proxy) that he needs to choose.  Puck, meanwhile, is practicing a song with Rachel.  Why is he there?  Well, his family ordered Chinese food during their traditional Simchat Torah screening of Schindler’s List, which always reminds Puck’s mother of her Jewish roots.  This year his mother thinks Puck’s like the Ralph Fiennes character or something because he’s not dating a Jewish girl.  This led to Puck having a dream about Rachel and thinking it’s a message from God (or should I say “G-d”) to get into Rachel’s pants.  You know, when he prays, it’s like the room almost becomes a synagogue.

The next day, the Big Quench is on patrol . . . no wait, it’s Puck who bought her a drink.  It led to more make-out sessions, only she’s pretending he’s Finn.  She says she can’t give herself to him until he sings a solo.  At rehearsal, Puck says he has an idea for a mash—a personal tribute to a Jewish musical icon: Neil Diamond’s “Sweet Caroline,” which was about a very non-Jewish little Irish Catholic girl.  And so Puck sings his solo to Rachel while the gang does the “bah-bah-bah” part that we all love to sing in bars.

Before we realize Puck didn’t sing a mash-up, Finn and Quinn are wearing the darkest sunglasses ever while walking down the hall.  They run into his football teammates, who throw many grape sodas at them.  He needs to put the bros before “hi-hos” and show up to practice.

Sue’s finishing up her Corner against the anti-human-dog marriage referendum, when she gets asked out on a date by the very-scotch-soaked news anchor, Ron.  We cut to Sue and Will swing dancing (to “Sing, Sing, Sing”) and I have to think this is a dream sequence or the opening credits to Big Business.  No, it’s for real; Will’s been giving Sue lessons and he’s glad they’re no longer at each other’s throats.  She’s calmer now that she’s in love after a date of Battleship with Ron; he likes to swing and wants Sue to go to a dance-a-thon with her.  Sue drops the nugget about Ken adding another football rehearsal.

Will goes to Ken about the scheduling conflict.  Ken points out that he knows Emma is just settling for him when she really wants Will.  Will owns up that he’s never explicitly said anything to Emma but he’s also never sent her away.  Will’s sorry for it but Ken’s not canceling his practice–let the kids decide who’s the consolation prize.

Rachel and Puck are arm and arm through the halls talking about musical stuff (and we learn his real name is “Noah”).  And then Noah gets a flooded face full of soda.  He lets Rachel clean the grape goop out of his hair and realizes how bad he treated her before.  He lets her know that he’s choosing football over glee, even if he knows it means they can’t be together anymore.

Will, for whatever reason, is out wedding dress shopping with Emma, who’s in a new and much more beautiful dress.  Will’s clearly enamored and wants to practice whether she can dance in it.  Cue the music and Emma’s first song of the series: “I Could Have Danced All Night.” When they finish, you could cut the sexual tension with a knife, a knife through the hearts of Emma, Will, and Ken.  He has to get to practice and tells Emma about Ken’s stand-off, which could mean the end of glee club.  At rehearsal, the clock strikes 3:30 and none of the football players arrive . . . until all but Finn walk in.

The next day Finn’s walking the halls with a big quench and the glee kids are all in raincoats and ponchos.  Kurt knows Finn doesn’t want to throw a soda at him, so Kurt grabs the soda and throws it in his own face, telling Finn that none of his other football team friends would do that for him.  In other disappointments, Sue walks in to see Ron and to show off her new zoot suit.  She finds him making out with someone and she’s furious.

Puck and Rachel are watching the football team practice and she hopes he didn’t leave football for her because she doesn’t think it’s going to work out between them.  He claims he was going to break up with her because he can’t get to second base (at least, what I think is second base), and he knows she has a thing for Finn and she thinks he has a thing for Quinn.  He gives her the cold shoulder and walks off.  Zooming in to the field, we see Will tossing a football with Finn and trying to talk him back into glee club because it’s where Finn belongs.  Finn takes this speech and goes to Ken to say he can’t leave glee because he sees a future where you can play football and sing and dance in glee club.  What a strange dystopian world!  Anyway, he doesn’t want to have to choose between them.  Ken relents because he has laundry to do or something during that time.

Sue returns with a vengeance from Ron and reasserts her role working with Will.  After threatening the life of a kitten, she kicks Quinn off of the Cheerios.  Apparently unphased by it all, Will tells Emma that he can’t get her two wedding songs to work together.  This is all metaphorical, of course.  It would have been a nice ending but instead we get the glee club throwing their grape slushies at Will (because he’s never been slushed before or something).

For another take on this episode, check out The Slushie Massacres by Alyssa Martino.

Listen to The J Factor with J.B. and Jaimie here or on iTunes.

Season 1, Episode 8: Mash-Up  (originally aired October 21, 2009)

For more on Glee, click here.

Wednesdays at 9pm on Fox

Photographs courtesy of Fox and IMDbPro