Glee: It’s All About the Hair

This week the Sue of old that walked the hallways in Glee’s earlier episodes returns.  The episode opens with her demanding the sectional set-list from Mr. Schuester.  It is later confirmed, although immediately expected, that Sue is using the information to tip off the other two competing schools – a socially and economically limited girls’ school and a school for the deaf.  Mr. Schu heads to the first school to confront the principal about the issue of a possible unfair advantage, where he ends up having to pass through more security clearances than an entry-level government position (And that analogy comes after living in D.C. for a little under 2 months…).

The attending principal at this disenfranchised girls’ academy (Who’s that principal? Ruff Ryder Eve) denies that she has been in cahoots with Sue.  In fact, she becomes a little offended leading Mr. Schu to invite them to use the McKinley auditorium, rather than the schoolyard that they are currently limited to, as a symbol of peaceful relations.  Cut to an enjoyable performance of Beyonce’s Bootylicious that leaves not only the McKinley Glee kids and Schuester, but also myself, with blank stares and dropped jaws.  Rachel is quick to point out that this is simply an effect of hairography in which epileptic hair swinging and rump shaking is used as a distraction- which becomes the major theme for the episode – from sub-par singing and dancing (When you think about it, this is a pretty common tactic used by Beyonce, herself…Not to say that is a completely terrible thing).  Schu is not immediately convinced by this hairography theory so he decides to go out and buy a sack of wigs for their next number.

We also see Quinn really begin to struggle with the idea of giving up her baby to Terri.  At this point, Terri’s brief freakouts to ensure that Schu doesn’t discover that she isn’t pregnant might be less bearable than sitting through an episode of Hannah Montana.  Terri also looks for something to distract Schu from her fake pregnancy so she goes and buys him a beat up sports car that he had driven in high school so that he could spend time fixing it up.  I feel like these days a nice Xbox 360 or Playstation 3 might have been a little more viable option as a distraction, especially since he only ends up selling the car for some crummy soccer-mom mini-van because of its kid friendliness.  (Video games are very kid friendly) Schuester is going to really regret giving away that chick-magnet when he realizes there is no baby girl on the way.

While Quinn remains undecided on whether or not to keep the baby, Terri’s more annoying half (unimaginable that that is even possible, I know) has Quinn babysit to give her a firsthand account of the inner evil of some children.  The tension that has been building up between Puck and Quinn culminates with Quinn inviting Puck to babysit with her while Finn heads to Rachel’s for a night.  They calm the three kids with some Papa Don’t Preach by Madonna accompanied by Puck on the guitar and surprisingly get the kids to bed.

Finn and Rachel’s Friday night does not go as smooth, however, as Kurt deceivingly makes Rachel believe that Finn is interested in hussies and suggests a Grease duet so as to keep away his competition.  AWKWARD.

We then have the principal of the school for the deaf visit Schu upset at the fact that they were not invited to the scrimmage with the girls’ school.  Schu obliges and sets up a second competition.  They perform Crazy in Love once again resulting in blank stares and dropped jaws (although not exactly for the same reasons as before).  The deaf students take their turn and actually turn in a pretty heartfelt performance of Imagine, which excites all kind of emotions from the students as they, one by one, join the students in singing the song.

Quinn later finds out that Puck had actually been sending sexy texts (Or “sexting”) with Santana the entire night they spent together.  This naturally causes her to doubt the ability of the average high school male (Puck does a pretty impressively horrible job at doing the ‘let me explain’ thing) and ultimately realize the consequences of keeping a baby without having a reliable father.

We end the show with the Glee club realizing that it isn’t about the showmanship, but the talent that each one of them have individually and collectively as singers.  They put this epiphany to work by doing a still performance of True Colors without any theatrics, just pure harmony.

For another take on this episode, check out Hairography, Shmairography by Alyssa Martino.

Season 1, Episode 11: Hairography (originally aired November 25, 2009)

For more on Glee, click here.

Wednesdays at 9pm on Fox

Photographs courtesy of Fox and IMDbPro