Glee Review: Yes, Brittany, there is a Santa Claus.

On this week’s Glee, Will wanted to hold a big Christmas concert at McKinley, celebrating the birth of Jesus.  When Sue heard about this, she called her local branch of the ACLU, and then filed an injunction against McKinley High to prevent them from holding any Christmas-themed events at their very public high school.  Will initially tried to fight the injunction, offering to include a Kwanzaa presentation (given by Mercedes, of course) and a Puck “I Have A Little Dreidel”-solo to sweeten the deal, but to no avail.  Ultimately, Glee was rescued by the private Dalton Academy, who offered to hold the concert at its facilities.  Rachel initially refused due to her personal beliefs, until a conversation with Finn reminded her that her professional ambition far outweighed any religious conviction, and that, as far as pop stars go, she would be continuing a fairly widespread Jewish tradition. Ultimately, the concert went off without a hitch, and everyone learned a little something about the Establishment Clause in the meantime.

Just kidding!  None of that happened.  Instead, Brittany believes in Santa Claus.

And, to be clear, not the loosely-defined “Spirit of Christmas”-type of Santa, or a rooted-in-history St. Nicholas type of Santa Claus, or the kind of Santa Francis Pharcellus Church detailed in his letter to Virginia (which I totally believe in).  No, Brittany believes in a literal fat man with a white beard who lives at the North Pole and delivers gifts via chimney on Christmas Eve and that the guy at the local mall which charges you to take pictures with him is actually HIM.

Now, the writers have been straining my credulity with Brittany for awhile now, but I hung in there, even through last week’s magical comb storyline.  But here, I’m afraid, they have lost me.  And since much of this episode turns on me really believing that Brittany is a mentally functioning person who proudly buys into the full Santa myth at 16 (17?), I was pretty torn about the effectiveness of “A Very Glee Christmas.”

Too bad, because ”A Very Glee Christmas” had a lot going for it.  First of all, I love Christmas, and I love Lea Michele’s voice, and Rachel sang two Christmas songs,  The Carpenters’  ”Merry Christmas Darling” and Wham’s “Last Christmas,” which she duetted with Finn.  Both performances are really beautiful, but Rachel’s lovely performances fail to seduce Finn back into her arms, which is sad for Rachel, although good for the show.  These two are more interesting apart than they are together.

But as Rachel and Finn’s relationship appears doomed, Kurt and Blaine’s appears to be taking a turn for the romantic, with a fabulous duet of “Baby, It’s Cold Outside.”  I don’t have enough cute+sincere adjectives to describe this particular number (awesome! endearing! adorable! sweet!), so I’ll just have to say that not only did the number do justice emotionally to a promising gay relationship in a way that very few shows are willing to do (I’m thinking Modern Family right now, but that’s about it), but it also moved a storyline forward while staying true to the characters.  I’ve watched it four times.  Excellent job, Glee.

Deciding not to burst her bubble, Artie is hell-bent on getting all of Glee to keep up the Santa charade for Brittany.  He talks Glee into visiting one of those Santa-impersonators, where his plan completely goes to shit when Brittany asks Santa for Artie to be able to walk.  And Black Santa (cause it’s a black Santa) says “Sure.”  Which results in Artie having to ask Bieste to put on a Santa outfit and visit Brittany to tell her, no, sorry, Santa can’t do that.

Meanwhile, poor Will is working through his own Emma-related issues this Christmas, and so focuses his energy on getting Glee to go caroling around McKinley High, collecting donations for a local homeless youth program.  It doesn’t work.  Glee’s classmates absolutely hate them.  I don’t understand these people.  Who doesn’t like Christmas caroling?  Clearly, they’re all atheists.  Additionally, Will’s got other problems — he pulled Sue’s name for Secret Santa.  And he soon finds out that everyone did; she sabotaged the whole process, and ended up with gifts from every teacher at McKinley.  (Good one, Sue!)  Ultimately, this leads to an all out Christmas war, with Sue playing the Grinch and Will as one of those sweet little Whos who just wants to decorate a tree, sing a song, and have a slice of roast beast.  Sue puts on unattractive green war paint, and proceeds to destroy Glee’s Christmas, smashing the tree decorations, taking back the gifts, and shearing the tree.  She’s interrupted by Brittany, playing the role of Cindy Lou Who, but Sue just lies her way out of it (of course) and Brittany believes her because Brittany apparently has a sub-Forrest Gump IQ.

But, ultimately, the spirit of Christmas prevails.  Rather than wallowing, Glee again goes caroling at McKinley, only this time for their teachers, who are pretty much forbidden by teacher code to show anything but encouragement.  Plus, Glee’s singing “Welcome, Christmas” from How the Grinch Stole Christmas!, the one that goes “Fah who for-aze, dah who dor-aze” and makes my heart grow three sizes every time I hear it.  It works on the teachers, who donate money to help homeless children, and it works on Sue too, who gives the gifts back to Will and then brings Glee to his home that night so he won’t spend the holiday all by himself. It’s a Christmas miracle!

Oh, and Artie gets legs.  That was actually a bit too cheesy for me, honestly.

What did you think of the episode?  Do you think Brittany is believable on the show, or was she a better character when she just mumbled one-liners?  Was the Grinch theme a bit thick?  And am I giving the Kurt/Blaine duet too much credit because it was just soooo nice to see the duet performed by gay male characters? Sound off below!

(And have a Merry Christmas!  Or, if you don’t celebrate Christmas, enjoy your Chinese food!)

For another opinion on this episode, check out ‘Tis the Season by Stephanie Jaar.

Season 2, Episode 10: A Very Glee Christmas (originally aired December 7, 2010)

For more Glee, click here.

Tuesdays at 8pm on Fox

Photographs courtesy of Fox and IMDbPro.