Glee Review: Diva Face-Off

So, this week, Rachel and Mercedes face-off for the role of Maria in McKinley’s production of West Side Story, which apparently all of Glee and the football team will be a part of – except Finn, who’s still figuring his life out.  Mercedes decides to give it her all after her boyfriend tells her that she’s better than Rachel Berry.  And while I don’t really agree, it is sad that no one has told Mercedes that before, and I’m happy to see her really take center stage.  Mercedes announces her intent to outshine Rachel Berry once and for all by singing Jennifer Hudson’s “Spotlight,” and she sounds really good doing so.

Meanwhile, Mr. Mike Chang Sr. is upset that Mike Chang got an A- on a chemistry test — an Asian F.  He blames Tina, and glee club for Mike’s obsession with dance.  But the show wastes this storyline — it would have been fun to see Mr. Mike Chang join forces with Sue on this front — by resolving everything in an hour.  Mike decides that he will not give up dance, and he auditions for the part of Riff, singing “Cool.”  He sounds good, and dances even better.  His mom backs him up, and what could have been a plotline with a slow development and an earned emotional payoff instead feels like filler story for an underdeveloped character.  Another wasted opportunity, Glee.

Not wasted is Heather Morris‘s bad-assed-ness, as she performs “Run The World (Girls)” with the entire female population of McKinley as back-up dancers as part of her campaign for class president.  As usual, Morris hits her moves hard, and, despite wearing a really weird leather cheerleading skirt, Britney clearly seems well on her way to becoming senior class president.  She’s rocking the girl power vote hard, and Kurt looks pretty worried.

Casting Maria is too difficult for Bieste, Emma, and Artie, so they ask them to audition a second time with the song “Out Here On My Own” from Fame. We only hear them sing snippets of the song, but we’re meant to believe that Mercedes outsang Rachel because Rachel says she did.  Nonetheless, both are cast in the role, for alternate performances.  Mercedes thinks this is bullshit, and she’s right if she indeed gave the best performance.  Mercedes says Rachel can have the part, which Rachel takes, of course.  She also decides to run for Senior Class President, royally pissing off Kurt, who accuses her of putting her ambition ahead of friendship.  Well, of course she is.  She’s Rachel.

And in a second filler storyline of the night, but with a pretty funny pay-off, Emma won’t let Will meet her parents because they are Ginger Supremacists, i.e., they believe redheads are superior.  I actually found this storyline pretty funny, despite the fact that it meant I had to put up with Emma.  Unfortunately, I don’t think Emma’s ‘rents are coming back, but it does appear that we’re getting more of Emma’s OCD.  *sigh*.  I wish we could just be done with this already — I’m ready for this chick to loosen up, and I mean that in many senses of the word.

So, Rachel got the part, Mike got the part, and Blaine got the part of Tony.  Speaking of which, when Kurt gives Blaine flowers and support in McKinley’s stairwell, Blaine does not hug or kiss him in response.  In fact, he seems uncharacteristically self-conscious about showing Kurt affection in public.  Uh-oh.  And Mercedes, after earlier singing “It’s All Over” from Dreamgirls, decides to join Shelby’s new singing group.  Double Uh-oh.  But that Uh-oh’s awesome.

Final song is Coldplay’s “Fix You” sung by Will which just doesn’t work, because Matthew Morrison doesn’t quite pull it off, and because lyrically the song doesn’t really fit the episode’s theme, which was ambition.  It felt kind of random.  Can we just have Lea Michele start singing all the closing songs again?

For another opinion on this episode, check out Easy A by Inisia Lewis.

Season 3, Episode 3: Asian F (originally aired October 4, 2011)

Glee airs Tuesdays at 8 ET/PT on Fox.

Images courtesy of Mike Yarish and Fox.