Glee Review: Special Education

Am-badass-ador! Ha ha ha! Puck, you slay me!

With Kurt gone, Mr. Schu is struggling to find a new member of the club so they will be able to compete at sectionals. He finds one in the resident fatass Lauren. You know, that whale of a girl who wanted Mr. Schue's babies in Brittany/Britney, and the one who got him sick in The Substitute? Yeah, that girl. She's a bitch! Big deal. Not the point of the episode.

As the club gears up for Sectionals, tensions don't just flare. They explode! Will finally realizes that he has been ignoring the other talent in the club in favor of Rachel and Finn, his two heavyweights. So, he pulls a fast one on everybody, declaring that Sam and Quinn will sing the opening ballad of their set list, and that the big number will be more dance centric so as to give Mike and Britney a chance to shine. Well, Rachel's pissed, and begins acting even more ridiculous than usual, stooping so low as to come into rehearsal with duct tape over her mouth as protest of being silenced, which causes Will to finally lose it with her. Powerful stuff. Meanwhile, Kurt is taught a lesson in humility when his tendencies to take control are rebuffed at the first rehearsal of his new club. He takes it a lot better than Rachel though.

On another note, Special Education was pretty heavy in terms of relationships. Santana finally spilled the beans on her and Finn sleeping together way back in Season 1, leading Rachel to drag him to couples therapy, and then cozy up to Puck. Artie and Brittany run into snags along with Mike and Tina when Artie and Tina begin to suspect that Mike and Brittany, who are spending a lot of time together rehearsing, are going at it. Oh, and Emma impulsively marries Carl. Yeesh!

I must say, it was sort of refreshing to see everyone blow up in each others faces like that. Sure, they all bicker at each other and whatnot, but they have always kept their emotions in check. To see people actually start shouting was a welcome change of pace. Gotta say though, I wanted to punch Rachel and Mercedes in the face in this episode, especially Rachel. She's always been a selfish bitch, but she was a raging selfish bitch in this episode. She claims to learn about being part of team and things like that, but the second she doesn't get a solo, she's goes crazy! It's gotten to the point where it's stopped being funny, and is just aggravating. I don't like the character anymore, and I was actually on Finn's side when he broke it off with her. While I think it was nice for all the other relationships in the club to remain intact, I think it was a good move for the writers to break up Rachel and Finn. They got together way too quickly, and they couldn't stay together forever. People would get bored.

Sang it sista!

Music wise, this episode was strong. The Warbler's rendition of "Hey, Soul Sister", led by Darren Criss, sounded awesome. Sam and Quinn's duet of "(I've Had) The Time of My Life" was beautiful, and soundly destroyed Finn and Rachel's duet of "Faithfully" from regionals last year. New Directions' big number, "Valerie", was a lot of fun, as was the finale of the episode, Florence and the Machine's "Dog Days are Over". The only weak song, if you can call it that, was Rachel and Kurt's rendition of "Don't Cry For Me Argentina" from Evita. It's not that it's a bad song. It's just that, compared to the raw power of the other numbers, it felt a little tame.

All the humor in this episode fell to Puck and Brittany. Puck was righteous hoot as he tried to get the other football players to man up and join glee. His version of the Bruce Springsteen story was hysterical, and I loved how he shouted Karofsky down for how he forced Kurt out. Brittany also had some winner lines, as when she confuses adultery with being stupid, or, as she puts it, being adult. Funny stuff.

I honestly don't know how I feel about Glee this week, or anymore, for that matter. There have been some very heavy plots being thrown into the mix, which is all well and good. I love me some serious drama, but it comes at a cost. The stuff that makes this show so great is being pushed to the side, that being, absurd humor, a celebration of cliches, and fun songs. The songs are still there, but the cliches are not so much being celebrated as they are being condemned, and the humor isn't anywhere near as biting. That could be because Sue hasn't been showing up as much, and her material isn't as strong when she does. Even so, Special Education was a decent episode. A lot of the dramatic stories were finished in this episode. Kurt's at Dalton, Rachel and Finn have broken it off, Emma's married (though it's not gonna last long. I'm calling it), and the club is moving on to Regionals. So, hopefully, now all this serious stuff is wrapped up, the show can return to its fun loving ways. I sure hope so!

So, Brittany does motocross. Strangely, that makes complete sense.