Blame It on the Alcohol

The premise of tonight's Glee -- portraying the dangers of underage drinking -- could have come perilously close to being "A Very Special Episode of Glee." Instead, I just thought it was special in a non-pejorative sense, as in the best episode since Glee returned from the winter break.

Music was sparse this week, but mostly used for great effect. Rachel's ode to her headband was a perfectly horrible piece of song writing. Blaine and Rachel's duet of "Don't You Want Me" was full of energy (and rocked even though for the first time, Blaine wasn't backed by the Warblers). "One Bourbon, One Scotch, One Beer" was just plain fun, and also offered the nice surprise of hearing Coach Beiste sing (a little bit). And of course, the culmination in "Tik Tok" was just great. Not only was the actual performance on fire, but the sudden comedic end to it was the perfect comic high point to the hour.

But yes, I skipped one song, "Blame It." Put simply, I hate auto-tuning. Hate. It. Frankly, that almost ruined the grand finale for me too, but I suppose the vomit saved that. (Those words have surely never been strung together in that order before.)

The plot unfolding between the music was Glee's strongest in quite some time. The "perils of drinking," for the most part, had just the right touch -- including a drunken Coach Beiste laughing off her own profound moment when she stopped for five seconds to espouse the "moral of the episode."

Better still was the momentarily love triangle between Blaine, Rachel, and Kurt. I actually like it when Glee takes the characters we want to cheer for one week and takes them down a peg or two the next week. Kurt really let his "diva bitch" fly with his insults to Rachel, and Blaine really put him in his place with some spot on words during the coffee shop scene.

And a great accent to that storyline were the scenes between Kurt and his dad. Frankly, such scenes are usually the highlight of any episode in which Burt appears, and tonight didn't disappoint. The scene in the kitchen was especially well written, with each being well in the right while still being a bit in the wrong.

But two bits of writing stood out as possibly even better than that. First was the wise decision to not end the episode with a song, as per usual; there really was no way of topping the vomit performance. Not musically. In terms of pure cringe, though, the writers did exactly that, serving up Will's accidental drunk dial to Sue. That was a watch-through-your-fingers, horror movie kind of moment right there.

So basically, I'd call it a top episode, with a deduction from the Russian judge for the excessive use of auto-tune. An A-.