Silly Love Songs

I thought tonight's new episode of Glee was a touch better than the post-Super Bowl episode of two days ago. Both started off similarly light on music, but where Sunday crafted a stand-alone plot just for the duration of one episode, tonight spent the time pushing along some existing threads.

It's strange, because I'm not normally a "shipper" kind of fan of the shows I watch; I don't care much about "will they, won't they" relationships between characters. But the friction within what Mr. Recap called the pentagon of Finn-Rachel-Puck-Quinn-Sam did make for some interesting moments.

But most interesting were the moments outside those characters. The glimpse of Santana's softer side provided some nice rounding out of her character, while watching her go into full-on revenge mode later in the hour was a satisfying display of what we've come to expect from her.

The watching-a-train-wreck-in-slow-motion of Kurt's misconceptions about a relationship with Blaine seemed like it might travel a route too cliché. Wisely, the writing put the reveal of the truth rather early on in the episode, rather than setting up Kurt for the obvious disappointment at the last moment. Another strong moment of writing for his character actually had him lay it all out to Blaine near the end of the hour, when the easier thing to do would have been to keep his feelings to himself.

I didn't miss Sue this episode, in large part I think because the double (triple?) dose of her in the previous episode really demanded a breather afterward.

As for the songs, the performances seemed especially strong. Even though most weren't elaborately staged numbers, the lead vocals were solid, and well matched to the actors' voices. Puck and the boys gave a good version of "Fat-Bottomed Girls." Artie nailed his second Michael Jackson tune in one week. The Warblers served up their most elaborate song yet with "When I Get You Alone." (Their "Silly Love Songs" was also good, though probably their least dynamic vocal arrangement to date.) Rachel did her diva thing with "Firework."

But I almost want to say the best performance of the episode was Tina's "My Funny Valentine." Obviously, iTunes won't be selling the single. But her breakdown while singing the song was hilariously funny.

I rate this installment of Glee a B+.