New York

Tonight's episode of Glee would have been alright for "just another episode," but felt fairly lackluster for a season finale. Oh, I'm not talking about the outcome of the Nationals competition, because I saw that coming (and suspect I was hardly alone in that). I think my disappointment came in that it was only the last act of the show -- after the competition -- that the episode really hit a strong stride.

The first half of the episode dipped a lot in the recent Glee well of people performing on stage. I think it worked alright this time for the Kurt/Rachel duet from Wicked, as it had some story context. But for Schu, it just felt like what it was -- plugging Matthew Morrison's new album.

Watching the club to struggle to write original songs wasn't nearly as compelling this time as it was earlier in the season -- we'd seen it before, and we knew they would come through in the end. (Also, their big group number this time, "Light Up the World," though catchy, sounded awfully similar to their last big group number, "Loser Like Me." I mean, not "Born This Way"/"Express Yourself" similar, but damn close.)

But the real dramatic meat of the episode was the revelation that -- SPOILER ALERT, silly -- they lost the competition. Big time. And that's when the mostly lukewarm episode really did get interesting. It was great to see how different characters reacted to the loss. Kurt was focused only on the other wonderful things to have happened to him in New York, and in his life in general. Finn was beating himself up over it. Brittany had a contagious zen about it that pulled Santana out of a slump.

This was all good stuff, so much so that I really wish we'd skipped all that random running around New York in the first half to make time for another act of "aftermath" to close the episode. How did Quinn take losing her man and losing the competition? How about Will, who gave up on his Broadway dream only to lose the dream he had for his students? How about a little more of a taste of Sam and Mercedes beginning their relationship? Lots of untapped wells there, and I feel like they can't really be addressed too effectively at the start of season three. A summer vacation for all the characters will be too long for them to still be raw about the experience.

Speaking of summer, I hope Glee's writers can use the time to regroup a bit. I feel that with an episode like this (which I'm calling a B-, by the way) they further showed that they've been running out of steam a bit here at the end of the year. Here's hoping they can figure some good, continuing stories for some characters for next year, and come back strong again.