Big Brother

Glee is back from its "mid-winter" break, and wasted no time in revealing Quinn's fate from her car accident. (The sing-songy tone of the narrator in the re-cap was an early tip: it wasn't fatal.) She survived the accident, but is now in a wheelchair. The doctors say her paralysis is likely temporary, but she optimistically thinks she'll be back on her feet in just seven more episodes. We'll see...

But in the interim, I think it's very interesting to pair Quinn with Artie. Those two characters have had essentially no interaction with one another for the series to date, and whichever way the story breaks, it's likely to yield some compelling drama for one of the characters. Either Quinn won't recover, and she'll have to really come to terms with her new life; or she will recover, and Artie will have to deal with the unfairness of her paralysis being temporary while he remains confined to his wheelchair. Both scenarios seem full of dramatic possibilities.

The main plot of the episode revolved around Blaine's pompous, tormenting older brother coming to pay a visit. I found it interesting to give Blaine the storyline of feeling overshadowed by a demeaning sibling. Since his introduction in season two, he's essentially been the most together, self-assured character on the show (with the possible exception of Sue Sylvester). On the one hand, you might find inconsistency in his sudden shrinking in the light of his brother. On the other hand, what better character to take down a peg? While the story certainly was compressed (playing out in just a part of a single episode), the tonality of it felt right. It's a Glee happy ending that put them on good terms so quickly, but the emotion of their conflict felt genuine even when the specifics of it (basically, all of Cooper's behavior) felt less realistic.

Speaking of being taken down a peg, Sue's story this week started with her being challenged for control of her Cheerios. But that seemed merely the Macguffin to pull her more into supporting the Glee club for the rest of the season. Her real story surrounded her developing pregnancy, and the revelation that her child has Downs Syndrome. I feel like the jury's still out on this one. The very idea of giving Sue a pregnancy storyline is over the top even for such an over the top character. But maybe it's best to approach the whole thing like a science fiction tale. Just accept the impossible premise, and then see if the resulting story depicts emotional truth. I'm working on the former; we'll see if the latter materializes.

Oh, and Finn and Rachel are once again questioning their marriage plans that they were certain of after they were doubtful after they were certain. Yawn.

Music this week rested squarely on the pairings of Artie with Quinn and Blaine with his brother Cooper. I've always felt Dianna Agron's voice one of the weaker ones on the show when it comes to solos, but I also think she has paired with more different characters in duets than anyone else to good effect. The take on Elton John's "I'm Still Standing" made for a good opening, though was better than the later "Up Up Up."

Meanwhile, Darren Criss and Matt Bomer were a good match. I was a bit aggravated that the writers couldn't just pick one Duran Duran song and have them sing that, but the final act take on "Somebody That I Used to Know" was really a solid performance for both. As for Blaine's solo, "Fighter", I thought the best work belonged to director Eric Stoltz and his staging of the sequence. Darren Criss seems to handle bouncier, light material than he can handle more dramatic moments like this, but the way the montage was put together, I still bought into the overall message.

I'd call this episode a B+. I'm looking forward to seeing where things go from here.