Nationals

The second of Glee's episodes this week was the Competition Episode to end all Competition Episodes, the gang's final trip to Nationals. This was all a foregone conclusion, of course; after a first season that saw them fail to get there at all, and a second that saw them make it but lose, the only logical conclusion this time would be to have them win. But sometimes it's not about the journey, but rather the destination.

So how was the hour? Well, a mixed bag, I think. I certainly wanted to get swept up in the sentiment of it, but I was finding myself not quite able to keep my suspension of disbelief at bay. I can offer many examples:

I feel like the recently remodeled Sue is a great thing for the show. She's still nasty and tough, but does it in support of the glee club. It's true to her character, but shifts it in a way that will actually be sustainable for the show in the long run as opposed to her cartoonish extremes of season two. But... did the writers seriously not have a better way of getting her there than this preposterous pregnancy subplot?

It's great that the writers are keeping continuity from the glee club split earlier in the season and still having the "Troubletones" perform one number in each competition. But seriously, who the hell were all those extra girls performing with them? We didn't see them practice with the group, and they vanished for the subsequent two songs as soon as they were done. We didn't see them ride up in the bus to the competition, or stand on stage to accept the trophy at the end. Seriously, who are these people?

The Meat Loaf song, "Paradise by the Dashboard Light" was an appropriately epic song selection for the big competition, and the group performed it well. Lea Michele was also strong in the solo on "Because You Loved Me." But another Celine Dion song in a second back-to-back episode? And as good as the group was, I found it hard to believe they'd actually win over Vocal Adrenaline based on what we saw. "Pinball Wizard" was a bit over the top and silly, but "Starships" kicked serious ass; Alex Newell was blow-your-mind awesome as Unique, and the group choreography was pretty sick.

Having Emma and Will finally uh... get together... was a great culminating moment for the characters after three years. But it was a little odd that winning Nationals was the thing that finally made it possible. I'll bet you Will would have been working the glee kids a lot harder all this time had he known.

And the sentiment of having Will win the teacher award was nice. I could even believe the kind words that Finn and Rachel had to say about him too. But objectively speaking, this is the teacher who quit teaching Spanish just earlier this year because it was apparent he didn't know a damn thing about it. Kind of hard to believe he would really win with basically only a dozen students in the entire school advocating for him.

So yeah... lots of moments that hit the right tone. But a bit hard to swallow in their particulars, if you actually stopped to think about them. (And what was the whole point of that Mercedes food poisoning subplot at the beginning? To give her one more bit of acting to do before they write her off the show? To wedge in a product placement name drop for Chipotle?)

I'd grade this episode a B. It had the spirit of an A, but not the execution.