First, there were major tonal problems. I found it really hard to take the gun threat seriously when, just a few minutes earlier, we were watching Brittany lead the whole Glee club in a love song to her cat. And the subplot of Coach Bieste making a play for Schu was both implausible and cringe-worthy. Are we really to believe that she would try to swoop in to ask him out just weeks after he was left at the altar?
I thought there was too much "ripped from the headlines" in play here. I'm not talking about the depiction of school shootings in and of itself, though some would certainly want to debate whether this was "too soon" for such a storyline. (I myself don't much believe there's such a thing; I think fiction can be a cathartic way of exploring feelings surrounding real life events, and a helpful part of the coping process.) But I did feel like cramming the "catfishing" of Ryder into the same episode as the gun plot smacked way too much of "Ryan Murphy was reading the newspaper this morning..."
Curious to see whether my less-than-enthusiastic reception of the episode was typical among Glee viewers this week, I browsed a couple of comment threads on entertainment web sites and discovered another complaint that hadn't even really dawned on me: the fact that Becky was revealed as the shooter. Some people have argued that after four seasons of treating her as a well-rounded depiction of Downs Syndrome on television, they threw her under the bus as "too stupid to know what she was doing was wrong" on this occasion. Like I said, I didn't see this angle, but I can understand interpreting it that way.
I did see a different problem in putting Becky at the hub of the story, however. Though the episode seemed to position itself as a story about school violence (that's what the disclaimer promised), there wasn't actually any violence at all. It was all that build up for, basically, an accident. And not an accident that even had much in the way of serious consequences. Yes, Sue lost her job, but you'd better believe there's no way they're actually writing her off the show. (I expect a confession of the truth from Becky before the end of the season.) Glee's big statement on gun violence ended up not being bold or even ambiguous in a way to make the audience reflect. It was simply, "guns are dangerous." Duh.
But while the script was really a mess, the episode wasn't a total loss. That's thanks to the outstanding effort of the actors. Nearly everyone had a solid moment, but I thought there were real standout performances from (as usual) Heather Morris, and newcomers Melissa Benoit and Glee Project winner Blake Jenner. And of course, Jane Lynch. But really, everyone nailed their "cell phone confessional" moments.
The few musical numbers were also decent -- again thanks to the fairly strong performances, his time vocally (because the arrangements and staging didn't really bring much to the table that the original versions didn't have). Again, the ill-conceived ode to Lord Tubbington of "More Than Words" was too much of a clash with the rest of the episode, but the song would be perfectly fine out of that context.
I think I'd put the episode around the C+ range. Maybe a B-, if I'm being generous on account of the actors who really poured their hearts into it. But it was certainly not the momentous episode I think the writers believed they were creating.
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