Sweet Dreams

It's always a double-edged sword whenever Glee does an episode that calls back the early days of the show in some way. Last night's episode, featuring Rachel's audition for the Broadway production of Funny Girl, was a perfect example.

On the one hand, that audition scene was very moving -- the most powerful moment in the episode for certain. Even sensing what would be coming as Rachel started her solo rendition of "Don't Stop Believin'", it was still a thrill to see the original New Directions members appear as her backup. On the other hand, it was putting up a giant neon sign saying "remember how consistent and better this show used to be?" We've come a long way since that pilot episode that ended with Glee's most iconic performance, and while there have certainly been high points along the way, the journey has been downhill overall.

That one scene brought another big question to my mind: "where's Mercedes been?" The episode really brought to the forefront the problems of Glee's "separate and follow the graduates" format. On the one hand, you could have it like Puck, who awkwardly showed up at Finn's college for absolutely no good reason, just to get the character back on the show and into the mix. On the other hand, you could have it like Mercedes, used only organically in the story of the show... which is to say, hardly used at all. Neither extreme is very palatable.

Also unpalatable was Schu's sudden dictatorial attitude toward the Glee club. Sure, Glee has a long history of making characters suddenly behave in a completely out-of-character way to grease some particular plot point, but it seemed especially off-putting this time. Everybody at McKinley is coming off a sort of brush with death. You could understand how this has pushed wallflower Marley to want to share her songs, or maybe even use that to explain Sam's completely nonsensical "I have a twin" subplot. But the idea that Schu would suddenly be pushing his students away like this, so soon after an event that brought them all together? Too tough to buy.

So, in trying to grade the episode, I'm essentially faced with the question: does one good scene make an episode? Because that's essentially what last night was -- one good scene. I'm going to say "no," even though that one scene was really good. I give "Sweet Dreams" a C+.