Glee 2×12 – “Silly Love Songs”

In the Valentine’s Day episode of Glee, the writers began slowly developing one of the sweetest, most promising teen romances I’ve seen on television, and also introduced what has to be by far the dumbest storyline this show has ever done – and that’s saying a lot.

I’ll start with the bad: this Finn/Quinn reunion is needlessly stupid.  I don’t buy this story the writers are selling.  Heck, I wouldn’t even shoplift this story.  I almost can’t even describe the idiocy of reuniting two characters who have had nothing to say each other for an entire season.  But I’m going to try, using the tune of the South Park from the “All About Mormons” episode to help me:

Finn Hudson was a school athlete, dum-dum-dum-dum-dum

Whose girlfriend made him a big cuckold, dum-dum-dum-dum-dum

And said he was her baby daddy, dum-dum-dum-dum-dum

But now he wants to date her again, dum-dum-dum-dum-dum

Rachel now is independent, smart-smart-smart-smart-smart

Finn wants the girl who hurt him badly, dum-dum-dum-dum-dum

Rachel Berry smart-smart-smart, Finn and Quinn are DUMB

I can forgive a LOT of these characters’ stupid actions because of their age.  Teenagers do stupid things.  However, the Glee writers use the “teenagers are stupid and inconsistent” excuse for all of their characters’ whiplash motivations nowadays.  “Teenagers are dumb” is now the Glee version of “A wizard did it.“

On the other hand…we have Kurt and Blaine.  What started off as a burgeoning romance between a sweet, innocent babygay and his wise, dapper mentor has been turned on its head.  As it turns out, Blaine is equally clueless about love and romance as Kurt is.  He has no idea what he’s doing.  The playing field has been leveled, they are finally on equal ground, and developing a very important friendship.  Blaine telling Kurt he cared about him, but is clueless when it comes to romance, was not a rejection or denial of any romantic feeling, just an admission of his own weakness.  Kurt handled it maturely and with dignity, while still holding onto hope for the future, boldly referencing When Harry Met Sally… and of course Blaine didn’t miss the implied meaning (that they would get together, but it would take some time), and of course he didn’t mind, because he totally loves Kurt even if he barely knows it.

I have no idea how the same person could have written both of these stories.  It’s inconceivable.

Other thoughts:

– The music was a mixed bag.  “P.Y.T.” was pretty good because it involved Mike Chang dancing.  “Silly Love Songs” was a nice cap to the episode, though if I weren’t a Warblers fan, I’d be annoyed that we had two of their numbers and no Nude Erections group numbers.  The less said on “Firework,” the better, and I wish Rachel had sung Natasha Bedingfield’s “Unwritten” for her “independent empowerment” song  instead.  “Fat Bottomed Girls” was a ton of fun and I’m enjoying Puck’s tradition of serenading girls with his best ‘stereotype’ songs.  I can’t wait for him to sing J.Lo to Santana and something from Miss Saigon for Tina. Speaking of Tina, the show clearly hates her if she can’t get a real song. 

– “When I Get You Alone” deserves its own section because that whole thing was glorious. The part of me that loves Darren Criss and thinks he’s the cutest guy on the planet was melting faster than the Wicked Witch, especially when he put on the pink sunglasses.  The other part of me was too busy feeling embarrassed for Blaine and poor lovelorn Kurt.  But even lovelorn Kurt was feeling some of Blaine’s secondhand embarrassment.  Hee.

– More Kurt/Rachel/Mercedes slumber parties, please!  I don’t think the show clarified when and how Rachel and Mercedes actually became friends and I don’t even care, because they both need it.

– My favorite boys also gave me the two biggest laughs of the evening.  Blaine’s starry-eyed, “If we get married, I can get 50% off at the GAP,” followed by Kurt’s horrified side-eye, was glorious, as was Kurt telling Blaine’s Gap crush that people must know that he’s gay because of the hair.

– Putting on my feminist hat: I’m not sure how I feel about the Shaming of Santana Lopez.  Lord knows she had it coming to her, but I felt uncomfortable when Rachel told her, “The only job you’ll ever have is working on a pole.”  Ouch. Talk about slut-shaming.  Of all the members of New Directions, Rachel has the most cause to publicly tear Santana a new one…but I wish she could have gotten even without going there. Now Rachel and Santana have a history of slut-shaming and virgin-shaming each other, but that’s a post in of itself that I’ll probably get to later.

I did laugh when Santana tearfully told Brittany, “I just try to be really, really honest with people when I think they suck!”  It’s not quite Cordelia Chase “Tact is just not saying true stuff.  I’ll pass” level of awesomeness, but it’s close.