Lancing a Boil - Mash Off
Hallways. Puck pontificates about how he's so in love with Shelby while more or less stalking her in the hallways in that way that young people use. He goes on to say that he loves fourth period because Shelby subs it, which leads to an intermingled fantasy-reality performance of Van Halen's "Hot For Teacher," with the fantasy portion more or less turning the classroom into a club with Shelby as the stripper or something. The only bits that stood out for me in the reality section were Mike and Blaine singing back-up with their hands over their groins like they had a "problem," and their play fight with the microphone stands that had me going "STOP THAT, YOU'LL BREAK THE EQUIPMENT." Will loves the song, but Rachel thinks it's not appropriate. Puck says he just did it because he loves Van Halen, which Will accepts. Because he's a moron. Title card!
TV! Sue's anti-Burt ad paints him a having a baboon heart, which somehow makes him inappropriate as a presidential candidate. Will yells about how Sue is lying about Burt's angioplasty, and Emma has to calm him down and remind him that they have to win the race fairly or they may as well not win at all. Emma would be a horrible politician.
Sue's office. Kurt arrives, enraged that Sue is saying all this stuff because 20% of voters think his dad actually has a baboon's heart because 99% of the people of this show are complete morons. Proving my point, Sue brings up Kurt's own campaign and how it's not working because he's playing fairly while Brittany is promising things like robot teachers and badmouthing Rachel and Kurt, which the kids lap up. Sue tells Kurt that he needs a better cause and to start mudslinging, but while Kurt agrees to the former, he rejects the latter and stalks off.
Teacher's lounge. Shelby and Will have an appropriately awkward conversation given the situation and Will blames the girls leaving on himself. Shelby denies it, saying they just wanted to have center stage for their senior year. And it's Will's fault they weren't getting it, Shelby, don't lie. The two of them then talk about the upcoming Sectionals. Both of them are competing, along with a third group that shows just how classy Glee is: the Unitards. Presumably because the captioning people are sane, this has been replaced with the "Dulcet Dazzlers" in the captioning. Will talks about how they'd usually be doing mash-ups around this time, and then he and Shelby get A Plan.
Auditorium. Both glee clubs show up and wonder why the other is there. Santana takes the time to insult Finn and then Rachel in turn, and more cruelly than usual. Sugar imitates her in the background. Then Will and Shelby do a mash-up of "You and I" by Lady Gaga and "You and I" by Eddie Rabbit and Crystal Gayle which everyone seems to enjoy. Will explains that to warm-up for the competition, they're going to do a mash-up competition between the two glee clubs.
Fourth period. Puck gives Shelby one of those tiny pumpkins used for decorating because the cafeteria was out of apples. He makes a hard sell for trying to woo Shelby, giving her a list of reasons they should go out. Shelby has a very good reason not to: she would lose her job. Puck swears he wouldn't tell, but we all know how well Puck keeps secrets (see season 1). Puck brings up a crib that Shelby still hasn't put together and says she needs him for stuff like that, and generally gets in her personal space. He tells her, "You know it's gonna happen" before leaving. For the love of God, I hope not. This has to count as sexual harassment, right?
Choir room. Will asks for suggestions on groups they should use for the mash-up. The kids yell suggestions, but Finn disagrees because apparently all of them eventually broke up. Instead, he wants to use Hall & Oates because they had staying power, and he wants to give the lead to the newbie-Rory. Which Blaine takes gracefully, and he assures Rory that they'll all help him. He even manages to compliment Finn, which is more than I could have done.
Hallways. Quinn is talking to Puck, blah blah blah I want my baby etc. She's wondering why CPS hasn't done anything yet and tells Puck to be nice to Shelby because they need to spend more time with Beth. She also says she'll do whatever it takes to get closer to Shelby, because that brings her closer to Beth.
Which is why she wants to join the Trouble Tones.
Hallways elsewhere/when. Finn and Rory are talking about the mash-up and what a pain in the ass Santana is. Rory tells him that he wanted to stick up for him, and I can't help but think that he's picked the wrong guy to idolize. Santana passes by and calls Finn Orca, and then Rory and Finn give their best shots at insulting her. Their best, very weak shots. Santana tells them that they have nothing on her abuela, who used to insult her to sleep and was just generally very psychologically abusive. Finn challenges the Trouble Tones to a game of dodgeball.
Auditorium. Rachel approaches Shelby to have her sign her letter of recommendation. Shelby happily agrees to do so, and when Rachel begins to leave, she tells her that she's going to be the only person who is both jealous of Rachel and looking forward to her future. Besides her dads, not that anyone actually cares on this program because Rachel's only parent that counts is her birth mother. Rachel asks Shelby to write her own letter of recommendation instead of the pre-written one Rachel gave her. Shelby looks at Rachel's resume and comments that no one without the kinds of stand-out material on Rachel has a chance in hell to make it. I wonder why Rachel is turning in a resume with letter of recommendation, because I'm looking at the NYADA website right now and they do the same application + transcript + letters of recommendation (one personal and one of acting ability) that everyone else does. I suppose this really is an alternate universe (or the writers suck at using Google and guess which one I'm leaning towards).
Gym. While everyone warms up for the game, Rory asks about the rules for the game. "Don't die." Good to know. Rachel tries to make small talk with Kurt, but Kurt shuts her down because he's still upset how she stabbed him in the back with her presidency campaign. The game begins, with Finn singing "Hit Me With Your Best Shot" by Pat Benatar and Santana singing "One Way Or Another" by Blondie. The game finishes with the Troubletones winning. Finn is a good sport about losing, but when Rory comes up and says something or other, Santana makes fun and then grabs a ball and beans him with it-hard. The others quickly follow suit and Rory's pretty much pulverized. The others yell at Santana for taking it too far, not that she cares. All of this is basically there for Finn's actions later to make sense.
Trouble Tones practice. Mercedes comes in late and interrupts to tell them she knows who they should sing for the mash-up: Adele. Santana notes that with this out of the way, she can focus on making fun of Finn, but Mercedes tells her that she needs to knock it off and focus on the group. When Santana asks who put Mercedes in charge, she points out that she was the one who recruited and the one who picked the theme for the mash-up. The others vote for her, except for Santana, and Shelby tells Santana they need to play fair and prove themselves by being better, not meaner. Which still doesn't interest Santana, but Mercedes appeals to her pride as a "star member" of the group and Brittany helps to convince her to be nice.
Unfortunately, her version of being nice means walking up to Finn in the middle of a hallways and unleashing her nasty set of insults yet. This backfires horribly when Finn calls her out for hiding her insecurities about being gay-again, in the middle of the hallway-and asks why she doesn't swallow her cowardice and see if Brittany loves her the way she loves Brittany. Which actually affects her, and I don't care about either of these characters because they've proven themselves time and time again to be horrible so whatever.
Hummel-Hudson Household. Sue put out another stupid campaign commercial and Burt wants to retaliate. Will says they need to stay on the path they're on now, but Burt urges him to come up with a campaign commercial before Burt loses and Will loses his job. Assuming that Sue convinces the Ohio state legislature to do that, but I'm sure she can, because this show sucks.
Shelby's apartment. Puck is occupied with Beth while Shelby puts together the crib. I guess Shelby doesn't need you for that stuff after all, eh, Puck? Once she's finished, Puck brings up Quinn's scheme and apologizes for his part in it before affirming that he believes she and Beth were meant to be a family. And he wants to be part of it too, of course.
Auditorium. Will announces the beginning of the mash-off and Finn wins the rock-paper-scissors. ND performs "You Make My Dreams Come True" by Hall & Oates, with Finn covering the lead vocals of that, and other half is pretty much the girls singing "I Can't Go For That" (by No Can Do) over and over again. Very nice, Finn. Is your ego reassured now? Mostly I spent this segment amused that they used that song from (500) Days of Summer.
Gym. It's time for the presidential elections. There are a few conversations beforehand about Sue coming out with a new political ad and stuff, and Figgy opens up the debate and reminds everyone that it's illegal to jar farts and sell them in the school cafeteria. Or something. So the candidates. Rick "The Stick" Nelson is the hockey player guy that keeps showing up, and his campaign is essentially "our parents supply your paychecks by pay taxes, so shut up and do what we say." I mostly remain fascinated by his horrible, horrible haircut. Brittany's campaign is about how she's going to outlaw tornadoes and go topless on Tuesdays, which gets her a standing ovation. Kurt talks about how he's the only person who hasn't been insulting his opponents and how he wants to ban dodgeball, which seems stupid because I'm pretty sure the problem was that the glee clubs insisted on doing it unsupervised. He also compares it to stoning. No, Kurt. Just no. And finally Rachel gives up her campaign for book covers and urges people to vote for Kurt instead, which gets applause for some reason.
Hallways. Kurt asks Rachel why she withdrew and she admits that she should have given up when she had gotten the lead. It boils down to the fact that she wanted to be friends with Kurt and go to NYADA with him, so she needed to give him the chance to bulk up his resume. They agree to make up and forgive and forget.
Shelby's apartment. Quinn comes by with a present, but Shelby puts her off, telling her that she knows about her plot. Blah blah more she's my baby and I'm better than you are stuff out of Quinn, and then Shelby kicks her out of the apartment.
Hallways. Brittany thinks Santana needs to stop making fun of Finn, Santana disagrees. Then Becky tells her Sue needs to see her. In her office, Burt and Will are waiting and offer Santana counseling help. Sue explains that her use of political ads tacitly meant it was okay for others to do so too, and another competitor whose niece goes to McKinley, and who overheard the conversation with Finn, sent Burt a campaign commercial against Sue. The commercial outs Santana and then implies that Sue is also a lesbian and a possible child molester. Santana freaks out, understandably, and runs out of the room crying.
Auditorium. The Trouble Tones sing a completely badass version of Someone Like You/Rumour Has It, both by Adele, that kicks the ND mash-up in the face and then body slams it. Or something. Afterward, Santana sees Finn whisper something to Rachel and asks if he was outing her to Rachel too. She then yells about how everyone's going to know. Finn thinks that everyone already knew, but Santana tells him she means EVERYONE, and then when he keeps talking (he's asking what she means), she slaps him in the face. And it was a real slap.
I feel bad for the actor, but that was an awesome end to the episode.