Weekly discussion: New York

[boysinperil]

Sorry for the lack of movement via gif; I'm posting from work! Tell us, what did you think of the final episode of the second season?

RULES OF ENGAGEMENT

No name-calling
Disagreement is not bullying
Be willing to change your mind
Don't be afraid to speak up

Comments

[lls_mutant]

It's very odd. With Funeral, I liked the pieces but didn't feel like it came together to be a cohesive episode. With New York, I strongly disliked a lot of the pieces but was okay with the episode, although I suspect that was because of the epilogue.

First of all, I hate New York City, so I am very biased. I grew up in upstate NY and was able to go to the city every now and then, and now I live near Philadelphia. So when I think NYC, I think dirty, pollution, rude drives, high crime rate, crowds, and school field trips. It's just not a magical place to me, and I just couldn't quite make that starry-eyed jump that the kids were making.

Second, I was so frustrated with the fact that they had not written their songs. Because going into Nationals THAT unprepared? You're not going to get 12th, you're going to get 50th. Especially without even a backup set list. What they really needed to do was start the episode with the kids congratulating each other on the awesome songs they'd written pre-episode, and then had the Schue/Rachel/Finn emphasis be on rehearsing, and the other kids being all like "if we don't have it now, we won't have it!" It would still get across the fact that they were unprepared, but far more believably. I found the fact they didn't even have their songs written so stupid that it was distracting.

I am one of the few people I know that didn't like the Rachel-Kurt subplot. It felt too forced at this point, and it felt too much like Chris and Lea instead of Kurt and Rachel. I think there are a lot of other things coloring my opinion on this one, because the intensity of my dislike of the plot seems quite irrational, especially as I don't find it offensive or anything. But I really hope that Season 3 brings back some of the tension between Kurt and Rachel. I don't mind them being friends, but I do want the cattiness and snark and competition between them.

I do wonder if maybe it's because I am jealous that my platonic Kurt OTP doesn't get a quarter of the time? Remember, writers? Finn and Kurt are related now? I wish they'd acknowledged that when Rachel and Kurt were talking about Finn. Kurt didn't need to be shipping Rachel/Finn, but I would have liked to see Rachel acknowledge that Kurt has a conflict of interests, or Kurt say something like "I love Finn- he's my brother- but these are your dreams".

With Rachel, I want nothing to stand between her and her dreams. I want Rachel to have the stardom. I want her to make the sacrifices and have it all and love every last minute of it. But with Kurt, I want him to decide that the sacrifices you need to make for that level of theatrical success aren't worth it, and while he loves theater, it's not what he wants to do with his life. I want to see Kurt have a happy, successful career, but for some reason I don't want to see it be this big, glowing, showy future. I guess I ship Kurt/acceptance more than I ship Kurt/dreams?

I didn't hate Finn/Rachel, but I think only because I do love them both and I didn't see Rachel as giving everything up deliberately. I don't think she was thinking when she kissed Finn, and I don't think that she will give up on Broadway for Finn. I do kind of like the idea of Finn going out to New York, although I can't see him settling there.

I really liked the Santana-Quinn-Brittany scene. It was nice to see them remember their original friendship. But I wish they hadn't hacked Quinn's plot up so badly. It wasn't even that they omitted it- it was that they left references to it in. That just seemed shoddy to me.

I did really, really like the epilogue for the whole thing, though. I loved seeing Kurt be mature about the loss and value the experience. I also loved the "I love you"s between him and Blaine, which is saying a lot, because I've been indifferent to Blaine. I like the Mercedes/Sam concept, and I hope they can think of somewhere interesting to go with it. And I liked the ending for Brittany and Santana. Recently, I've felt a lot more invested in Santana's personal arc than her relationship with Brit, so I was happy with how they left that for the season. Santana seems more at peace with herself, even if she's not at peace with the world yet.