Glee Season 3 Re-watch - 3x19 - Prom-asaurus
Time for "senior" prom, also known as "whomever we want to attend" prom. No worries.
For the second episode in a row, we start of with Rachel giving herself a voiceover pep talk. One bad audition, and her dreams are dead. She had no backup plan, and clearly she’ll never have another audition for the rest of her life, so now she’s just hanging out with the peasants. She’s focusing on smaller dreams, like winning Nationals, getting married, and PROM. Oh. Right. Prom.
If she can’t have her big dream, Rachel has decided she should AT LEAST have a spectacular prom, right? She’s earned that much. Though Becky Jackson is practicing her own royal wave in the bathroom and doesn’t want to get any of Rachel’s loser aura on her.
Brittany gets called into Principal Figgins’ office to be confronted with the fact that she’s done absolutely zilch as student body president. If she doesn’t come up with something worthwhile soon, Figgins is going to abolish student government altogether. So, do something cool for prom, okay?
In a spectacular display of insane!Brittany, she shows up to the prom committee’s meeting and immediately shoots down their already-established theme of “castles in the clouds,” because she’s pretty sure castles are too heavy for clouds. No, she pronounces that the theme will be “dinosaurs,” and also the three of them are fired. Oooooohkay.
Sue goes over the intercom to announce the nominees for prom king and queen. Brittany is on the list for king along with Finn and the hockey player, and both Santana and Quinn are up for queen. Becky flips her shit when she finds out she isn’t nominated.
In the choir room, Finn checks in with Rachel to make sure she isn’t upset by not getting a nomination for prom queen, but she has enough self-awareness to know that was never in the cards. Brittany takes the floor to announce the absurd theme, including refreshments of berries and rainwater, and OH YEAH, she’s banning hair gel from the prom. Because hair gel wasn’t invented, and also, Blaine, she doesn’t like the way you look.
I will NEVER understand the point of her random hatred of gel in this episode.
Speaking of people flipping their shit, Rachel is happily walking down the hall when she sees a prom campaign poster for Finn and Quinn together. She tears it down and runs up to Finn, all but screaming in his face. She can’t believe this is happening. He tells her to calm the fuck down. The girl was nearly killed in an accident while driving to their would-be wedding, campaigning for prom seems a pretty small favor. Rachel is entirely too entrenched in her own pity party to see anything other than her world crashing back to Day 1, with Finn and the pretty blonde cheerleader.
Said pretty blonde cheerleader is working hard in PT with the utterly-unqualified Joe, and is on the verge of independent walking. Yay for her! Boo for spending any time on this weird forced pairing. He thinks they should shout her progress from the rooftops, but she wants to wait until she’s better at it and can do a big reveal, like walking into the choir room or prom. (I don’t blame her, I’d feel the same way.)
Becky gets a slightly different British inside voice this time, and now she’s upset (and possibly losing her mind) about not being nominated for prom queen. Not only does she scream at posters for staring at her, but she has she been destroying every xylophone she encounters, and flipping everyone’s cafeteria trays in anger. Sue tries to get her to chill out, probably without much luck.
Rachel’s pity party continues in the auditorium, as she mopes and sings “Big Girls Don’t Cry.” She’s quickly joined by both Kurt and Blaine, and we need a LOT MORE of this trio. Like, a lot. Anyways, they commiserate with Rachel’s misery. She doesn’t want to go and have to watch Finn with Quinn, because apparently that wound never quite healed. Kurt really doesn’t want to go, because he has some serious PTSD from being crowned prom queen last year. And Blaine is freaking out (like FREAKING OUT) about the hair gel ban and entirely too much static in the air. Rachel and Kurt gently mocking him and Blaine being totally petulant about it cracks me up to no end.
Rachel has an idea: they’re going to throw an anti-prom party. She excitedly announces it to the whole choir room, but Santana calls her out in possibly the least cruel and most truthful way possible. “Stop acting like you’re fine and start dealing with your crap. You choked at your big audition. I get it, I’m sorry, but it happens. And I understand that you’re pissed off at the universe. But imploding on one of the last nights we have to spend together because, basically, you’re just not in the mood to dance, is maybe the pettiest thing you’ve ever done.
Quinn is annoyed at Rachel’s stunt, too, but Finn does feel some amount of sympathy for her. They’re sort of begrudgingly campaigning together, it’s clear there’s absolutely zero lingering attraction or chemistry. When a random student comes up to Quinn to praise her for being ever so brave and amazing, Quinn has quite the speech prepared about muscle atrophy in her legs reminding her of her old life. Lay it on thick, girl. This is when I get annoyed with Quinn. I don’t mind that she’s keeping her progress at PT under wraps. But when she starts using (and, at this point, exaggerating and/or lying about) her injury to drum up sympathy for freaking PROM votes? Yeah, no. Even Finn says, “so, that was super creepy.”
Time for prom! Mike and Tina are the first of our gang to arrive, and I do get a little giggle when Mike totally geeks out on the dinosaurs. But, then, I’m pretty sure the whole theme was an elaborate excuse for Brittany to perform the most awful Ke$ha song I have ever encountered. I mean, sure, she looks cute in the Flintstones getup and is always a great dancer, but CHEERIOS IN GIANT DINOSAUR HEADS? Wow, Glee. Wow.
(And here’s the thing: Glee can go cracky and make it work. Just look at "Dynamic Duets" or "Puppetmaster." But the key, ALWAYS, is to fully commit to the theme. This was more of a cracky moment inside an otherwise “normal” episode. And even more to the point, the crackiness didn’t actually tell us anything other than Brittany is crazy and has a weird vendetta against Blaine’s hair. Or maybe it's just that the song sucks. Sorry.)
Finn goes looking for Quinn to make sure he’ll be able to get her wheelchair up on stage. But when he finds her in the girls’ bathroom, she’s standing just fine on her own two feet and he is RIPSHIT. Not only did she lie to all of them, but in so doing he made Finn choose her over Rachel. I think it’s a leeeetle overdramatic for him to say that Quinn has everything and Rachel has nothing, but I appreciate the emotional point. Still, Quinn is freaking out and begs Finn to stay and at least put in the appearance of the one dance as nominees.
Anti-prom is getting underway as well. It’s quite a gathering. Rachel, Kurt, Blaine, Puck, and Becky Jackson. In a medicore hotel room. Wow. Blaine is (of course) in his tux, Kurt has a sort of casual tux-esque outfit, and Becky is inexplicably still in her Cheerios uniform. Would we not recognize her if she wore something else? Anyways. Kurt and Blaine just want to order room service and watch reality shows, Rachel is clearly trying to hold together some semblance of festivity and goes to change into her prom dress, and Becky wants to play strip poker. Becky declares it the worst anti-prom ever, and I can’t help but agree.
Back at actual-prom, Santana sings “Love You Like a Love Song” with Tina and Brittany on back-up, while we see what all the other couples are up to. Sam and Mercedes are being super cute, but she’s clearly still holding him at least a bit at arms’ length. We get a nod to big Shane, there with another date, and everyone seems alright. Finn is awkwardly sort-of dancing with Quinn, still in her wheelchair, but with a few dozen couples making out on the dance floor around him, he’s getting extra pissed about not being there with Rachel. He starts yelling at Quinn to get her ass up and very nearly gets himself kicked out of the second prom in a row as Joe comes to Quinn’s defense and Sue comes to break it up. Off he goes on his own.
Back at anti-prom, Blaine is watching repeats on Bravo, and Kurt is looking bummed out. He says he’d go with Blaine to prom if Blaine wanted, but I’m pretty sure Kurt is the one who wishes he could go hang out with their other friends. Blaine is still super insecure about the whole gel thing, and the two of them are adorable and OH MY GOD IS THIS HIATUS OVER YET?
Sorry.
Knock on the door, but it’s not room service, it’s Finn. He misses them all, prom sucks without them. He convinces Rachel, Kurt and Blaine to go back with him (Blaine has decided to pretend to be an ice sculpture if Brittany sees him), but Puck and Becky stay.
As the four of them arrive, Brittany can smell the hair gel on Blaine and gives it a big no. Kurt swears Blaine can do it, and off he goes to wash the product out. A handful of the otherwise unoccupied New Directions boys sing “What Makes You Beautiful,” because what would a 2012 prom be without at least one boy band song? I mostly just like catching glimpses of Kurt and Mercedes up in the front.
Strip poker is not going so well for Puck, as Becky is apparently a card shark and he’s down to Star Wars briefs and one sock. He asks her to go easy on him, but she’s too pissed off. She’s still super bitter about not getting nominated for prom queen. Puck, in one of those rare but lovely displays of not being a douche, fashions a crown from the case of beer and declares the two of them the king and queen of the anti-prom. It’s really very sweet. There’s no condescension, it’s just Puck taking Becky’s hurt seriously, and making both a kind and funny gesture. Love it.
Rachel texts Quinn to meet her out in the hall, and apologizes for going a little crazy-jealous when she found out that Finn and Quinn were campaigning together. She gives a little speech about how she always aspired to be like Quinn, and how proud she is that they found a way to be friends. I’m not sure I really am on board with most of the points in this scene, but it means well. Plus, we get Santana marching through, saying “stop making out with Berry so we can count these votes and declare me the winner!” Excellent.
Puck and Becky arrive and conspire to spike the punch. Naturally.
In the voting room, Santana is upset that Brittany only got three votes for king, and Quinn edged out Santana for queen by one vote. Quinn realizes that, now that she’s gotten exactly what she wanted, it doesn’t actually make her feel any better. She has an epiphany that, while she and Santana have lived the charmed super-popular high school life, maybe they can do something good for someone before they leave.
Blaine returns from approximately an hour in the bathroom without gel, and his hair is a gigantic curly ‘fro. Everyone is either terrified or trying not to laugh, but I want an episode where someone sits him down and tells him how to manage curly hair. And Kurt’s shock remains a little hard to believe for me - that after dating for over a year and being sexually active for a good six months he’s really never seen Blaine without product? - but I’ll stop being a jerk and just let the joke be.
Brittany gives Blaine special dispensation to put gel back in his hair immediately, so other kids don’t turn to stone when they see him, but Kurt convinces him to stay and be brave and enjoy, because he loves him to pieces. Yay! “C’mon Borat.”
Figgins is up to announce prom royalty, and calls Kurt up as reigning prom queen to crown this year’s winners. He kind of looks like he wants to barf, and I don’t blame him. Finn is announced as king, and doesn’t look all that psyched about it. And then there’s a second year in a row with a (supposed) write-in queen, and the look on Kurt’s face is a mixture of horror and fury, like he would go absolutely nuclear if that shit went down again. But no, Quinn and Santana conspired to make it Rachel. Everyone is shocked, what with no one having any recollection of voting for her, but they do start clapping. Rachel, herself, looks pretty terrified, and not entirely convinced that this isn’t a cruel joke like last year. Darling (and probably relieved) Kurt just whispers in her ear to smile and breathe as he puts the tiara on her head.
As they start to dance, Rachel is still waiting for the other shoe to drop. But Finn is just supportive and excited for her, so yay them.
Maybe I’m betraying my roots as a child of the 80s, but I have always thought “Take My Breath Away” is a snooze-fest of a love song. Santana and Quinn sing it perfectly well, I just don’t dig it. What I DO dig is the montage of people dancing and the awesome-ridiculous pictures they take with the plastic dinosaur. BEST PROM PICS EVER. When this first aired, I kept trying to pause it exactly at Kurt and Blaine’s because it makes me laugh so hard. (Yeah, no, I wasn’t anywhere near Tumblr at that point in my life.)
In the meantime, though, Quinn stands up mid-song and gets her moment of attention and applause and Sam declares it a prom miracle. All is right in the world and Rachel Berry feels much better about her life. Woo.
Look... “Prom-asaurus” is no “Prom Queen.” What is, really? In truth, I’d probably put it in third place of the three Glee prom episodes. That’s not to say it was bad. It had some good moments. But Quinn’s desperation and using her injury to garner sympathy votes... I won’t say it’s out of character for Quinn. We’ve seen her desperate for this kind of status before, and we’ve seen her not really care what it takes to get there. But it’s a mood-killer for me, for sure.
And while I can appreciate that Rachel’s big choke was a BIG DEAL, the pity party and sense of entitlement really got out of hand in this episode. Again, I’m not saying it was out of character, but it bugged me.
Highlights for me were “Big Girls Don’t Cry,” the lameness that was the anti-prom, and Puck’s treatment of Becky. (And anything Klaine, but I think that goes without saying.) But overall, the episode didn’t quite connect with me in the same way that some of the other recent ones have.
What did you think, friends?
Back soon with “Props!”
For the second episode in a row, we start of with Rachel giving herself a voiceover pep talk. One bad audition, and her dreams are dead. She had no backup plan, and clearly she’ll never have another audition for the rest of her life, so now she’s just hanging out with the peasants. She’s focusing on smaller dreams, like winning Nationals, getting married, and PROM. Oh. Right. Prom.
If she can’t have her big dream, Rachel has decided she should AT LEAST have a spectacular prom, right? She’s earned that much. Though Becky Jackson is practicing her own royal wave in the bathroom and doesn’t want to get any of Rachel’s loser aura on her.
Brittany gets called into Principal Figgins’ office to be confronted with the fact that she’s done absolutely zilch as student body president. If she doesn’t come up with something worthwhile soon, Figgins is going to abolish student government altogether. So, do something cool for prom, okay?
In a spectacular display of insane!Brittany, she shows up to the prom committee’s meeting and immediately shoots down their already-established theme of “castles in the clouds,” because she’s pretty sure castles are too heavy for clouds. No, she pronounces that the theme will be “dinosaurs,” and also the three of them are fired. Oooooohkay.
Sue goes over the intercom to announce the nominees for prom king and queen. Brittany is on the list for king along with Finn and the hockey player, and both Santana and Quinn are up for queen. Becky flips her shit when she finds out she isn’t nominated.
In the choir room, Finn checks in with Rachel to make sure she isn’t upset by not getting a nomination for prom queen, but she has enough self-awareness to know that was never in the cards. Brittany takes the floor to announce the absurd theme, including refreshments of berries and rainwater, and OH YEAH, she’s banning hair gel from the prom. Because hair gel wasn’t invented, and also, Blaine, she doesn’t like the way you look.
I will NEVER understand the point of her random hatred of gel in this episode.
Speaking of people flipping their shit, Rachel is happily walking down the hall when she sees a prom campaign poster for Finn and Quinn together. She tears it down and runs up to Finn, all but screaming in his face. She can’t believe this is happening. He tells her to calm the fuck down. The girl was nearly killed in an accident while driving to their would-be wedding, campaigning for prom seems a pretty small favor. Rachel is entirely too entrenched in her own pity party to see anything other than her world crashing back to Day 1, with Finn and the pretty blonde cheerleader.
Said pretty blonde cheerleader is working hard in PT with the utterly-unqualified Joe, and is on the verge of independent walking. Yay for her! Boo for spending any time on this weird forced pairing. He thinks they should shout her progress from the rooftops, but she wants to wait until she’s better at it and can do a big reveal, like walking into the choir room or prom. (I don’t blame her, I’d feel the same way.)
Becky gets a slightly different British inside voice this time, and now she’s upset (and possibly losing her mind) about not being nominated for prom queen. Not only does she scream at posters for staring at her, but she has she been destroying every xylophone she encounters, and flipping everyone’s cafeteria trays in anger. Sue tries to get her to chill out, probably without much luck.
Rachel’s pity party continues in the auditorium, as she mopes and sings “Big Girls Don’t Cry.” She’s quickly joined by both Kurt and Blaine, and we need a LOT MORE of this trio. Like, a lot. Anyways, they commiserate with Rachel’s misery. She doesn’t want to go and have to watch Finn with Quinn, because apparently that wound never quite healed. Kurt really doesn’t want to go, because he has some serious PTSD from being crowned prom queen last year. And Blaine is freaking out (like FREAKING OUT) about the hair gel ban and entirely too much static in the air. Rachel and Kurt gently mocking him and Blaine being totally petulant about it cracks me up to no end.
Rachel has an idea: they’re going to throw an anti-prom party. She excitedly announces it to the whole choir room, but Santana calls her out in possibly the least cruel and most truthful way possible. “Stop acting like you’re fine and start dealing with your crap. You choked at your big audition. I get it, I’m sorry, but it happens. And I understand that you’re pissed off at the universe. But imploding on one of the last nights we have to spend together because, basically, you’re just not in the mood to dance, is maybe the pettiest thing you’ve ever done.
Quinn is annoyed at Rachel’s stunt, too, but Finn does feel some amount of sympathy for her. They’re sort of begrudgingly campaigning together, it’s clear there’s absolutely zero lingering attraction or chemistry. When a random student comes up to Quinn to praise her for being ever so brave and amazing, Quinn has quite the speech prepared about muscle atrophy in her legs reminding her of her old life. Lay it on thick, girl. This is when I get annoyed with Quinn. I don’t mind that she’s keeping her progress at PT under wraps. But when she starts using (and, at this point, exaggerating and/or lying about) her injury to drum up sympathy for freaking PROM votes? Yeah, no. Even Finn says, “so, that was super creepy.”
Time for prom! Mike and Tina are the first of our gang to arrive, and I do get a little giggle when Mike totally geeks out on the dinosaurs. But, then, I’m pretty sure the whole theme was an elaborate excuse for Brittany to perform the most awful Ke$ha song I have ever encountered. I mean, sure, she looks cute in the Flintstones getup and is always a great dancer, but CHEERIOS IN GIANT DINOSAUR HEADS? Wow, Glee. Wow.
(And here’s the thing: Glee can go cracky and make it work. Just look at "Dynamic Duets" or "Puppetmaster." But the key, ALWAYS, is to fully commit to the theme. This was more of a cracky moment inside an otherwise “normal” episode. And even more to the point, the crackiness didn’t actually tell us anything other than Brittany is crazy and has a weird vendetta against Blaine’s hair. Or maybe it's just that the song sucks. Sorry.)
Finn goes looking for Quinn to make sure he’ll be able to get her wheelchair up on stage. But when he finds her in the girls’ bathroom, she’s standing just fine on her own two feet and he is RIPSHIT. Not only did she lie to all of them, but in so doing he made Finn choose her over Rachel. I think it’s a leeeetle overdramatic for him to say that Quinn has everything and Rachel has nothing, but I appreciate the emotional point. Still, Quinn is freaking out and begs Finn to stay and at least put in the appearance of the one dance as nominees.
Anti-prom is getting underway as well. It’s quite a gathering. Rachel, Kurt, Blaine, Puck, and Becky Jackson. In a medicore hotel room. Wow. Blaine is (of course) in his tux, Kurt has a sort of casual tux-esque outfit, and Becky is inexplicably still in her Cheerios uniform. Would we not recognize her if she wore something else? Anyways. Kurt and Blaine just want to order room service and watch reality shows, Rachel is clearly trying to hold together some semblance of festivity and goes to change into her prom dress, and Becky wants to play strip poker. Becky declares it the worst anti-prom ever, and I can’t help but agree.
Back at actual-prom, Santana sings “Love You Like a Love Song” with Tina and Brittany on back-up, while we see what all the other couples are up to. Sam and Mercedes are being super cute, but she’s clearly still holding him at least a bit at arms’ length. We get a nod to big Shane, there with another date, and everyone seems alright. Finn is awkwardly sort-of dancing with Quinn, still in her wheelchair, but with a few dozen couples making out on the dance floor around him, he’s getting extra pissed about not being there with Rachel. He starts yelling at Quinn to get her ass up and very nearly gets himself kicked out of the second prom in a row as Joe comes to Quinn’s defense and Sue comes to break it up. Off he goes on his own.
Back at anti-prom, Blaine is watching repeats on Bravo, and Kurt is looking bummed out. He says he’d go with Blaine to prom if Blaine wanted, but I’m pretty sure Kurt is the one who wishes he could go hang out with their other friends. Blaine is still super insecure about the whole gel thing, and the two of them are adorable and OH MY GOD IS THIS HIATUS OVER YET?
Sorry.
Knock on the door, but it’s not room service, it’s Finn. He misses them all, prom sucks without them. He convinces Rachel, Kurt and Blaine to go back with him (Blaine has decided to pretend to be an ice sculpture if Brittany sees him), but Puck and Becky stay.
As the four of them arrive, Brittany can smell the hair gel on Blaine and gives it a big no. Kurt swears Blaine can do it, and off he goes to wash the product out. A handful of the otherwise unoccupied New Directions boys sing “What Makes You Beautiful,” because what would a 2012 prom be without at least one boy band song? I mostly just like catching glimpses of Kurt and Mercedes up in the front.
Strip poker is not going so well for Puck, as Becky is apparently a card shark and he’s down to Star Wars briefs and one sock. He asks her to go easy on him, but she’s too pissed off. She’s still super bitter about not getting nominated for prom queen. Puck, in one of those rare but lovely displays of not being a douche, fashions a crown from the case of beer and declares the two of them the king and queen of the anti-prom. It’s really very sweet. There’s no condescension, it’s just Puck taking Becky’s hurt seriously, and making both a kind and funny gesture. Love it.
Rachel texts Quinn to meet her out in the hall, and apologizes for going a little crazy-jealous when she found out that Finn and Quinn were campaigning together. She gives a little speech about how she always aspired to be like Quinn, and how proud she is that they found a way to be friends. I’m not sure I really am on board with most of the points in this scene, but it means well. Plus, we get Santana marching through, saying “stop making out with Berry so we can count these votes and declare me the winner!” Excellent.
Puck and Becky arrive and conspire to spike the punch. Naturally.
In the voting room, Santana is upset that Brittany only got three votes for king, and Quinn edged out Santana for queen by one vote. Quinn realizes that, now that she’s gotten exactly what she wanted, it doesn’t actually make her feel any better. She has an epiphany that, while she and Santana have lived the charmed super-popular high school life, maybe they can do something good for someone before they leave.
Blaine returns from approximately an hour in the bathroom without gel, and his hair is a gigantic curly ‘fro. Everyone is either terrified or trying not to laugh, but I want an episode where someone sits him down and tells him how to manage curly hair. And Kurt’s shock remains a little hard to believe for me - that after dating for over a year and being sexually active for a good six months he’s really never seen Blaine without product? - but I’ll stop being a jerk and just let the joke be.
Brittany gives Blaine special dispensation to put gel back in his hair immediately, so other kids don’t turn to stone when they see him, but Kurt convinces him to stay and be brave and enjoy, because he loves him to pieces. Yay! “C’mon Borat.”
Figgins is up to announce prom royalty, and calls Kurt up as reigning prom queen to crown this year’s winners. He kind of looks like he wants to barf, and I don’t blame him. Finn is announced as king, and doesn’t look all that psyched about it. And then there’s a second year in a row with a (supposed) write-in queen, and the look on Kurt’s face is a mixture of horror and fury, like he would go absolutely nuclear if that shit went down again. But no, Quinn and Santana conspired to make it Rachel. Everyone is shocked, what with no one having any recollection of voting for her, but they do start clapping. Rachel, herself, looks pretty terrified, and not entirely convinced that this isn’t a cruel joke like last year. Darling (and probably relieved) Kurt just whispers in her ear to smile and breathe as he puts the tiara on her head.
As they start to dance, Rachel is still waiting for the other shoe to drop. But Finn is just supportive and excited for her, so yay them.
Maybe I’m betraying my roots as a child of the 80s, but I have always thought “Take My Breath Away” is a snooze-fest of a love song. Santana and Quinn sing it perfectly well, I just don’t dig it. What I DO dig is the montage of people dancing and the awesome-ridiculous pictures they take with the plastic dinosaur. BEST PROM PICS EVER. When this first aired, I kept trying to pause it exactly at Kurt and Blaine’s because it makes me laugh so hard. (Yeah, no, I wasn’t anywhere near Tumblr at that point in my life.)
In the meantime, though, Quinn stands up mid-song and gets her moment of attention and applause and Sam declares it a prom miracle. All is right in the world and Rachel Berry feels much better about her life. Woo.
Look... “Prom-asaurus” is no “Prom Queen.” What is, really? In truth, I’d probably put it in third place of the three Glee prom episodes. That’s not to say it was bad. It had some good moments. But Quinn’s desperation and using her injury to garner sympathy votes... I won’t say it’s out of character for Quinn. We’ve seen her desperate for this kind of status before, and we’ve seen her not really care what it takes to get there. But it’s a mood-killer for me, for sure.
And while I can appreciate that Rachel’s big choke was a BIG DEAL, the pity party and sense of entitlement really got out of hand in this episode. Again, I’m not saying it was out of character, but it bugged me.
Highlights for me were “Big Girls Don’t Cry,” the lameness that was the anti-prom, and Puck’s treatment of Becky. (And anything Klaine, but I think that goes without saying.) But overall, the episode didn’t quite connect with me in the same way that some of the other recent ones have.
What did you think, friends?
Back soon with “Props!”