Liz's Instant Glee-Cap - 5x10 - Trio
"Trio!" No, you dirty birds, not threesomes. TRIOS. Musical, (largely) platonic, bro-tastic trios.
It doesn't bode well when we start with Wemma. And not just Wemma, but Wemma sneaking off in the middle of class to do the deed in the faculty bathroom. OH NASTY. WHY OH WHY. With her horrified scream, I am Becky and Becky is me. No, wait. With her need to vomit, I am Sue and Sue is me.
I don't know WTF is going on with Blaine, Tina, and Sam singing “Jumpin Jumpin,” but I approve. I will never complain when Blaine gets his boy band moves on, even better if it turns into a full-school dance party. I also approve of Blaine's red pants. Ahem. Anyways, they were just doing the song for fun (I wish they’d just admit that more often), and because it’s almost the end of the year. Schue keeps talking about graduation coming close, and it makes Tina cry and Blaine and Sam go NONONONONO. Clearly this is a routine they’ve become used to recently, but it cracks me up to no end.
Apparently Artie's being excluded from the senior-trio this time, even though last week it was SAM who we sort of pretended wasn’t graduating.
Rachel is Rachel-ing out, needing to rehearse in the one classroom at NYADA, and apparently she has turned Elliot into both her roommate and her errand-boy. (HOLY HELL IS HE HOT. Sorry.) Elliot is her new best gay (he hates that, it makes him feel like a pet) and is calling Kurt a traitor. Jesus she is manic.
Whatever, DUET TIME just for shits and giggles. Elliot is bringing the rock, and I SUPPORT BARRACUDA. I'm not sure there's a reason for this song, but I like it anyways. Jesus. I need Adam Lambert to stick around forever.
Back at McKinley, Blam are trying on their robes at Blaine's insistence, which earns a "holy crap this is really happening." (So say we all.) Tina sees them and starts crying again. But frankly, she's quite right about the reality of high school friendships moving on. Sam makes some random comment about her boobs that seems to cheer her up. Okay. Anyways, they need to do something epic before school starts. Sam wants to sneak a cow into school, but Blaine says LOCK IN. Cool.
Wemma pregnancy story OMG WHY PLEASE NO. Complete with some Sue/Michael Bolton WHAT THE FUCK MAKE IT STOP. PLEASE STOP. PLEASE. Oh JESUS. WHY.
And that’s all I have to say about that scene.
Nice try with the lock in, but Sue is not allowing it. That was apparently the final straw for poor psychotic Tina, and she melts into a sobbing heap in the middle of the hallway. This is kind of cracking me up. Blaine and Sam are there again, trying to make her feel better, and suggest a private lock-in, just the three of them sneaking into the choir room. Oh god, I can hear the fics already.
Also, Sam compliments her boobs again, which makes Tina smile and Blaine roll his eyes.
Santana is trying to put in hair extensions at the loft when Elliot comes calling. In case you thought Santana's motivations were pure last week, she is now in full-on DESTROY RACHEL mode. Adam, our straight-man voice of reason comments that it's all very high school, but Santana says "life is high school, just with bigger stakes." His wide eyes while she goes on a classic Santana-rant are spectacular. Anyways he's just there to pick up Rachel's sheet music since she's moving in.
Santana flips out at this news and calls him a traitor, which I cannot even fathom. He says Rachel needed a place to stay and he needed the money. Santana is now happy to scheme re: cash, and we even get a Batman/Dynamic Duets graphic transition. WHAT ON EARTH?
It’s because FUCK YES NIGHTBIRD. My dreams have come true, Nightbird has returned to break into the choir room in the middle of the night with Tina and Sam. And have shenanigans while singing a song from “Breakfast Club.” There are rollerblades and skateboards and cheerio uniforms and fire extinguisher races and I am a happy, happy clam. Clearly, this cannot all go so well. Doesn’t Sue have surveillance cameras? Ah, there we go, Becky shows up.
Why is Becky so over-the-top nuts? I'm really over it. She wants to play twister with 11-hour energy shots. WHAT WHY. I’m sorry, Becky. I used to kind of like your unexpected attitude. But now it’s just ridiculous and kind of awful. I’m really done.
And just to add to my horror, we go to the Schuester/Pillsbury apartment. SCHUESTER WHY. He's painting a nursery and freaking out Emma even more. I think telling her to relax and painting the room is a GREAT IDEA. He sings a cheesy fucking song about having a son and THIS IS NOT HOW YOU TAKE THE PRESSURE OFF JACKASS. Please let this be an elaborate way to write their characters off.
Why is this happening? Why do I have a Wemma plot, and yet we're halfway through the episode and I haven't seen kurt? THIS IS WRONG. GONNA VOM.
(The typos during that scene as I keysmashed during the song were really spectacular, I almost wish I had just posted without editing.)
Becky clearly talked Blaine into Twister (oh god why), but Tina and Sam have been gone for a while. Um, you caught the condom thing in Emma's office, right? Yeah, they're making out in one of the classrooms. Blaine's horror makes it all worthwhile, though. Seriously, that pairing is just wrong. Hilariously wrong.
The diner! KURT IS ALIVE! But the former roomie trio drama is at fever pitch and Elliot is there helping Santana run lines because she’s paying him. Some poor customer has requested "Gloria" (because that's her name, seriously), which gives Rachel and Santana the perfect excuse to fight-sing over Elliot while Kurt looks on in dismay. Insane trying-too-hard Rachel makes me laugh pretty hard. And Kurt is just not having it with these idiots. Elliot finally just sits down with Kurt, who just shakes his head. Elliot decides he's had enough of this nonsense, he's quitting the band until the girls get their shit together.
Blaine is still freaking out about Sam and Tina making out, both for the visual (OH GOD MY EYES) and for ruining what was supposed to be a fun night with three friends. God, his horror is spectacular.
Kurt is, sadly, a pretty lame peacemaker. Santana and Rachel are still bitching at each other (which is kind of funny), and Kurt says screw all y'all, Pamela Lansbury is dead. Long live Pamela Lansbury. He's starting a new one with Elliot and Dani (she's alive! And still dating Santana, apparently!), and they're welcome to come to the show.
Is the band playing at Callbacks? Because those ceiling lights are going to give me PTSD flashbacks and make me cry. Anyways, the new band is called One Three Hill. Okay. Kurt's giving a speech about being in a trio, though not the one he expected, and someone shouts “shut up and sing” and it makes me laugh.
I'm not really sure what's going on with the tuxedos and the Supremes song. I kind of like it but it's ever so random? Do they have a genre? I don't really know, man. I mean, they sound lovely, and the lyrics about relationships and what life throws at you, those are reasonably appropriate. But the style is so out of left field that it’s kind of jarring.
Back at the loft, Rachel and Santana seem to inch closer to resolving this thing, realizing that they’re both pretty lonely for female friendships without one another, but they aren’t ready to forgive and forget, yet. Kurt and the band arrive, and the two girls book it out of there. God, Dani is sorely underused.
Blaine feels bad for overreacting and freaking out on Tina and Sam. He wanted to have a perfect night after such a weird and hard senior year. It’s sort of his version of Tina’s constant sobbing. Hug it out, yadda yadda.
Artie's pissed to come in and find himself excluded again.
Schue arrives for rehearsal says he was going to order dinner and actually make them practice, but clearly the best way to win nationals is to just chill. They're so ready! Aside from the fact that they're three members short with no set list a week away from the trip to Los Angeles.
One more senior number, this time with Artie. OH SERIOUSLY, Wilson Phillips? God, now I'm having my own high school flashbacks. Or was it middle school? Yep. 1990. SIXTH GRADE. Ooh, but we get Kurt and One Three Hill singing, as well as Rachel all sad and melancholy, and Santana too. I do enjoy when a final group number actually pulls together different people and plots and locations.
But yes, “Hold On,” indeed. Big changes are clearly a-coming for everyone, but you need to take charge of your own life and make it what you want it to be. Right?
Oh, but before we’re done, one more Wemma scene. Emma doesn't want to go to LA. Because she's preggo. (Not fake-pregnant, but actual-pregnant.) Yay for her. I still don't care, I'm sorry.
So, ultimately I think there was a lot about this episode that I really liked. I loved the Blaine/Sam/Tina trio, especially the overwrought drama of it all. I loved Tina’s dissolving into tears at the slightest provocation, I loved Blaine FREAKING THE FUCK OUT over Sam and Tina kissing. Especially having just re-watched Season 3, I can appreciate that feeling of heightened drama when you’re on the cusp of such a major transition like graduation. The world you know will practically cease to be in a few weeks, and everyone deals with that in their own way (or several ways). You make memories, you freak out, it’s all there.
Rachel and Santana reaching a fever pitch is kind of great. They’re both digging in their (incredibly tall) heels. Rachel is ratcheting up the “I’m a star” bit to eleven, while Santana returns to her Lima Heights Adjacent roots. Just like Santana says, life is like high school. And they’re both reverting to their most insane high school selves at the moment.
I’m glad, though, that they have at least a moment of both civility and reality. They really are each other’s only female friend in New York. And for as much as they will always rub each other the wrong way, maybe there’s something really worth saving there. At some point. They aren’t ready yet, they’re both still stinging.
My beloved Kurt didn’t have much by way of plot this week, aside from being seriously annoyed at his current and former roommates. He, at least, seems to be finding friends of his own in New York in Dani and Elliot. They might not be family in the way that I still believe Rachel and Santana are, but he’s got some friends.
As an aside, I am also settling firmly into what I had mostly come to believe last week - there’s nothing romantic in either direction between Elliot and Kurt, no matter what the selfie smooch may make Blaine think. (Please don’t drop the tension of that reaction, though, I hope it comes back in some way.) And I’m glad for that. We REALLY don’t need even a hint of a love triangle there, thankyouverymuch.
If I pretend the Wemma stuff never happened, and set aside the fact that I wanted MOAR KURT, I can find a lot to like in “Trio.”
Oh, and some random thoughts for you, before I end, on what people are up to here in this crazy world of Glee.
People who have disappeared: Bree, Nurse Penny (Sugar, Joe)
People who (more or less) haven't spoken since before the hiatus: Ryder, Jake, Unique, Kitty, Marley
People I wish would stop speaking: Becky, Will
People I wish would speak more: Kurt, Dani
Anything I missed?
What did you think of “Trio?”
Liz’s Instant Glee-Cap Rating: 3 of 5 stars. Decent enough, not great, but got us a step or two closer to graduation and a bit of movement without too-quick resolution on Santana and Rachel.
Liz’s Instant Song Downloads:
Jumpin’ Jumpin’
Don’t You (Forget About Me)
Barracuda
The Happening (probably, might need to listen again)
Hold On (I sort of don’t want to because of the middle school flashbacks, but I don’t think I’ll be able to resist.)
See you next week, friends!
It doesn't bode well when we start with Wemma. And not just Wemma, but Wemma sneaking off in the middle of class to do the deed in the faculty bathroom. OH NASTY. WHY OH WHY. With her horrified scream, I am Becky and Becky is me. No, wait. With her need to vomit, I am Sue and Sue is me.
I don't know WTF is going on with Blaine, Tina, and Sam singing “Jumpin Jumpin,” but I approve. I will never complain when Blaine gets his boy band moves on, even better if it turns into a full-school dance party. I also approve of Blaine's red pants. Ahem. Anyways, they were just doing the song for fun (I wish they’d just admit that more often), and because it’s almost the end of the year. Schue keeps talking about graduation coming close, and it makes Tina cry and Blaine and Sam go NONONONONO. Clearly this is a routine they’ve become used to recently, but it cracks me up to no end.
Apparently Artie's being excluded from the senior-trio this time, even though last week it was SAM who we sort of pretended wasn’t graduating.
Rachel is Rachel-ing out, needing to rehearse in the one classroom at NYADA, and apparently she has turned Elliot into both her roommate and her errand-boy. (HOLY HELL IS HE HOT. Sorry.) Elliot is her new best gay (he hates that, it makes him feel like a pet) and is calling Kurt a traitor. Jesus she is manic.
Whatever, DUET TIME just for shits and giggles. Elliot is bringing the rock, and I SUPPORT BARRACUDA. I'm not sure there's a reason for this song, but I like it anyways. Jesus. I need Adam Lambert to stick around forever.
Back at McKinley, Blam are trying on their robes at Blaine's insistence, which earns a "holy crap this is really happening." (So say we all.) Tina sees them and starts crying again. But frankly, she's quite right about the reality of high school friendships moving on. Sam makes some random comment about her boobs that seems to cheer her up. Okay. Anyways, they need to do something epic before school starts. Sam wants to sneak a cow into school, but Blaine says LOCK IN. Cool.
Wemma pregnancy story OMG WHY PLEASE NO. Complete with some Sue/Michael Bolton WHAT THE FUCK MAKE IT STOP. PLEASE STOP. PLEASE. Oh JESUS. WHY.
And that’s all I have to say about that scene.
Nice try with the lock in, but Sue is not allowing it. That was apparently the final straw for poor psychotic Tina, and she melts into a sobbing heap in the middle of the hallway. This is kind of cracking me up. Blaine and Sam are there again, trying to make her feel better, and suggest a private lock-in, just the three of them sneaking into the choir room. Oh god, I can hear the fics already.
Also, Sam compliments her boobs again, which makes Tina smile and Blaine roll his eyes.
Santana is trying to put in hair extensions at the loft when Elliot comes calling. In case you thought Santana's motivations were pure last week, she is now in full-on DESTROY RACHEL mode. Adam, our straight-man voice of reason comments that it's all very high school, but Santana says "life is high school, just with bigger stakes." His wide eyes while she goes on a classic Santana-rant are spectacular. Anyways he's just there to pick up Rachel's sheet music since she's moving in.
Santana flips out at this news and calls him a traitor, which I cannot even fathom. He says Rachel needed a place to stay and he needed the money. Santana is now happy to scheme re: cash, and we even get a Batman/Dynamic Duets graphic transition. WHAT ON EARTH?
It’s because FUCK YES NIGHTBIRD. My dreams have come true, Nightbird has returned to break into the choir room in the middle of the night with Tina and Sam. And have shenanigans while singing a song from “Breakfast Club.” There are rollerblades and skateboards and cheerio uniforms and fire extinguisher races and I am a happy, happy clam. Clearly, this cannot all go so well. Doesn’t Sue have surveillance cameras? Ah, there we go, Becky shows up.
Why is Becky so over-the-top nuts? I'm really over it. She wants to play twister with 11-hour energy shots. WHAT WHY. I’m sorry, Becky. I used to kind of like your unexpected attitude. But now it’s just ridiculous and kind of awful. I’m really done.
And just to add to my horror, we go to the Schuester/Pillsbury apartment. SCHUESTER WHY. He's painting a nursery and freaking out Emma even more. I think telling her to relax and painting the room is a GREAT IDEA. He sings a cheesy fucking song about having a son and THIS IS NOT HOW YOU TAKE THE PRESSURE OFF JACKASS. Please let this be an elaborate way to write their characters off.
Why is this happening? Why do I have a Wemma plot, and yet we're halfway through the episode and I haven't seen kurt? THIS IS WRONG. GONNA VOM.
(The typos during that scene as I keysmashed during the song were really spectacular, I almost wish I had just posted without editing.)
Becky clearly talked Blaine into Twister (oh god why), but Tina and Sam have been gone for a while. Um, you caught the condom thing in Emma's office, right? Yeah, they're making out in one of the classrooms. Blaine's horror makes it all worthwhile, though. Seriously, that pairing is just wrong. Hilariously wrong.
The diner! KURT IS ALIVE! But the former roomie trio drama is at fever pitch and Elliot is there helping Santana run lines because she’s paying him. Some poor customer has requested "Gloria" (because that's her name, seriously), which gives Rachel and Santana the perfect excuse to fight-sing over Elliot while Kurt looks on in dismay. Insane trying-too-hard Rachel makes me laugh pretty hard. And Kurt is just not having it with these idiots. Elliot finally just sits down with Kurt, who just shakes his head. Elliot decides he's had enough of this nonsense, he's quitting the band until the girls get their shit together.
Blaine is still freaking out about Sam and Tina making out, both for the visual (OH GOD MY EYES) and for ruining what was supposed to be a fun night with three friends. God, his horror is spectacular.
Kurt is, sadly, a pretty lame peacemaker. Santana and Rachel are still bitching at each other (which is kind of funny), and Kurt says screw all y'all, Pamela Lansbury is dead. Long live Pamela Lansbury. He's starting a new one with Elliot and Dani (she's alive! And still dating Santana, apparently!), and they're welcome to come to the show.
Is the band playing at Callbacks? Because those ceiling lights are going to give me PTSD flashbacks and make me cry. Anyways, the new band is called One Three Hill. Okay. Kurt's giving a speech about being in a trio, though not the one he expected, and someone shouts “shut up and sing” and it makes me laugh.
I'm not really sure what's going on with the tuxedos and the Supremes song. I kind of like it but it's ever so random? Do they have a genre? I don't really know, man. I mean, they sound lovely, and the lyrics about relationships and what life throws at you, those are reasonably appropriate. But the style is so out of left field that it’s kind of jarring.
Back at the loft, Rachel and Santana seem to inch closer to resolving this thing, realizing that they’re both pretty lonely for female friendships without one another, but they aren’t ready to forgive and forget, yet. Kurt and the band arrive, and the two girls book it out of there. God, Dani is sorely underused.
Blaine feels bad for overreacting and freaking out on Tina and Sam. He wanted to have a perfect night after such a weird and hard senior year. It’s sort of his version of Tina’s constant sobbing. Hug it out, yadda yadda.
Artie's pissed to come in and find himself excluded again.
Schue arrives for rehearsal says he was going to order dinner and actually make them practice, but clearly the best way to win nationals is to just chill. They're so ready! Aside from the fact that they're three members short with no set list a week away from the trip to Los Angeles.
One more senior number, this time with Artie. OH SERIOUSLY, Wilson Phillips? God, now I'm having my own high school flashbacks. Or was it middle school? Yep. 1990. SIXTH GRADE. Ooh, but we get Kurt and One Three Hill singing, as well as Rachel all sad and melancholy, and Santana too. I do enjoy when a final group number actually pulls together different people and plots and locations.
But yes, “Hold On,” indeed. Big changes are clearly a-coming for everyone, but you need to take charge of your own life and make it what you want it to be. Right?
Oh, but before we’re done, one more Wemma scene. Emma doesn't want to go to LA. Because she's preggo. (Not fake-pregnant, but actual-pregnant.) Yay for her. I still don't care, I'm sorry.
So, ultimately I think there was a lot about this episode that I really liked. I loved the Blaine/Sam/Tina trio, especially the overwrought drama of it all. I loved Tina’s dissolving into tears at the slightest provocation, I loved Blaine FREAKING THE FUCK OUT over Sam and Tina kissing. Especially having just re-watched Season 3, I can appreciate that feeling of heightened drama when you’re on the cusp of such a major transition like graduation. The world you know will practically cease to be in a few weeks, and everyone deals with that in their own way (or several ways). You make memories, you freak out, it’s all there.
Rachel and Santana reaching a fever pitch is kind of great. They’re both digging in their (incredibly tall) heels. Rachel is ratcheting up the “I’m a star” bit to eleven, while Santana returns to her Lima Heights Adjacent roots. Just like Santana says, life is like high school. And they’re both reverting to their most insane high school selves at the moment.
I’m glad, though, that they have at least a moment of both civility and reality. They really are each other’s only female friend in New York. And for as much as they will always rub each other the wrong way, maybe there’s something really worth saving there. At some point. They aren’t ready yet, they’re both still stinging.
My beloved Kurt didn’t have much by way of plot this week, aside from being seriously annoyed at his current and former roommates. He, at least, seems to be finding friends of his own in New York in Dani and Elliot. They might not be family in the way that I still believe Rachel and Santana are, but he’s got some friends.
As an aside, I am also settling firmly into what I had mostly come to believe last week - there’s nothing romantic in either direction between Elliot and Kurt, no matter what the selfie smooch may make Blaine think. (Please don’t drop the tension of that reaction, though, I hope it comes back in some way.) And I’m glad for that. We REALLY don’t need even a hint of a love triangle there, thankyouverymuch.
If I pretend the Wemma stuff never happened, and set aside the fact that I wanted MOAR KURT, I can find a lot to like in “Trio.”
Oh, and some random thoughts for you, before I end, on what people are up to here in this crazy world of Glee.
People who have disappeared: Bree, Nurse Penny (Sugar, Joe)
People who (more or less) haven't spoken since before the hiatus: Ryder, Jake, Unique, Kitty, Marley
People I wish would stop speaking: Becky, Will
People I wish would speak more: Kurt, Dani
Anything I missed?
What did you think of “Trio?”
Liz’s Instant Glee-Cap Rating: 3 of 5 stars. Decent enough, not great, but got us a step or two closer to graduation and a bit of movement without too-quick resolution on Santana and Rachel.
Liz’s Instant Song Downloads:
Jumpin’ Jumpin’
Don’t You (Forget About Me)
Barracuda
The Happening (probably, might need to listen again)
Hold On (I sort of don’t want to because of the middle school flashbacks, but I don’t think I’ll be able to resist.)
See you next week, friends!