Liz's Instant Glee-Cap - 5x19 - Old Dog, New Tricks
Look, I do my best to be spoiler-free, but I don't live under a rock. I know full well that Chris Colfer wrote tonight's episode. And you know what? I'm a big fan of the guy, and am feeling SUPER nervous on his behalf. I just want good things for him (and the show and the characters), okay?
Let's do this.
Out to lunch, everyone is too busy for Kurt. Blaine is busy with June and Rachel has image problems because word got out over her LA fiasco. Rachel doesn't have a publicist but Santana will totally work on her image. This cannot end well. But Rachel has to interrupt and go chew out a random restaurant patron for keeping a dog in her purse. Looks like she’s got her cause: Rachel loves puppies!
Kurt’s on shift at the diner when an elderly woman comes in and asks to hang a poster for her retirement home’s production of Peter Pan. Kurt takes it, but she can see he’s got a bummed out face. (I’m sorry, I’m distracted by how tall his hair is right now.) She offers to chat, and Kurt is desperate for someone to listen to him. He feels like everyone's passing him by. Turns out the old lady is Maggie Banks, a formerly famous Broadway star, and the orderlies from the nursing home come to find her because she’s run off again. Oops.
Rachel, Sam, Mercedes, and Artie visit the local animal shelter, and Rachel wants to throw a big event with the dogs. Sure, why not? Sam is adorable and totally wants a dog, but Mercedes says no thanks, she already has her hands full taking care of Sam. Probably a fair point.
All of the dogs start making a racket, and the shelter guy says that sometimes happens, but music usually calms them down. HOW CONVENIENT! Sam even has his guitar, because apparently John Mayer said you should always have it with you. He leads the crowd through “I Melt with You,” which is tons of fun. Just give me all of the Chord Overstreet playing with puppies, okay?
Rachel’s new charity is called Broadway Bitches, because of course it is. Santana has a plan: she's going to get photographed walking a couple of dogs and then there will be a performance at the Spotlight as the big event. Kurt asks if he can join in, because he’s hurting for extracurricular performances now that Elliott went on a yoga retreat and Dani's roller derby team won the state championship (heehee). Santana and Rachel dismiss him, saying it’s just the three girls, but he’s sick of this shit. Throw him a damn bone.
I love you, Kurt.
Time to visit the old folks home, since he’s clearly getting no love at his own apartment. I love that Maggie calls him Pillsbury. OMFG, their Peter is hanging from from a harness and has died. Jesus.
They need to find a way to make the show happen, because people there have no reason to get out of bed anymore. Kurt volunteers to take over as Peter. A demanding vocal part sung by a woman? HE'S ALL OVER IT. Mary Martin's recording was his favorite as a kid. That explains a lot. (haha)
"Memory" from Cats is his audition? JESUS. I love you, Kurt, you sound fantastic. Way to inspire the old folks. Maggie even sings with him, though for my own selfish purposes I really do wish this was a Kurt-only song. Naturally, his angelic face and voice inspire the whole room. OF COURSE IT DOES.
Sam and Artie are gaming Chez Blamcedes. Sam has adopted a dog and named him McConaughey, and he’s trashing the place. Mercedes comes home and is NOT pleased. (I love that Artie immediately disavows all knowledge of this nonsense.) The dog is cute and all, but Sam can’t even take care of a Chia Pet, why does he think it’s a good idea to get a dog? The shit really hits the fan when the dog starts going for Mercedes’s hair extensions and shoes. RUT ROH.
Rachel is walking entirely too many dogs in an Audrey Hepburn-esque dress, as part of Santana’s master PR plan. Blaine and Artie are in on it, triggering the paparazzi. Cheeseballs, the lot of you. But the dogs get restless and spot a sandwich and take off. Rachel gets dragged several city blocks, the dogs are humping legs and chasing innocent bystanders. Oops, there goes the image revamp.
Santana's plan is still in effect, despite the disaster, and people are already RSVPing to the event at the Spotlight. Kurt comes in to tell the girls about his show, but they can't (don’t want to) come. He's pissed that he takes care of Rachel constantly and now she won't reciprocate. This is some bullshit, ladies.
Sam gets "Werewolves of London" and a dog training montage with Artie. Adorable. Sam is determined to get Mercedes to fall in love with this dog, so figures getting him clean and trained and respectable will help.
Rehearsal time at the nursing home. They're feeling discouraged, nothing’s quite working. Kurt wants to change the music to freshen things up. Maggie gets flowers from her daughter, Clara, who won't be at opening night. If that weren’t sad enough, it’s actually all a lie. Maggie sends herself flowers “from Clara” every week. She hasn’t actually seen or spoken to her daughter in years.
Back at the brownstone, Sam has tamed the beast and McConaughey is resting peacefully on his chest when Mercedes comes home. He really, really wants to convince her that the dog should stay. On the one hand, she’s very much the voice of reason: Sam sometimes works unpredictable hours and she’s about to go on tour. Who’s going to take care of the dog? Sam takes exception to her earlier criticism of him not being responsible enough. Yes, he’s kind of a dopey man-child sometimes, but he did take care of his whole family back when his parents were unemployed. He’s not an idiot and he’s not useless.
Plus, frankly, he’s worried about being lonely when she’s off on tour. There’s so much lovely relationship stuff here, and such real conversation about responsibility and future plans and who they are and what they’re doing. I had no idea that one of my favorite parts of tonight would be the Samcedes of it all.
(By the way - she’s going on tour? When did this become a thing?)
Kurt scams an appointment with Maggie's daughter, Clara, to try to convince her to reconcile. Clara’s holding onto a LOT of hurt from her mom being too busy with her career and missing birthdays and graduations. Kurt hears that, but knows that Maggie has plenty of fondness and regret at this point, and don’t you maybe want to make peace before she kicks the bucket? Just before Clara kicks him out of her office, Kurt pulls out the final card. He lost his mom when he was eight years old, but Clara has a chance to have her own, however flawed she might be.
KURT, you darling boy. You are the sweetest thing.
More Broadway Bitches, Santana and Rachel have a whole adoption event going on. It’s going fine, and Santana the shark has picked the cutest three-legged dog for Rachel to pose with when the press arrives. Except another family wants to adopt the dog, and Rachel and Santana all but rip the dog out of a kid’s hands. Good lord, Rachel and Santana on their own have almost no moral compass. This is why you talk to Kurt, Rachel.
It’s show night at the retirement home, and Blaine! You’re alive! Of course he's there, skipping dinner with June at Annie Liebowitz's house to come see Kurt and help him with his costume. “Drop all the names you want,” he says, “my old ladies are cooler than yours.” Heh. Blaine is just glad to see Kurt so happy (so say we all). Kurt feels like he's finally doing something with purpose.
Jesus, you shouldn't be so hot in that costume.
Sorry, what was I saying?
Oh, Kurt finds Maggie before the show and says they should maybe just be each other’s pseudo-family since everyone else seems a bit too busy for them. Oh, my heart.
Just before the show begins, Kurt calls Rachel, because he's a better person than she is. He just wants to say he’s glad she’s his friend, and good luck with her event tonight. Yeah, she can’t talk now, because it’s show time and they’re all in the audience! Yay! Oh, to see that genuine a smile on Kurt’s face is such a treat.
“Lucky Star” is apparently Kurt’s idea for a song replacement, and I’m just giggling. Bring it on, you nut. I love that he wrote himself onto the wires. It's totally silly, and I love them. Kurt Hummel is made of magic and makes them all feel young.
And Clara came to see Maggie, so yay. Oh, and Rachel pulled some strings to get a bus for all of them, because they are going to come perform with her at the Spotlight for her event that night. Lovely.
One last song at the Spotlight Diner, everyone gets in on “Take Me Home Tonight” as they try to adopt out some more dogs (or, you know, just hand them out to random restaurant patrons). Even Sam, sadly, finds a home for McConaughey. Sorry, honey, but your life just isn’t ready for a dog right now. Oh, and some reporter is there and loved it. Santana, Rachel, and Kurt all share credit for the success, and it’s a big love fest. Yay for everyone!
So. This was… okay. Better than okay; there was a lot I liked about it, actually. I really loved Kurt’s story. He’s been successful at school, yes, but not as much outside of it, especially in relation to his friends. He’s always the one supporting them, and he’s not getting much of anything in return. I love that he finds a performance outlet that might not make him a star, but does give him a real feeling of accomplishment and doing something worthwhile. He’s good people, that Kurt Hummel. I always like hearing his voice, singing or otherwise. I like knowing what he’s doing and what he’s thinking. I like seeing his lovely face all over my screen, honestly.
I actually REALLY liked the Samcedes of it all. I liked them acknowledging that they’ve still got a lot to work out in their relationship, serious though it already might be. I thought their scenes were really well done, the dialogue and the delivery were really believable. Big thumbs up.
And honestly, I rather liked manic-Rachel and Santana at her Auntie Snix best, attempting to use her bitch powers to help her friends. That girl is a natural-born shark, and she really would be an EXCELLENT (if terrifying) publicist. Both of them were wonderfully ambitious and out of control without a voice of reason like Kurt to rein them in.
The songs were fine, overall, though none of them quite got my heart racing. (Well, “Memory” sort of did, but then it was a duet and I was a little bummed. God, though, that VOICE.)
And yes. I noticed Blaine’s relative absence quite a bit. I guess he has been awfully busy with June? I’m sure Chris Colfer is going to hear shit about that from the crazy section of fandom, and I have no interest in participating in that nonsense. But I did miss him.
Honestly, my real problem with the episode is the way it falls in the season. I think this would be a perfectly solid middle-of-the-season episode. It doesn’t especially feel like it continued the arcs and momentum that we’ve had since the show moved to New York five episodes ago, and it definitely didn’t feel like it took the tension from last week and kept it building as a lead-in to next week’s finale.
It sort of reminds me of Prom-a-saurus in that way. When I re-watched Season 3, the prom episode seemed to really interrupt the flow from Choke, on through Props and Nationals and Goodbye. That’s a little bit how I feel about this one (though I think it stands on its own two feet better than Prom-a-saurus did).
I guess that speaks to the larger issues that this season has had overall - the pacing has been really, really weird. It took us SO long to get through the Neverending Spring of 2013 and out of Ohio. And then we FINALLY made it to New York and it was like the promised land and I have really loved what we’ve gotten since then. Except now, instead of dragging out the end of the school year for a full year in real time, we have the opposite. It feels like tons of time is passing in between each episode, and we’re missing out on some critical stuff. Like, I don’t know, Mercedes going on tour? The fact that we still don’t know where Artie lives? I have a lot of questions, is what I’m saying.
And so in an arc that has had a lot of great tension building, and the end of the season being sadly upon us, this felt like a little less than I wanted in the larger picture. It was perfectly solid on its own, and I loved the nods to continuity and character history and everything else.
I just wish it had happened a few episodes ago, not in the week before the finale.
And to sort of push through the fourth wall, I give a big thumbs-up to Chris Colfer on his first go at writing an episode. I think he captured everyone’s voices really well (I love his Santana), I think the story he gave his own character was really great, and while he may have given himself the A plot for the night, I think he seems to want to let other people shine. We got a lot more Sam than we’ve had recently, and he clearly loved his Maggie. I think it was a nice balance between getting to say what he wanted to about his own character, and sharing the spotlight with others.
Liz’s Instant Glee-Cap Rating: 3 stars of 5. Solid enough, but not quite what I wanted from the bigger arcs.
Liz’s Instant Song Downloads:
Not gonna lie, I grabbed the whole EP as a show of solidarity. But “Memory” is easily my favorite. I just wish it was a full solo, because I’m greedy and love my Kurt.
Let's do this.
Out to lunch, everyone is too busy for Kurt. Blaine is busy with June and Rachel has image problems because word got out over her LA fiasco. Rachel doesn't have a publicist but Santana will totally work on her image. This cannot end well. But Rachel has to interrupt and go chew out a random restaurant patron for keeping a dog in her purse. Looks like she’s got her cause: Rachel loves puppies!
Kurt’s on shift at the diner when an elderly woman comes in and asks to hang a poster for her retirement home’s production of Peter Pan. Kurt takes it, but she can see he’s got a bummed out face. (I’m sorry, I’m distracted by how tall his hair is right now.) She offers to chat, and Kurt is desperate for someone to listen to him. He feels like everyone's passing him by. Turns out the old lady is Maggie Banks, a formerly famous Broadway star, and the orderlies from the nursing home come to find her because she’s run off again. Oops.
Rachel, Sam, Mercedes, and Artie visit the local animal shelter, and Rachel wants to throw a big event with the dogs. Sure, why not? Sam is adorable and totally wants a dog, but Mercedes says no thanks, she already has her hands full taking care of Sam. Probably a fair point.
All of the dogs start making a racket, and the shelter guy says that sometimes happens, but music usually calms them down. HOW CONVENIENT! Sam even has his guitar, because apparently John Mayer said you should always have it with you. He leads the crowd through “I Melt with You,” which is tons of fun. Just give me all of the Chord Overstreet playing with puppies, okay?
Rachel’s new charity is called Broadway Bitches, because of course it is. Santana has a plan: she's going to get photographed walking a couple of dogs and then there will be a performance at the Spotlight as the big event. Kurt asks if he can join in, because he’s hurting for extracurricular performances now that Elliott went on a yoga retreat and Dani's roller derby team won the state championship (heehee). Santana and Rachel dismiss him, saying it’s just the three girls, but he’s sick of this shit. Throw him a damn bone.
I love you, Kurt.
Time to visit the old folks home, since he’s clearly getting no love at his own apartment. I love that Maggie calls him Pillsbury. OMFG, their Peter is hanging from from a harness and has died. Jesus.
They need to find a way to make the show happen, because people there have no reason to get out of bed anymore. Kurt volunteers to take over as Peter. A demanding vocal part sung by a woman? HE'S ALL OVER IT. Mary Martin's recording was his favorite as a kid. That explains a lot. (haha)
"Memory" from Cats is his audition? JESUS. I love you, Kurt, you sound fantastic. Way to inspire the old folks. Maggie even sings with him, though for my own selfish purposes I really do wish this was a Kurt-only song. Naturally, his angelic face and voice inspire the whole room. OF COURSE IT DOES.
Sam and Artie are gaming Chez Blamcedes. Sam has adopted a dog and named him McConaughey, and he’s trashing the place. Mercedes comes home and is NOT pleased. (I love that Artie immediately disavows all knowledge of this nonsense.) The dog is cute and all, but Sam can’t even take care of a Chia Pet, why does he think it’s a good idea to get a dog? The shit really hits the fan when the dog starts going for Mercedes’s hair extensions and shoes. RUT ROH.
Rachel is walking entirely too many dogs in an Audrey Hepburn-esque dress, as part of Santana’s master PR plan. Blaine and Artie are in on it, triggering the paparazzi. Cheeseballs, the lot of you. But the dogs get restless and spot a sandwich and take off. Rachel gets dragged several city blocks, the dogs are humping legs and chasing innocent bystanders. Oops, there goes the image revamp.
Santana's plan is still in effect, despite the disaster, and people are already RSVPing to the event at the Spotlight. Kurt comes in to tell the girls about his show, but they can't (don’t want to) come. He's pissed that he takes care of Rachel constantly and now she won't reciprocate. This is some bullshit, ladies.
Sam gets "Werewolves of London" and a dog training montage with Artie. Adorable. Sam is determined to get Mercedes to fall in love with this dog, so figures getting him clean and trained and respectable will help.
Rehearsal time at the nursing home. They're feeling discouraged, nothing’s quite working. Kurt wants to change the music to freshen things up. Maggie gets flowers from her daughter, Clara, who won't be at opening night. If that weren’t sad enough, it’s actually all a lie. Maggie sends herself flowers “from Clara” every week. She hasn’t actually seen or spoken to her daughter in years.
Back at the brownstone, Sam has tamed the beast and McConaughey is resting peacefully on his chest when Mercedes comes home. He really, really wants to convince her that the dog should stay. On the one hand, she’s very much the voice of reason: Sam sometimes works unpredictable hours and she’s about to go on tour. Who’s going to take care of the dog? Sam takes exception to her earlier criticism of him not being responsible enough. Yes, he’s kind of a dopey man-child sometimes, but he did take care of his whole family back when his parents were unemployed. He’s not an idiot and he’s not useless.
Plus, frankly, he’s worried about being lonely when she’s off on tour. There’s so much lovely relationship stuff here, and such real conversation about responsibility and future plans and who they are and what they’re doing. I had no idea that one of my favorite parts of tonight would be the Samcedes of it all.
(By the way - she’s going on tour? When did this become a thing?)
Kurt scams an appointment with Maggie's daughter, Clara, to try to convince her to reconcile. Clara’s holding onto a LOT of hurt from her mom being too busy with her career and missing birthdays and graduations. Kurt hears that, but knows that Maggie has plenty of fondness and regret at this point, and don’t you maybe want to make peace before she kicks the bucket? Just before Clara kicks him out of her office, Kurt pulls out the final card. He lost his mom when he was eight years old, but Clara has a chance to have her own, however flawed she might be.
KURT, you darling boy. You are the sweetest thing.
More Broadway Bitches, Santana and Rachel have a whole adoption event going on. It’s going fine, and Santana the shark has picked the cutest three-legged dog for Rachel to pose with when the press arrives. Except another family wants to adopt the dog, and Rachel and Santana all but rip the dog out of a kid’s hands. Good lord, Rachel and Santana on their own have almost no moral compass. This is why you talk to Kurt, Rachel.
It’s show night at the retirement home, and Blaine! You’re alive! Of course he's there, skipping dinner with June at Annie Liebowitz's house to come see Kurt and help him with his costume. “Drop all the names you want,” he says, “my old ladies are cooler than yours.” Heh. Blaine is just glad to see Kurt so happy (so say we all). Kurt feels like he's finally doing something with purpose.
Jesus, you shouldn't be so hot in that costume.
Sorry, what was I saying?
Oh, Kurt finds Maggie before the show and says they should maybe just be each other’s pseudo-family since everyone else seems a bit too busy for them. Oh, my heart.
Just before the show begins, Kurt calls Rachel, because he's a better person than she is. He just wants to say he’s glad she’s his friend, and good luck with her event tonight. Yeah, she can’t talk now, because it’s show time and they’re all in the audience! Yay! Oh, to see that genuine a smile on Kurt’s face is such a treat.
“Lucky Star” is apparently Kurt’s idea for a song replacement, and I’m just giggling. Bring it on, you nut. I love that he wrote himself onto the wires. It's totally silly, and I love them. Kurt Hummel is made of magic and makes them all feel young.
And Clara came to see Maggie, so yay. Oh, and Rachel pulled some strings to get a bus for all of them, because they are going to come perform with her at the Spotlight for her event that night. Lovely.
One last song at the Spotlight Diner, everyone gets in on “Take Me Home Tonight” as they try to adopt out some more dogs (or, you know, just hand them out to random restaurant patrons). Even Sam, sadly, finds a home for McConaughey. Sorry, honey, but your life just isn’t ready for a dog right now. Oh, and some reporter is there and loved it. Santana, Rachel, and Kurt all share credit for the success, and it’s a big love fest. Yay for everyone!
So. This was… okay. Better than okay; there was a lot I liked about it, actually. I really loved Kurt’s story. He’s been successful at school, yes, but not as much outside of it, especially in relation to his friends. He’s always the one supporting them, and he’s not getting much of anything in return. I love that he finds a performance outlet that might not make him a star, but does give him a real feeling of accomplishment and doing something worthwhile. He’s good people, that Kurt Hummel. I always like hearing his voice, singing or otherwise. I like knowing what he’s doing and what he’s thinking. I like seeing his lovely face all over my screen, honestly.
I actually REALLY liked the Samcedes of it all. I liked them acknowledging that they’ve still got a lot to work out in their relationship, serious though it already might be. I thought their scenes were really well done, the dialogue and the delivery were really believable. Big thumbs up.
And honestly, I rather liked manic-Rachel and Santana at her Auntie Snix best, attempting to use her bitch powers to help her friends. That girl is a natural-born shark, and she really would be an EXCELLENT (if terrifying) publicist. Both of them were wonderfully ambitious and out of control without a voice of reason like Kurt to rein them in.
The songs were fine, overall, though none of them quite got my heart racing. (Well, “Memory” sort of did, but then it was a duet and I was a little bummed. God, though, that VOICE.)
And yes. I noticed Blaine’s relative absence quite a bit. I guess he has been awfully busy with June? I’m sure Chris Colfer is going to hear shit about that from the crazy section of fandom, and I have no interest in participating in that nonsense. But I did miss him.
Honestly, my real problem with the episode is the way it falls in the season. I think this would be a perfectly solid middle-of-the-season episode. It doesn’t especially feel like it continued the arcs and momentum that we’ve had since the show moved to New York five episodes ago, and it definitely didn’t feel like it took the tension from last week and kept it building as a lead-in to next week’s finale.
It sort of reminds me of Prom-a-saurus in that way. When I re-watched Season 3, the prom episode seemed to really interrupt the flow from Choke, on through Props and Nationals and Goodbye. That’s a little bit how I feel about this one (though I think it stands on its own two feet better than Prom-a-saurus did).
I guess that speaks to the larger issues that this season has had overall - the pacing has been really, really weird. It took us SO long to get through the Neverending Spring of 2013 and out of Ohio. And then we FINALLY made it to New York and it was like the promised land and I have really loved what we’ve gotten since then. Except now, instead of dragging out the end of the school year for a full year in real time, we have the opposite. It feels like tons of time is passing in between each episode, and we’re missing out on some critical stuff. Like, I don’t know, Mercedes going on tour? The fact that we still don’t know where Artie lives? I have a lot of questions, is what I’m saying.
And so in an arc that has had a lot of great tension building, and the end of the season being sadly upon us, this felt like a little less than I wanted in the larger picture. It was perfectly solid on its own, and I loved the nods to continuity and character history and everything else.
I just wish it had happened a few episodes ago, not in the week before the finale.
And to sort of push through the fourth wall, I give a big thumbs-up to Chris Colfer on his first go at writing an episode. I think he captured everyone’s voices really well (I love his Santana), I think the story he gave his own character was really great, and while he may have given himself the A plot for the night, I think he seems to want to let other people shine. We got a lot more Sam than we’ve had recently, and he clearly loved his Maggie. I think it was a nice balance between getting to say what he wanted to about his own character, and sharing the spotlight with others.
Liz’s Instant Glee-Cap Rating: 3 stars of 5. Solid enough, but not quite what I wanted from the bigger arcs.
Liz’s Instant Song Downloads:
Not gonna lie, I grabbed the whole EP as a show of solidarity. But “Memory” is easily my favorite. I just wish it was a full solo, because I’m greedy and love my Kurt.