Hiatus Re-Watch, Season 1 - 1x01 - Pilot
And so it begins… We are one week into the Epic Hiatus of our Discontent, and Day One of my re-watch of Seasons 1 and 2. Because I simply cannot handle not having a complete catalog of episode recaps.
I don’t have a set schedule, but I’m hoping to keep it at about two episodes per week, since there are 44 to get through. We’ll see how it goes.
So! Let’s start at the very beginning. (A very good place to start.) The last time I re-watched Season 1 was fully two and a half years ago, and I don't think I've seen more than a musical number or two since then. Off we go on the adventure.
Oh my god, I completely forgot this opened on a Cheerios routine, and wow, the locations and film quality and everything are SO different. But not Sue. "You think this is hard? Try being waterboarded, that's hard."
The music is good and retro as Schuester drives up to school in a tiny piece-of-shit car. He kicks off his trend of blind ignorance and passivity in the face of bullying as the crowd of jocks, including Puck and Finn, surround a wide-eyed and terrified-looking Kurt.
The second Schuester is out of earshot, it's time to chuck Kurt into the dumpster. And only Finn pauses them so Kurt can take off his designer jacket, before nodding and into the trash Kurt goes. Finn at least has the decency to look mildly conflicted about it?
Schue pauses at the hallway trophy case to remember when his club won in 1993, and there's our first glimpse at Lillian Adler's plaque, reminding us that "by its very definition, Glee is about opening yourself up to joy."
And Sandy! Sandy Ryerson is there, accompanying a cute boy on the piano and being his gross self. But Rachel spies him mid-inappropriate-touch and I could almost forget how manic she was.
Random aside: I am really missing the a capella vocal scene transition music, not gonna lie. “Soul Bossa Nova” from Austin Powers, Beethoven’s 5th Symphony… it was such a quirky, delightful detail for this music nerd.
In the teacher's lounge, Ken Tanaka wants to strike over cuts to the coffee budget, and less than five minutes into the pilot we get the love-triangle setup: Ken is smitten for Emma, Emma is smitten for Will, Will is currently out of the loop and faithfully married to crazy Terri. I forgot that there was a time that I actually gave a shit about the adults. Ken is so icky, but Emma has the scoop on Sandy getting fired.
Will marches straight into Figgins's office to ask to take over the Glee Club in Sandy’s absence. The kids don't feel like they have a voice, he says, that's why they all have a MySpace page. (WHOA, dating yourself on the social media. Wow does that move fast.) Figgins says, sure, you're welcome to that suicide mission, but it'll cost you $60/month from your own pocket and you have to use the existing props and costumes (HAHAHAHAHA).
After a moment of Will, shirtless in bed with Terri (GAH), it's audition time. First to sign up is none other than Miss Mercedes Jones, signing "Respect," followed by sweet baby-faced Kurt Hummel singing "Mr. Cellophane." With Brad the Piano Man in the background, is this the only time we've heard Mercedes and Kurt sing live on the show? Because I'm 99% sure that isn't lip-synched. Tina and Artie sign up, too, but we only hear Tina singing "I Kissed a Girl" in all of her stuttering Goth glory.
And then it's time for wide-eyed manic Rachel, singing "On My Own" (how apropos) and talking about the gold star after her name being a metaphor, but her internal monologue is interrupted as she becomes the first recipient of a slushie to the face. Still, she is not swayed as she clears up her motivations behind getting "that closet-case Sandy Ryerson" fired. Certainly it had NOTHING to do with him giving another boy the solo she deserved...
We get the background on Rachel with her two gay dads and dance lessons since birth, and while the boys are SHOCKINGLY not falling at her feet, she keeps busy by posting a video of herself singing on her MySpace page every day. A group of Cheerios, led by Quinn and Santana, laugh as the video plays and leave charming comments like "please get sterilized." And we see a slight waver in Rachel's confident exterior as she reads the notes.
At any rate, New Directions is ON, and it's time for "Sit Down You're Rocking the Boat" with Artie, Mercedes, Rachel, Kurt, and Tina, complete with white gloves and jazz hands. They are so precious I could just cry. Also, there’s an awful lot of what seems to be non-pre-recorded singing in this episode!
But they're also terrible. The choreography sucks and they can barely do it, and Rachel is pretty darn pissed off about how sucky the song is. We get the all-time classic "there is nothing ironic about show choir" before we are treated to our first Rachel Berry storm-out.
Schuester finds her in the football stands, watching the Cheerios. She's sick of being laughed at, and she knows full-well that everyone at the school hates her. But while she may only be a sophomore, she doesn't want to leave high school without something to show for it. She wants to be great. And being a part of something special makes you special, right? Oh, Rachel. Anyways, she thinks the solution might be a male lead who can keep up with her.
Figgins calls Schuester into his office and is ready to pull the plug on Glee Club already for budgetary reasons, though I fail to see how they've yet cost the school a penny. Will makes a deal that, if they place at Regionals, they get to stay. Fine, says Figgins, but in the meantime you're running after-school detention for free.
Schue visits crazy-ass Terri at Sheets-n-Things to try to break the news that he'll be working late. She's hideous, of course, complaining about the whopping 12 hours per week that she works and bitching him out over the sandwich he brought her. She's a doll.
And just for kicks, he runs into Sandy Ryerson, who is using his forced retirement from teaching to become a small-time pot dealer, while harassing Sheets-n-Things employees in his spare time. He even hands Will his first bag for free. Always get ‘em on the comeback, Sandy.
A CAPELLA SCENE BREAK MUSIC IS TOTALLY DOING "WHEN I GET YOU ALONE" as Schuester finds a distraught Emma with chewing gum on her shoe, intercut with a conversation he has with Sue about the high school caste system, and how the Glee kids are the lowest of the low. Still, he's hoping to convince at least one or two popular kids to join, and makes a weak pitch to the football boys in the locker room. Finn's eyes briefly light up at the idea, but no one notices, and Puck just smirks.
But while the only sign-ups are "Butt Lunch" and "Penis," he overhears Finn singing "I Can't Fight this Feeling" in the shower. So, naturally, he plants the pot from Sandy on Finn and lays on the blackmail really thick on this poor, dopey boy.
We get a glimpse into Finn's childhood, complete with the spectacularly acid-washed Romy Rosemont, and a lawn-painting guy who sings classic rock with him. He loves his mama, that Finn, and wants to make his mom proud. (So say we all - Carole Hudson is the very, very best.) So, what do you know, Schue presents joining Glee as an alternative to doom and gloom, so he's in.
He strains his way through "You're the One That I Want," and Rachel immediately dials it up to 11. She messes with Kurt's hair, grabs Tina's boobs, nearly pushes Artie right off the stage, and scares the bejeezus out of Finn before Mercedes shuts the whole thing down with our first "hell to the no." She is NOT interested in singing backup to Rachel for the remainder of her days, thankyouverymuch. But she begrudingly admits that Finn is good.
(Forgive me, but no, I don't really think he is at this point. Particularly not in that song. Sorry.)
At the Schuester apartment, we see Terri's insane craft room and that, while Schue is busting his ass working extra hours, she's way out-living their means. She is never not insane. In her twisted world view, though, she is sincere in her emotion. They were high school sweethearts, but while teaching might be his passion, they aren't living the lifestyle to which she would like to become accustomed. She also says the truest thing ever uttered about Will Schuester: that he is coaching these kids as a way to re-live his glory days. ACCURATE.
Multi-directional crazy eyes in the teachers lounge: Ken at the shredder is creepily staring at the back of Emma's head while Emma is creepily staring at the back of Will's head as he hangs up a sign-up sheet for someone to chaperone a New Directions field trip. She sneaks right on over to sign up.
Finn, at football practice, gets yelled at for needing to miss one afternoon. It's clearly for the field trip, but when Puck asks him what's up, he lies pathetically about having to help his mom because she had, um, prostate surgery.
Ken is rapidly going off the deep end because Will Schuester is ruining his life. He's stealing the quarterback for Glee Club, and Ken holds Will personally responsible for the fact that Emma won't go out on a date with him. This dude is terrifying, seriously. He's going to be on TV with a mug shot ANY TIME NOW.
At Carmel High for the field trip, we get a great visual of Rachel just barely coming up to Finn's shoulder, which I find about the cutest thing going. She thinks Finn is very talented. She would know. She's very talented, too. "Everyone expects us to become an item," she says. No, Rachel, just you. Anyways, Finn has a girlfriend.
And so, we meet Head-Cheerio Celibacy-Club Quinn Fabray. Who is the biggest tease around, making out all hot and heavy but cutting it off to pray as soon as he tries to touch her butt. Nice.
Schue and Emma get to talking about his marital problems, and I can actually remember a time when I shipped this. Wow. That was a long, long, LONG time ago.
Time for a Vocal Adrenaline performance, and Schue tries to tell the kids that he doesn't think they're going to be much competition for them. Of course, as soon as the lights go down and an auditorium full of people starts cheering for them, they realize they aren't in Kansas Lima anymore.
Vocal Adrenaline performs "Rehab," and of course it's a thing of glory, leaving the small McKinley crew with a matched set of gaping-mouthed horror on each of their faces.
And if Finn wasn't walking around feeling dejected enough, the herd has come to take care of the one who tried to disrupt the social order. Puck and the other football jocks take him down in a rain of paintball gunfire.
Psychotic Terri is waiting when Will gets home to tell him she's pregnant. (*cough*) Of course, that means he decides to quit in the middle of the school year to go be an accountant so he can better provide for his growing family. (Hell, we know how unqualified he is to teach Spanish, maybe you don't need any background to be an accountant, either.) The six Glee kids are distraught that he brought them together only to up and leave. "Sometimes being an adult means giving up the things you love." Only when you're married to a psychopath.
Before he can leave, he finds a guitar and sings "Leavin' on a Jet Plane" in the empty auditorium. Emma's mighty sad that Will is leaving, drawing a heart around his face in an old yearbook (in which he apparently won Teacher of the Year!). Will, meantime, is not that great at pretending to play the guitar. Emma has an idea, though, and offers an appointment for career counseling.
Rachel stalks Finn at his locker because he wasn't at Glee Club practice. He thought it was over, but naturally Rachel has taken over as interim director. Quinn and Santana arrive and demand to know why Finn is talking to someone as lowly as Rachel, and she bails him out and claims to be his science partner.
Finn tries to make excuses about schedule conflicts, but Rachel is pretty sure it's 90% about maintaining his reputation. She thinks he's better than all of them and shouldn't care what anybody thinks.
Puck is still clearly riding Finn's ass about Glee, but Finn tells him he's quit and that's the end of it. Puck welcomes him back to the top of the social stratosphere with a gift: Artie trapped in his chair in a Port-a-potty.
WOW. The bullying in this episode is no fucking joke. I almost forgot how very dark the dark parts of this episode were.
Finn is the jock with a conscience, though, so he pulls Artie out before anyone can roll the port-a-potty with him inside. In a moment of clarity, Finn tells them they're all losers, every last person in this town, so what do the fine lines of social standing really matter when they're all probably going to be stuck in Lima for the rest of their lives? At least Glee Club actually made him happy. And he knows he has at least a little bit of power in this tiny world: the football team can't win without him, and neither can the Glee Club. He's going to do both.
As he pushes Artie back towards school, he pauses as the lawn-painting guy pays a visit to the football field, blasting "Don't Stop Believin'" and reminding Finn how much he really does love music.
He gets all the way to the auditorium, where Queen Rachel is yelling at the rest for not picking up dance steps, and my eyes are desperate for Kurt's Season 5 wardrobe instead of this one. Anyways, Finn apologizes for quitting, and is sick of being part of the crowd that drives around throwing eggs at Rachel and pee balloons at Kurt. He wants to be better, and he wants to do it with them. He rallies the troops; they can do this.
Career counseling time, Emma finds a recording of Will performing at Nationals 15 years ago, and he's clearly happier than she's ever seen him. And while I'm all for nostalgia, and accept that this is kind of the premise of the show at this point, it makes me sad for the weepy man-child that the pinnacle of his glory days were when he was 17. He still thinks he needs to quit so he can better provide for his family, but Emma wonders if life is worth living if you aren't passionate about it.
Before he can walk out the door, though, he gets pulled to the auditorium.
Oh, my heart, the first "Don't Stop Believin'." Remember when costumes for group numbers were just them all wearing the same color t-shirt and jeans? Remember when the choreography involved a lot of dramatic reaching of arms, and songs always ended with snapping their heads to the floor? Remember when they were all pretty bad at lip-synching, especially in the background?
I tease, because god, I remember the first time I watched this number and very nearly burst into tears. I was totally and completely hooked, even as Sue, Quinn and Santana lurked in the balcony and Puck watched from the door at the back of the auditorium.
This was one hell of a pilot. It did a spectacular job of introducing the main players and laying the groundwork for conflicts and secondary (at the time) cast members. I can hardly believe, looking back, that so many characters were introduced in that one episode. But they let the big stories stay in the foreground and everyone else just quietly be on screen, so I didn't feel overwhelmed with too much new information and too many names to keep straight. Hell, I'm not sure we even *got* half of those people's names in the episode itself.
The shine has come off, somewhat, with five years of hindsight. The production quality isn't as good, and my years-long hatred for Will Schuester makes it a little bit of a struggle to watch this and remember that I kind of liked him at the time. And it’s almost harder, at times, to watch the characters that I grew to love and to know so well, at a time when we knew virtually nothing.
But, of course, we remember why we fell in love with this band of misfits in the first place. We couldn’t help but admire their relentless, determined, borderline-delusional optimism in the face of slushies and hateful MySpace comments and dumpster tosses. They knew that the world called them losers, but they also knew they were something special.
And wow, what a set list for the first episode: largely classic rock and a bit of Broadway, save for the Vocal Adrenaline song. It was a smart move, not dating themselves too specifically with current top-40 songs, but instead choosing things that are so ingrained in our pop culture that nearly everyone could sing along to every song.
Well played, Ryan Murphy. That was one hell of a Pilot. I know that I, for one, was hooked from the very start.
Back soon with "Showmance!"
I don’t have a set schedule, but I’m hoping to keep it at about two episodes per week, since there are 44 to get through. We’ll see how it goes.
So! Let’s start at the very beginning. (A very good place to start.) The last time I re-watched Season 1 was fully two and a half years ago, and I don't think I've seen more than a musical number or two since then. Off we go on the adventure.
Oh my god, I completely forgot this opened on a Cheerios routine, and wow, the locations and film quality and everything are SO different. But not Sue. "You think this is hard? Try being waterboarded, that's hard."
The music is good and retro as Schuester drives up to school in a tiny piece-of-shit car. He kicks off his trend of blind ignorance and passivity in the face of bullying as the crowd of jocks, including Puck and Finn, surround a wide-eyed and terrified-looking Kurt.
The second Schuester is out of earshot, it's time to chuck Kurt into the dumpster. And only Finn pauses them so Kurt can take off his designer jacket, before nodding and into the trash Kurt goes. Finn at least has the decency to look mildly conflicted about it?
Schue pauses at the hallway trophy case to remember when his club won in 1993, and there's our first glimpse at Lillian Adler's plaque, reminding us that "by its very definition, Glee is about opening yourself up to joy."
And Sandy! Sandy Ryerson is there, accompanying a cute boy on the piano and being his gross self. But Rachel spies him mid-inappropriate-touch and I could almost forget how manic she was.
Random aside: I am really missing the a capella vocal scene transition music, not gonna lie. “Soul Bossa Nova” from Austin Powers, Beethoven’s 5th Symphony… it was such a quirky, delightful detail for this music nerd.
In the teacher's lounge, Ken Tanaka wants to strike over cuts to the coffee budget, and less than five minutes into the pilot we get the love-triangle setup: Ken is smitten for Emma, Emma is smitten for Will, Will is currently out of the loop and faithfully married to crazy Terri. I forgot that there was a time that I actually gave a shit about the adults. Ken is so icky, but Emma has the scoop on Sandy getting fired.
Will marches straight into Figgins's office to ask to take over the Glee Club in Sandy’s absence. The kids don't feel like they have a voice, he says, that's why they all have a MySpace page. (WHOA, dating yourself on the social media. Wow does that move fast.) Figgins says, sure, you're welcome to that suicide mission, but it'll cost you $60/month from your own pocket and you have to use the existing props and costumes (HAHAHAHAHA).
After a moment of Will, shirtless in bed with Terri (GAH), it's audition time. First to sign up is none other than Miss Mercedes Jones, signing "Respect," followed by sweet baby-faced Kurt Hummel singing "Mr. Cellophane." With Brad the Piano Man in the background, is this the only time we've heard Mercedes and Kurt sing live on the show? Because I'm 99% sure that isn't lip-synched. Tina and Artie sign up, too, but we only hear Tina singing "I Kissed a Girl" in all of her stuttering Goth glory.
And then it's time for wide-eyed manic Rachel, singing "On My Own" (how apropos) and talking about the gold star after her name being a metaphor, but her internal monologue is interrupted as she becomes the first recipient of a slushie to the face. Still, she is not swayed as she clears up her motivations behind getting "that closet-case Sandy Ryerson" fired. Certainly it had NOTHING to do with him giving another boy the solo she deserved...
We get the background on Rachel with her two gay dads and dance lessons since birth, and while the boys are SHOCKINGLY not falling at her feet, she keeps busy by posting a video of herself singing on her MySpace page every day. A group of Cheerios, led by Quinn and Santana, laugh as the video plays and leave charming comments like "please get sterilized." And we see a slight waver in Rachel's confident exterior as she reads the notes.
At any rate, New Directions is ON, and it's time for "Sit Down You're Rocking the Boat" with Artie, Mercedes, Rachel, Kurt, and Tina, complete with white gloves and jazz hands. They are so precious I could just cry. Also, there’s an awful lot of what seems to be non-pre-recorded singing in this episode!
But they're also terrible. The choreography sucks and they can barely do it, and Rachel is pretty darn pissed off about how sucky the song is. We get the all-time classic "there is nothing ironic about show choir" before we are treated to our first Rachel Berry storm-out.
Schuester finds her in the football stands, watching the Cheerios. She's sick of being laughed at, and she knows full-well that everyone at the school hates her. But while she may only be a sophomore, she doesn't want to leave high school without something to show for it. She wants to be great. And being a part of something special makes you special, right? Oh, Rachel. Anyways, she thinks the solution might be a male lead who can keep up with her.
Figgins calls Schuester into his office and is ready to pull the plug on Glee Club already for budgetary reasons, though I fail to see how they've yet cost the school a penny. Will makes a deal that, if they place at Regionals, they get to stay. Fine, says Figgins, but in the meantime you're running after-school detention for free.
Schue visits crazy-ass Terri at Sheets-n-Things to try to break the news that he'll be working late. She's hideous, of course, complaining about the whopping 12 hours per week that she works and bitching him out over the sandwich he brought her. She's a doll.
And just for kicks, he runs into Sandy Ryerson, who is using his forced retirement from teaching to become a small-time pot dealer, while harassing Sheets-n-Things employees in his spare time. He even hands Will his first bag for free. Always get ‘em on the comeback, Sandy.
A CAPELLA SCENE BREAK MUSIC IS TOTALLY DOING "WHEN I GET YOU ALONE" as Schuester finds a distraught Emma with chewing gum on her shoe, intercut with a conversation he has with Sue about the high school caste system, and how the Glee kids are the lowest of the low. Still, he's hoping to convince at least one or two popular kids to join, and makes a weak pitch to the football boys in the locker room. Finn's eyes briefly light up at the idea, but no one notices, and Puck just smirks.
But while the only sign-ups are "Butt Lunch" and "Penis," he overhears Finn singing "I Can't Fight this Feeling" in the shower. So, naturally, he plants the pot from Sandy on Finn and lays on the blackmail really thick on this poor, dopey boy.
We get a glimpse into Finn's childhood, complete with the spectacularly acid-washed Romy Rosemont, and a lawn-painting guy who sings classic rock with him. He loves his mama, that Finn, and wants to make his mom proud. (So say we all - Carole Hudson is the very, very best.) So, what do you know, Schue presents joining Glee as an alternative to doom and gloom, so he's in.
He strains his way through "You're the One That I Want," and Rachel immediately dials it up to 11. She messes with Kurt's hair, grabs Tina's boobs, nearly pushes Artie right off the stage, and scares the bejeezus out of Finn before Mercedes shuts the whole thing down with our first "hell to the no." She is NOT interested in singing backup to Rachel for the remainder of her days, thankyouverymuch. But she begrudingly admits that Finn is good.
(Forgive me, but no, I don't really think he is at this point. Particularly not in that song. Sorry.)
At the Schuester apartment, we see Terri's insane craft room and that, while Schue is busting his ass working extra hours, she's way out-living their means. She is never not insane. In her twisted world view, though, she is sincere in her emotion. They were high school sweethearts, but while teaching might be his passion, they aren't living the lifestyle to which she would like to become accustomed. She also says the truest thing ever uttered about Will Schuester: that he is coaching these kids as a way to re-live his glory days. ACCURATE.
Multi-directional crazy eyes in the teachers lounge: Ken at the shredder is creepily staring at the back of Emma's head while Emma is creepily staring at the back of Will's head as he hangs up a sign-up sheet for someone to chaperone a New Directions field trip. She sneaks right on over to sign up.
Finn, at football practice, gets yelled at for needing to miss one afternoon. It's clearly for the field trip, but when Puck asks him what's up, he lies pathetically about having to help his mom because she had, um, prostate surgery.
Ken is rapidly going off the deep end because Will Schuester is ruining his life. He's stealing the quarterback for Glee Club, and Ken holds Will personally responsible for the fact that Emma won't go out on a date with him. This dude is terrifying, seriously. He's going to be on TV with a mug shot ANY TIME NOW.
At Carmel High for the field trip, we get a great visual of Rachel just barely coming up to Finn's shoulder, which I find about the cutest thing going. She thinks Finn is very talented. She would know. She's very talented, too. "Everyone expects us to become an item," she says. No, Rachel, just you. Anyways, Finn has a girlfriend.
And so, we meet Head-Cheerio Celibacy-Club Quinn Fabray. Who is the biggest tease around, making out all hot and heavy but cutting it off to pray as soon as he tries to touch her butt. Nice.
Schue and Emma get to talking about his marital problems, and I can actually remember a time when I shipped this. Wow. That was a long, long, LONG time ago.
Time for a Vocal Adrenaline performance, and Schue tries to tell the kids that he doesn't think they're going to be much competition for them. Of course, as soon as the lights go down and an auditorium full of people starts cheering for them, they realize they aren't in Kansas Lima anymore.
Vocal Adrenaline performs "Rehab," and of course it's a thing of glory, leaving the small McKinley crew with a matched set of gaping-mouthed horror on each of their faces.
And if Finn wasn't walking around feeling dejected enough, the herd has come to take care of the one who tried to disrupt the social order. Puck and the other football jocks take him down in a rain of paintball gunfire.
Psychotic Terri is waiting when Will gets home to tell him she's pregnant. (*cough*) Of course, that means he decides to quit in the middle of the school year to go be an accountant so he can better provide for his growing family. (Hell, we know how unqualified he is to teach Spanish, maybe you don't need any background to be an accountant, either.) The six Glee kids are distraught that he brought them together only to up and leave. "Sometimes being an adult means giving up the things you love." Only when you're married to a psychopath.
Before he can leave, he finds a guitar and sings "Leavin' on a Jet Plane" in the empty auditorium. Emma's mighty sad that Will is leaving, drawing a heart around his face in an old yearbook (in which he apparently won Teacher of the Year!). Will, meantime, is not that great at pretending to play the guitar. Emma has an idea, though, and offers an appointment for career counseling.
Rachel stalks Finn at his locker because he wasn't at Glee Club practice. He thought it was over, but naturally Rachel has taken over as interim director. Quinn and Santana arrive and demand to know why Finn is talking to someone as lowly as Rachel, and she bails him out and claims to be his science partner.
Finn tries to make excuses about schedule conflicts, but Rachel is pretty sure it's 90% about maintaining his reputation. She thinks he's better than all of them and shouldn't care what anybody thinks.
Puck is still clearly riding Finn's ass about Glee, but Finn tells him he's quit and that's the end of it. Puck welcomes him back to the top of the social stratosphere with a gift: Artie trapped in his chair in a Port-a-potty.
WOW. The bullying in this episode is no fucking joke. I almost forgot how very dark the dark parts of this episode were.
Finn is the jock with a conscience, though, so he pulls Artie out before anyone can roll the port-a-potty with him inside. In a moment of clarity, Finn tells them they're all losers, every last person in this town, so what do the fine lines of social standing really matter when they're all probably going to be stuck in Lima for the rest of their lives? At least Glee Club actually made him happy. And he knows he has at least a little bit of power in this tiny world: the football team can't win without him, and neither can the Glee Club. He's going to do both.
As he pushes Artie back towards school, he pauses as the lawn-painting guy pays a visit to the football field, blasting "Don't Stop Believin'" and reminding Finn how much he really does love music.
He gets all the way to the auditorium, where Queen Rachel is yelling at the rest for not picking up dance steps, and my eyes are desperate for Kurt's Season 5 wardrobe instead of this one. Anyways, Finn apologizes for quitting, and is sick of being part of the crowd that drives around throwing eggs at Rachel and pee balloons at Kurt. He wants to be better, and he wants to do it with them. He rallies the troops; they can do this.
Career counseling time, Emma finds a recording of Will performing at Nationals 15 years ago, and he's clearly happier than she's ever seen him. And while I'm all for nostalgia, and accept that this is kind of the premise of the show at this point, it makes me sad for the weepy man-child that the pinnacle of his glory days were when he was 17. He still thinks he needs to quit so he can better provide for his family, but Emma wonders if life is worth living if you aren't passionate about it.
Before he can walk out the door, though, he gets pulled to the auditorium.
Oh, my heart, the first "Don't Stop Believin'." Remember when costumes for group numbers were just them all wearing the same color t-shirt and jeans? Remember when the choreography involved a lot of dramatic reaching of arms, and songs always ended with snapping their heads to the floor? Remember when they were all pretty bad at lip-synching, especially in the background?
I tease, because god, I remember the first time I watched this number and very nearly burst into tears. I was totally and completely hooked, even as Sue, Quinn and Santana lurked in the balcony and Puck watched from the door at the back of the auditorium.
This was one hell of a pilot. It did a spectacular job of introducing the main players and laying the groundwork for conflicts and secondary (at the time) cast members. I can hardly believe, looking back, that so many characters were introduced in that one episode. But they let the big stories stay in the foreground and everyone else just quietly be on screen, so I didn't feel overwhelmed with too much new information and too many names to keep straight. Hell, I'm not sure we even *got* half of those people's names in the episode itself.
The shine has come off, somewhat, with five years of hindsight. The production quality isn't as good, and my years-long hatred for Will Schuester makes it a little bit of a struggle to watch this and remember that I kind of liked him at the time. And it’s almost harder, at times, to watch the characters that I grew to love and to know so well, at a time when we knew virtually nothing.
But, of course, we remember why we fell in love with this band of misfits in the first place. We couldn’t help but admire their relentless, determined, borderline-delusional optimism in the face of slushies and hateful MySpace comments and dumpster tosses. They knew that the world called them losers, but they also knew they were something special.
And wow, what a set list for the first episode: largely classic rock and a bit of Broadway, save for the Vocal Adrenaline song. It was a smart move, not dating themselves too specifically with current top-40 songs, but instead choosing things that are so ingrained in our pop culture that nearly everyone could sing along to every song.
Well played, Ryan Murphy. That was one hell of a Pilot. I know that I, for one, was hooked from the very start.
Back soon with "Showmance!"