Glee 2.06 Never Been Kissed
7 things that were awesome about Tuesday and one disclaimer
1. Rachel Berry. She didn't do a lot in this episode, but what she did do was great. I realize that it's sad that my number one awesome thing about this episode was a character that had about four lines BUT YOU GUYS. WHAT HAPPENED TO MY SHOW IDEK. Anyway, I always enjoy Rachel and I loved the SPIES exclamation bit. That was fantastic.
2. Mike Chang. I honestly think that maybe Mike Chang is the only character the show has yet to tarnish. SOMEONE KNOCK ON WOOD. I continue to love him every episode and this was no exception. The faces he makes, the 'STAY AWAY FROM MY WOMAN' bit, any point in which he is dancing...I love it all.
3. The mashups. I thought both the guys and the girls did awesome despite the questionable nature of the boys' song and the faces Will made during the numbers (though PedoWill is such a hyperbole at this point that it's almost enjoyable to me wtf). I'm not sure why this number spent time at all staring at Kurt's face, but...whatever. All the girls looked fantastic during their number and I kind of wish that performance was just the entire episode. 42 minutes of hot girls in leather singing rock songs. Yeah. I could get behind that kind of show. I liked the boys number too if only because everyone looked all happy and joy-joy and that's the way I like them - it's easier to forget all the other bullshit when Rachel is making adorable faces and Santana is laughing uncontrollably.
4. Teenage Dream. I actually really loved this number. I also liked that Blaine was introduced in a different way than I expected him to be. The hand-holding run-down-the-hallway scene was extremely awkward, but I liked the way he spoke to Kurt about bullying even if I'm not sure how Kurt's bringing him to school after the Karofsky incident made sense. To be clear, the way they approached bullying in general was...unconvincing, but I liked the calm, rational attitude Blaine seemed to have. Anyway, I thought Darren did a really good job. FOUR FOR YOU, HARRY POTTER. Sidenote: KAROFSKY. WHAT EVEN. I CAN'T DECIDE IF I'M HORRIFIED, ELATED OR JUST ABSURDLY AMUSED. At the very least, that scene was just well acted all around. So there's that.
5. Sue Sylvester. Confetti canons. This is all.
6. Santana and Brittany standing together and like...switching gum? What even was that? I say this with a heavy heart because this was probably the only moment where they were the way I like them - being cute and gay in the background.
7. I actually think they had some potential with the whole Beiste issue regarding consent and INAPPROPRIATE STUDENT-TEACHER RELATIONS, but then it devolved into an entirely strange and inconsistent scene about her first kiss or lack thereof. I don't know. I CAN'T THINK OF A SEVEN! I like private school uniforms? Puck/Waffles = new OTP? Tina needing to cool off was actually slightly hilarious? Situasians?
DISCLAIMER: This actually took a lot of effort because, on the whole, I kind of want to punch this episode in the face. I don't even know right now.
I don't understand why RM hates his characters. I can handle it when plots go awry if I trust the writers to take it in a good direction. Case in point: Grey's Anatomy. I can handle stuff like Cristina having a mental breakdown, Callie and Arizona breaking up and Meredith forgetting her keys because I trust in Shonda's love of her characters. I trust that she's taking it in a good direction and I'm okay with sitting back and enjoying the ride. That's just not the way I feel about Glee at all.
Every time Tuesday rolls around and a new episode is on this season I get nervous. I legit. Get nervous. THAT'S NOT A GOOD THING TO FEEL, MURPHS.
The writers are slowly killing each character one by one.
I could go on a long, long rant about the blatant sexism and other srs bzns topics, but I'm too afraid I'll become an irrational CAPS LOCKING angered fool halfway through so I'm just going to hit on some of the low points for me.
Artie. What. The. Fuck. So we're supposed to feel bad for him in Duets when Brittany "takes advantage of him" and so forth, but then in this episode we're supposed to buy that not only is he secretly in love with her or some bullshit (with zero mention of that chick, whatsherface, Tina that he was previously still in love with), but that on top of that he deserves to have her back blah blah blah? Yeah, like I'm ever going to believe he's not going after Brittany for his reputation. I don't even know where to begin here. I'm so over Arite Abrams it's unreal. The way he treats girls is ridiculous and it completely ruins any chance of my liking him in another arena. His big "moment" with Puck in the hallway at the end was probably supposed to be adorable and awesome, but I can't like him anymore. At all. It's all way too two-faced for me.
Santana Lopez. SANTANA LOPEZ. Dear Ryan Murphy and the Glee writing staff, stop writing Santana Lopez. Please stop. Stop now. Don't ever do it again. Thank you.
I think it comes to no surprise that Santana Lopez is my favorite character. I relate to her the best and I write through her eyes most often and I enjoy it whenever she is on screen doing almost anything. On most days I more than enjoy her inappropriate sexual non sequiturs. But we're going way too far with the "Santana Lopez is a one dimensional slut" characterization. THERE IS SO MUCH POTENTIAL HERE AND YOU'RE SQUANDERING IT. And this is my point about trusting Shonda and not RM. If I could trust the writing on this show I'd be content with Santana going around getting boob jobs, sleeping with Puck, rejecting Brittany, voicing an entirely warped sense of cool and basically whoring herself out for popularity, attention etc etc because all of it would just make her huge COME TO JESUS moment that much more epic.
But I anticipate no such moment. As of now I expect that by the end of the season Santana will still be exactly same as where she started. Which is just so fucking tragic. There's so much that could be done with her character. So much insecurity that could be excavated in such an interesting way and yet we're stuck with hearing her skank herself out to Puck (a guy that got her friend and teammate pregnant last semester while presumably still dating Santana and was recently in juvie) and yet again advocate for "never saying no". I AM DISSAPOINT. If you're going to make her prostitute herself to asshole guys every episode MAKE IT WORTH MY WHILE. Make it about something, give her character depth, fucking FIX IT eventually. Thank God for Naya Rivera who made hilarious WTF faces at Puck towards the end of that date at BredstiX. I can at least trust Naya and HeMo to give a shit about their characters enough to do cute things in the background next episode so I can write about how much they love each other and want to make lady babies in a distant future.
But anyway. Santana Lopez. The way they're handling her makes me want to cry bitch baby tears.
I use her as an example because I love her so dearly, but the same could be said for any of the characters. Rachel, though having had shining moments here and there, is just the same as ever. She's not moving forward from when we first met her and she was getting Mr. Ryerson fired with a sexual assault claim. Tina's moving nowhere fast and even Quinn is reverting back to previous characterization. I will always love Brittany and her comedic relief, but I do not need to watch her get stomped all over by Artie for the rest of the season. I swear if Artie and Tina get back together without Artie having a big revelation or changing moment I will probably punch a wall.
It's not just the girls either. Am I supposed to feel like this was Puck's "graduation" episode where he's going to change for the better? Sorry, I couldn't pay attention. I was too distracted by YOU ONLY HAVE TO BE A FRACTION AS NICE TO GIRLS AS YOU WERE MEAN TO THEM. Come on. I think if I felt they were going to do more with Puck's vulnerability I could have gotten on board with all of that, but I can't imagine this happening. Plus, of all the people to connect with he connects with Artie (though the duck hand moment was pretty epic, I love that handshake). Why can't we have more Puck/Finn friendship? They're supposed to be best friends and yeah they went through a ton of shit, but that's what's interesting to me - seeing that friendship deal with obstacles and the like. I feel like the show tries to do too much when it comes to friendships. Just stay consistent, show. They do this a little with Mercedes/Quinn, but even that has fallen to the wayside.
I'd really like to see the show deal with Finn/Puck, Santana/Brittany, Santana/Brittany/Quinn, Rachel/Kurt, Rachel/Mercedes, Rachel/FuckingANYONE, Mercedes/Kurt (shouldn't there be more of this in a Kurt-centric episode?). Just friendships. They should be having friendships not just screwed up failed romances.
Anyway, I'm getting on a tangent here. The point is that these characters are static when they should be dynamic.
Kurt was actually likable to me in this episode, but yet again we're rehashing the same material with him episode after episode. How many times have we heard the line "I'm the only openly gay person at school" this season? Yes, we get it. Kurt is gay so his life is hard. I'm not discounting the importance of whatever message they're trying to get across (though Ryan Murphy mary sue-ing his way through life is getting annoying), but I'm growing tired of it. IT'S NOT GOING ANYWHERE. The message is getting lost along the plateau and I'm starting to resent it. If this is going to be the Kurt Hummel Show I'd just like to be informed ahead of time is all.
Anyway, can we stop teaching the young audience that dysfunctional and unequal relationships are like totally cool? I'm so sick of the "it's not good if you don't put out" story lines. STOP PRESSURING GIRLS TO HAVE SEX, WTF. How the hell am I going to feel bad for Artie getting his V-card swiped by Brittany when all the rest of this is going on? Quinn saying "sorry" to Sam because she finds out he's sexually frustrated..........HE HAS A HAND, DOESN'T HE? Are we ever going to deal with Rachel/Jesse/Santana/Finn quadrangle of lies?
And then let's talk about the god damn episode title and the two accompanying stories. First we have Kurt being indignant about Karfosky taking away his first kiss. I get that. It totally makes sense to me. However, is what Will did with Coach Beiste not the EXACT SAME THING? Yeah sure he was trying to be all nice and sweet about it, but jeez. That kiss wasn't anything other than a pity kiss. So basically we have the young girls feeling like they're constant sources of sexual frustration for not putting out and then we have an adult female who is heavily concerned with the fact that she's never been kissed - which is then solved by her co-worker kissing her. I'm asking for a strong female character that derives strength independent of her romantic relationships for Christmas.
WELL. At least I'll always have Sue Sylvester. Who remained kind of awesome.
Wait no. What am I saying? NO CHARACTER IS SAFE.
Okay, I digress.
My point in all of this is that the show is failing to use its best weapons. We need more episodes about the club acting as a team, forming friendships, working on Sectionals set lists and less episodes about who is a virgin and who isn't or how hard/easy it is for boy X to get into girl Y's pants.
And also more Santana and Brittany being adorable in the background and less of them letting men walk all over them.
In fact. I'm going to go write Santana/Brittany fluff/sex/anything to make myself feel better.
I'll just pretend like the only thing that happened this episode was hot chicks in leather.
See what I did there? With the objectifying? I know. My hypocrisy is astounding.
1. Rachel Berry. She didn't do a lot in this episode, but what she did do was great. I realize that it's sad that my number one awesome thing about this episode was a character that had about four lines BUT YOU GUYS. WHAT HAPPENED TO MY SHOW IDEK. Anyway, I always enjoy Rachel and I loved the SPIES exclamation bit. That was fantastic.
2. Mike Chang. I honestly think that maybe Mike Chang is the only character the show has yet to tarnish. SOMEONE KNOCK ON WOOD. I continue to love him every episode and this was no exception. The faces he makes, the 'STAY AWAY FROM MY WOMAN' bit, any point in which he is dancing...I love it all.
3. The mashups. I thought both the guys and the girls did awesome despite the questionable nature of the boys' song and the faces Will made during the numbers (though PedoWill is such a hyperbole at this point that it's almost enjoyable to me wtf). I'm not sure why this number spent time at all staring at Kurt's face, but...whatever. All the girls looked fantastic during their number and I kind of wish that performance was just the entire episode. 42 minutes of hot girls in leather singing rock songs. Yeah. I could get behind that kind of show. I liked the boys number too if only because everyone looked all happy and joy-joy and that's the way I like them - it's easier to forget all the other bullshit when Rachel is making adorable faces and Santana is laughing uncontrollably.
4. Teenage Dream. I actually really loved this number. I also liked that Blaine was introduced in a different way than I expected him to be. The hand-holding run-down-the-hallway scene was extremely awkward, but I liked the way he spoke to Kurt about bullying even if I'm not sure how Kurt's bringing him to school after the Karofsky incident made sense. To be clear, the way they approached bullying in general was...unconvincing, but I liked the calm, rational attitude Blaine seemed to have. Anyway, I thought Darren did a really good job. FOUR FOR YOU, HARRY POTTER. Sidenote: KAROFSKY. WHAT EVEN. I CAN'T DECIDE IF I'M HORRIFIED, ELATED OR JUST ABSURDLY AMUSED. At the very least, that scene was just well acted all around. So there's that.
5. Sue Sylvester. Confetti canons. This is all.
6. Santana and Brittany standing together and like...switching gum? What even was that? I say this with a heavy heart because this was probably the only moment where they were the way I like them - being cute and gay in the background.
7. I actually think they had some potential with the whole Beiste issue regarding consent and INAPPROPRIATE STUDENT-TEACHER RELATIONS, but then it devolved into an entirely strange and inconsistent scene about her first kiss or lack thereof. I don't know. I CAN'T THINK OF A SEVEN! I like private school uniforms? Puck/Waffles = new OTP? Tina needing to cool off was actually slightly hilarious? Situasians?
DISCLAIMER: This actually took a lot of effort because, on the whole, I kind of want to punch this episode in the face. I don't even know right now.
I don't understand why RM hates his characters. I can handle it when plots go awry if I trust the writers to take it in a good direction. Case in point: Grey's Anatomy. I can handle stuff like Cristina having a mental breakdown, Callie and Arizona breaking up and Meredith forgetting her keys because I trust in Shonda's love of her characters. I trust that she's taking it in a good direction and I'm okay with sitting back and enjoying the ride. That's just not the way I feel about Glee at all.
Every time Tuesday rolls around and a new episode is on this season I get nervous. I legit. Get nervous. THAT'S NOT A GOOD THING TO FEEL, MURPHS.
The writers are slowly killing each character one by one.
I could go on a long, long rant about the blatant sexism and other srs bzns topics, but I'm too afraid I'll become an irrational CAPS LOCKING angered fool halfway through so I'm just going to hit on some of the low points for me.
Artie. What. The. Fuck. So we're supposed to feel bad for him in Duets when Brittany "takes advantage of him" and so forth, but then in this episode we're supposed to buy that not only is he secretly in love with her or some bullshit (with zero mention of that chick, whatsherface, Tina that he was previously still in love with), but that on top of that he deserves to have her back blah blah blah? Yeah, like I'm ever going to believe he's not going after Brittany for his reputation. I don't even know where to begin here. I'm so over Arite Abrams it's unreal. The way he treats girls is ridiculous and it completely ruins any chance of my liking him in another arena. His big "moment" with Puck in the hallway at the end was probably supposed to be adorable and awesome, but I can't like him anymore. At all. It's all way too two-faced for me.
Santana Lopez. SANTANA LOPEZ. Dear Ryan Murphy and the Glee writing staff, stop writing Santana Lopez. Please stop. Stop now. Don't ever do it again. Thank you.
I think it comes to no surprise that Santana Lopez is my favorite character. I relate to her the best and I write through her eyes most often and I enjoy it whenever she is on screen doing almost anything. On most days I more than enjoy her inappropriate sexual non sequiturs. But we're going way too far with the "Santana Lopez is a one dimensional slut" characterization. THERE IS SO MUCH POTENTIAL HERE AND YOU'RE SQUANDERING IT. And this is my point about trusting Shonda and not RM. If I could trust the writing on this show I'd be content with Santana going around getting boob jobs, sleeping with Puck, rejecting Brittany, voicing an entirely warped sense of cool and basically whoring herself out for popularity, attention etc etc because all of it would just make her huge COME TO JESUS moment that much more epic.
But I anticipate no such moment. As of now I expect that by the end of the season Santana will still be exactly same as where she started. Which is just so fucking tragic. There's so much that could be done with her character. So much insecurity that could be excavated in such an interesting way and yet we're stuck with hearing her skank herself out to Puck (a guy that got her friend and teammate pregnant last semester while presumably still dating Santana and was recently in juvie) and yet again advocate for "never saying no". I AM DISSAPOINT. If you're going to make her prostitute herself to asshole guys every episode MAKE IT WORTH MY WHILE. Make it about something, give her character depth, fucking FIX IT eventually. Thank God for Naya Rivera who made hilarious WTF faces at Puck towards the end of that date at BredstiX. I can at least trust Naya and HeMo to give a shit about their characters enough to do cute things in the background next episode so I can write about how much they love each other and want to make lady babies in a distant future.
But anyway. Santana Lopez. The way they're handling her makes me want to cry bitch baby tears.
I use her as an example because I love her so dearly, but the same could be said for any of the characters. Rachel, though having had shining moments here and there, is just the same as ever. She's not moving forward from when we first met her and she was getting Mr. Ryerson fired with a sexual assault claim. Tina's moving nowhere fast and even Quinn is reverting back to previous characterization. I will always love Brittany and her comedic relief, but I do not need to watch her get stomped all over by Artie for the rest of the season. I swear if Artie and Tina get back together without Artie having a big revelation or changing moment I will probably punch a wall.
It's not just the girls either. Am I supposed to feel like this was Puck's "graduation" episode where he's going to change for the better? Sorry, I couldn't pay attention. I was too distracted by YOU ONLY HAVE TO BE A FRACTION AS NICE TO GIRLS AS YOU WERE MEAN TO THEM. Come on. I think if I felt they were going to do more with Puck's vulnerability I could have gotten on board with all of that, but I can't imagine this happening. Plus, of all the people to connect with he connects with Artie (though the duck hand moment was pretty epic, I love that handshake). Why can't we have more Puck/Finn friendship? They're supposed to be best friends and yeah they went through a ton of shit, but that's what's interesting to me - seeing that friendship deal with obstacles and the like. I feel like the show tries to do too much when it comes to friendships. Just stay consistent, show. They do this a little with Mercedes/Quinn, but even that has fallen to the wayside.
I'd really like to see the show deal with Finn/Puck, Santana/Brittany, Santana/Brittany/Quinn, Rachel/Kurt, Rachel/Mercedes, Rachel/FuckingANYONE, Mercedes/Kurt (shouldn't there be more of this in a Kurt-centric episode?). Just friendships. They should be having friendships not just screwed up failed romances.
Anyway, I'm getting on a tangent here. The point is that these characters are static when they should be dynamic.
Kurt was actually likable to me in this episode, but yet again we're rehashing the same material with him episode after episode. How many times have we heard the line "I'm the only openly gay person at school" this season? Yes, we get it. Kurt is gay so his life is hard. I'm not discounting the importance of whatever message they're trying to get across (though Ryan Murphy mary sue-ing his way through life is getting annoying), but I'm growing tired of it. IT'S NOT GOING ANYWHERE. The message is getting lost along the plateau and I'm starting to resent it. If this is going to be the Kurt Hummel Show I'd just like to be informed ahead of time is all.
Anyway, can we stop teaching the young audience that dysfunctional and unequal relationships are like totally cool? I'm so sick of the "it's not good if you don't put out" story lines. STOP PRESSURING GIRLS TO HAVE SEX, WTF. How the hell am I going to feel bad for Artie getting his V-card swiped by Brittany when all the rest of this is going on? Quinn saying "sorry" to Sam because she finds out he's sexually frustrated..........HE HAS A HAND, DOESN'T HE? Are we ever going to deal with Rachel/Jesse/Santana/Finn quadrangle of lies?
And then let's talk about the god damn episode title and the two accompanying stories. First we have Kurt being indignant about Karfosky taking away his first kiss. I get that. It totally makes sense to me. However, is what Will did with Coach Beiste not the EXACT SAME THING? Yeah sure he was trying to be all nice and sweet about it, but jeez. That kiss wasn't anything other than a pity kiss. So basically we have the young girls feeling like they're constant sources of sexual frustration for not putting out and then we have an adult female who is heavily concerned with the fact that she's never been kissed - which is then solved by her co-worker kissing her. I'm asking for a strong female character that derives strength independent of her romantic relationships for Christmas.
WELL. At least I'll always have Sue Sylvester. Who remained kind of awesome.
Wait no. What am I saying? NO CHARACTER IS SAFE.
Okay, I digress.
My point in all of this is that the show is failing to use its best weapons. We need more episodes about the club acting as a team, forming friendships, working on Sectionals set lists and less episodes about who is a virgin and who isn't or how hard/easy it is for boy X to get into girl Y's pants.
And also more Santana and Brittany being adorable in the background and less of them letting men walk all over them.
In fact. I'm going to go write Santana/Brittany fluff/sex/anything to make myself feel better.
I'll just pretend like the only thing that happened this episode was hot chicks in leather.
See what I did there? With the objectifying? I know. My hypocrisy is astounding.