"The Untitled Rachel Berry Project" Recaps and Reviews
AV Club by Brandon Nowalk (B+)
At the end of “The Untitled Rachel Berry Project,” Rachel, surrounded by all her friends except Santana, says, “If I’ve learned anything this year, it’s that you guys are my life.” Which actually does put a nice bow on the last two seasons. She came out to New York all on her own, and over that time, there have been two constants: absolute success in everything she does no matter how absurd, and the support of whichever subset of her friends is available to shoot that week. It doesn’t snap everything into place-that would take some kind of epiphany that Blaine is Keyser Soze or something-but it does apply a simple moral with a light touch. What’s Glee without McKinley? It’s about pursuing your dreams with the support of your friends.
It doesn’t take a steel trap to call that bluff. Santana gets written out of the finale, and finally, we see Brittany, and there’s still no update on the state of their relationship? How tight is this group really? Nevertheless, “The Untitled Rachel Berry Project” is an intimate, moving, funny season finale, and it’s so good primarily because it’s so simple.
The plotting wraps up every arc without a lot of contortion. Kristen Schaal’s Hollywood writer, Mary Halloran, writes Rachel an awful, quirky, ironic pilot script, and Rachel hates it. So she sings her a song (Pink’s “Glitter In The Air”) to convey the feeling of a Rachel Berry show, and it works. The network loves it, and Rachel’s off to L.A. Blaine rips off the Band-Aid about Kurt being out of June’s showcase, and Kurt’s upset, but he still wants to support Blaine. Then at the showcase, Blaine defies June and invites him on-stage. June starts snorting fire, but she can’t help but get swept up by their chemistry. (UMMMMMMMMM?!?!?!) In both cases, the simple Glee ideal that some things are more convincing in music bears out, and not only for the characters. Rachel’s rendition of “Glitter In The Air” conveys exactly the kind of feeling I’d expect from a Rachel Berry show, and I bet it could make a pretty good pilot. Then there’s the simple, drama-free plotting. Like Blaine’s immediate confession, Sam walks in and puts his head on Mercedes’ lap and tells her he cheated on her. They have an interesting back-and-forth, and while they end up where they were always going to end up, there are moments where it could go either way. The plots are predictable to a certain extent-personally, I expected June to eviscerate Blaine quietly under the din after his stunt-but they’re all sturdy, tried-and-true Glee perennials. Be yourself, believe in yourself, lean on each other. It’s awfully rich for Mary Halloran to come in and be some caricature of ironic detachment on this show of all shows, but “The Untitled Rachel Berry Project” reminds us that Glee does have values deep down under all that glitter.
Just look how democratic the set list is. On a mall tour, Mercedes performs an original number, “Shakin’ My Head,” which is sadly not a duet with Santana but at least features the welcome return of Brittany’s dancing as well as the line, “How come Jesus looks like a white guy when he’s from Palestine?” Sam sings “Girls On Film” on a seductive shoot that isn’t very seductive but does feature one of the few fantasy bits, where the whole slew of auditioning models suddenly sports colored ‘80s suits, with or without shirts. But the real winners are the songs the characters just feel compelled to sing. In addition to Rachel on Pink and the Kurt spotlight at the showcase, Blaine sings “All Of Me” to himself, a fairly minimalistic piano ballad. He doesn’t crack the way he does in “Teenage Dream,” but it packs just as much punch. It’s the perfect set-up for the following scene: Kurt walks in, and Blaine just hangs his head. “June doesn’t want you in the showcase. She never did.” That’s another thing to love. The characters confront one another and attack their own problems. Nobody needs a knight.
It’s not perfect, for reasons above and beyond not actually getting Sam’s junk on the side of a bus. Mary Halloran’s an entertaining cartoon (“Is that Chinese food? Just the smell of it gives me the Lady Dis”), but that is some limp parody by Glee standards. Santana’s an unfortunate absence given the episode is about friendship and communal support, and lately, she’s trying to remake herself in that mold. Most significantly, Rachel’s new dream role is not Fanny at all. It’s herself on a TV show. Dreams change, and she’s already achieved Fanny, but why such unadulterated optimism? Is there no part of this show that sees the danger in what Rachel’s doing and what it means-not for her career but for her, for her development and personality-that she’s turning her back on NYADA and Broadway so suddenly?
At the end, they’re all scattering to the wind. Sam’s achieved his dream of getting his junk on the side of a bus (by which he means his chest?), so he’s going back to Lima where things are slower. Tantalizing! What’s in store for him there? Off-screen-dom? Kurt, Blaine, and Artie are still in school in New York. Rachel’s going to LA. Mercedes is going on tour with Brittany as her star back-up dancer. (Santana’s shooting a Yeastistat commercial this week, but presumably, she’ll wind up back in New York or with Brittany on tour or perhaps seeking a new career move.) It’s an exciting way to end the season, because the future is so open. Season six could be all New York or all Los Angeles; it could jump to Lima; it could be all over the country. To say the show’s been inconsistent is to say the sky’s blue, but it’s episodes like ‘The Untitled Rachel Berry Project,” simple, funny, heartfelt musicals, that give me hope for the future.
Stray observations:
- Rachel’s describing her life for Mary to write a script about it. “We can’t use that. The a cappella thing is so over.”
- At the shoot, Sam’s snapping a rubber band on his wrist because he and Mercedes aren’t having sex, and he’s trying to keep from “popping a robe chubber.” Some model totally gets it. “It’s been like nine hours since I got laid. I’m going nuts.”
- They’re there because the original model for Treasure Trailz manscaping products got arrested for running an underground teacup dog fighting ring in Miami.
- Mary interviews Blaine for the pilot. “We’re gonna have to change your name though. Do you prefer Slaine or Faine?” “I’m sorry, are you an actual writer from a real-life television network?” P.S. I’ve heard of Slaine, but were there Finn-Blaine shippers too?
- Kurt’s name has to change too. “Cert? I’m Cert. Like the breath mint.” Great delivery from Chris Colfer. In fact, everyone’s on fire this episode.
- We get to see scenes from Mary’s original pilot, with Cert dressed in a dinosaur outfit at peak sullenness and Rachel in a bathtub saying, “OMGROFLWTH, my stupid gay NASA dads forgot that today was my birthday.” It’s not very funny, in either the way Mary intended or the way the writers intended. Bring back the Glee version of Friends!
- The final number, before Sam, Mercedes, and Brittany leave town, is a full street performance of “Pompeii.” This is how you do a closing celebration. At the end, Rachel gets a call. “That was the network. They, uh, they loved the script, and they want to make it into a pilot. I’m going to L.A.!” The season ends just right: Rachel suddenly looks up right into the camera and smiles before turning her head and walking past. I always knew she could see the cameras.
Vulture by Lauren Hoffman
Forty-eight hours before I settled in to watch last night’s Glee finale, I was sitting in the Big Thunder Ranch Main Stage at Disneyland, awaiting a high-school choir performance. This wasn’t a planned study in contrasts or anything - just a weird, happy coincidence. There was a beleaguered adult accompanist. There were sequins and show faces and lifts. As we clapped along to an even-more-enthusiastic-than-the-original (such a thing is apparently possible) cover of “Happy,” my friend leaned over to me and asked, “So, is this what Glee is like?” I almost said yes, reflexively, but then for the millionth time in the past several weeks, it hit me: No. Glee is something different now. But we’ll get to that.
Given Darren Criss’s wheelhouse, Glee doesn’t give us Blaine behind a piano nearly often enough, and as he sings “All of Me,” it’s hard not to think of the last time he sat at a piano and sang to Kurt - that ended with a betrayed, furious Kurt, too. I hate watching Kurt and Blaine argue because I’m a human with a heart, but I love that Glee has found a way to create and explore conflict in their relationship without having one of them cheat on the other. Their conversations about trust are surprisingly frank and mature, and while I’d still prefer Kurt’s own stories to be moving forward rather than him constantly having to come to terms with others’ success, I’m (improbably) really happy with where the two of them are at the end of this season. I’m also very excited about how Kurt and Blaine now have a canonical bird fetish. Have a great summer, fan-fiction writers!
Still, I wonder whether all of the “we’re okay no matter what” groundwork the writers have been laying is just preparing us for more Klaine strife in the show’s final season. (I’d much rather have 22 full episodes of them looking at wedding magazines and going to cake tastings, but I’d be willing to settle for 12.) Sure, Kurt and Blaine managed to stand up to Shirley MacLaine’s June Dolloway, but all that took was a quick rendition of “American Boy.” Oh, the power of white-boy rapping and line-dancing. Will you ever fail to triumph? I’m guessing we’ll find out next season.
Meanwhile, Sam’s still modeling, even in the throes of the blue balls induced by Mercedes’s continued abstinence. “My dream of being naked on a public bus is this close to coming true!” (Spoiler: It does.) The two of them break up, which isn’t a surprise, since it seemed pretty evident from the beginning that the show paired them together because they were both straight and single and because a tearful good-bye would be a nice addition to the season finale.
Can we talk for a minute about Amber Riley, though? I’ve joked before that her Dancing With the Stars finale was the best episode of Glee in a really long time, but it’s a true pleasure to see how she’s grown as a performer as Mercedes embarks on tour in support of her album. Sure, it’s a mall tour, but watching her bring down the house while Kurt mouths every word, Brittany (Heather Morris does not look like a woman who’s given birth recently and is therefore obviously a witch) dances her ass off, and Artie films the whole shebang. And I’m thrilled that Mercedes performs a song written specifically for her character rather than a cover - it references both the frustration of drinking Diet Coke and still gaining weight and being mad at God while still liking Jesus, bewilderingly but also awesomely. Well done, Mercedes Jones.
Unrelated: Did anyone else go a little nuts trying to figure out exactly when, where, and how Santana was edited out of the episode?
When she first appeared, I was a little worried that Mary Holloran, the beyond-eccentric screenwriter who’s tasked with writing Rachel’s pilot, was based on Lena Dunham. Then I felt like she was uncomfortably similar to me. (It was, “Can you leave? I need to shame-eat” that did it.) But by the time she reacted with the dawning knowledge that Rachel was going to sing to her with, “Oh, God, no,” I was in love with her forever. And speaking of that song, can we talk about how Rachel told Mary that she was going to show off her true essence through song and then immediately sang the line, “Have you ever felt a lover with just your hands?” Like, just your hands as opposed to what?
And while I know the pilot and series we’ll likely see Rachel filming next season will be based on the rewrite of the script, not Mary’s first draft, I would pay tens and tens of dollars to see a filmed version of the original. If you edited out a third of the hashtag-speak, it’d actually be better than most of the pilots going to air this fall. It has everything: Blaine and Brittany as sex partners/gallery owners! Kurt in a lice-riddled dinosaur suit! Rachel constantly referencing her gay dads while eating cake in a bathtub!
All that aside: There is a particular form of Glee-related anti-subtlety that I’m a complete sucker for, and the episode’s closing number falls under that umbrella, right down to Blaine saying wistfully, “It’s the end of another era for us glee kids!” (are you shitting me?) Rachel makes everyone vow to meet in the exact spot they’re standing in six months from now, a nod to the fact that the sixth season of Glee won’t be solely set in New York, and Kurt wishes they could burst into song … and so they do. As they perform Bastille’s “Pompeii” in the streets of Brooklyn, the song is intercut with shots of all of them going about their adult lives: Artie at film school, Blaine moving back into the loft, and Sam, oddly, back at McKinley, looking at the choir room that’s now being used as a computer lab. Since it seems like the Glee writers have been using Rachel’s actions to guide viewers through grieving Finn’s absence, I’m not completely sure what to make of the fact that the song (and episode) ends with her briefly looking at the sky, then looking straight into the camera in an almost-but-not-quite-but-maybe fourth-wall break.
It’s impossible, of course, to talk about this season of Glee without talking about Finn, in large part because the season was often at its strongest in the moments that dealt with his absence. And it’s equally impossible not to wonder about the Glee that might have been, especially after a season that’s been so very uneven. Glee hasn’t quite figured out what to be this season, whether that’s a product of Cory Monteith’s absence, the struggle to hit the right tone as it tells post-high-school stories, or a combination of the two.
Still, there were things to love about season five, too: more scenes that passed the Bechdel Test than ever before, Mike O’Malley and Romy Rosemont’s continued stellar guest performances, a Klaine engagement, and a reprise of “Don’t Stop Believin’” that managed to sum up the essence of Glee almost better than the hundred episodes that came before it had. I think I’ve ended each of my season-finale recaps with veiled or outright promises to walk away from the show forever, but I know I’ll be back for another round - but not until 2015. Never been a better time for a Tina Cohen-Chang “We’ll all be dead by then!” GIF, am I right?
In every way possible: I cannot wait to see how this ends.
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