Glee episode review: 1x15 The Power of Madonna
Episode name: The Power of Madonna
Original Air Date: April 20, 2010
Director: Ryan Murphy
Summary:
Inspired by Sue Sylvester’s “Ray of Light” routine, Will decides to do a Madonna-themed practice. This decision delights the girls, who feel that the boys are mistreating them and go on to perform a powerful rendition of “Express Yourself”.
The boys (except Kurt) are not impressed, yet later Rachel convinces Finn to sing a duet with her to the mash-up between “Borderline” and “Open Your Heart”. Despite the lingering feelings between the two co-captains, Rachel wishes to take the next step in her relationship with Jesse and Finn accepts Santana’s proposal to meet up for sex.
Meanwhile, the conflict between Sue and Will escalates and for once, Will manages to have the upper hand, mocking her appearance. Kurt and Mercedes witness the scene and decide to help Sue and do their Madonna tribute at the same time. The result is a fabulous re-make of the video of “Vogue”, but after a while Sue decides that look is not for her and reverts to her short hair and tracksuits.
After being insulted by Sue for having no sex appeal, Emma decides to give her virginity to Will and what follows is a juxtaposition of the three couples about to have sex to the appropriate song “Like A Virgin”. But unfortunately for Will and Jesse, Emma and Rachel can’t go through with it. However, Finn and Santana do, and the boy feels lousy afterwards and lies to Rachel the next day, claiming he didn’t do it. Rachel lies too, telling him that she and Jesse did it.
In a surprise move, Jesse transfers to McKinley High and joins the glee club (and causes Brittany to wonder whether he is Will’s son), much to the dismay of everyone but Rachel. Upset that their chances of getting solos dimmed considerably after Jesse’s arrival, Mercedes and Kurt join the Cheerios and perform Madonna’s “4 Minutes” in front of the whole school, which earns them a standing ovation. They decide to continue with both the Cheerios and the glee club.
Will convinces the boys to sing “What It Feels Like For A Girl” to make them realize how badly they treat the girls, which prompts Artie to apologize to Tina.
The episode ends with Finn telling Jesse that he will stay away from Rachel and welcoming him to New Directions and a group performance of “Like A Prayer” with the help of a gospel club.
Favorite scene:
My favorite scene was the "Like A Virgin" montage. I loved how they moved between the three couples and I thought they did a good job showing the feelings of the character. Santana was seductive, but emotionless, Finn was awkward and clumsy. Will was flirty and tried to ease the tension, Emma was nervous and tense. Jesse was rather greedy, but still gentlemanly, Rachel was unsure. And the reactions after the end of the song were great too.
Least favorite scene:
Well, this episode was not too rich in non-musical scenes, so I'll have to stick to a musical number. I thought the "What It Feels Like For A Girl" segment was useless and only took up precious time that ended up cutting "Like A Prayer". Also, Will preaching about how to treat women? Do not like that. He is not a saint either so who is he to criticize the other boys?
Favorite performance:
I am very sorry but I just can't choose one. After much debate, I managed to pick only two songs for my favorites.
The first one is "4 Minutes" because it is the ultimate HBIC!Kurtcedes song. I love the arrangement they did on Madonna's song and the way it was performed was AMAZING. I don't think I've seen Kurt look so hot until Born This Way.
The second song I love sfm is, unsurprisingly, "Like A Prayer". I love group songs that are actually group songs, not just Rachel and Finn on the lead and the others on the chorus. It was great to hear Jesse, Kurt and Mercedes join in for solo parts and the simple, yet powerful performance of the song was wonderful. I love how they are all dressed in red, but each one of them wear a different kind of shirt.
Least favorite performance:
My least favorite performance is, obviously, "What It Feels Like For a Girl". I thought it was useless and boring and could've been skipped. And I dislike the acapella version of this song and the fact that is sounded very autotuned (especially Finn's voice) and artificial. In an episode with so many fantastic numbers, this performance feels out of place and anti-climatic.
Overall:
It's one of my favorite episodes because it has many songs I love. Except "What It Feels Like For A Girl", I adore all the others and I've listened to them countless times. Also, the music was rather connected to the plot, which I thought was great (for Glee's current's standards).