“Journey to Regionals” – Glee

Wow. That was a roller coaster of a finale. It was good, then bad, then good again…oh, I don’t even know! It started out poorly, with Schue finding out that Sue is a judge for Regionals. This is the sort of ridiculous stuff that makes me dislike Glee. I had a feeling, though, that Sue wouldn’t be the villain this time around, at least not completely. The club ends up doing a Journey medley. It was pretty good – I admit that I’m not a big fan of Journey – but there was one major flaw. Finn and Rachel dominated the singing. They’re the leads, so it makes sense that they’ll sing a lot. But the club has so many other good singers. The number they perform for Schue later proves that: many of the members sing a line of their own, and they’re all good (especially Santana – give her more lines!). Despite this, it was a good medley. Quinn gets rushed to the hospital to deliver her baby after the performance, and her labor is shown together with Vocal Adrenaline’s performance of “Bohemian Rhapsody.” Vocal Adrenaline ends up winning the competition, which isn’t a surprise, but their performance stunk! They’ve been described as “soul-less automatons”, and that’s exactly how they performed. No way was their “Bohemian Rhapsody” better than New Directions’ Journey medley. Anyway, Vocal Adrenaline wins, and New Directions places third. So, that means the club has to be disbanded. Emma argues vigorously with Principal Figgins that the club shouldn’t be disbanded, but she loses. This leads to her and Schue making up. It’s a nice scene, and I’m glad it happened. Schue and Emma work well together, way better than he and Terri ever did. The club performs “To Sir, with Love” for Schue, and it’s another good number. It’s not as good as the first half finale’s “My Life Would Suck Without you”, but it’s still good. Sue hears it and pulls some strings to keep the club alive. Turns out she voted New Directions first place at Regionals. Schue tells the club the good news and, with Puck, performs Israel Kamakawiwo’ole’s version of “Over the Rainbow” for them. (Iz is the only person other than Judy Garland who has ever performed a halfway decent version of that song, by the way.) And that’s how the season ends. It’s not a triumphant ending like the first half of the season, but it’s a good ending nonetheless. I think it opens up a lot of possibilities for the second season, particularly since some dead weight has been shed. The dead weight: the club’s impending demise, Quinn’s pregnancy, Jesse, and maybe some more. It’s unclear if Rachel’s mother will be tossed out. I kind of hope so, since she’s been a weak character and that storyline hasn’t been very strong. I’m guessing she’ll stay around, though, since she adopted Beth, Quinn’s baby. The club seems to be in pretty good shape – no major conflicts or problems – so it will probably be a fresh start for a second season. I’m not sure yet if I’ll follow New Directions for a second year. Glee is so inconsistent; it’s difficult to watch sometimes. It has its moments, though. As I understand it, there are more “themed” episodes in the second season (like the all-Madonna episode), and I’m not a big fan of those. And now that Glee is a phenomenon, they’ll probably just do more of the same, rather than actually improving the show. I have some time – until it’s on DVD or re-runs – so we’ll see how I feel then. Until then, see you somewhere over the rainbow…

“Funk” – Glee

What a surprise. This was an up-and-down episode. There were funny scenes: e.g. Schue performing “Tell Me Something Good” to Sue. There was good musical number: the club’s “Give Up the Funk” performance to Vocal Adrenaline. There was a bad musical number: sorry, Quinn just doesn’t have the voice for “It’s a Man’s Man’s Man’s World.” There were bad characters: why bring back Terri Schuester and Sandy Ryerson when they were so terrible before? There was a decent serious scene: Mercedes offers to let Quinn move in with her. There was something ridiculous: Vocal Adrenaline TPs the choir room. There was pretty much every good and bad element Glee has had in this season. I’d say it all averages out to make this a decent episode. With only the season finale left, it’s going to take something special to make the second half of the season worthwhile.

“Dream On”/”Theatricality” – Glee

I’m combining these two because I’m tired of writing about Glee. Most of my reviews boil down to “this show is ridiculous and mostly terrible.” Usually, I find a bright spot or two and say that the high points make the episodes worth watching. That’s still true, but it’s tiring to remind myself every episode that Glee stinks except for a few minutes out of every show. So, let’s go over these two quickly. “Dream On” had two good moments: Artie’s “Safety Dance” at the mall and “Dream a Little Dream of Me” by the whole club at the end. “Theatricality” was a better episode overall. I’m not much of a Lady Gaga fan, but the girls’ “Bad Romance” was pretty good. I thought Santana was exceptional in that number. Rachel and her mom doing “Poker Face” at the end was one of the show’s best numbers. It’s representative of the song’s best musical moments: it took a familiar song and turned it into a completely different beast. “Shout It Out Loud” was fine, if uninspired. I really enjoyed “Beth”, though. It’s good to get Puck a nice ballad. I’ve praised Mike O’Malley – and the Hummel’s relationship – in the past, but in this case, I think Glee went to the well one time too many. It was still good – bravo to O’Malley for again pulling off the scene splendidly – but it felt too contrived. Finn and his mom moving in with the Hummels happened too fast. And Kurt really did take the room design too far. I’m not convinced that Finn would react the way he did either. It appears that they’ve made up at the end, so we’ll see what happens with Finn and Kurt’s dad. With two episodes left in the season, I’m interested to see if Glee can end on a high note like the first half of the season did.

“Laryngitis” – Glee

I feel pretty comfortable saying that this was the best episode of Glee yet. The musical numbers were excellent. “Jessie’s Girl” and “The Lady is a Tramp” were two of the most fun songs they’ve done yet. “Pink Houses” wasn’t great, but it was cool to hear Kurt sing something different. And then hearing him sing “Roses’s Turn” – wow! Kurt can really sing. They need to feature him more. “The Boy is Mine” was good too, although it’s pretty similar to the original. It’s nice seeing Santana sing since she’s usually confined to the background. Finally, “One” – well, what can I say about it? “One” is just a good song, and it’s particularly touching here. I thought they used it well. The scenes with Finn’s disabled friend are pretty well done. It’s perhaps a bit much to suggest that Rachel’s laryngitis is even close to paralysis, but I think the actors pulled off the scene. It’s good to see Rachel humbled. Kurt’s subplot came off well too. It seemed to be heading off in a typically ridiculous manner, but Chris Colfer and Mike O’Malley pulled it off. I say this every time he’s on Glee, but I’m saying it again anyway: Mike O’Malley was tremendous. He’s shown a range that I never knew he had. Making the relationship between Kurt and his father believable is a difficult task, but they’ve done a great job with it. The serious scenes often bug me – they seem just tossed in – but the ones with Kurt are always compelling. The Puck-Mercedes storyline isn’t as good as the other parts of the element, but it adds a bit of comedy and allows Mercedes to quit the Cheerios, which is definitely a good thing. Overall, this was a very good episode, maybe not the best one yet, but certainly one of the best.

“Bad Reputation” – Glee

This is a tough episode to write about. It wasn’t a great episode, but it wasn’t bad either. I enjoyed all the musical numbers, but I disliked the plot. Glee has so much ridiculous junk: this week it was the Glist, Sue’s viral video, singing in the library, an alcoholic teacher, etc. For the most part, it isn’t funny, although I imagine some people might think it is. What’s really strange is how the ridiculous stuff is juxtaposed with completely serious stuff. Sue is usually a completely ridiculous character, but every once in a while, she has serious moments. Her scenes with her sister seem completely inconsistent with Sue’s character. I appreciate the attempt to develop the character, but it’s just so strange. Why even bother trying to make Sue human if 90% of the time she’s just going to be ridiculous. Quinn’s serious scene was better, although I’d like to see her do something other than be upset. I understand that it’s tough for a teenager to be pregnant, but every Quinn scene doesn’t have to be about her being sad and lonely. That’s one of the big problems with Glee: everything is just a contrivance to get where the (director, producer, writer) wants to go. They don’t develop characters to make them more realistic; they develop characters because it leads to a punchline or a song or this week’s serious moment. As I’ve been saying all along, Glee is worth watching for the music. But that’s about all it’s good for.

“Home” – Glee

You know what’s not a good idea? Bringing back a bad character. I disliked April the first time, and she’s just as bad in this episode. Glee has enough characters as it is; we don’t need to spend an episode with someone that’s not a main character. Fortunately, some of the “minor” characters (i.e. everyone other than Finn and Rachel) get a lot of time on screen. Mercedes gets a subplot: Sue wants her to lose weight or be kicked off the Cheerios. The treatment of this issue was mostly lousy, but the musical number at the end did a decent job of tying it up. That’s not to say it was a good number, though. Like I said last time, Glee is good when the club has a fresh take on a song. “Beautiful” wasn’t different enough to succeed, especially since Mercedes is going to lose to Christina Aguilera in a singing contest nine times out of ten. The other numbers didn’t do much for me either. “Fire” is a good song, but April and Schuester didn’t quite pull it off. Likewise for “One Less Bell to Answer” and “Home” (which was April and the club). Kurt’s “A House is Not a Home” was nice, though, if for no other reason than allowing us to hear someone other than Rachel sing. As for the the Finn-Kurt family storyline: I wasn’t crazy about the idea, but I thought it was well done. Mike O’Malley did a particularly good job. His performances on Glee have all been strong, which is surprising considering he’s never been considered a serious actor. Overall, “Home” was another below-average episode with a few good parts. I hope the next episode will focus more heavily on the club.

“The Power of Madonna” – Glee

This episode was all over the place. I had a ton of different thoughts run through my head that I wanted to write here. I hope I can remember most of them. First of all, this episode was risky: so much Madonna risks alienating anyone who doesn’t like Madonna – like me. Madonna is okay, but I’m not crazy about listening to only her for an hour. Moreover, I tend to agree with Puck that Madonna songs don’t work well with show choir. The songs were fine, but they weren’t inspired. They were too similar to Madonna’s own versions and lacked the unique quality that has made Glee‘s musical numbers so enjoyable. As far as I know, Glee has future episodes devoted to particular artists; I’m not happy to know this. Next, I have to say something about the tone. Glee often goes from ridiculous or silly to serious and back again. The shifts in tone in this episode struck me as particularly egregious. The serious scenes seems odd with all the wacky stuff going on around them. Juxtaposing the “Like a Virgin” sequence, which comes off as playful and fun, with the seriousness of Emma, Finn, and Rachel’s decisions is strange. The “issue”-type subplots feel tacked on: they receive only window treatment, not the development they deserve. Similarly, many of the characters lack depth. Brittany, for example, is 100% ditz; there’s nothing else to her. I guess each character does develop, but it’s so inconsistent. At times, Finn is an absolute moron, but he’s also capable, as we see in this episode, of some mature thought. While his decision to have sex with Santana is disappointing, his realization that the sex was meaningless shows some real character that was missing earlier in the season. It seems, though, that the characters are only fleshed out when the plot calls for it; otherwise, they revert to stereotypes, caricatures, or pieces of cardboard. That’s too bad, because some of the character moments are exceptional. Finally, I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention (for the 3829th time) how much I dislike Sue Sylvester. She just isn’t funny. Her character is ridiculous, absurd, annoying, etc. I cannot understand what people like about her. She provides conflict – necessary for the plot – but she makes me cringe. If they toned down her character, she’d work a lot better. As far as I can tell, however, nobody but me feels this way. Oh well! I’ll just have to try to tolerate her. So, overall, I’d call this a fairly weak episode. I thought Glee figured it out near the end of the first half of the season, but they’ve stumbled the past two episodes. One benefit of watching these episodes on DVD is that I know the show hasn’t been canceled yet, so presumably they righted the ship. That gives me some hope that future episodes will be better. I won’t count on it, though.

“Hell-O” – Glee

I’d forgotten how bad this show is. The first half of the season ended on a high note (the sectionals victory) and ended some boring and annoying subplots (e.g. Terri Schuester). Glee improved tremendously over those first 13 episodes, and I think that tricked me into thinking it had actually become a good show. If “Hell-O” is indicative of how the rest of the season will go, then Glee is going to be uneven, sometimes fun, sometimes painful, always frustrating. “Hell-O” had a bunch of subplots – Rachel and Finn, Sue trying to sabotage the club, Schue and Emma – that received some time but not nearly enough. Or maybe too much. None of these plots were compelling. They’re unrealistic, boring, and just plain annoying. The music wasn’t even that great. “Gives You Hell” was good, and “Hello” was decent. But “Hello, I Love You” and “Hello Goodbye” were uninspired, and “Highway to Hell” was flat-out awful. This was not a great way to start the second half of the season. The music, at least, needs to get better. I can bear the boring/annoying/lame plots and jokes as long as the music is good. I’m hoping things get better quickly.

Duck Soup

It’s too bad that I was exhausted and over-Marxed when I watched Duck Soup. To me, it was just another Marx Brothers movie. It has the reputation, however, of being the best Marx Brothers film, so I think I missed something. I certainly enjoyed it for all the wacky antics that I love about the Marx Brothers. I just didn’t quite see what made it that much better than the other four films I’ve seen so far. There are certainly some great scenes (e.g. the mirror scene where Harpo perfectly mimics Groucho’s moves), but all of their movies have great scenes. Duck Soup has a stronger plot than the other films, so maybe that’s it. I think I just need to see it again when I have my wits about me. Let’s hope it doesn’t take another 8 months to get my hands on it.

Horse Feathers

Another good one, although at this point, it’s hard to say how good. The Marx Brothers play their same old characters, and there are a lot of similar jokes and gags. It’s still entertaining, but after watching four Marx Brothers movies within two days, it’s hard for this one to really stand out. The story this time is about Huxley College, its new president (Groucho), and a football game with rival Darwin College. The football scenes at the end, with Groucho, Chico, and Harpo all on the field, are particularly fun. There’s nothing quite like seeing a game-winning touchdown scored by way of a horse-drawn chariot! Horse Feathers is pretty enjoyable; I’m just too over-Marxed to say anything insightful now.