“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.

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