When last season finished, the Glee Club had gotten a reprieve from being shut down, all the kids were one big happy family, and even Sue and Schue were getting along. So everything has to be great this year. Right?
Of course not. There's more conflict than you can shake a stick at. Jewfro, via his blog (which I think may be called mckinleyhighwithoutpity.com) and a video project, demonstrates that the Glee Club is still at the very bottom of the school's social pyramid. Which means no new kids will try out, which places the club in jeopardy, since Matt Rutherford (a.k.a. Shaft, a.k.a. Butt Munch) transferred to a new school. Because as we remember from the entire first half of last season, if the club doesn't have twelve members, it can't compete. So the kids do a big public performance in some mysterious outdoor space at the school that we've never seen before to attract new blood. Rachel and Finn each notice kids getting into the performance, and seek them out for recruitment. Except when Rachel hears Filipina exchange student Sunshine Corazon (played by Charice) sing, she's so threatened that she tries to keep her from auditioning by sending her to a crack house. Charice still gets an invitation to join the club, but then is recruited by the new Vocal Adrenaline coach, played by Cheyenne Jackson. And the new cute blond football player that Finn tries to recruit decides not to audition when he realizes that everyone else on the team will think he's gay. So for now, we're still down to eleven members.
The other big source of tension is the new football coach, Ms. Biest. Figgins has brought her in to get the team winning again, and he cuts the budgets of the Cheerios and Glee Club by ten percent to provide more football funding. So Will and Sue unite in an unholy alliance to make Biest feel hated so she'll become miserable and quit the job. It backfires when Biest takes her hard feelings out on Finn, kicking him off the team. That makes Will see what an ass he's been, so he apologizes to Biest and foils Sue's dastardly plan to get Biest to eat some feculent cookies. (I can't believe I finally get to use feculent in a recap in a non-metaphorical sense.) So the truce between Sue and Schue is off, and we're back to having Sue as a full-scale villain.
And there's even some other tension. Tina dumped Artie to date Mike Chang. And Quinn, anxious to get back on the Cheerios, tells Sue about Santana's off-season boob job, which gets Santana demoted to bottom of the pyramid and results in a Cheerios catfight in the school hallway. So everyone hates the Glee kids, some of the Glee kids hate each other, and Sue hates everybody (except for Becky).
Songs tonight: Jay-Z's "Empire State of Mind," Lady Gaga's "Telephone," Travie McCoy's "Billionaire," "Listen" from Dreamgirls, and "What I Did for Love" from A Chorus Line.
Want more? The full recap starts right below!
I hope everybody had a nice summer. If you followed my suggestion and watched The Choir on BBC America, then I know you had at least one good night each week all summer long. You know how they advertised it as a real-life Glee? It really kind of was, right down to the stock of characters. Choirmaster Gareth Malone, of course, filled in for Will (and, as I hoped, did not rap once). But there were also jocks that needed to be blackmailed into singing, sassy black divas, gay teenagers finding confidence to be themselves through song, mean girls whose rough exterior was revealed to be a cover for their insecurities, bad boys scheming to get dates, and even one special-needs little girl who stole everybody's heart. (She's the Brit-Brit of the show, if you couldn't guess.) There was no Sue and no Rachel, and nobody gave birth during any episodes. But it otherwise completely satisfied my need for Glee during the long hot summer.
But now it's fall, and we're ready to go back to school. You already know everything that's discussed during the previouslies, but it's worth noting that the announcer dude focuses less on how happy everybody was that the club got another year and much more on how unhappy they were that they lost at Regionals. So that's the frame of mind they'd like us to be in. So put on your sad faces.
Aaaaand we start right in with a handheld video shot of Jacob ben Israel, who is also and forever will be known as Jewfro. He's shooting a video clip on "Glee's Big Gay Summer," bringing us, and the readers of his blog, up to date on all the latest happenings. I really do wonder what his blog is called. Anyway, Jewfro begins by cornering Rachel and Finn, asking Rachel how she responds to rumors that she's hard to work with. Finn starts to answer in his capacity as Rachel's boyfriend, but she cuts him off to let everyone know that they've been dating all summer. Finn describes Rachel as a "controllist," and she quickly corrects him before agreeing that she is, indeed, controlling, because performing means so much to her. "And does my constant need to express my opinions annoy my fellow Glee Clubbers?" Finn, in a choked whisper: "Yes." And then he realizes that he lost track of what he was saying inside his head and what he was saying out loud.
Jewfro charges into the music room, where Will is sorting some sheet music. Jewfro: "How do you respond to a recent post on my blog [ mckinleyhighwithoutpity.com?] saying that your Glee Club music selections sound like they come from a drag queen's iPod?" Will says that he tries to do something for everybody: "25% show tunes, 25% hiphop, 25% classic rock..." Jewfro: "100% gay!"
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