Livin' La Vida Lima

Glee

Episode Report Card

Demian: C- | 2 USERS: C+

YOU GRADE IT

Livin' La Vida Lima

By Demian | Season 3 | Episode 11 | Aired on 02.07.2012

In a hurry? Read the recaplet for a nutshell description!

Will suffers through a crisis of confidence that kicks off when The Maharishi informs him one of his students anonymously mouthed off about his lousy teaching methods, which offers Glee a convenient excuse to introduce Ricky Martin as "David Martinez," McKinley High's nighttime adult education Spanish teacher, whom Will turns to in a desperate attempt to brush up on his pathetic language skills. It also offers Will a convenient excuse to announce a Latin theme for this week's musical selections, and many a choir-room seat dampens when Ricky Martin and his hair and his teeth and his tattoos and his eyes and his hips and his OMG SQUEEEEEEEEE! swivel on in to show the children how it's done. Eventually, Santana Lopez admits it was she who ratted Mr. Schue out to Figgins in the first place, because while Mr. Schue might be an excellent Glee Club director, he pretty much sucks at just about everything else, including life. As a result of this little confrontation, Mr. Schue admits both to himself and to the children that he became a Spanish teacher because it was the only opening at the school when he originally applied, and he decides to transfer to McKinley's History department, thereby freeing up his old position for Ricky Martin. Though, you know, given the fact that Ricky Martin's scheduled to open on Broadway soon as Che in a much-anticipated revival of Evita, I'm not sure how much we'll be seeing of him. And his fine, fine ass.

In other news, Sue Sylvester's decided to get herself knocked up, Mercedes and Lady Lips Von Bieberhausen keep making cow eyes at each other, Rachel and Frankenteen exchange heated words with St. Gay Of Lima regarding their absolutely asinine engagement, and Emma's pamphlets have become quite popular amongst the athletically inclined at various Big Ten universities. Yeah, it all felt pretty pointless.

Featuring "La Cucaracha," as performed by Mr. Schue, Puck, Frankenteen, and Artie; LMFAO's "Sexy And I Know It," as performed by Ricky Martin's Hair; "Dang Diggy Dang" by The Beatards, heard during an especially aerobic Cheerios routine; "Don't Want To Lose You," by Gloria Estefan, as performed by Mercedes; a medley of "Bamboleo" by the Gipsy Kings and Enrique Iglesias's "Hero," as performed by Lady Lips Von Bieberhausen and his fellow Glee Guys; Madonna's "La Isla Bonita," as performed by Santana Lopez and Ricky Martin's Hips; and finally, a Spanish-language version of Elvis Presley's "A Little Less Conversation," as performed by Mr. Schue with a bullish dancing assist from Brit-Brit and Gaylord Weiner.

Want more? The full recap starts right below!

With absolutely no warning at all, Mr. Schue spins around to howl, "¡La cucaracha!" directly into the camera, and with that, we're off. As we learn from his subsequent voiceover, it would seem that Mr. Schue makes a habit of treating his Spanish students to a feisty rendition of "La Cucaracha" once a year on "Taco Tuesday," and this time around, he's enlisted the aid of Puck, Frankenteen, Artie and the ever-mute members of The McKinley Jazz Ensemble to the great and evident horror of every child in the classroom. Foremost amongst those horrified children is, of course, Santana Lopez -- who, I'm guessing, is here simply because Mr. Schue's class is an incredibly easy way to take care of her foreign language requirement -- and as she scowls at them with her barely concealed contempt, Mr. Schue and the boys give it their collective all, but really: Judy did it better. So did Louis Armstrong for that matter, but I'm starting to fall into a YouTube hole with all of these "Cucaracha" links, so I'll knock that crap off to let you know that, to add insult to injury, Mr. Schue and his merry band of makeshift mariachis are all clad in garish sombreros and serapes before giving you Mr. Schue's thoughts on his performance. "I should have known from the looks on my students' faces that I'd really stepped in it," Mr. Schue's voiceover sighs. "I'm ashamed," Mr. Schue's voiceover admits before adding, "To be a teacher is to offer students a gateway to the future, and I blew it. How could I have become so out of touch?" Okay, for one thing, you were always out of touch, you dipwad, and for another, stop being such a goddamn drama queen. That's Kurt's job, for Christ's sake.

In any event, once this opening nonsense is over and done with, the camera leaps over to The Lair Of The Maharishi for some nonsense of the expository sort, and we find Will -- still in his ludicrous Mexican costume, by the by -- already in mid-conference with Principal Figgins himself. Seems an anonymous complaint has been received regarding Will's teaching skills and, as The Maharishi patiently explains, this is an issue because the school's history teacher "has been forced into retirement due to some memory problems." Cue the sideways smear to...

...Mrs. Hagberg's History class, where the addled teacher in question taps her pointer against a Nazified map of the globe as Wagner's "Ride Of The Valkyries" kicks in on the soundtrack. "And that's how Germany won The Second World War!" the eminent Mrs. Hagberg exults. Remember when these cutaways used to be hysterically funny? Yeah, good times.

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