Glee 4.20 – "Lights Out"

Last night’s Glee was the usual mash-up of confusion, laughs, and oddly serious moments. Ryder’s catfish is back, Santana is lost, and Sue is a fitness instructor.

In New York: Kurt and Rachel confront Santana, and ask her what is she doing in New York, and she gives them the truest answer possible. She doesn’t know. Which, as a high school student who will be graduating in a year, I can totally relate. Not everyone in life has a clear path they want to go on (cough Rachel cough), and Santana conveys that well.

Kurt is (suddenly) back at Vouge.com, and Isabelle  needs “celebrity wranglers” for The New York Ballet so she tells Kurt to invite his friends. Rachel agrees because  it’s the ballet, and she and Kurt reminisce about their first ballet lessons (Baby ballerinas Kurt and Rachel? Too adorable). Santana does not have the same nostalgia and makes a quip about learning “the timeless crump” instead, but agrees to go as well because who can turn down a free dress.

At the event, Isabelle talks about how every little girl wants to be a ballerina, and we learn Santana too took ballet. They sing “At the Ballet” from Chorus Line. It was beautiful (though, I’m partial because CHORUS LINE!), though the song seemed a little long for Glee.

Santana’s story line ends with her taking a NYADA Extension class (a class anyone can attend if they pay for it), and talks about reintroducing herself to something she once loved. We see baby ballerina Santana (who did appear in “At the Ballet”) and Santana promises BB!Santana she won’t forget her again.

Back at McKinley: The lights are out for some inexplicable reason at McKinley and the Glee club is forced to have an “Unplugged” week. (Yay acoustics yay!)

Ryder is once again talking to his mystery friend. (I feel wrong calling her/him Katie). I was personally hoping this story line was over, because it’s just been kind of weak, and not very interesting, but it’s back.  I feel like RIB (the writers of Glee) is desperately trying to make us like the new kids on Glee, and I don’t know about you, but for me, it isn’t working.

Jacob asks Ryder why he cares so much about this mysterious person, and Ryder says it’s because he was able to tell this person something about himself he can’t tell anyone. Another secret. Ryder, the man full of mystery.

Sam sings a song, and is super good at it because he was poor for a year. He get’s angry with Artie for texting during his solo (is HE the mystery friend?!?) and that inspires Artie to get the Glee Club to perform “We Will Rock You”. (But it’s really just an excuse to use some cool percussion stuff.) Kinda fluffy, but as a Sam fangirl, I enjoyed it.

Ryder then sings his Unplugged song….with a complete orchestra set-up, but it’s okay because he’s going to share his big secret.

And then things get really serious. Ryder talks about how he was molested as a child, and the guys in the Glee Club (okay, Artie and Sam) completely disregard it because it was done by a teenage girl. The scene was very uncomfortable and made me want to slap the boys. Also the fact that they were completely insensitive was not addressed, which made me MORE uncomfortable!

Kitty admits to Ryder that she too was molested, and then was bullied for it. She even switched schools. They bond, and Kitty makes another friend. (That’s two Kitty. Two friends!!).

I feel like this is another attempt to make me like the new kids, but it’s okay. Glee isn’t insensitive and gave a hotline number after the show, but it wasn’t preachy. (Thank God, preachy Glee is the worst)

The Glee club kids finish it out by singing a song completely a capella. It’s not anywhere as good as the Warbler’s, but oh well.

Elsewhere in Lima: Sue is working as a fitness coach and Blaine attends her class, trying to figure out what’s going on and why she left. In the promos, we saw Blaine interrogating Becky, but that was nowhere in this episode. And dang it, that disappoints me. Don’t take away my Blaine. But none the less, it inspires her to haunt the halls of McKinley. She sees Becky (who is dressed in the same sweat suit as Sue) and has a small talk where Becky tries to convince her to come back. Sue sings “Little Girls” from Annie (which Jane will be singing on Broadway!) in her head. Sue then comes back to the real world, and tells Becky she doesn’t miss it. She put up with ungrateful teenage girls and she doesn’t want to go back. She lists all the different problem children she had, and Becky then says “and me” (which if that doesn’t warm your heart, you must not have one). You can tell Sue wants to come back, but she loves Becky too much.

Becky then goes and confesses to Figgins, or at least that’s what we’re suppose to assume. What really happened? We’ll have to see what comes from this next week.

Overall I think it was a relatively strong episode.  The theme was kinda vague so they could mash all the story lines together,and we never dealt with the molestation issude, but we saw Sue’s soft side, lots of our New York kiddos, and there were lots of quality songs. This STILL wasn’t the Regional’s episode, and with just a few episodes left, I think there is little hope of New Directions making it to Nationals. No sign of Finn and Puck in this episode (0r Brittney as my dad pointed out multiple times). Next week Mercedes, Mike, and Kurt are back in Lima!!

Odds and Ends: 

• Sue-“95 years I gave those girls”
• Kitty talking about how Puck looks “puffy” up close
• During the black out, candles and flashlights were handed out according to order of GPA
• Kitty called Ryder “Son of Frankenteen” (Finn’s nickname since season 1)
• Becky forgot she could just walk into the principals office, and instead acted up so she would be sent there – “I didn’t think of that”
• “You’re the most talented person I know….after myself and Kurt of course” and Kurt’s little “of course” hand motion
• Also there’s this weird thing where Isabelle talks about Darren and Christopher, the first names of the actors who play Blaine and Kurt, and it was so awkward. Did anyone else catch that?

Thanks for reading my first Glee review! Let me know what you thought in the comments below!