This episode was especially stupid and boring, so we had a difficult time writing this review. It took several attempts.
Draft 1: Oh, God. Gross. Just gross. Weird and awkward. Ugh.
Draft 2:
Glee wrote an episode about sex
that assaulted our cerebral cortex
They came up with the plot
right on the spot.
There was no thought
There was some awkward shit with Bieste
that didn’t make sense in the least
Rachel fucked Finn with a strap on
and we decided to get our rap on.
Draft 3:
The episode begins with Artie detailing how he has found his “true passion”: being a dick to everyone as director of the musical. We get a montage of him being an asshole about everything. Later, he will say that due to his handicap, this was the first time he has ever felt like a man. It is a very troubling and dangerous way to psychologically handle his situation. Throughout the episode, the power goes to his head and he teeters on the edge of completely going off the rails. In a shocking twist, no on slaps the shit out of this bastard. Instead people are quite grateful and call him a genius. That’s where it always starts. At first, everything’s great, the trains are running on time, and before you know it—BAM, eugenics.
One of Artie’s first acts is to tell Rachel and Blaine that they need to lose their virginity in order to be able to portray their characters in West Side Story. When he does this, Coach Bieste, who is co-directing the musical, becomes uncomfortable because she is also a virgin. Later, Artie confronts her about it. She confides in him about how she has feelings for an Ohio State football recruiter, who will conveniently be at their school this week [1]. Artie also talks to this recruiter about his personal life and romantic feelings for Bieste. Again, it is fine for him to talk to an unrelated adult about things of this nature. The recruiter is happy to confide in Artie that he does, in fact, love coach Bieste. It is clear that Glee wants to do something important with Bieste, portraying a woman who isn’t “girly”. However, their attempt is so ill-conceived and misguided that throughout this episode she is depicted not as someone who lacks traditional or stereotypical beauty, but as someone who is gross, stupid, clueless, and unhygienic.
Blaine takes a two hour drive during a weekday in order visit to his old school. Finding an impromptu Glee Club performance happening, he joins in. During the performance, a hot lady librarian type comes by. Initially, she is annoyed and shushes them, but then she sort of gets into it and starts dancing. To be honest, this really appeared to be a prelude to some type of gang bang porno. Needless to say, we were quite relieved when this turned out to be correct.
When all the cleanup was finished, Blaine was approached by a new guy. He introduces himself as Sebastian saying, “Hello. My name is Sebastian. I’m attractive, highly sexual, and vaguely European. I have come to drive a wedge between you and Kurt to provide drama and tension for an otherwise perfect and inhuman relationship.”
Sebastian does just as he promised, offering sex to Blaine at every turn. Blaine insists that he has a boyfriend and doesn’t want to spoil that. After Sebastian procures some fake IDs for Blaine and Kurt, the three of them go to a gay bar. As Sebastian dances with Blaine, Kurt runs into his old bully, Karofsky, who has transferred to a new high school. Karofsky is a frequent patron of the gay bar and calls himself a “bear cub”. It is interesting that after devoting so much time to Karofsky and having an opportunity to do a real storyline with him coming out of the closet, Glee just decided to dismiss him and only revisit him here in this seedy gay bar for a few fleeting moments. While in the gay bar, he is no longer hiding the fact that he is gay. However, he is wearing a hat to conceal the fact that he is a balding 30 year old. It is a difficult and complex role: a 30 year old pretending to be a 17 year old pretending to be a 21 year old.
Blaine knocks back a single beer over the course of the entire night, which is apparently enough to put him on the verge of alcohol poisoning. He stumbles out of the bar shouting nonsensically, and Kurt, the DD, tells him to lay down in the back of the car for when he throws up. It is here that Blaine attempts to have sex with Kurt. With righteous indignation, Kurt screams how he doesn’t want the first time to be like this because Blaine is so drunk he won’t remember a thing. How do you portray your character as a high school student drinking responsibly, but still making the poor choices that come with extreme inebriation? This is how.
Meanwhile, Rachel has also taken to heart Artie’s creepy acting notes. She agrees to come over to Finn’s place, which is conveniently all to himself for the week. He cooks her dinner and offers to get her dessert, but she refuses. Instead, she lays down on the floor in a position known in the animal kingdom as “presenting”. Finn goes in for the kill, but he stops and wants to know why Rachel wants to have sex now. She wisely tells him that it is to make her a better actress for the musical. Despite being a horny teenage boy on the cusp of the promised land, he somehow gives a shit as to why he is on the cusp of the promised land. Crushed, he storms out like a little bitch.
Blaine and Rachel are now in crisis because they will have to perform the first show without having had sex. We have to say that we think that Artie really missed an opportunity here to move in on Rachel to, eh hem, help her prepare for this role. That may sound callous, but if you are going to coerce a girl into having sex, why not have it be with you?
The show receives an immediate standing ovation from a sold out crowd. The musical has sold out all three of their shows. This town may actively protest the school having any arts, and support a candidate whose only platform is anti-arts, but goddammit, who doesn’t love West Side Story?[2]
After the show, Blaine and Kurt decide to declare their love for one another and have sex in a very non-specific montage of cuddling. Rachel visits Finn, who is downtrodden. The scout did not want to recruit him to be a quarterback one of the elite college football programs in the country. The realization that he is not one of the very best of the best in the country, is too much for his emotions[3]. And while Finn’s principles could not allow him to have sex to improve Rachel’s acting, he is not above accepting sexual favors in order to cheer him up after this devastating news. This is when Rachel got out the strap-on. If anything else happened after this, we were too drunk to watch it.