Glee, 1x20, “Funk”

Episode Title: Funk
Writer: Ian Brennan
Director: Elodie Keene
Originally Aired: 06/01/2010
Grade: D

The previous, out-of-order episode had me feeling pretty frustrated with Glee, and this episode did nothing to change that feeling. Aside from Vocal Adrenaline’s “Another One Bites the Dust,” I couldn’t even find anything to like.

Jesse’s defection back to Vocal Adrenaline came out of nowhere, and that can’t really be blamed on the episode switcheroo. In fact, airing in the correct order might have made his about-face feel even more abrupt. This episode was supposed to come right on the heels of “Dream On,” in which Jesse and Rachel reunited after her music video debacle. Jesse spent most of that episode being a supportive boyfriend and even told Shelby that he liked Rachel and didn’t want her to get hurt. I saw absolutely no signs in “Dream On” that he was completely full of shit and on the verge of going back to his old team. Even the plot structure indicates that Jesse would have to stick around, since Shelby said that Rachel had to come to her, and he might need to lean on Rachel some more to make that happen. It’s no wonder so many viewers were completely baffled by Jesse not only going back to Vocal Adrenaline, but also going along with bullying Rachel.

Even his “I loved you” before cracking an egg on her head made little sense because Groff’s delivery was accusatory, as if Rachel had done something to deserve his betrayal, except that she hadn’t (maybe just a rare bad acting choice from Groff, but the director should have caught it). If this had come immediately after the music video incident, it might have made more sense. It’s like the writers had their plot points written down on Post-Its stuck to the wall, and some of them fell off and were stuck back on in the wrong order.

There’s also the fact that switching the episodes means that chronologically-speaking, the Vocal Adrenaline kids knew Rachel was their coach’s daughter when they harassed New Directions and pelted Rachel with eggs. She seemed like a pretty intimidating coach from what we saw, so I can’t imagine that her students would risk crossing her like that. And of course, anything in “Theatricality” that involved Jesse had to be cut for continuity, which might have cost us a few lines, or even a scene, that would retroactively shed some light on Jesse’s sudden about-face. I can only hope that the DVDs have both episodes intact and in the correct order. I probably won’t buy them myself, but I’m sure anyone who’s still a fan of the show would appreciate it.

Aside from the afore-mentioned “Another One Bites the Dust,” even the music was pretty unimpressive. New Directions best number was “Good Vibrations,” which is just sad. The Beck song was okay for sentimental reasons, but it sounded just like the original. And Quinn’s performance, like most of this episode, didn’t even make sense. What was the point of the pregnant girls? First of all, Quinn could have carried the “anger” in that song perfectly well without trying to make some bizarre statement about unfairly ostracized and angry pregnant teenagers, and second of all, the direction made it seem like they were trying to sensualize the pregnant female body using fake baby bumps. Maybe it was supposed to be absurdly, ironically funny, but I was rolling my eyes through the whole thing.