Writer: Ryan Murphy
Director: Ryan Murphy
Originally Aired: 05/25/2010
Grade: C+
I have to admit that I find the current frenzy over Lady GaGa baffling, but even if I didn’t, I still think she hasn’t been around long enough to earn the praise showered on her by Ryan Murphy via Kurt. She’s no Madonna. I assumed that Murphy and co. wanted to do a tribute to Madonna, and Madonna obliged by giving them a sweet deal on using so many of her songs, because that episode was essentially free-advertising and full of heaping praise for the Material Girl. This episode, however, felt like product placement cooked up by Lady GaGa’s publicists. Seriously, did her PR people write Kurt's GaGa-praising monologue?
I know this episode and the next one were switched on FOX’s orders, and having seen the “following” episode before writing this, I know that any Jesse-related scenes had to be cut, which subtracts some major points. The episode shuffling also caused some continuity issues, at least for me, because I didn’t believe that Rachel would be brave enough to confront her mother so soon after discovering her identity, especially considering how hard Jesse had to push Rachel into making that discovery.
Kurt’s relationship with his father is one of the few storylines the show has managed to stick with and handle consistently well, but they really dropped the ball here with how they handled Kurt and Finn. I’ve never found Finn to be particularly homophobic, and he’s always been pretty patient when it came to Kurt’s obvious crush on him, but I could understand how being forced to move in and share a bedroom with a male who is attracted to him, combined with the bullying at school, could send Finn over the edge.
Yes, using the other f-word was going too far, but everything that Finn said about Kurt up until that point was true. Kurt does stare, and he does flirt. He engineered their parents’ relationship because he thought it would mean spending more time with Finn (and he changed his mind about it because he felt threatened by the way his father related to Finn, rather than because the two of them weren’t a good match). It was also pretty heavily implied that Kurt engineered Finn and his mom moving in.
Kurt coyly pursued and manipulated someone that he knew wasn’t interested, and Kurt was subtle enough about it to be able to play innocent if he was called on it. It sucks. Yes, it’s hard for Kurt to make love connections at his Midwestern high school, but that doesn’t excuse his behavior. And obviously Burt is protective of his son, and he may not have heard the entire conversation, but it’s completely unfair that Finn was berated and kicked out of the house and learned A Very Important Lesson About Tolerance, while Kurt didn’t have to face any consequences for his inappropriate actions.
The whole thing left me incredibly confused as to what Murphy was ultimately trying to say, because he allowed Finn to make valid points and then completely threw those points out the window in favor of taking a stand on hate speech. Which is important—I’m not denying that—but Finn losing his temper and saying some nasty things doesn’t cancel out Kurt’s stalker-lite behavior. Kurt being a complete snot to Finn, who obviously felt bad and wanted to talk about it, didn’t help in the least.
Other Stuff
-As if the things I listed above weren’t bad enough, I also thought Kurt was smarter than to take a perfectly acceptable gray, modern, relatively androgynous interior design scheme and turn it into colorful, fruity nonsense with the aim of pleasing a straight guy. Kurt is nowhere near that clueless. It was an obvious example of the character serving the plot rather than the other way around.
-The plot involving Figgins thinking that vampires are real and Tina might turn into one was ridiculous, but also cute and funny and a highlight of an otherwise sketchy episode.
-Casting Idina Menzel as Rachel’s mom may have been fan service, but the fans were right on this one. Not only is she a wonderful physical match for Lea, but she’s also done very well with the role. (I also had no idea she was married to Taye Diggs until I poked around on her IMDb page—neat!)
-Was Puck changing the baby’s name from “Jack Daniels” to “Jackie Daniels” a Whip It reference, or just a coincidence?
-Not only did the KISS number trump “Bad Romance,” but Puck also totally went for it and completely nailed the KISS aesthetic—theatrical and sexual without being fruity. I never thought I’d see Mark Salling stomp around in red lipstick and platform boots…
-That “Poker Face” duet is probably a love it or hate, and I’m definitely in the hate it camp. It made absolutely no contextual sense.
Quotes
No comments:
Post a Comment