Glee: Swan Song(S4E9)

So, we open to a chaotic choir room: Marley merely passed out last episode, and the rest of the club brought her back to regain consciousness and whatnot.  Santana calls out Kitty(and yeah, I’ve decided to go with their actual names now, cause it was getting confusing), who adamantly denies attempting to give Marley bulimia.

Shue rushes into the room next, and lets the club know they’ve been disqualified.  The Warblers win.  New Directions is done for the year.

Sue then comes in, and commandeers everything in the choir room, since they don’t have need of it anymore.  Finn calls a powwow in Figgins’ office, where he learns a bit of bummer news: Every single practice space they normally use, including the auditorium and Spanish room have been taken over by various groups, since space is at a premium in this cash-strapped district.

OH! Then, we get completely random throwaway scene:  Sue is feeling slightly bad about taking all the glee club things, but then the floppy haired piano player comes in and bitches about the kids and their annoying spontaneous song-singing ways, and Sue feels much better.

In the choir room, all the kids want to bail on the Christmas program, and point out that Sugar already has.  Sam and Blaine additionally bum about their senior year being ruined since they can’t perform at regionals or nationals, and everyone kind of agrees to be done for now, except Marley who is attempting to stop the hate-train from crashing into her station.

Next, Brit is walking down the hall, and spots a loooong row of cheerios on the floor, and begins following the trail, eating as she goes.  And at the end of the trail is…Sam!  Who declares his crush on her.  Brit shuts him down almost immediately, though, due to the whole crazy lesbian bloggers(?!?) issue that was some sort of meta joke, maybe?  I didn’t really get it, but whatever.

The next day, we see everyone in their new clubs, because apparently If you don’t have a club, you fail at high school or something.  I dunno, I prescribed to the whole ‘screw this mess’ philosophy of not giving a damn in high school, so I couldn’t tell if this was a normal thing or not.  Anyway, Artie joined the marching band, Tina and Blaine joined the Cheerios, Jake and Ryder joined the basketball team, Unique joined floor hockey, and Dreads joined the interfaith paintball league.  And now, thinking about all these clubs they joined, I am even more confused as to why glee CLUB had to disband.  None of the other clubs disband when their ‘season’ is over, much less even have a season.  Stupid plot is stupid, almost as dumb as stupid new Rachel.

The next we see of the group, Finn is yelling at them on stage that they have for six minutes.  Most of the club declines to be yelled at by a 19 year old, and leave, save Marley, who still is trying to get everyone to like her again. 

Sam and Brit are walking down the hall, and suddenly, Brit has a change of heart, and she asks Sam on a date and they kiss, aww. /sarc

Finally, at the Christmas pageant six minute practice, only Marley shows up, but she has a new place for them to practice: the outdoor caf that totally makes sense for a school in Ohio.  At first, it’s just Finn and Marley singing, but then the rest of the group shows up, and it’s very ‘let’s move on to the next chapter’ story telling, and they didn’t do a good job of singing the song, either.

Oh, and there was a dumb subplot featuring special snowflake Rachel getting an invite to perform at the Christmas gala contest, and she wins, blah blah blah, and Kurt for some reason sings too, and manages to get into NYADA for spring semester, and it is super boring and predictable, and very lame.

This episode was very irritating.  I feel like it could have been a lot better, with the chapter closing arcs and whatnot, but that mostly failed miserably, beyond a couple of actually pretty funny meta jokes(brit one excluded).  I think the whole Cheerios taking over the space was overkill, and the story of everyone splitting apart without the shared goal could have actually been milked for a couple of episodes to great effect, but no, we got a split and reform all in the space of about twenty minutes, and neither felt earned. 

Everything in this episode, and, for that matter, this series, feels rushed.  We go from not hearing about a topic to that topic being over and done in the span of a half an hour every third episode or so.  For example, sectionals, from picking songs, to rehearsing, to performing those songs happen in one episode, which doesn’t even make sense at all.

I enjoy the singing in this show, but the story arcs are terrible.  I really wish I could slap some sense into the writers, and by extension, their stupid stupid character, but I am a lowly blogger, what do I know?

Featuring:

Somethin’ Stupid, as sung by Sam and Brit

All that jazz, as sung by Cassandra and Rachel

Being Good Isn’t Good Enough, as sung by Rachel

O Holy Night, as sung by Rachel

Being Alive, as sung by Kurt

Don’t Dream it’s Over, as sung by Finn, Marley, and rest of the club