Enter, Karofksy.
Or at least the back of his head.
The first appearance of Dave Karofsky. Karofsky tells Finn and Quinn they’re losers, even worse losers than the hockey team. Karofsky also says HE’S on the hockey team, even though later on he’s on the football team.
Also the Cheerios have on long-sleeved uniforms in this episode, and there’s a lot of sweaters. I assume it gets cold in Ohio in October, so good for the costuming team.
Emma and Ken Tanaka want Schuester to come up with a mash-up of the Thong Song and “I Could’ve Danced All Night” from My Fair Lady, because Tanaka wants something he can dance to and Emma finds the latter song romantic or something.
So Will decides to give the glee clubs a mash-up assignment as well – come up with something unexpected to put together with “Bust A Move”. Finn won’t sing since he has corn syrup in his eyes, and Puck doesn’t want to sing since he doesn’t really feel like grooving to a song like Bust A Move. Rachel is appalled at the lack of leading mana mbition in the room so Schue decides to take the lead without giving Artie, Kurt, Mike, or Matt a chance to take the lead.
Also Finn still played the drums even though he had corn syrup in his eyes.
Finn and Quinn ask Emma for guidance on how to be cooler. I think Sue would be the best teacher to ask about being cool, at least she seems to have more experience than Emma, Will, Figgins, or Tanaka.
Emma asks them to think about why they want to be popular,a nd recommends they just be themselves, because you don’t need to hang around with people who don’t like you for yourself. Finn and Quinn mostly take away that wearing sunglasses will make them cooler.
Schue sets up the Spanish classroom for his dance rehearsal with Emma. They could’ve just done this in the choir room which already had floor space available, but we all know Glee and Logic have never been compadres.
Emma’s wearing her cousin Betty’s wedding dress so she can get used to dancing in it. Schue sings and dances to the Thong Song, and then knocks Emma over. Tanaka sees this, and is dispelased.
At football practice, some of the players refused to listen to Finn even though he’s the quarterback, because Finn’s gay and in Homo Explosion and kisses dudes and whatever [no seriously, they really said all that]. One guy, Azimio Adams, is shocked that Finn was even man enough to knock Quinn Fabray up, and wonders if maybe a real man snuck in and did it when Finn wasn’t looking. And technically, Azimio’s right, since Puck is the father of Quinn’s baby, but Finn doesn’t know that. Finn tackles Azimio in a rage.
Tanaka breaks up the fight, angry that Azimio might’ve broken Finn’s arm or something. He then gets really angry when he realizes Puck isn’t at practice, and it turns out he’s missing because he’s working osmething for glee club. So Tanaka is adding an additional, mandatory day of practice to the football schedule, and this practice is on Thursdays. Finn is upset, since Thursday is when glee club meets. Tanaka tells him he’ll just have to choose which is more important.
So, a couple things: Glee club clearly meets several times a week, not just on Thursdays. I mean they’ve already met once this week and will meet several more times before Thursday. I’m sure the guys could just explain the situation to Schue and he’d let them off for that day’s rehearsal as long as they promise to work extra hard at the other rehearsals. Or maybe Schue could work out that Glee’s Thursday rehearsals take place after football practice. And, is it odd that the football team didn’t already have practice on Thursdays? I’m pretty sure my high school football team did. I think that’s why the marching band had to wait like three hours after school ended to practice on Thursdays, because the football team had the field. [I always hated those days. Since I didn't have a car and my mom worked, I couldn't leave school because there'd be no way for me to get back in time for practice, so I'd just have to sit outside the bandroom for hours. Plus, Thursday practices were two hours long. The only really good thing about marching band was that I lost weight while I was participating in it.]
Well anyway.
Rachel sings “What’s a Girl Wants” into her hairbrush as Puck strums the guitar. He cuts her off and asks if she wants to take a makeout break. She agrees.
What a shocking new development!
Puck reveals through flashback that during his family’s annual Simchat Torah screening of “Schindler’s List,” his mom told him he’s no better than Nazis because he’s not dating a Jewish girl. Technically he’s not even dating anyone right then. Also, some fun facts: Simchat Torah was celebrated on October 11 in 2009, so that actually meshes with the show’s timeline quite well. Also, Puck has a younger sister who runs screaming from the room due to the violence of Schindler’s List. This is the only time she’s seen. They don’t even mention her in later episodes that deal with Puck’s family. Like you think they’d include her in the little family reunion they do in season 4 or whatever, but nope. And finally, Puck was eating sweet-and-sour pork over dinner, despite pork not being kosher.
Puck says he had a dream that night where Rachel climbed into his bedroom window, so he decided to go after her.
In present time, we see from Rachel’s perspective that she’s imagining making out with Finn. She stops herself, claiming it’s because she can’t be in a relationship with a guy who’s not brave enough to take a solo.
So the next day at Glee, Puck has a solo prepared! He sings “Sweet Caroline”. Everyone enjoys it except Santana, who looks annoyed and disgusted throughout the song. Santana previously broke up with Puck because he had a terrible credit score.
Things seem to be going better for QuiFinn, until a bunch of the football players slushie them at once.
Finn is understandably upset. Azimio tells him it’ll be even worse if he doesn’t show up to practice on Thursday and quit that glee club. Again I point out that the glee club clearly meets more often than just the one day every week so I don’t see what the big issue is. Or why no one is reporting the slushieing to a teacher or the principal. They do explain this in a later episode, that slushies aren’t included in the list of assault weapons not allowed at school, but there’s no explanation for why no one’s complaining about it now.
Also as all the football players walk away, one of them slips and falls in the slushie mess on the floor. Quinn looks at the camera briefly and smiles really subtly before going back to looking sad.
For a complete change of pace, we see Sue at her tv gig. She’s talking about marriage, and something about equality and marrying your dog or whatever. She says she’s certainly not suggesting you be intimate with your pet, but she feels intimacy has no place in a marriage. Here’s a real-world related rantlet: People often use the “What’s next? Letting people marry dogs?!” argument against gay marriage. You see, though, the key difference between letting two men be wed in matrimony and letting someone marry an animal or a fire hydrant or whatever is that animals cannot legally consent to a marriage. An adult man can. I mean when was the last time you saw a goldfish sign a legal document? Never, because animals cannot legally consent to anything and therefore a marriage to them is not legal, while two men can legally consent to signing a marriage document. That’s it. That’s the thing.
Smarmy news anchor Rod Remington asks Sue out on a date, because his wife drowned so now he’s single.
So Schue teaches her how to dance to the instrumental of Big Band classic “Sing, Sing, Sing”. For once, Sue is nice to Schue. We see a flashback to their first date, when they played Battleship. You know, you don’t really see how absurd some of this stuff is until you type it out in words and realize it sounds like you’re making things up.
Rod Remington mentions that he likes to swing. In present time, Sue says he invited her to some fundraiser for Sickle Cell Anemia. A swing-dancing fundraiser, I guess.
Schue says he’s surprised Sue is being so nice, especially about Quinn’s pregnancy. Sue understands that Quinn’s just a crazy, mixed-up kid. She also mentions Tanaka’s mandatory Thursday practices. So Schue confronts Tanaka about this. Schue claims Tanaka’s just doing this because Schue doesn’t like the Thong Song. Tanaka tells him to stop pretending he’s so naive, since they both know it’s about Emma. Tanaka is unswayed and will keep his practice on Thursdays. For the third time I must bring up that glee has multiple rehearsals in one week, and on top of that IT’S A CLUB and not even an organized sport, so Schue could easily just let four guys out of rehearsal once a week – especially since two of them never sing anyway – or cancel practice on Thursdays and have them do rehearsal on another day. They could probably do one on Saturday, that way they’d have the whole school to themselves.
Karofsky slushies Puck. Rachel helps wash Puck’s hair in the boy’s bathroom. She says he’s lucky since most of his head is shaved, it’s easier to wash it out. Puck says he likes hanging out with Rachel, but he likes not getting slushied more, so he’s going to football practice. Rachel understands, but is sad.
Emma has a new dress that’s easier to dance in. Schue dances with her in the dress shop. It seems like the dress shop owners wouldn’t like that since she presumably hasn’t paid for the dress yet. Also, why did Emma agree to having a real wedding? She’s insisting on keeping her name, doesn’t want to live with Tanaka even after they’re married, and won’t even tell her mom she’s engaged, but she’s cool with having a wedding dress and a ceremony and a reception.
Schue leaves so he can prepare for the Big Confrontation with Tanaka. He basically says if the guys decide to go to football practice they won’t have enough members for Sectionals. It is ONE PRACTICE A WEEK OH MY GOD THE GLEE CLUB ALREADY MEETS LIKE EVERY SINGLE DAY WHO CARES IF THEY MISS ONE PRACTICE. THIS IS SO DUMB WHY ARE YOU ALL SO DUMB I CAN’T HANDLE THIS AARGH.
I got a little steamed up, there. Sorry.
It’s the Big Moment. 3 o’clock. Or 3:30. Whatever. No one shows up.
Until Mike and Matt walk in. Hooray!
Even Puck shows up. But Finn doesn’t. Finn decided that not being bullied and assaulted with frozen beverages every day was much better than being in glee club.
Finn has to slushie Kurt because otherwise the other guys will beat him up. He doesn’t want to, but peer pressure and a lack of proper authority figures in the school has dictated he must.
But Kurt grabs the slushie from him and throws it at himself. Finn is understandably confused. Kurt explains that he’s taking one for the team, because that’s what real friends do. Smart friends look for solutions to problems, like “How about we just have glee rehearsal after football practice ends on Thursdays?” I know that wouldn’t solve the whole “football team thinks you’re gay for singing because it’s not like women will literally throw themselves at singers or anything” problem, but it’s still a solution.
Sue shows up at the news station, to find Rod making out with his co-anchor. Sue is not pleased. She came by to show Ron her zoot suit for the dance competition, and is further embarrassed when Ron points out that only men wear zoot suits. He also asks if Sue thought they were exclusive, because they aren’t. He needs to be free, that’s why he got a tiger tattoo (no really, he has one). He asks if they’re still on for the competition, but Sue says they aren’t.
Puck is sadly watching football practice. Rachel asks if she quit football because of her. He denies it, and asks if she likes Finn. She does, obviously, and asks if he likes Quinn. He denies this as well, but Rachel says she’s seen him staring at her while she (Rachel) was staring at Finn. Puck says it doesn’t matter, since QuiFinn are never going to break up anyway. Puck is sad – why don’t girls like him? Rachel says it’s because he’s kind of a jerk, getting back at him for insulting her a second ago. I think he said she was annoying or something. Rachel hopes she and Puck can still be friends. Puck says they weren’t friends to begin with, and leaves.
Meanwhile, Schue just waltzes onto the football field to play catch with Finn. Is practice over? What’s going on?
Schue tells Finn not to let some people he won’t even remember in three years push him around now, and also that Finn reminds Schue of himself. Ehhhg.
Finn later tells Tanaka that all this mess between glee club and football is hard for him to be a leader like a good quarterback should be. He doesn’t want to have to choose between them anymore. Tanaka tells him Thursday practice is cancelled indefinitely because he has stuff to do, like laundry or whatever.
Sue storms up to Schue and tells him she’ll be needing that setlist for Sectionals after all. I guess the setlist thing came up earlier and I didn’t notice. She says she needs it on her desk by that afternoon, and if it’s not there, well, I present the greatest quote in Glee’s history:
I will go to the animal shelter and get you a kitty cat. I will let you fall in love with that kitty cat; and then on some dark cold night, I will steal away into your home, and punch you in the face.
Sue finds Quinn, who’s been wearing sunglasses all week, and tells her she’s off the Cheerios. Having a pregnant girl on the squad is a disgrace.
Sue tells Emma he’s been working on it all week, but he just can’t get those two songs to mix together. Emma says it’s because they just don’t go together. It’s a metaphor for her relationship with Tanaka, you see.
Finn bought slushies for everyone. Artie says he’s sorry that no one could come up with a groove for Bust A Move. Quinn is sad that she’s a loser now, but Schue says everyone else is losers so they’ll be there to dry her off. Then Schue complains about brain freeze from the slushies. He can’t imagine what it’s like getting hit with one. So all the kids throw their slushies at him. Haha Finn you just wasted like $30.
There weren’t any actual mashups in this episode.
Song count: Song count: 43 total songs / 31 full-length performances
Best/Worst: I don’t even know/care. There wasn’t one I’d say was especially more terrible or better than the others. I guess I’d go with Thong Song for worst if I had to choose or die, though. Mark Salling (Puck)’s performance of Sweet Caroline was great, I just wish it’d been less autotuned.
Bonus: Here’s a mashup of Thong Song/I Could’ve Danced All Night
They’re right, they really don’t go together at all. Eesh.
Here’s a mashup of Bust a Move and Don’t Stop Believin’ that takes about a minute to really get going.
I was about to say thought I thought Ice Ice Baby would make a nice mashup partner to Busta a move, and then…
I think everyone in glee club was just too lazy to bother coming up with a mashup. I mean making real mashups as a regular person is really hard, but they couldn’t have come up with any songs at least that they thought might work? They were probably all like “Well we aren’t in focus in this episode, let’s just slack off, no one will notice or care.”
