The Men of McKinley Calendar seems to be a time of celebration, but not all is well in the land of Lima. Rachel is considering going topless, Artie is feeling celebration, Sue is retreading on the same stand-by's she did three seasons ago, and Ryan Murphy is ignoring the single best part of last week's episode. And that's what you missed on...Glee!
I'm going to go with the NYC story to begin. First off, we had Rachel, once the most prudish of the prude, taking yet another step in her Slutty Sandy direction by agreeing to go topless in a student film. In one of the few inspired moments in an episode that was largely filled with disappointment, we saw Rachel sing a duet with herself, which is the sort of perfect egoism that you expect from Rachel and imagine she has done more than once in the past (this is a compliment to the writers, so take it as such). The exchange was fun, and one of the many times throughout the series that Ryan Murphy and his writing team have given several winks to the critics of the show and the actors, so bravo on having a sense of humor about yourself.
Of course, while completely naked Brody was down with Rachel doing the topless scene, Kurt, Santana, and Quinn (the latter of two made a trek to NYC, and you just know they're setting this up for Santana to make the move out there) were not. And now, one of several diatribes in this article. I get that no one wants someone to be naked in their dining room, sitting on what is apparently a fancy chair, and that it might be awkward...except that everyone wants Dean Geyer and his ridiculously sculpted body naked in their dining room, and I'm so sick of the writers making Blaine and Kurt the hormone-less eunuchs of the harem. Every other Glee member is constantly talking about sex, love, and random crushes, but heaven forbid the two gay men ever discuss it or be attracted to another guy in anything other than a meet-cute way.
All right, off the soap box and back to Rachel's dilemma, which of course we knew she wouldn't do (strong message about values from...Glee!), but we at least got treated to a Santana intervention, which is always hilarious. "We're also here to shop,"-excellent. All-in-all, an enjoyable ride in New York.
The Lima stories, on the other hand, were somewhat dull and uneventful. We had Artie, proving once again that yes, men have body issues too, which you would think Finn would have remembered, since he's done this story before, as has Sam. This is a song and dance that every person on this show seems to be going through, and it smacks of trying to find filler between songs for characters that the writers don't seem to want to develop. Artie is kind of an aspiring womanizer, and wants to become a director-isn't there potential there for some new material? I feel bad for Kevin McHale, always getting stuck in this rut with his character, and what could be a three-dimensional story about what it's like for a high school student in a wheelchair (which would only be three-dimensional by including stories about him not being in a wheelchair occasionally) turns into a repetitive mess.
I also feel for Jenna Ushkowitz. I know you aren't one of the show's headliners, darling, but I really hope you put up a fight when they recommended this ridiculous Blaine crush plot, especially since you had shown zilch signs of it outside of last week's episode. The "pert buns" comment, or whatever it was, may be apt (no comment), but come on-go after Ryder. He's super cute, insightful, and while his character is probably gay (the whole Ryder/Jake "bromance" this week included them talking about saying "I love you" and comparing their naked shoulders to each other), he's at least not out of the closet yet.
And because of Tina's crush on Blaine getting center stage, as I was worried last week it would, we apparently have forgotten about Blaine's crush on Sam, which wasn't even acknowledged this week (even Blaine's proclamation about Sam walking into the school like a Baywatch extra was more out of "put your clothes back on" rather than "hot damn"). Listen, I get that Glee has done a lot of great gay stories and stories for the GLBT community over the past four years (the Kurt coming out, the Blaine-Kurt courtship, the virginity story, Wade's transgender story, Brittany/Santana/Landslide), but that doesn't give you an excuse to completely short shift these two characters. All of the "destined to be together" couples on the show: Finn/Rachel, Will/Emma, Brittany/Lord Tubbington, have cheated and explored dating other people. It's kind of a crime that Blaine's Sam crush is going to be completely tossed under the rug, especially since making that video to cheer Sam up, sending him to the career counselor to get excited for college, and that body image pep talk in the locker room all lend themselves well to the story, but some editor forgot to include a conflicted shot of Blaine or Emma holding Blaine back to ask if everything is okay, and how it was "really nice of Blaine to help out a...friend." The best stories in this series were the ones that they built to something, and if this is all going to be a "don't forget about this" blurt session from Tina in a few weeks when she confesses her love to Blaine and then tells Sam about Blaine's feelings to spite him, I will be disappointed, as again, this is one of the few stories that has a chance to develop characters and stories on Glee.
The one thing we do have to acknowledge Tina for was the spectacular "Men of McKinley" calendar (first off-no way in hell that only made $350). Which brings me to, in closing: when is FOX going to start selling this thing?!?
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