Though didn't this feel a little bit ancillary to the overall plot? I was far more concerned about Rachel's audition, Blaine's potentially misguided engagement, and Ryder's catfish, which again, makes me think that leaving McKinley behind and focusing on the East Coast crew wouldn't be the worst idea in the world. After all, you'll now have at least seven of the main characters on the East Coast (Quinn, Blaine, Kurt, Brittany, Santana, Rachel, and Artie). You could easily make the case for Mercedes, Sam, Finn, and Tina moving out to New York to join them, and then you'd be set. All your favorite characters in one manageable show.
Anyway, that's really my thought going forward, as all of the other stories seemed to be resolved after just one season, and I don't see them going anywhere interesting for a while. Marley and Jake seem to be fairly happy (the guy has dance moves that make me think that this was never really a competition), Kitty is now prickly but with a heart of gold, and then, of course, there's Ryder. Ryder finally learned the identity of his catfish-first thinking it was Marley (because she, you know, said it was), and then finally learning it was Unique, which made a lot more sense than Marley. From the looks of things, both Marley and Jake (at the very least) knew that it was Unique who had been doing it, so at least three people were in on this cover-up, so I kind of feel for Ryder when he said he would quit the glee club, and while I'm guessing this was a contract negotiation ploy for Ryan Murphy and his crew for next season, if they did my Glee: East Coast idea, this would be a perfect way to release Blake Jenner from his contract. I mean, the guy is cute (though he was surprisingly on-the-nose when he said "Jake's a better dancer than me, Artie's a better singer, and Sam's better-looking") and the best actor of the four new players, but none of the new characters have been compelling enough to revolve the entire McKinley story line around next season.
Elsewhere, we had Blaine doing some really creative jumping jacks to justify proposing to Kurt, even after Burt told him not to last week. I'm rarely one to rag on Blaine (okay, I never do this, actually), but there's a lot of hurdles here. For starters, he and Kurt are not dating right now-yes, I think even they know they'll get back together, but they aren't now and it's not appropriate. Secondly, he's eighteen, nineteen tops and as we all saw with Rachel and Finn last season, this sort of teenage elopement just doesn't work. I think it would have been far more appropriate if they had made the lesbian couple (a lovely surprise in the form of Meredith Baxter and Patty Duke) serve as a sign that you should wait (though obviously not necessarily as long as they did), but clearly from the last moments of the show with Blaine clutching a ring, that's not necessarily the case. And I think the writers put Blaine into a weirdly self-righteous set of pontificating. Giving Sam a lecture about how "people like him" have waited for hundreds of years for the right time (I don't remember the speech verbatim, but you get the gist) to get married was a bit much. Sam clearly isn't saying he shouldn't get married because he's gay, he's saying it because he's too young. I did love that the Sam/Blaine moments of the show led to Patty Duke assuming they were a couple, which lead to the best line in the history of Glee from Sam: "he wants to do me but we're just friends." Oh, and there's another reason-you've been into Sam for the past six months rather than Kurt, Blaine!
Glee was surprisingly focused outside of these two stories and Regionals (oh, Will and Emma got married, and I'm not saying anything about it because the priest called them Wemma and that is just awful). The other two plots revolved around two of my favorites on Glee: Rachel and Brittany. Rachel really only had one scene, at the beginning of the show (didn't anyone feel bad that she didn't get to go to Will and Emma's wedding, as well as Finn, Quinn, and Puck?), but it was a doozy with her auditioning for Funny Girl with a killer rendition of "To Love You More" by Celine Dion. I think the writers are gearing up for her to get the job, though they're trying to figure out how to avoid comparisons to Smash. I'm hoping they do, and may I suggest Skylar Astin as Nicky Arnstein?
Brittany, as we've all been aware for years and MIT figured out for us, is a genius. We had a great opening scene that looked like it was plucked from a scene from Community, with Brittany creating a mathematical discovery with her famous crayon drawings. Though I'm not sure how MIT will handle her unique brand of intelligence, they assured the audience that she's the most brilliant mind since Albert Einstein. She got early admittance at MIT, and as a result, had to leave Glee club to go into college early. She acted out (I'd say a bit out-of-character for her, but then again, everything is in-character for Ms. Pierce), and then gave a beautiful goodbye in the choir room. I really hope that this was just Brittany saying goodbye to the group and not Heather Morris saying goodbye to the audience, as I need her brand of whimsy in my weekly life.
And that's about it. It's been an awesome year with our favorite glee kids, filled with highs (Blam, Rachel in NYC, the Superhero Club) and lows (Marley, the Tina/Blaine disaster, the insistence that Grease be the school musical, Marley again), but overall I had a great time in this new split Glee universe. What were your favorite moments? What do you hope for next season? Did you find the "are Sugar and Joe here" question to be as hilarious and wink-winky as I did? And does anyone have any recommended coping mechanisms for the next four months as we wait for the return?!?
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