The Valentine’s Day Episode of “Glee” Was Really Not So Bad

Anyone who knows me knows I’ve kind of fallen off the Glee train. What started out as this super fun show about high school kids singing and dancing, has turned into a mess of tangled/unfinished plot lines, overly cheesy characters, and some uncomfortably bad acting.

But the Valentine’s Day episode was a pleasant surprise in many ways. **Spoilers below…although is that kind of redundant?**

For one thing (and everyone knows that this is key), the teachers were, for the most part, absent from the episode. The appearance of too much faculty/staff of McKinley High always brings the episodes down. Too much teacher-singing and I tune right out (no pun intended). But Tuesday’s episode focused on the students and their romantic escapades, and I appreciated that.

One of the arcs in the show right now is that Finn has proposed to Rachel and she finally said yes. So they’re now navigating their new relationship, and in Tuesday’s episode, Rachel’s two dads have found out about the engagement and are surprisingly supportive. They even invite Finn’s mom and step-dad over for dinner, where the four parents reveal that they are leaving Finn to spend the night with Rachel! OMG you guys, high school students having sleepovers!

One continuity thing that bothered me here was that they had dinner, drinks, dessert; Finn’s parents took off; Rachel and Finn “went to bed,” meaning she took a shower and went through her nightly beauty routine (which she says is longer than her morning routine); she and Finn get into an argument; somehow kiss and make up*; and are snuggling in bed (scandalous)…at which point he looks at the clock and says, “It’s 7:30.” Meaning 7:30pm, meaning they get up, get dressed again, and head out to the Valentine’s party with all their classmates. Meaning…this dinner party started at what, 4:00pm?

But then we find out a twist! The parents do NOT approve of Finn and Rachel getting married straight out of high school, and are instead trying to reverse-psychology the two into realizing on their own that it’s not a good idea. Which, of course, backfires and they decide to hurry things up and get married in May. Oops!

*They somehow kiss and make up – I am disappointed that the writers skipped straight from the two of them getting into a fight over what the future holds for each of them in NYC…to everything being snuggly and back to normal. Why did they skip the making up scene? Seems like a cop-out, and also, this would have been an amazing time to show us a rational discussion and apology between two “adults.” Maybe if I’d seen how each of them had handled their part of that coming back together, I would have more sympathy for them and see them more as adults. This could have been a great “role model” moment for teens.

The students, although all vaguely somewhere between 15-18, are all portrayed as adults, making adult decisions we’re supposed to go along with (“Let’s get married” or “I’m switching schools to go to school with my boyfriend even though my parents paid for me to go to private school for 12 years of my life”). I cringe uncontrollably when, in glee club, couples are paired up to sing songs to each other about undying love, when they all keep trading off partners with each other. (I did like Quinn singing “Never Can Say Goodbye” to all three of her glee club boyfriends…but that was in one of those metaphorical spaces, we weren’t literally watching her performance in glee club.)

(And what is glee club anyway? Is it a class? Is it before school? After school? Sometimes it seems like no one else is around, sometimes a bell rings at the end of it. What is this weird time-glee continuum we’ve been dropped into?)

Thirdly (?), I find myself fascinated with Karofsky’s story. David Karofsky is a football player who used to torment Kurt for being (flamboyantly and fashionably) gay. In one episode last season, Kurt finally confronted Karofsky in an empty locker room, asking why he focused so much energy on bullying him, and Karofsky “hate kissed” Kurt in a moment that, I’m pretty sure, shocked most of the viewing audience. Not in a boys-kissing-boys kind of way, but in a I-did-not-see-that-coming-at-all-and-now-everything-makes-sense-and-I-feel-sympathy-for-Karofsky-now-that’s-so-weird kind of way.

Karofsky has since moved to another school – the details are fuzzy, sometimes I feel like I must have missed weeks of episodes because I have no idea where this person came from (Sugar) or that person went (Shelby). But for Valentine’s Day Karofsky came back and was revealed to be the person sending “Secret Admirer” Valentines to Kurt. He tells Kurt that he has feelings for him, and Kurt actually turns him down with finesse, which I appreciated.

Oh and! If we’re talking about same-sex couples, I like Brittany and Santana together. Is that officially a thing? What’s going on there? When did that happen? I don’t know, but whatever, I like Santana when she’s happy and focusing her catty energy on people we can all agree are the enemies (like Sebastian the Warbler).

One last thing that I liked a lot: Mercedes’ rendition of “I Will Always Love You,” which they say was planned before Whitney Houston’s death made it incredibly relevant. (I believe them that it was already planned, since the entire episode is based on “the greatest love songs ever” and this one just fits right into the storyline.) They even let Mercedes sing the entire song, which doesn’t always happen, especially when someone’s doing a solo. She did a great job with it.

I realized that my intent in writing about this episode was to applaud it for being better than its mediocre brothers and sisters. Then I accidentally heaped more criticism on it. Oops. Oh well. Guess I should just watch something “better” that I know I’ll like more. Arrested Development is very good so far.