Austin360 blogs > TV Blog > Archives > 2009 > November > 19 > Entry
“Glee: ” “Ballad”
First, a word about last week’s episode called “Wheels,” which first aired Nov. 11.
Unlike my distinguished colleague Dale Roe, I quite liked it.
I am also biased: I have a brother with Down Syndrome. So not only was I pretty happy to see two actresses with D.S. getting work, the woman who played Sue Sylvester’s older sister is the oldest person with D.S. I’ve ever seen on TV. My other younger brother, the one without D.S., and I both freely admit we got a little verklempt at the final scene.
But I also didn’t mind what it did to Sue Sylvester. A pal of mine noted that he couldn’t watch “Glee” because Jane Lynch was doing a minstrel version of Jane Lynch characters. This episode gave her a bit of depth she was lacking — there are things she values, things her delight in everyday evil protects like armor.
And the subplot involving the relationship with Kurt and his father was brilliantly executed. Chris Colfer is doing ground-breaking work here and making it look easy; it should be acknowledged as such.
Besides, “Glee” is not a show that’s exactly reliant on continuity - this isn’t “Lost” we’re talking about. They need never bring up these events again, if they don’t want to. But it was moving for some of us that they happened at all.
Anyway, spoilers and thoughts about last night’s episode after the jump.
I’m not sure they were legally allowed to get out of this episode without breaking out the Police’s epic student/teacher ode “Don’t Stand So Close to Me.” Wasn’t expecting “Young Girl,” but it delivered.
Singing “I’ll Stand By You” to a fetus on a monitor is a note-perfect example of the show’s singular combination of the ridiculous and the sublime. Cutting to Finn telling his mom about the pregnancy and her tearing up as she comforts him was striking. The show is getting better and better at blending these emotional change-ups; I look forward to it concentrating on them more, making them more extreme. For example, the ending of this episode. Yikes. (Nice to see the faintly terrifying Gregg Henry as Quinn’s father. )
“Your lashing out at me is fantastically compelling and inappropriate” - Kurt. I look forward to the moment in this show when the Kurt/Finn relationship isn’t fraught with sexual tension and resolves in to a solid, platonic friendship between a straight guy and a gay guy, something that you don’t see enough in media. (See also Morrissey and Johnny Marr or Adam Lambert and Chris Allen, for two real-life examples.)
Not sure who is the more annoying TV wife, Betty Draper or Terri Schuester — it’s a race to the bottom!
“We’re both mildly attractive and extremely grating” - Suzy Pepper, a cautionary tale urging Rachel to get that mildly attractive groove back. And we hit the heart of the episode and the heart of “Glee” in general — the difficult and volatile nature of high school self-esteem, whether it be the fearlessness of the teenage gay kid or Finn’s struggle with his impending fatherhood or Rachel’s Broadway-baby-raised-by-gay-dads lust. (Word to Lea Michele, who is doing a great job as Rachel.)
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