Glee: "Rocky" Road

I realize last night was “The Rocky Horror Glee Show” and we’ll get to that eventually.

First, I want to commend the show for finally acknowledging its biggest problem: the fact that its protagonist has morphed into a mind-bogglingly stalker-ish douchebag.

(I’ll try to keep it short because I’M even tired of reading my rants about how much Will Schuester sucks…Matthew Morrison deserves better)

I almost sprained my eyes by how much I was rolling them early on when it was revealed that Will’s sole motivation for having the glee club stage “Rocky Horror” was so he could get close to Emma after he found out she was a big fan of the movie. The problem, of course, is that Emma is in a relationship with a perfectly decent (even if he’s a little full of himself) guy in Carl (John Stamos). The bigger problem is that Carl actually appears to be good for Emma, curbing many of her obsessive compulsive tendencies. The biggest problem is that Will knew all this and STILL actively tried to break up the happy couple…even after he promised Carl he’d back off.

…and this is the guy we’re supposed to root for. That season 1 performance “My Life Would Suck Without U” by the glee club and dedicated to Mr. Schue after everything he did for the club seemed like it happened five years ago.

Leave it to Sue to help Will realize what an ass he’s been recently. Hopefully, the character will now go back to spending more time helping the glee club succeed and less time trying to break up other people’s relationships.

Besides being the “Rocky Horror” episode, it was also Halloween week on “Glee.” Sue (as usual) had the best line when she dubbed the holiday, “the day when parents encourage little boys to dress like little girls, and little girls to dress like whores.” On the other hand, Brittany’s line about how she her costume is a “peanut allergy” may have finally crossed the threshold of how dumb she can be. (I usually find everything she says hilarious, but that was a little too left field for me.)

But enough about the ladies for now. The episode’s most delightful surprise was that it ended up tackling the issue of body issue with men, which, according to Artie, can be traced to the Internet giving women access to porn.

Even if I didn’t totally buy that Finn is really THAT uncomfortable with his body (had we ever even gotten a HINT about this issue?), the arc was well played and addressed an issue I don’t think I’ve ever seen discussed before. Finn was nervous about appearing on stage in his tighty whities, and Sam (with his ridiculously sculpted abs) was little help. That reminds me – I’m still thoroughly enjoying Chord Overstreet and Sam’s cocky dimness on this show. I’m enjoying the fact that he was concerned about “nuttage” in his tiny gold shorts. I’m curious to see how much they continue to use Sam when Puck returns from juvie next week. (The two seem to occupy much of the same space character-wise.)

But this was the “Rocky Horror” episode (directed by Adam Shankman), and I suppose I need to talk about that a little bit. I’m not in the “Rocky Horror” cult by any stretch of the imagination. I went to one of the famous midnight screenings, enjoyed myself and lied about being there before so that I wouldn’t have to go on stage to do “The Time Warp” with the other first-timers.

I liked that they got “Rocky Horror” cast members Barry Bostwick and Meat Loaf to make cameos, but I didn’t care for how bizarre it was. For some reason, they were “X-Files”-ish TV station suits who convinced Sue to join the production so she could do an expose – and obviously Mr. Schue didn’t see through this. You know Dos Equis “Most Interesting Man in the World”? Well, I nominate Will Schuester as the “Most Gullible Man in the World.”

Yikes, I’m slipping into Mr. Schue-bashing again. I’d better start grading the musical performances.

“Science Fiction Double Feature”…A-: The musical portion (sung by Santana’s lips) was short and sweet, but what really impressed me was the way the opening emulated the movie’s credits with the “Glee” characters’ names.

“There’s a Light (Over at the Frankenstein Place)” …Incomplete: Too short for me to give it a proper grade. (Carl barged in and rightfully called out Schue for his shenanigans). The fact that we went straight from the opening into another musical number made me excited about the idea that maybe the entire (or at least most of the) episode would be the kid’s staging the musical…alas it was not to be.

“Damn it, Janet”…B+: It’s a funny song, and one of Corey Monteith’s better moments on the show. Again, too short for my taste, since Sue came in to talk with Will and pulled us away from the action, which featured fun background work.

“Whatever Happened to Saturday Night”…B+: It was really good to finally hear Stamos sing, and see Carl’s swagger as Schue stewed in the corner. Oh wait, I forgot that I’m probably not supposed to be happy that Schue is pissed off. The vocals sounded a little too overproduced, but that’s just the way this show rolls, unfortunately.

“Sweet Transvestite”…C: Don’t get me wrong. Mercedes sounded good, but that’s because Amber Riley pretty much ALWAYS kills it vocally. There were two problems: 1.) It was a typical Mercedes performance, which means she wasn’t really doing Frank-N-Furter. 2.) It makes no sense for someone who is a woman (and is made up to look like a woman) to be singing this song. I feel silly pointing this out).

“Touch-a, Touch-a, Touch-a Touch Me”…B: I’m just going to skim the over Jayma Mays ridiculously overworked vocals (I’m betting she doesn’t have the strongest voice, so I can dig them giving her help). That aside, it was an impressive, sexy number (we need to see THAT side of Emma more) even if my big takeaway was the fact that my abs will never look like Matthew Morrison’s. Actually, my big takeaway was that I would DEFINITELY watch a spin-off starring Brittany and Santana. I’m not sure why they were outside the window, spying on Will and Emma, but it was pretty funny.

“The Time Warp”…A: The best episode-closing number of the season. The choreography was outstanding, the enthusiasm was infectious and even Quinn didn’t sound half bad. (Sounds like Dianna Agron got with a vocal coach this past summer.)

So what’d you think of this episode? Where would you rank it among the show’s other “theme” weeks? What do you think about the show tackling the way men are objectified the same week Agron and Lea Michele stirred up controversy for their GQ photo shoot? Anyone else getting a little annoyed when Mike randomly gets up and starts popping and locking during ever song? Finally, anyone else pretty bummed Tim Curry didn’t show up?