Glee: Baby Blues

Kurt is really f---ing stupid sometimes.

You can’t use a Streisand song to audition for the male lead in a musical and then complain about the fact that the people putting on the show don’t think you’re masculine enough for the part.

“Too gay” was a recurring for Kurt last night.

First, the pink, unicorn-centric campaign for class president conceived by Brittany was “too homo”, according to Kurt. Then, he was deemed to gay for the role of Tony in “West Side Story” by co-directors Artie, Coach Beiste and freakishbonyginger@gmail.com...I mean, Emma. (Is it just me or did it kinda seem like the writers picked three names out of a hat when they were putting together this trio? Oh well…at least Artie is getting something to do.) Coach Beiste, in particular, proved to be a surprisingly adept theatre director (I liked how she debated whether Rachel’s Jew thing or Mercedes’ black thing would work better for “West Side Story), so I’ll give the writers a pass for shoehorning the school’s football coach (and the impressive Dot-Marie Jones) into storylines.

It may not sound like it from the first couple of paragraphs in this review, but I actually enjoyed this episode quite a bit more than last week’s season premiere.

Fortunately for all of us, (as usual) Burt was there to set Kurt straight (so to speak). It’s perfectly ok to be the kind of gay where you sing Diana Ross songs and dress like you own a magic chocolate factory (as opposed to “Rock Hudson-gay”). The takeaway was that if Kurt wants to land leading man roles, maybe he’s going to have to create them himself. (Which is pretty much exactly what Chris Colfer did in real life. Pretty cool.)

Also, if it’s any consolation, Kurt has pretty much been the lead male character on this show since the start of last season.

Even though “I Am Unicorn” was light on musical performances, it was high on storyline advancement. I really enjoyed some of the unexpected groupings in the episode, including Kurt and Brittany, the aforementioned three-headed directing monster, and Sue mostly bothering Quinn instead of only terrorizing Will. (The short film Sue made was pretty genius…I particularly enjoyed the “I Hate Everything” sticker in her locker.)

Hell, even Willliam F. Schuester grew a pair and stood up for himself when Quinn tried to blame all her problems on the glee club! Becky was right…that was kind of sexy. (And much more effective than the stupid glitter bombing incident from last week.)

Speaking of Quinn, she was front and center this week with the return of Shelby Corcoran (Idina Menzel). The reason for Shelby coming back was completely ridiculous (Sugar Motta’s dad hired her to run a rival glee club at McKinley), but I’ll take my Idina Menzel where I can get it.

Shelby wants Puck and Quinn to have a relationship with the baby they gave up for adoption…but not as long as Quinn is part of the Skanks. Puck was the first to step up to the plate, and after a heart-to-heart with Quinn in the Ladies Room (they DO have cleaner stalls) she — and her thin, forgettable alto — finally came around and returned to glee club. Except that in a mini-twist I thoroughly enjoyed, Quinn hasn’t really seen the light and cleaned up her act. Instead, she intends to get full custody of Beth.

I hope you don’t mind if I just bypass all the Booty Camp nonsense — those slo-mo shots of Mike Chang and Mr. Schue dancing were unintentionally hilarious and were a solid reminder of what a couple of tools those guys are — because, honestly…who the hell cares whether a glee club can dance or not. And the big payoff was supposed to be that Finn got through the little mini-routine without messing up? Congratulations, Finn! You can do a passable job in rehearsal, but you still pretty much look like a Frankenstein when you dance.

(And, yes...that chunky paragraph just now was me bypassing the Booty Camp stuff. I can't help but rant. Sorry.)

On the other hand, I DO like how shockingly functional his relationship with Rachel is so far…although some trouble is sure to be ahead as the seniors try to figure out their futures.

Anyway, let’s grade the (relatively meager) musical performances. I hope you like “West Side Story.” (I love “West Side Story”, but I even I think they went overboard.)

“Somewhere There’s a Place for Us”…A: For me, it had everything a great musical performance should have: chill-inducing vocals and a song that actually makes sense within the context of the episode and informs the storyline. So the exact opposite of this pair’s infamous, dreadful “Poker Face” duet. It’s still freaky as hell in the best possible way for me to see Lea Michele and Idina Menzel on screen together (it’s like seeing a person, and then a version of that same person from about 15 years before). Still a little too studio-y sounding considering they were singing on a stage, but great stuff.

“I’m the Greatest Star”…C+: I’ve already covered about what an intentionally terrible song choice this was for Kurt. So the low grade isn’t because it was misguided…it’s because the scaffolding heavy choreography was more impressive than the singing. (You may now refer to my paragraph about Booty Camp if you need a reminder about how much I don’t care whether these kids can dance or not.)

“Something’s Coming”…A-: Blaine’s audition for Tony hit all the sweet spots (great vocal, strong charisma) and he’s clearly a better choice for Tony than Kurt is. (I actually think Finn is the perfect Tony…but I also think Tony is kind of lame.) The only slight criticism I have is that this performance didn’t really bring anything new to the table either in the way it was performed by Darren Criss or the way it was used on the show. (It was just a straight-up audition piece.)

So what’d you think of this episode? Will Blaine actually accept the lead role? Does it REALLY matter if most people in the glee club can’t dance that well? Finally, smoking may kill you, but it really does make you look cool, doesn’t it?