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Yes/No

Just about everything in this episode would have worked better if the series didn't have the habit of dropping storylines for months on end.

It was a sweet story for Will and Emma. They drag out everything they can do make us think that Emma might say 'no' and I wasn't sure because she could have always pulled out the "What you said to convince yourself convinced me and now you're sure and I'm not" routine. But then every one of his students might have drowned themselves and that would have been messy so I'm glad she accepted the proposal.

Finn and Rachel. Finn's issues have always had to do with his leadership and his drive to prove himself. I have to admit that when Finn announced that he was joining the army, all I could think was that I'd only support that move if he and Rachel got to sing "Do It for Your Country" from Grease 2.

As it was, the moment with Finn's mother was really powerful. That totally rocked the poor boy. I don't think that the answer is to get married straight out of high school, but I can see where Finn thinks he's coming from.

Of course, Rachel isn't likely to say 'yes'. At least, I hope she doesn't say yes. I can't imagine her thinking she can get married and have her Broadway dreams. She's smarter than that, right? But maybe she's feeling low after missing out on the college she wanted. But to buy into that I  have to believe that Rachel didn't have a backup college.

It's a common - yet very annoying - TV story angle to only let characters apply to one college because then you can have such drama when they get rejected. Gossip Girl pulled out the same thing with Blair Waldorf. Like there aren't two hundred schools in New York. Or Rachel and Kurt couldn't pick one school as freshmen and then transfer somewhere else a year later. Or just hit the audition circuit like everyone else on the planet.

In this case, it's necessary to explain why Rachel and Kurt don't go to New York like they've been talking about for years because they have to still be in Ohio next year. So that one school doesn't get back to them and their dreams are crushed and the actors stay on contract. I kind of wish they'd just graduate and then move on to the next generation.

I know everyone's got their favorites (I'm going to be bummed if Blaine ever leaves) but clinging to the stars beyond the natural end of their characters' story isn't a solution. They just wind up over-staying their welcome and making everyone thoroughly sick and tired of seeing their too old for high school faces hanging around. And they already have a problem with cast bloat on this series. Let people go and refocus on the more neglected characters coming up behind them.

But that's a big picture thing. I did like this episode for what it was. I liked Will and Emma. I liked the song choices. Becky insulted Puck's hair and Sue was relatively restrained yet still mocked Artie's driving gloves. It's the little things that make me happy.

And there's this: "I bet you had to overcome a lot with those crooked nipples."

Which will never not be funny.

The Sue Sylvester Shuffle

Glee replayed their post-Superbowl episode last night. And now that I'm looking at that title, is it really all that appropriate? I suppose she did "shuffle" the regional competition for the cheerleader around, thus prompting the main plot point of the football players having to perform the half-time show.

Anyways.

I want to hone in on a couple of points that this episode really brings up. The first has to do with what I've thought of as McKinley High's "under-developed ecosystem." TV in general tends to narrow its focus (extras cost money, after all) so we rarely venture beyond the football team vs glee club rivalry displayed here. I think that's a huge missed opportunity for Glee.

For example, we see the football team get slushied by the hockey team during their little victory walk. The "Mullet Heads" have been seen before, but their appearance raises the issue for me: where are all the other clubs at McKinley?

Why was the glee club should have been in competition with all the theater folks for West Side Story. But what about that wrestling team that Lauren Zizes is supposedly on? The A/V club? The chess club? Can you imagine how much more effective it would have been for Karofsky to get slushied by a member of the chess club? If that had happened, I might have had a tiniest bit of sympathy for the guy instead of wondering why he folded so easily. (Survey says? Script-dictated meltdown. But of course.)

It also would have come at the bullying angle from a far more complicated and subtle direction. I assume that Karofsky has been bullying more students than just the glee club. Though he might have singled Kurt out specifically for a variety of reasons, there's no evidence that he's actually nice to - well - anyone.

So having the other clubs take their opportunity to have a little back would have been a demonstration of how that kind of behavior spreads and creates these cycles of nastiness. A cycle of slushy violence, if you will.

It also would have given Glee the opportunity to pull out some of that ironic editing and dramatic smash cuts that they like so much some times then completely forget about at others. Which is the second point that came up: the uneven tone of the show.

In one corner, Sue is off setting her cheerleaders on fire and shooting Brittany out of a cannon. Obviously high satire of her drive to win.

And in the other corner, we have a painfully earnest demonstration of how teachers believing that students can change their behavior and bring them together and are you zoning out yet because I am. It's written, acted, directed and edited completely as if we are to invest in Karofsky's emotional conflict and care whether he becomes a good person or not. I complained in the full episode review of "The Sue Sylvester Shuffle" that Karofsky has committed the cardinal sin of being dull, but I think what's really going on is that it seems like his story is the one story that I'm supposed to take seriously but I can't really trust that in the middle of all the crazy.

This is why Sue's character has become so odd-man-out. Because she really is just off on her own doing her own ridiculous thing while the rest of the show is Real Drama. The contrast between Absurd Sue and everyone else winds up pulling everything down. I can't get past Sue as a charicature  because hello human cannonball, but at the same time, I can't really commit to Karofsky because I never know when I'm suddenly going to be pulled over into...

Well. Into the "Sylvester Shuffle."

The New Plan

I'll get my complaint or two out of the way and save my praise for the longer review. Because it was a good episode, but I'm easily distracted.

Case in point, I'd like to congratulate the show for once again distracting me with its art direction. Kind of like wondering why Damon has a massive urn full of decorative soaps in his bathroom, I'm now concerned about why all of Klaus' family is in matching coffins.

So did Klaus always have a matched set? Did he bring Rebekah's from Chicago just in case? I suppose if he had, then there would be five coffins and one would be empty. The one coffin is sealed with a spell. Does Klaus pop it open every now and then and move whoever is in it to a new coffin and seal it again so that they all match? Or does he constantly have to search around to find new coffins that match the original one?

Damn. That must be worse than having a rare china pattern and breaking a plate.

And even more annoying is the fact that we are still using "dagger" as a verb. We already have a perfectly good verb in "stabbed." You "stabbed someone with a dagger." You don't "dagger" them.

People don't get "daggered" just like they don't get "sworded."

Or maybe they do. I don't know. Maybe "swording" is what happens on Highlander when they pause tape so that someone can run into frame and hand the actor the sword that he supposedly keeps tucked into his trench coat pocket but doesn't really because if he did, he'd never be able to sit down.

Anyways.

I'll be over here marveling at Damon's growing level of self-awareness: "You know me - never miss a chance to plan an epic failure."

Indeed.And that's what we love about you, sweetie.

Ordinary People

Famous last words: "Damon's got a plan."

That said, letting Stefan out worked for me since seeing him do nothing but and glare at people was only going to take us so far. And I love that they are going back to the family angle - particularly in tandem with what's going on with Rebekah and Klaus.

They did a (perhaps) clever thing with the flashbacks. What we saw was very clearly limited it to only what Rebekah knew. There was, for example, a very deliberate moment where we saw her eavesdropping on her parents. That explains why we didn't get flashbacks of Esther's death. I assume that we'll see that from Klaus' point of view in the future. You don't go casting Alice Evans and then only have her stand in the background and look nervous.

Next week is Homecoming (how appropriate!) and it looks like another one of those Mystic Falls Events Gone Wrong. At a certain point, I really do have to wonder about the people in this town. Wouldn't you just stop showing up for these things?

Masked

I kind of admire that they had the guts to kill off Nick, but Jake is not working for me. He isn't bringing either the charm or the menace I need to justify all these shots of Cassie gawping at him. Or Faye draping herself over him. Or Adam glowering at him. The main characters needed more of their own development before we swung focus so entirely onto some new person.

That said, the twist with Luke was cool - if again a bit predictable. He was the only guy around with a name who isn't in the opening credits. There had to be a point to him sometime. I might have drawn him out for another episode or two, but that's just me.

What's surprising me is that I'm really feeling poor Adam's pain at Diana dumping him. I did not expect that. Now my problem is that I'm going to feel moderately annoyed when they finally swing him back around to Cassie's direction. Here's hoping that if they skip just one obvious decision, that this is the one.

And despite everything, I do kind of want to know what the deal is with the parents and the fire. But if the characters aren't up to their marks by then or if the explanation doesn't hold up, we may have to reassess how much attention I'm going to give this show.