The Cutprice Guignol

Alright girls, gays, and theys – it’s time to get back, I fear, To It.

Yes, it’s season two of Watching Glee Until It Gets Bad time. I’m slightly surprised that we got to this point, to be honest, given how patchy I remembered the first season being, but I had a lot of fun (and a lot of not fun) reviewing it. I’m not confident in the show’s chances of getting through to the end of this season, but hey, maybe I’ll surprise myself. For those who haven’t been taking detailed notes on every part of this recap series (for whatever unthinkable reason you might have), I’m judging Glee as “good” as long as it fulfils the three parts of it’s musical dramedy premise: some good drama, some good comedy, and at least one good performance per episode.

Audition, really, is a full-throated attempt to lampshade all the criticism that the show garnered in it’s first season, and it genuinely works for me. It opens with Jacob covering the Glee club’s Big Gay Summer, basically taking five minutes to repeat every bit of snark on every site from every episode of the last season directly to the faces of the characters who engendered it. Seeing Will’s face drop after he’s told that nobody likes his rapping (I do, Will! I do!) and Britney po-facedly tell the camera she spent the summer lost in the sewers is genuinely really fucking funny to me, even if it is a sign of worse things to come with the show’s over-reliance on self-awareness instead of actually addressing it’s problems.

It’s also a nice re-intro to the character dynamics this season, and I think, for the most part, the returning characters are well-served in this episode. From Finn’s adorably awkward audition for the Cheerios to Mike and Tina’s newfound relationship to Santana’s search for more attention (Naya Rivera’s delivery of “she’s got a family, she’s a mutheeer” during her fight with Quinn changed me as a person), everybody feels true to their season one turns while being nudged in the direction of new plots for this upcoming series. It’s also a really damn funny episode, not least because Sue is back in full, evil flight here as she takes on Coach Beiste (we’ll get to that); from her comments about exploding breast implants to discussing rural Ohian’s being intimate with car exhausts, it’s a disgusting, outrageously hilarious turn from Jane Lynch (I know so people have issue with the joke about her trying to get Britney to lie about sexual abuse from Beiste, and I can see why, but I think it’s framed in the show as something obviously wrong and downright evil, so it doesn’t bother me too much).

And speaking of Beiste, there are a few new introductions to the show in this episode, some good, some (Sam) bad. Let’s start with Sunshine Corazon, a new exchange student at McKinley and direct rival to Rachel in terms of her skills and singing voice (a brief note: the actor who plays Sunshine, Jake Zyrus, has since come out as a trans man, but the character he plays here is a woman – I’ll be referring to Sunshine as she, and Zyrus as he in these articles). Now, this season really is the assassination of Sunshine Corazon, and it feels even more galling knowing where this season will take her after she’s such a major feature in this episode – her performance of Listen is so good, and Zyrus himself is such an endearing performer, knowing that this arc ends with Sunshine being basically written out to make more room for Rachel is extra-infuriating. It’s such a waste of a really fun character and performer, especially given who does get to stick around after this episode as a major part of the show: Sam.

Look, okay, I get it: a lot of people like Sam, a lot of people like Chord Overstreet in this role, and I support you having your wrong opinions. But I just cannot, have not, will not, like Sam. There’s something about his character and especially Overstreet in the role that feels so manufactured to me, so laboured, and my heart genuinely sank when I spotted him in the background of one of the early numbers in this episode. I almost forget how big a part of the show Sam is until I’m watching it, because he leaves no impression in my mind. Well, no, that’s not fair – his introductory number, Billionaire, is truly fucking soulless and flat in a way that’s almost memorable. I’m sure he’s very talented, but this role does not do a good job showing that off. The best thing to come out of Sam’s involvement in the show is Trouty Mouth, and that is the stone-cold truth.

And, finally, let me get to the good stuff: Beiste. I walk the streets every weekend handing out pamphlets to unbelievers about my Lady and Saviour Sharon Beiste, and seeing her here is like running in to an old friend – I just love this character and this performance an outrageous amount. Dot Marie-Jones is a criminally underrated actor, and Beiste really is her masterpiece. She’s initially framed as a sort-of antagonist bringing together Sue and Will against her, but her fundamental decency and ultimately vulnerable and soft nature come through by the episode’s end. So many characters on this show are huge, gurning caricatures – not that I’m complaining, as a huge, gurning caricature myself – but there is such a nuance and a tenderness to this performance, it might be my favourite of Glee in it’s entirety. That moment she cries after getting picked on by Will and Sue, it’s so simple, but Marie-Jones plays it with such a humanity and openness it’s impossible not to feel bad for her. I will be banging my Beiste drum till the end of time, and you are just going to have to get used to reading about it here every week in the meantime.

So, it’s a slightly mixed bag going into the second season and knowing how it’s all going to go, but as an episode, Audition is a solid re-pilot, an acknowledgement and even fond celebration of the show’s flaws as well as it’s good parts. I’m honestly not entirely confident that we’re going to get through the whole of this second season – not with The Rocky Horror Glee Show looming on the horizon, anyway – but I’m here for a good time in the meanwhile. Hope you’ll join me for another round of Watching Glee Until It Gets Bad!

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(header image via MassLine.com)