The Cutprice Guignol

As I watched this episode, minding my own business, I heard a sudden bellow from the room next door.

“Is that Blaine I hear?”

I may not have mentioned this, but I am living with the world’s biggest Blaine Anderson stan; my partner, when he watched this show with me, could not get enough of Darren Criss’ adorable Blanderson, to the point now that I can summon him from a distance of up to three miles by playing that one cover of Cough Syrup loud enough. As soon as he heard the first three lines of Teenage Dream from this episode, he manifested in my office and stood there bopping in the doorway until it was done. I’m not convinced that he doesn’t have this framed picture of Darren Criss that Kurt keeps in his locker somewhere in our apartment; I fully expect to open a kitchen cabinet at some point in the next week and find it smirking back at me.

(I’m the guy next to Kurt getting his life doing air-kickboxing, by the way)

Which is to say, I live in a very pro-Blaine household, so maybe I’m always going to be a little kinder on his episodes than I would otherwise, but God, it’s good to have him here, you know? Though this introduction doesn’t do justice to what a huge and important part of the show he’d become, Blaine feels like such a good fit for this Glee universe right off the bat – his sweetness, his charisma, his slightly cheesy but enormously fun boyband-esque performance skills. Darren Criss is a wonderful actor (and, if you haven’t seen him in American Crime Story yet, consider this your sign), and it’s nice to have him around.

But anyway. Blaine stanning aside, this is genuinely an episode I have a lot of time for – there’s a lot of really great stuff in Never Been Kissed, and it feels like it harks back to some of the melancholy season one storylines in a way I’ve been missing this season so far.

First off, we’ve got Kurt’s plot, as he tries to navigate the homophobic bullying he’s suffering at McKinley and considers moving to a new school. Now, this is the first big introduction to the Karofsky plot, which is, for me, one of the more impactful things the show’s ever pulled off – even though it’s not exactly groundbreaking to have that “homophobe is actually gay himself” storyline play out here, the performances sell it for me. Max Adler finds some depth in this character and this arc in a way that fills it with pathos, even if the writing isn’t always particularly great for it.

In fact, in terms of performances, I really need to give the credit to Chris Colfer for this episode – there are so many moments he finds to bring out Kurt’s emotions without having to go overboard, a testament to his talent and his understanding of the role. His confrontation with Karofsky is genuinely intense, but the moment after he kisses Kurt, Colfer just plays it so well – the shock, the realization, the sadness as it all comes together. The camera lingers for about thirty seconds in silence at the end of the scene, and it’s really impactful in a way I haven’t felt in the show for a while now. Later in the episode, after he confesses all to Blaine and Blaine offers to take him to lunch, he sneaks this little look at him out of the corner of his eye as they leave together, and you can practically feel that fizzy first-flush-of-a-crush excitement coming off him in waves. I don’t think the show always gives its actors the room to find this nuance, but Chris Colfer always knows how to deliver when it does.

And this is, of course, also a Beiste-centric episode, with slightly more…mixed results than Kurt’s plot this week. I am borderline insane over Dot Marie-Jones in this role, and I feel as though I’ve made that clear already, and this episode is a reminder of just why – there’s a deep sense of humanity and warmth to Beiste beneath the slightly stereotypical exterior, and it’s what makes some aspects of this storyline hit so hard. Nobody does “slightly tearful but just holding it together” in this show like she does, and the moment she discovers that she’s being used as a way for the Glee kids to avoid getting too, uh, into their make-out sessions is genuinely gutting – even though it’s a ridiculous situation, she really hits you with that humanity and makes you feel it. I love the side of Will Beiste brings out as well, and Matthew Morrison has just about made up for giving me the worst IBS flare of my life after Touch-A Touch-Me last week.

Well, I like it up until a point. After a really sweet scene where Beiste admits to Will that she has never had a relationship, expressing the difficulty of finding a man who doesn’t fetishize her for how she presents and who she is, Will gives her her first kiss, and it feels…off to me. I think this scene would have been more powerful if it focused on her sadness at not feeling desirable and navigating the world as a woman outside the conventionally attractive norms (not to me, though. I love you, Shannon Beiste), but ending it with Will giving her what basically amounts to a quick pity peck feels reductive to me. It’s not just about her not being kissed, you know? It’s about how she feels alienated from the normal experiences most straight women go through (or at least are told they should go through), and Matthew Morrison landing one on her does not undo that. I get the sentiment but it feels icky to me.

Overall, though, this is a great episode of Glee – the drama works well for me, Sue’s background scheming as she plans to take Beiste down is fun, and the performances are a hoot (I did not at all touch on the mash-ups redux from last season, but the girls win this time, and that’s all that needs to be said about it). Never Been Kissed is probably my favourite episode of the second season so far, and no, it’s not just Blaine that I’m saying that for.

Mostly.

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(header image via IMDB)