Watching Glee Until It Gets Bad S2E9: Special Education
by thethreepennyguignol
Look, these are, at the end of the day, my reviews: my burden to bear, my cross to carry, and so forth (which means I’m allowed to give a shout-out to my friend Martin who’s re-watching Glee and reading these recaps. Hey Martin!). And what that means is that if I want to talk about one performance for three hundred words, I will.
And that performance, of course – what else – is Valerie, from this week’s Special Education.
I mean, let me get into this number for a second. This is one of the numbers in Glee that always makes me smile; it radiates with such a fun, joyful energy, for a second, you sort of forget everything around it, bad or good. Naya Riveira is an incredible performer, and her style matches perfectly with the song choice here; Heather Morris and Harry Shum Jnr have rarely if ever had as good a stage for their talents as this. Everyone is giving the exact kind of energy that I got from performing in the backing vocals for a slightly bad school production of High School Musical – that sense of just being silly and dancing around and having fun together, even if I could never have come close to the heights of skill and talent on display here. I love it.
And it fits so well into the episode, too – with so much of it revolving uplifting the talents of smaller members of the group, and a general theme of not underestimating people, putting such under-used performers at front and centre really hits. Not that anyone in their right mind would underestimate the featured performers here, but the show, being out of their’s, often does.
To be honest, any competition episode is going to feature a few great numbers, and Valerie isn’t the only one this episode – Dog Days are Over is exceptional, Tina’s haunting solo fitting perfectly with the dramatic beats – but what really makes Special Education work for me is how well they serve the plot.
Like I mentioned, this episode is about subverted expectations, from the elderly Glee club turning out a great performance to Lauren Zizes (the inimitable Ashley Fink) being way more interesting than anyone thought. The biggest here is between Will and Emma, when she reveals that she and Carl had a fight about their relationship – and then reconciled, getting married in the same episode. We’ve been building to what looked like her choosing Will, but he closes out the episode alone while she replaces the sign on door with her married surname. I think this rug-pull works well, because Matthew Morrison really makes you feel it – another dream he was hanging on to, gone.
Kurt is also settling in to Dalton Academy, performing with them at sectionals, and I like the way it’s played – it’s really nice to see Kurt happy again, and Chris Colfer plays this quiet crush on Blaine so well. I’m not a huge fan of the Warblers particular style (the only acapella I truly respect is this), and their songs are always trendy to the time in a way that takes me back to the worst haircut of my life, but I love seeing Darren Criss perform.
Comedy-wise, this isn’t the heaviest-hitter for the show, but it still sneaks in those moments – Santana calling Rachel “Yentel” is atrocious in the best way possible, and I really enjoy Ashley Fink’s Heathers-esque hyper-disaffected silliness. But this isn’t an episode about comedy; this is a surprisingly well-balanced episode packed out with some killer numbers and drama that feels earned instead of just slapped on to fill out a quota.
Honestly, we’re further in to season two than I thought we’d get – how much longer must I inflict this (read: do a thing I chose to do voluntarily and continue at because it’s fun) torture upon myself? Only time will tell. And if Will does The Th*ng S*ng ever again. That, too.
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(header image via IMDB)
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