Glee : Dancing with Ourselves [Recaps]

be a "very special" episode of Glee, like when cousin Geri would come to visit on The Facts of Life, what with all the talk about handicapped people and gays and fake stutters . Being far superior to that '80s sitcom (sorry, Mrs. Garrett) our favorite singing dramedy about lovable losers didn't fall into the easy trap of sentimentality but instead went for some really genuine emotion. I'm still crying just thinking about it. Fucking Glee.

To really get into it, let look at what really got us to buy some stock in Kleenex: the music!

"Dancing With Myself": Yeah, yeah, we know this Billy Idol ditty is about jerking off, but on Glee it has a much more innocent meaning. For Artie, who finally got to do something other than wheel around aimlessly like a matchbox car in the back of a stationwagon, it's quite literal. He's always off by himself playing a guitar and not dancing with the rest of the Glee club. He's also not going to ride with them on the bus to sectionals because they can't afford the handcapable van that will get him and his wheelchair aboard. It's hard to be Artie, but he doesn't let it get him down. Such heart.

Also all alone is Quinn, even though she's carrying permanent company in her womb. First of all, Quinn looks much better now that he hair is out of that tight ponytail and she isn't wearing her Cheerios outfit every day. When out of uniform, it seems like she's growing a personality of her own as well. She was looser and more fun last night than she has been all season. Team Quinn! But it's hard to be her too. She's trying to keep her pregnancy secret and pay for all her doctor bills, and the only support she has is Finn, who isn't doing the job.

Speaking of which, Finn had a bout of lonliness himself last night. He's trying to play football and be in Glee and get a job to support his girlfriend that some other dude knocked up. Her constant nagging isn't helping either. But Puck is the stand-up guy Quinn needs, and he's so lonely pining after her that it takes him almost an hour to think up selling pot cupcakes to the school in order to pay for Quinn's ultrasound. A real juvenile deliquent like him should have been able to think that up in no time at all. You're slipping, Puck!

Rachel is back in lonely mode as well. Not only does Quinn have Finn asking "How high?" every time she tells him to get a job, but now Mr Schu is making her try out for her solos. Le gasp! She's worried that the auditon/election is going to turn into a popularity contest, but isn't any form of democracy really just that? She has no chance of winning, because everyone hates her, and you can't really blame them when she throws a hissy fit every time something doesn't go her way. You don't see Artie bitching and complaining because he's paralyzed, do you? If he can get through life without whining, then she can handle losing the solo in "Defying Gravity." God, Rachel. You're just like the new version of Melrose Place. We want you to like you, but you just make it so hard.

"Defying Gravity": Way to go Babygay Kurt and claim this song for the gays! Well, we've already taken it for our own. Just ask any queen who has stood on a cabaret table on Musical Mondays at New York gay bar Mecca, Splash, and thrown a handful of napkins in the air just as soon as Idina Menzel starts the first chorus. Amazing. Honestly, I enjoy this pared down version much more than the over-produced original from the musical Wicked.

Very obviously the song is about overcoming obstacles and using that journey as empowerment. That is just what Babygay Kurt does to get an audition for his favorite song. No wonder a young gay kid has a serious connection to this song, which is all about not accepting the limits others place on you to find the strength to be a powerful individual that wears Alexander McQueen to McKinley High. When Will won't let him try out to sing the song, BG Kurt goes to his dad, who takes his case to the principal. It's so sweet to see Pops go from an uptight greasemonkey to a PFLAG dad in the course of several episodes. All Babygay Kurt wants is a fair shake at trying to win the song, and once he has it, he works hard to make it happen.

Puck is looking for a fair shake too, but he wants to try out to win Quinn's icy heart now that she's carrying his baby. He comes up with moolah for her medical bills when stupid Finn can't. Even though he steals it from a bake sale that he made successful with drug-laced treats, his blond-headed object of affection is starting to see that he's a provider. Even more than giving her cash though, Puck seems to give Quinn the first real smiles we've seen all season, when they play Swedish Chef in the Home Ec room. Rather than giving her money, maybe really making her happy will be the thing that turns her heart around.

Even Finn is defying gravity by getting a job, even though he has to use Rachel and a little bit of lying about being paralyzed to get it. And why is Quinn even stressing about all this money stuff when she can get Terri to pay. Sure Terri, who is going to take the baby, said no to an expense account, but Quinn knows way too much about her and is way too shrewd to go about making boys pay for her lady vitamins when she can be conniving her way into the lap of luxury—or at least a few sets of free linens from Sheets-N-Things.

The biggest defyer of gravity is Artie who can not only defy gravity down there (and by that we mean his penis), but is also getting closer to Tina, the girl who has no last name but a stutter. Instead of letting his wheelchair push her away, he is trying to roll right into his heart. But once he gets there, she admits that her stutter was fake all along. We knew it! Either that, or her stutter was so bad that the writers made that up so that she would stop doing it. Seriously, her fake stutter was jacked. We can't believe anyone fell for that.

But she says that she came up with her ploy because she was so shy and she didn't want people paying attention to her and doing something that made her different would drive everyone away. But she has found the strength to be at center stage thanks to performing with Glee and she's dropping her ersatz impediment to be true to herself. We thought that Artie was being mean by reacting so harshly to her, but now we totally agree with him. When there are all these people, Babygay Kurt, Puck, Quinn, Finn, even Wicked Witch of the West Rachel, becoming strong by overcoming obstacles, she's been building one to try to hide behind. Sure, it's great she is growing as a person, but to someone like Artie (or BG Kurt or...) we could see how her fake stutter would be a s-s-serious no-no.

"Proud Mary": More than Tina Turner's defining anthem, this is a tune about the people one meets on a journey that make the trip worth taking and the burden a bit easier to bear.

The biggest enablers (and we mean that in a good way) were all the kids in the club, who got in their wheelchairs to roll a mile in Artie's shoes and to perfect their skills for this killer choreographed number. It's like jazz hands-icapped!

Babygay Kurt helped out around the house. When his father gets a homophobic phone call (we swear it was one of Rachel's fathers on the other end) BGK realizes that he may be strong enough to be out but his father isn't. He tells Pops that being a big ol' ball of gay glamor made him different, but his difference made him strong and will eventually get him out of crappy Lima for a job toiling away on Fashion Avenue. Well, that is when the tears started in earnest. We officially have a Pavlovian response to Kurt, and every time he sashays on screen, we get that tight, dry feeling in the back of our throat that signals another crying jag that we try to tamp down.

Tinyqueen Kurt (sorry, we had to mix it up) throws his audition so that his father doesn't have to take any extra heat from the people in town who don't want a boy singing a girl's song. We think that his father would have found a way to cope, that he would have found something redeeming in his own struggle to be accepted, but it's noble of Kurt to put his father before his own happiness. He's going to have plenty of time to be gay throwing napkins from atop a cabaret table at Splash on Musical Mondays.

Even though Artie is receiving so much good will from the team, he doesn't want to use the money selfishly to ride on the bus, but would rather install a ramp in the auditorium so that other kids can get themselves to center stage once he's gone. Jesus, why can't you just be a normal egotastic teenager, Artie. That wouldn't make us have to pull out one of the crumpled hankies from the bottom of our pockets to dab our eyes. What a jerk! Think of us!

But the nicest thing of all was that this was the first episode where everyone functioned as a unit rather than a bunch of subplots swimming along trying to impregnate a musical egg to give birth to this baby of a show. Before when someone would say "Oh, we have Glee, and we're all friends," we wouldn't buy it. But not anymore. And Will really is the one who made it happen. He finally did the right thing and got the kids to look past their selfishness to work hard to bring Artie along with them, and they all benefited. Except Rachael. She's still a bitch.

Jump Rope for Heart: Did you think we forgot about Sue Motherfucking Sylvester? Please!

She was a bit out of character last night, but she was still the best of the bunch. When she was nice to a little Down Syndrome girl and let her be on the Cheerios, we were seriously suspicious. Then, when she was drilling the girl and being mean to her in the gym, we knew that Sue was going to have some connection to handicapped people that was going to make her a real character and not the funniest one-dimensional sketch this side of Balky Bartokomous. It turns out that her sister has Down Syndrome, and Sue knows a thing or two about defying gravity for her family. OK, Glee, we'll make a deal. You can only go about making Sue MF Sylvester into a real person if she'll continue to be a raging bitch who says every inappropriate thing that comes into her little head. You already made her being a cunt to a retarded girl into an act of supreme love, don't you go doing that to everything. We cry enough as it is!

But really this jump rope sequence is like a great episode of Glee: everything piece working in synch to create something that is greater than the sum of its parts. Last night worked very well, mostly because it focused more on the kids and their relationships to each other rather than all the fake-baby-craziness, the Will-and-Emma-will-never-get-together antics, and all the other stupid adult bullshit that drives the show off the rails. It took the time to slow down the plot mechanics and really introduce us to these people. Also, the music sounded better than ever. Just when you thought you couldn't love something even more, it rides a unicorn back from several weeks away with a big bowl of Cinnamon Toast Crunch and a Snuggie to keep you full, warm, completely satisfied, and a little damp around the eyes.

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