Friday, October 8, 2010

What I’m Watching: Glee

Glee: Season 2, Episode 3 “Grilled Cheesus” (B+)

After last week’s iffy Britney Spears episode, it’s good to see this show back on track in an installment that’s both hilarious and heartbreaking at the same time. For starters, I can think of few things funnier than the Grilled Cheesus and the way that Finn started worshipping it, thinking that it was giving him all this good luck at the expense of other people. It tied in well with the episode’s overarching theme of religion, which enabled Rachel, Mercedes, and Kurt to have some pretty rocking solo numbers. Rachel’s Yentl reenactment, set outdoors because that’s the way that Streisand sang it, was quite entertaining and worked well to counteract the problem cited by Richter Scale in the comments last week about Rachel always needing to give an unnecessary introduction speech to all of her emotion-expressing songs. It’s nice to see Mercedes be a good friend to Kurt in his time of need, even if he isn’t so receptive to her approach. Tom O’Neil of Gold Derby is already writing about how this should be Chris Colfer’s Emmy submission, and I think I agree. He really did a terrific job, and Kurt carried this episode quite well. A surprisingly dramatic ending not related to Kurt featured Sue and Will in a rare moment of bonding, as Sue realizes that sometimes religion isn’t the worst thing in the world, and people need to express themselves in a whatever way makes sense for them. I’d call this installment a solid and multi-faceted episode!

2 comments:

Richter Scale said...

So would I. After last week's music-video parade, this was really nice to see. And, I have to say, I think Chris Colfer needs to be nominated again. I fear that Glee might suffer the same fate that Desperate Housewives and Ugly Betty did with Emmys (highly buzzed, winning Golden globe and SSG but losing Emmy in their first year, though winning Emmy for Directing and one Acting, and then never nominated again), and if it does, I really hope Chris Colfer and Jane Lynch don't get lost with the rest of it, because they are both terrific in their roles. I cried when I heard Kurt singing "I Want to Hold Your Hand". I was not expecting that number, and it was so moving. Also, being a huge Billy Joel fan, I was really excited to hear Puck sing Only the Good Die Young (only he could have been given that song). I still think Rachel talks way too much, but the Yentl number was well done.

Andrew K. said...

I really didn't feel Colfer dominated the episode, it all felt really ensemble-ish (moreover Salling seemed to have the best number for me). I usually find him bland but I think Monteith completely sold the silliness of Finn here. But the episode was good and everyone was on their game; the Sue/Emma confrontation was well done on both actors' parts.