Gleek Out: When You’re Smiling

I made the mistake in my last Gleek Out feature of referring to these posts as "recaps". It occurred to me that this is a horribly inaccurate designation, because it's not like I'm (swoon!) Rich Juzwiak from fourfour. I don't have the patience to recount events, so this is basically a random collection of my thoughts on any given episode. I encourage fellow fans of the show to read them, respond to them and throw in their own two cents.

Keep in mind, there's only one more week before the show goes on a four month hiatus, so let's discuss it while we still can! The latest episode "Mattresses" made me laugh, nearly cry and actually feel kind of bad for Terri Schuester. In other words, it wasn't half bad. I'd love to tell you more about it, but I have to prepare for Kwanzaa. Oh, who am I kidding? I've already unpacked my kinara from the attic. Click through to check out more of my reflections on this episode, obviously packed with spoilers.

– Dewitt

To watch or read more about this episode, follow the JUMP:

1. "Smile" (Lea Michele & Cory Monteith): I was conflicted on the whole yearbook motif. It took center stage in the episode, when it really should have been a minor subplot. Even so, a few good things came out of it. Rachel's series of club photos in the yearbook made me chuckle once or twice, and I loved that Brittany would deface the glee club photo even if she appeared in it. Oh, and the GayLesbAll? Kurt's reaction was just pricelesss! All that aside, this performance of Lily Allen's "Smile" was a totally superfluous hot mess. If you're familiar with the song, it's about taking pleasure in your ex-lover's pain. In other words, it was completely irrelevant to this episode's plotline and was only thrown in because it uses the word "smile". The producers try to act like they choose these songs very carefully, but this one was just lazy. To add insult to injury, Lea Michele's diva pipes really weren't suited for this song. She sounded like she was holding back, to an uncomfortable extent. Maybe this could have worked with a different arrangement within a plotline that actually made sense for it? FAIL.
2. "Jump" (Full Cast, Led by Cory Monteith, Lea Michele & Amber Riley): It's appropriate that the cast is most famous for their rendition of "Don't Stop Believing", because this show really specializes in suspension of disbelief. As wonderful as the glee kids are, they would have never been able to arrange such a complex vocal arrangement of Van Halen's "Jump" (complete with choreography). I would have been able to let this slide if Mr. Schuester didn't say something along the lines of, "You did 'Jump' on your own for that mattress commercial!" It just hammered home the fact that this was completely unrealistic. Now that I've gotten that off my chest, I have to confess–this was one of the best (if not the best) musical number in the entire series. You got the sense that the characters, as well as the actors playing them, really had a blast filming this mattress commercial for a local chain. Speaking of which, was anyone else thrown off by the rest of the club members getting so excited about this? I can understand Rachel seeing this as her ticket to fame, but Mercedes wouldn't be stupid enough to think that she'd get a record deal out of this. Or even to make jokes about it. While we're talking about Mercedes, this is one of the first times that I think she really added something to a song, giving it an extra edge over the original. Her adlibs were–forgive me for the Tyraism–totally fierce.
3. "Smile" (Full Cast, Led by Lea Michele, Cory Monteith & Amber Riley): Normally, I'd get annoyed by these three constantly getting the solos, but it's totally realistic upon further reflection. In choirs or musical theater groups like this, there are always going to be favorites. Other members of the group resent them, as they audition for solos and lose out every time. We saw a bit of this animosity in the infamous Kurt vs. Rachel diva-off. If it seems like I'm trying to avoid talking about this number, it's because I totally am. It's not half-bad, and I appreciate that it's extremely relevant to the yearbook plotline… but listening to it makes me feel like I'm babysitting my grandmother. It's a total snore-fest.
4. Hysterical Pregnancy Revealed (Matthew Morrison & Jessalyn Gilsig): Although this wasn't quite a musical number, it deserves to be discussed. I actually didn't expect this fight to happen so soon in the series, but I knew exactly where they were going once Schuester started looking for his pocket square. What I didn't realize was how intense his reaction was. On both ends, this was some of the best dramatic acting we've seen yet. Will's confrontation and Terri's scrambling to justify her actions gave me chills and put a lump in my throat. Note: Emma's assumption that Schuester is getting a divorce, leading up to their inevitable collision in the mid-season finale. Also note: The meaning of Schuester sleeping on the "glee club" mattress will probably go over most of the general audiences' heads, despite being painfully obvious in a OMG-the-writers-are-so-clever way.
5. The Cheerios Sacrifice A Page (Dianna Agron & Jane Lynch): Sue Sylvester had a few good one-liners throughout this episode, though none of them were good enough for me to remember and repeat ten million times in casual conversation. Quinn's confrontation gave her points in my book, but they didn't really give her enough time for it to register that she didn't actually want to be in the Cheerios photo. It would have been much more effective if she agreed to Sue's "towel girl" proposal, showed up at the shoot for the cheerleading page and then bailed out. Or maybe it wouldn't have been. Either way, this could have been handled a little better.

Promo for next week's episode, "Sectionals":