Tonight’s episode of Glee “Pot O’Gold” introduces the newest character to join the group, Rory Flanagan (Damian McGinty) and the defection of another two members, Brittany and Santana, for the newly formed “The Troubletones”.
Overall, Glee has once again fallen into it’s same painful cycle of characters that are irritating, members that backstab, and music that is not only uninspiring and cliche, but also misplaced and forced in the context of the episode itself. The plot itself is once again completely throwaway. Mercedes has been able to get another couple of members to her new group “The Troubletones” via Santana’s desire to have more spotlight, and Brittany’s desire to stick with Santana. Meanwhile, the New Directions gains a member in the Irish exchange student Rory, whom has a very young, fragile voice similar to Kurt’s voice. There is a serious lack of keep male vocals in this group, and the trend continues on with their latest addition.
Meanwhile, Sue’s insane and unholy crusade against the arts at least gets a nice reality check with Kurt’s going head to head with the bull herself running against her for congressional office. It seems to be a launching point though to give the writers more freedom to amp up the cruelty of Sue towards the Glee club, and not based in any real sense of urgency.
The other odd point of the episode is Quinn’s inhuman ability to cope with the concept of her daughter being raised by another person, leading her to some of the most despicable acts of selfishness yet in planting evidence of abuse and calling Child Services on the adopting mother Sherry. It’s a sore point for me as I just can’t enjoy the idea of rooting for someone that’s such a horrible person inside, which only makes me want to make the group even smaller than it’s already gotten this season.
In addition to the painfully annoying and plain distasteful plot, we have the addition of five songs to the episode, most of which are completely contrived and don’t make any sense contextually, thematically, or tastefully within the plot itself.
It felt completely like a forced situation to result in Rory’s adaptation of “It’s Not Easy Being Green,” a classic in children’s music and a seemingly subliminal tie in to the popularity the Muppets have gained in the last few weeks thanks to their strong marketing for their upcoming movie.
“Last Friday Night” was just a song Blane did to say cheer up the group, and didn’t even make any sense in context with what was being discussed, the continued attacks on the Glee club by Sue.
“Waiting on a Girl Like You” is marginally sensical, based on the end of the episode with Puck kissing Sherry, though admittedly they skipped the latter 2 verses which talk about getting it on with the girl which would have been…awkward.
“Candyman” was a fun production, and a good showcase of Mercedees’s talent, but the final “Take Care Of Yourself” was a bit of out of place for the style of music Glee tends to lean towards. And besides, the song is about farewells and breaking up. I hope they didn’t bring in Rory just to give them an opportunity to fill in a lot of folk rock style songs, or if that song was a foreshadowing to the end of the season.
Other Observations
- “If you mess with me, i will temple of doom my fist through your chest ,and pull out your still pumping artificial start, which i will then hook up to my car, power us down to the local lumberjack convention for some deep discounts the flannel convention.”
- “Say U2 Is overrated!” “NEVER”
- “West side story, a musical about race war that glorifies gang violence”
