Glee Review - 3.8 'Hold On to Sixteen'

Posted by Dimitri Dorlis on 12.07.2011

It's Sectionals time, and the final showdown between New Directions and the TroubleTones is coming up. Plus Sam is back, and MIKE CHANG deals with daddy issues. It's not as bad as it sounds.

Reader response for last week’s review was overwhelmingly neutral, but I decided to go back to the normal methodology for covering this show for now. Maybe next week I’ll do a video review of the show!

Nah, that would involve showing everyone my face. Can’t have that, otherwise people might recognize me, and I’d have to explain to my friends that I actually watch Glee.



You know, if you had told me that an episode would feature the return of a character I liked, feature a small amount of Rachel, and had Finn realize that there is no reason for him to be the lead singer of the group, I would have told you that you had the recipe for a good episode.

See, that should have been a warning sign, assuming that there was no way Glee could screw that up.

You see, it’s our first competition episode of the season. Normally that means minimal plot and mostly good singing, which is never a bad thing, but the writers decided to try and shoehorn a bunch of plots into an episode that should have been all about wrapping up plots. It’s the kind of episode that you don’t reintroduce characters in. You know, now that I think about it, it’s actually pretty impressive that the writers haven’t grasped these ideas 3 seasons in, so I guess I can give them some credit there.

So, with Rachel suspended at the end of last episode, New Directions is scrambling to figure out how to cope with losing her while also advancing to regionals in the face of stiff competition. Finn’s idea to put them over the edge (and honestly I can deal with a lot of the logic jumps, but this one kinda hurt to figure out) is to get Sam to rejoin the group. Sam, as you may recall, moved away with his family in search of steady employment, which for Sam means moonlighting as a dancer. I want to point out at this point that this show is about a show choir. We get the usual touching family moment that Glee loves to have , and one-two-three, Sam is back at McKinley.

Meanwhile, Blaine is starting to get a little pissy over his treatment by Finn. Honestly, I don’t blame him; Finn can’t sing and yet feels he’s entitled to boss one of the best singers around (and hey, look how well that turned out with Santana and Mercedes). Combine it with how much Finn backs Sam’s ideas for New Directions, and now you have a guy who really has no idea why he transferred. This leads to Finn giving his usual “we have to band together for the good of the Glee club” speech, which not even Blaine is strong enough to resist, and so the group is once again strong.

Well, except for the part where MIKE CHANG’s dad is still not talking to MIKE CHANG. Remember that plot? It didn’t stop being a thing that was happening, even though we haven’t really mentioned it for two episodes. Tina decided to take matters into her own hands and visits MIKE CHANG’s father. To be fair to this plot, MIKE CHANG is one of two characters (the other being Blaine) who have had consistent writing throughout their runs so far, and it’s a much easier plot to grasp and sympathize with than Quinn’s storyline.

Oh yeah, it wouldn’t be a competition episode without a Quinn plot. This time, she’s just waiting for the right moment to drop the bombshell that she knows (and also Puck, Shelby, and Rachel know). Rachel makes a valid point about Puck being of legal age to have relations with Shelby, but misses the point about the relationship being between a teacher and a student. Funny sidenote: I remembered about halfway through that Puck is now banging Rachel’s mom, and Rachel is apparently ok with it. Quinn also tries to lure Sam back into her web, but Sam only has eyes for Mercedes (they set that plot up at the end of last season, before having Sam move away).

Ok, that took up about half of the episode. Let’s talk about the competition now. First up were Harmony and the Unitards. You may remember Harmony as that girl from the first episode who had talent in the Gleeverse but not really (also in the Gleeverse, Finn is a very talented singer). It was an interesting way to make the third group in this competition seem like a threat, even though every viewer knew for a fact there was no way they’d win. The talent level of the groups in this sectionals was impressive, though. Remember in the first season when New Directions faced off against that blind school and the all-girls school? The level of competition really stepped up, which is a nice touch.

On to the TroubleTones, who only got to sing one song. If there was one scene that showed off the fact that Glee had finally grasped what irony was, it would be Finn and Blaine suddenly get cocky, only to have the TroubleTones suddenly burst into “Survivor”. Sure the dancing for this number was ok at best, but it served its purpose to show that the TroubleTones were still credible threats.

But in the end, this show is about New Directions, and since they still have the whole second half of the season, you knew they’d advance. I had a conversation with a friend earlier this year about how pointless the competition episodes became after last year’s regionals victory, because you know that they’d have to get back to nationals this year. The trick would be to try and raise the stakes for each of the competitions and make them seem like the threat of defeat was real. So kudos to the writers for once. They can’t grasp how to write interesting plots most of the time, but they can at least keep competitions interesting.

As for the performance, it was pretty great. There was more focus on the whole group instead of just a few singers. The costumes were a nice change of pace for the group, and signified a switch to a group that is more serious about winning, and won’t be stopped until they win nationals. The numbers were good as well, with my one complaint being having Finn start “Man in the Mirror”, but luckily Artie jumped in rather fast to save us from a prolonged Finn solo. Plus MIKE CHANG got his closure after the performance (his dad had showed up at the beginning of the New Directions performance) and I was rather happy about it.

But as far as the end of competition, was it any surprise that New Directions won? Yeah, I felt a little bad about the TroubleTones losing, but the stipulation that brought them back into the Glee club was good enough for me. Honestly, I would have taken them just showing up at the next New Directions meeting and saying they want back in. And the end song was much better than past competition wrap-up songs have been.

Plus it opens the door for the Rory/Sugar romance that I feel would be the greatest thing.

Stray Observations
- Your song list for the first episode is (with the best song in bold): “Red Solo Cup” by Toby Keith, “Buenos Aires” from Evita, “Survivor”/”I Will Survive” mashup of Destiny’s Child and Gloria Gaynor, “ABC” by the Jackson 5, “Control” by Janet Jackson, “Man in the Mirror” by Michael Jackson, and “We are Young” by fun.
- Your best-dressed award for episode one (or as I like to call it, the “Which Girl Looked the Hottest” award) went to the TroubleTones for their performance outfits.
- Your Real-Life Does Not Apply to the Gleeverse Moment of the Week: Sam managed to get reenrolled in McKinley rather quickly. He also managed to be eligible for sectionals rather quickly.
- Piece of throwaway dialogue: Warblers won their sectionals. Guess they’ll be the opponents for regionals, and they’ll be
- “I didn’t know Backdraft was a musical.” See, Finn is almost dumb as Brittany, but the show refuses to acknowledge it half the time.
- I’m making Puck’s nicknames for the band officially canon. Also if the Glee club is unpopular, then how unpopular are the band members that play for the Glee club.
- In a piece of spontaneously good acting, MIKE CHANG basically trips while getting up to greet Sam, while Rory sits there and has no idea who Sam is, but is just happy to be included.
- Santana wins for having written down a bunch of insults and then reading them off rapid-fire.
- #whitegirlproblems
- See, if I was MIKE CHANG, I would have dumped Tina a while ago. Lady is pretty controlling.
- Oh hey, a Fight Club reference. That’s nice.
- I guess New Directions also added two other guys to fill out their numbers. Thanks for pointing that out, Glee.
- This show always does a good job of busting out hilarious judges for the sectionals and regionals rounds. This year was no different, as your judge lineup consisted of an employee of the month, an appeals court judge, and the winner of best local party clown for three years running.
- Another throwaway line: Harmony is a sophomore. Can’t wait for them to move her over to New Directions.
- Next week: Christmas episode. They’ve been solid episodes in the past, so I hope they keep the streak up.

The 411: I could have done without the first half of this episode. It tried to do too much in 20 minutes, when Sam’s return really should have been a bigger deal than it was made out to be. However, the second half of the episode more than made up for it, and New Directions is moving on. The second half of the season is set up to pit New Directions against the new version of the Warblers at regionals, also we’ll get the return of Vocal Adrenaline eventually, right? Let’s just enjoy what was a good episode for once, and go on from here. Also I swear that 8.0 score is real.

Final Score:  8.0   [ Very Good ]