Glee Review - 3.10 'Yes/No'
Posted by Dimitri Dorlis on 01.18.2012
Love is in the air at McKinley High, with Will hoping to propose to Emma. Plus: what does the future hold for Sam and Mercedes?
Because I don’t have enough Skyrim in my life, I decided to get Skyrim on PC over the break, so that I can basically be Skyrim’ing 24/7.
Oh, and I guess reviewing Glee again. Whoppie….
Oh my god.
Oh my god what is this opening why is this happening.
You know, I’m just gonna come out and say this. The opening almost ruined the episode from the beginning. Thankfully the Becky inner monologue brought it back. So let’s just pretend that opening never happened and continue with the rest of this review.
So this episode was all about marriages and relationships. We found out that over the break that Coach Beistie and Cooter got married over Christmas break, which was another one of those storyline progression occurring offscreen things that Glee loves to do. Meanwhile, Will decides he wants to propose to Emma, Sam tries to get back together with Mercedes, and Betty decides that she wants Artie.
I do like when there are prevailing themes in episodes. Glee doesn’t do it often, though. Sure, you have theme episodes, but those mostly relate to the song choices. It’s new for Glee to have an entire episode focused on a singular topic, so for me, this was nice. Sure, it took 3 seasons to do it, but I’ve learned to expect these kinds of things from Glee.
Anyway, Will struggles over how he’s going to propose to Emma, and has New Directions work out the best proposal. Artie comes up with a sexy ballad, which doesn’t work because of Emma’s fear of dirt and sweat and getting hot and bothered. Meanwhile, Will asks Finn to be his best man, while Finn admits that he is considering joining the army. I actually had a problem with this, mainly because it just felt so throw-away in that moment. Finn considering joining the army should be a big moment on the show – of all the characters, Finn has the most issues when it comes to life after high school, so any decision he makes should be rather big. Plus, shoe-horning in all the new stuff about Finn’s dad being a drug addict suffering from PTSD after Iraq was also important, but still. I would have liked this to be a main plot in its own episode, not being a side story in this episode. And yes, I may legitimately hate Finn, but that doesn’t mean I can’t hate when his character is brushed to the side when it should be a bigger story.
Will does end up asking Emma’s parents for permission, and they say no. Of course, they don’t believe marriage is in the best interests of their daughter, and I can’t fault them for wanting to be good parents. Plus, it makes Will think harder about his decision to marry Emma. Will brings up the grievances with Emma, which leads to something that, I guess resembled a fight, but was more of a situation where Will let others put thoughts in his head. We know Will loves Emma, and that Emma loves Will, so you know their relationship will work out in the end, but I hated how much Will let others influence him so much. He lets the Glee club plan out his engagement instead of doing it himself, and he lets Emma’s parents almost talk him out of marrying Emma. Just not a strong episode from Will here.
Over in Sam/Mercedes plot territory, Sam is trying to win Mercedes back. If you’ll recall, they were set up as having a secret romance at the end of season 2, which ended when Sam wasn’t brought back to Glee right away. Of course, now that Sam’s back, Mercedes can’t help but be interested in him. And even though she tries to be “just friends”, you knew that those old feelings would manifest in one big groundswell of emotion, as they did during the “First Time I Ever Saw Your Face” quartet. In a weird twist of fate, though, the plot gets dropped at this point, so hopefully they stretch this out over a few episodes to fully play out the story.
And finally, Becky decides to go after Artie, which Artie, after being rejected by Sugar, agrees to. As the two spend more time with each other, Artie finds himself enjoying being around Becky. The Glee club stage a “Beckyvention” at one point, which was honestly just a continuation of the “Glee Club are terrible people occasionally” theme that has been going on this whole season. Unfortunately, when Becky decides to go the distance with Artie, Artie realizes that it’s time to end the relationship, and gets some good advice from Sue about treating Becky like a human being and being honest with her. Thank god for Sue continuing to be the white night for people with disabilities.
Thankfully, the climax and Will’s proposal was very good. It was as over-the-top as it needed to be, and Will’s speech felt like it was from the heart. Artie lets Becky down softly, and Sue decides to cheer Becky up with some Lifetime. And in the shocker of all shockers (actually not that shocking when you think about it), Finn proposes to Rachel. We won’t get an answer to Finn’s question till next week (actually two weeks? I don’t even know how Fox does its scheduling anymore), but it’s a solid cliffhanger, and I’m glad they got it out of the way here instead of waiting to do it at the end of the season. I mean, we all knew Finn would propose to Rachel eventually, right?
Stray Observations
- Your song list for the first episode is (with the best song in bold): “Moves Like Jagger”/”Jumpin’ Jack Flash” mashup between Maroon 5 and the Rolling Stones, “Summer Nights” from Grease, “The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face” by Roberta Flack, “We Found Love” by Rihanna, “Wedding Bells” by Fifth Dimension, and “Without You” by David Guetta.
- Your best-dressed award for episode one (or as I like to call it, the “Which Girl Looked the Hottest” award) went to all girls for their synchronized swimming outfits.
- Your Real-Life Does Not Apply to the Gleeverse Moment of the Week: Actually, Glee decided to make reference to people singing songs in their head by having Emma accidentally sing the song out loud.
- In happy news, Sugar is thankfully back. Time to renew my proposed Sugar/Rory romance.
- The one thing I did like about the opening, though, was Rory and Blaine’s face while they were “shoo bop bop”ing. It was just so over-the-top hilarious.
- Helen Mirren as Becky's inner voice is just fantastic. Absolutely fantastic.
- “Well, Michael Chicklis in a wig, I would like to offer my congratulations.”
- Dammit Artie you are ruining my shipping chart. Sugar x Rory OTP.
- “Would trouty-mouth work?”
- Nene Leakes (you may know her from Real Housewives and Celebrity Apprentice was outstanding as the synchronized swim instructor. “Imma say one thing to you, Sam Evans, and I’m only gonna say it once: If you pee in my pool, I will kill you.”
- Things that I didn’t need but happened anyway: Will dancing in a tank-top and tie. Obvious eye-candy for the ladies is obvious.
- “Oh yeah, and how did that marriage work out for you? I mean, what was your big move then, a jumbotron that said ‘Hey Terry, I wanna make a fake baby with you!’” Santana for best.
- “Just be grateful Comrade Obama still allows Christmas.”
- “What’s your favorite movie?” “Schindler’s List.” “Seriously?” “Toy Story 3 is a close second.”
- Emma’s pamphlets: Dying Alone, Happily Never After, So You’re a Spinster.
- Artie rolling into the pool for secret best. Secondary best for Artie and his raft.
- NEXT, ER, IN TWO WEEKS: GET READY FOR THAT MICHAEL JACKSON EPISODE THAT WE JUST HAD TO HAVE. PLUS I GUESS THE WARBLERS SHOW UP, AND RACHEL REMAINS COY ABOUT WHETHER SHE ACCEPTED FINN’S PROPOSAL. SHOULD BE SOMETHING.
The 411: You know, there was a lot of good in this episode, but there was an equal amount of bad. I have to give credit to the show for doing a theme episode throughout, but at the same time, the Finn storyline should have been pushed back a week to let it stand out as the main plot of an episode. The Sam and Mercedes storyline will continue into the foreseeable future, which works for me because at least they have something to do, but most of the cast is back to spinning its wheels. Hopefully the next episode will put the club on track to whatever the next competition is that they’ll win in order to get back to Nationals, which should give everyone more time to shine.
