Glee Review - 3.12 'The Spanish Teacher'

Posted by Dimitri Dorlis on 02.08.2012

Ricky Martin shows up to bring some Latin flavor to the show, while Will Schuester continues to be a terrible, terrible person. Plus, someone's having a baby, and it's not Quinn this time!

Let me preface this week’s review by saying that, yes, I did watch the Smash pilot, and it was pretty damn good. I’ll definitely be watching the show, although I’ll end up being a bit behind. Mostly because I will have something to do now on Monday nights that I need to pay attention to. Stay tuned for more info.

By the way if any of you readers are great at making pictures and stuff, send me an email, as I may need a favor done. This little banner thing below might make my skill level pretty obvious.



Will Schuester is a terrible character. Or rather, Will Schuester has become a terrible character.

Remember way back in the first season, when Will was this bright-eyed educator who wanted to bring back something from his high school days in an attempt to enrichen the lives of students while at the same time making one last grasp at glory? This is the same Will Schuester that was confident about his actions, and seemed completely competent, if not actually good at his job. Throw that all out the window, because it’s become painfully obvious how far Will’s character has come. I enjoyed the opening for what it was, because we rarely if ever see Will in the classroom actually teaching. If the episode had been about Will having trouble connecting with his students at a time when a tenured teaching position opened up, that would have been a good head start on a potentially good episode. But no. Turns out Will doesn’t know Spanish. Let me repeat that. The Spanish teacher at a high school has no idea how to speak Spanish.

I know that Glee exists in this little bubble where the rules of society don’t necessarily apply. That’s not the problem. The problem is that there needs to be some type of grounding in reality. Most of the kids have it, and it’s ok for them to get caught up in the moment because they’re not even 18 yet. They’re allowed to make rash decisions and have crazy mood swings because that’s what most high schoolers are like. They think every single action has life and death consequences, so it makes sense that their tv counterparts have those same reactions. Will, on the other hand, apparently has no grounding in reality. There is no high school in America that would employ someone to teach Spanish if they couldn’t speak the language. My Spanish teachers in high schools were a bunch of older white ladies, but at least they were fluent. The point is that if you’re going to call out the fact Will is terrible at the job he is paid to do, then what faith should we have that he isn’t unqualified to lead the Glee club as well? As an aside, here’s a quick kudos to the Glee writing staff for managing to throw the nation’s education system under the bus less than 5 minutes into the episode.

As an aside, I did like Ricky Martin in this episode. His character is smart, and Martin just brings a natural charisma that makes it extremely hard to hate him. It also helps that, after giving a heartfelt reason for why he left tooth modeling (which sounds like it could be the easiest job in the world after being an accountant for the police) and went into teaching, that Will copies Martin word for word. I haven’t figured out at what point Will turned heel, but it was an impressively quick turn. The end sequence back at the night school really drove home how good of a teacher Martin’s character was, and it felt really great to see him get a job teaching Spanish, and his happiness in that scene seemed so genuine. Wouldn’t have guessed that Ricky Martin would be such a good addition to the show, but here we are.

But I’m going to skip to the end, because much of the A-plot was filler, and not even good filler. But the ending was some powerful stuff. Turns out that Santana complained to the principal about Will’s incompetence, and she is completely in the right here. Santana has every right to be worried about her education, and the fact that Will started to defend himself and say how unfair it was that he was being attacked for not knowing Spanish showed how far he has come. Thank god Will realized that the only reason he became a Spanish teacher was because it was the only position available, solving that puzzle. Plus making Will the new history teacher makes a lot more sense, considering how easy it is to teach (and I say this as a history major. It is incredibly easy to teach high school history. That’s why all the high school coaches teach either PE or history). Also a nice touch was Emma getting the tenure position, which she honestly deserved for being the only adult on this show that is somewhat sane.

Meanwhile, Sue reveals that she’s going to have a baby, or at least is trying to have one. This was a pretty standard Sue storyline, with people making jokes about how old she is (and Nene’s minute-long joke barrage was probably the best of the bunch), but it did a great job of humanizing Sue again. It seems that every so often, Sue will rise up to cartoon supervillain-levels of antagonism, from trying to get the Glee club budget cut in the first couple of seasons, to this season’s political campaign. Thankfully, the writers always tend to do a good job of writing episodes meant to bring her back down to earth, whether it was revealing Sue’s sister, or that her sister had died. The final scene with Becky did a lot to redeem much of Sue this season, so kudos to the writing team on nailing this plot.

And finally, over on Minor Plot Avenue, Sam and Mercedes almost got back together, but then didn’t, which is just another example of delaying the inevitable. Although, I guess it is hard to delay something you teased at the end of the prior season but screwed up by not bringing back one of the actors until halfway through a season. Also Rachel revealed her engagement to Kurt and Mercedes, and Kurt gave Finn the ultimate pep talk.

Stray Observations
- Your song list for the first episode is (with the best song in bold): “La Cucaracha” which is a traditional Spanish song that became popular in Mexico (btw, who said this review isn’t educational?), “Sexy and I Know It” by LMFAO, “Don’t Wanna Lose You” by Gloria Estefan, “Bamboleo”/”Hero” mashup between the Gipsy Kings and Enrique Iglesias, “La Isla Bonita” by Madonna, and “A Little Less Conversation” by Elvis Presley.
- Your best-dressed award for episode one (or as I like to call it, the “Which Girl Looked the Hottest” award) went to Santana during “La Isla Bonita”, because god DAMN girl. The Cheerios came close during that dance thing, mostly because I have this thing for the one Cheerio with the somewhat-shorter platinum blonde hair.
- Your Real-Life Does Not Apply to the Gleeverse Moment of the Week: Will has managed to become a high school Spanish teacher without actually being able to speak Spanish. I know I talked about it up in the main article, but dammit this is still dumb as all hell.
- Slushie count: 0
- I’d like to imagine this whole episode began when the writing staff realized that Will was supposed to be a teacher.
- “And that’s how Germany won the second World War.”
- “You’re a Spanish teacher. Maybe you should try learning Spanish.” Principal Figgins basically hits the nail on the head here. It would have been so much easier to make Will a drama teacher or a history teacher or something, but Spanish? Seriously?
- Will, who in addition to being a terrible teacher is also a terrible person, can’t even be supportive of Sue’s decision to have a baby.
- “Cheerleading magazines are right here. Good luck.”
- Still happy that Nene Leakes is turning out to be great in her synchronized swimming coach role.
- Santana shaking maracas whilst looking disinterested. HOW DID SHE EVEN MANAGE TO MAKE THAT LOOK HOT?!?
- “Jail. Or dead. Or both.” Puck is ever the realist.
- Oh hey, Sugar showed up.
- Poor Ricky Martin was so close to cracking up in some of these scenes. You almost wonder how long the outtakes for this episode would be, just with Martin laughing at Will Schuester’s ineptness.
- For as terrible as Finn’s dancing was, “Sexy and I Know It” was super fun.
- “So you’re a two-timing ho.” “So you’re dating a two-timing ho” Chalk that up to things I never thought I’d write in a Glee review.
- And as a quick contrast, look how competent Emma is at her job. WHAT DOES SHE EVEN SEE IN WILL?!?
- “How is a girl with no ass supposed to choose between the juiced-up wolf and the depressed vampire? She’s into both of them.” I will post any and all Twilight digs.
- Rachel has planned early struggles into her life. It’s moments like these that make me remember why I liked Rachel so long ago.
- Santana is still the biggest bitch on the show, and it’s great.
- Name of the pamphlet Emma hands Sue: Please Don’t Hog My Fiance’s Nog. Where does she even get these things? Oh wait, Emma answered that when she reveals that she writes them all. Still a great gag.
- Sometimes Glee can be clever: both Santana and Nene say the “With who’s vagina?” line to Sue. That’s called a clever callback.
- “Performance Anxiety: It’s Not Just for Teenage Boys.” “No Insurance, No Problem: How to Give Yourself Stitches.” Is it bad that I wanted Emma to just communicate with pamphlets for the rest of the episode?
- “I’m an authentic Spanish matador.”
- “Cmon guys! Why just last week, three Fort Wayne gymnasts had to have their junk amputated.” “I stopped washing down there because it seemed kinda gay…” “I thought that was what the hair was for – catching the dirt.” “Huh, lift and scrub. Who knew it was so easy?” This right here was the exchange of the night. Pure genius.
- “Like Larry Bird white.”
- NEXT WEEK: Valentine’s Day, which, from the previews, is bringing us 3 things. 1) Finn and Rachel reveal their engagement to the glee club, which is met with resounding “no”s. 2) There will be some kind of love triangle between Sugar, Artie, and Rory. This is the second best thing. 3) Because the best thing is the first appearance of Rachel’s parents, one of which is JEFF MOTHERF***KING GOLDBLUM.

The 411: Despite the terrible setup, this was actually a very good episode of Glee. The show never seemed to drag, and the musical numbers were pretty good. Martin was used exceptionally well, which seems to be a theme with the show and the guest stars it brings in (looking at you, Gwenyth Paltrow). I’m still a bit miffed about most of the Will storyline, but I’m willing to let it slide when there has been so much worse that this show has done this year.

Final Score:  8.5   [ Very Good ]