Lies, Damn Lies

Glee, a bit of a damp squib

So as my facebook status indicated, I was deeply disappointed with the season finale of Glee. As a stand alone episode of glee it wasn't actually that terrible, but as a wrap up of a season? Distressingly poor?

Season 1 closed with the wonderful intercutting between bohemian rhapsody and Quinns pregnancy. This season closed with.. well a whimper frankly.

Season 2 in general has been a mixed bag. It irritatingly reset the clock on several relationships which had been key last season, in particular Rachel and Finn and Mr Shue and Emma. This is always a really bad idea, as it takes the audiences victory away from them, and sets up the possibility of the audience simply losing interest.

Simply put, the show has not known what to do with the adults this season. Shue has been tedious in the extreme, with his boring boring love life, and his patronising speechifying. Coach Bieste was actually reasonably interesting, but she didn't have much to do, other than buy Artie magic legs (SERIOUSLY, WHAT THE FUCK?). Sue, while always funny, has also been a mess, changing from one extreme to another. Yes, shes had some good moments, but the show has lost sight of who the character is. I certainly don't know anymore.

If wild character inconsistency had been present only in the adults then I'd probably be ok with it, but unfortunately the sickness spread to the kids as well, with Quinn becoming rapidly ill defined. She basicaly forgets any character growth she might have had, and becomes set upon a dream of prom queening, and keeping Finn at home with her. This has kind of come from nowhere, but as I'll get to, the show doesn't even follow through on that.

Worse are the kids the show hasn't known what to do with. Tina has been relegated to occasional gags, not even getting solos anymore, and Mercedes? Good grief. Her plots were wanting to eat tater tots and being a diva or something. The latter plot was just embarrasing, as it involves Rachel helping the poor misguided Mercedes be a star (this exact same plot is basically repeated in the finale with Sunshine).

So has there been good things about this season? Well its still pretty funny. The show still gets a lot mileage out of how small these kid's world is, and Brittany has been incredibly funny throughout. More importantly, there are plots that worked. Puckerman and Laurens romance has been hilarious and sweet at the same time, along with being unexpected.

More importantly, the main plot of Kurt and Karofsky really worked for the main part, and evoked some decent emotions along the way, which led to the even more of a slow burner of Brittany and Santana, characters we could really root for, with the other romances being damp squibs.

So finally we get to the finale. Which of these plots does the show decide to focus on?

1)Mr Shue is going to broadway
2)Finn wants to get back with Rachel
3)Quinn has an evil plan
4)Rachel is worried she can't be with Finn because she's moving to new york.

1 was utterly tedious and pointless, and rather self indulgent (and seriously, a guy was waiting to tell him that he was really talented? For fucks sake)

3, carefully set up beforehand... was resolved by Quinn getting a haircut. Right. I don't really know how to respond to that.

2 and 4. Now Finn wanting to be with Rachel is kinda stupid, considering he desperately wanted to be with Quinn before, but sure, I'll go with it. But 4? Rachel has spent the whole goddamn season pining over Finn, so introducing a dilemma JUST for the finale just didn't work at all. Annoyingly Rachel's desire to move on (which, again, magically appeared), and Quinn's desire to stay at home could have worked really well to introduce drama, but that would have involved semi-decent writing...

And the subplots I actually care about? Well they get mentioned in the last 5 minutes. Great.

Now down to nitpicking

-the "my cup" song, while funny, is basically the exact same joke as "my headband".
-The songs, were, in general, dull. Wicked song was kinda fun, but the original songs were tedious. I get that the network makes more money from them, but if they keep doing original songs they'll kill the show
-Speaking of the original songs, the plot required that the glee club write them the night before the performance. WHAT? How did they practice it? How did the band know what to play? How were they any good? How did they even come 40th, let alone 12th?
-Jesse has no point in this show
-I actually forgot Sam existed. But he's with Mercedes now. Well I guess its something to do with the new character....

Season 3 is going to sky. I can't say I'm going to miss it greatly.

Labels: rant, review, television

posted by Mr K @ 8:29 pm