Alas, for the first time, Sue Sylvester was completely absent from an episode of Glee. But guess what? The show proved it can still deliver a pretty solid episode, even sans Sue.

The main focus of this episode was Rachel's new crush – on Schue. This began when the two performed "Endless Love" together in the opening scene, which very amusingly proved this show is not precious about its songs. In fact, we barely heard the song, as instead we began to hear the characters thoughts (a gimmick that continued throughout the episode), and learned how just like that, Rachel was seeing Will in a new light. There was some very funny stuff here, as Will realized what the look on Rachel's face meant, and began to literally flee from her as the song continued. I loved hearing him bluntly think, "She looks crazy right now!"

The rest of the episode involved Will doing what he could to stop this crush, including somewhat foolishly involving Emma, the other person at the school infatuated with him. Jayma Mays and Lea Michele were really fun to watch as they both sat beaming at Will, as he sang a mash-up meant to tell Rachel to back off. Though Will, using "Don't Stand So Close to Me"? I don't know, even though you skipped some of the lyrics, the teacher in that song seems to be really struggling with his own feelings about the schoolgirl with a crush, so I'm thinking that's not the best choice.

On a more dramatic note, a lot of this episode dealt with Quinn and Finn, and her attempts to keep her pregnancy a secret from her parents. Finn singing "I'll Stand By You" to the unborn baby he thinks is his was very sweet – while we watched Kurt, still harboring his own huge crush on Finn, doing a lot of projecting.



But what was up with Mercedes? Puck blurted out he was the real dad to her and her response was bizarre and fairly cruel to both Puck and Finn, as she stated that Quinn had chosen who the baby's dad was and that was that. Really? She doesn't think Finn should know he's not really the dad? She doesn't think Puck should be involved, given he actually is the dad? It was a really strange response, and given Mercedes is not generally written to be an unlikable, manipulative person (That's Terri!), I'm not sure how the writers thought this was a justified viewpoint for her.

Things got decidedly heavy near the end of the hour, after Finn revealed to Quinn's parents that she was pregnant – via song of course. We've had plenty of dramatic scenes on Glee so far, but this was definitely the grimmest, with Quinn's father saying some truly hurtful things that left Quinn in tears – all well played by both Dianna Agron as Quinn and the always great Gregg Henry as her father.

The resolution of Rachel's crush involved a nice twist on expectations – we had learned earlier in the episode about Suzie Pepper, the first student to develop obvious feelings for Schue, and throughout the episode, we saw her lurking about, watching Rachel. But rather than go with the obvious, "Stay away from him, he's mine!" take on the material, Pepper instead approached Rachel with the attitude of, "Stay away from him, you'll only end up hurting yourself," in a much more sympathetic way, warning Rachel, "Trust me, I'm a cautionary tale."

I thought we might get some more direct acknowledgement of Kurt's oh-so-obvious crush on Finn by the end of the episode – but then again, Finn's not the quickest guy. The heartfelt conclusion, as everyone sang "Lean on Me" to Finn and Quinn included a funny moment of Kurt miming "Call me" to Finn, during that portion of the song, juxtaposed with Puck earnestly singing the same words towards Quinn in a more straightforward manner – if you'll excuse the term. Though we're obviously far from done dealing with how Kurt is, unfortunately for him, barking up the wrong tree when it comes to who he has a crush on just as much as Rachel was in this episode.

SOURCE: http://tv.ign.com/articles/104/1046748p1.html

If you're a Glee fan already -- a Gleek -- this episode is going to hit you in the sweet spot. If you're not a Glee fan, do yourself a favor and go online and watch this one (when it's available). It's just that good.

It may be coincidental, but the focus was on the school and the music. And plenty of character development with Puck, Kurt, and especially Sue. There was no football, no Slushees, no Emma and definitely no Teri. It's looking like Glee is best when Mr. Schu's personal life is off camera. I haven't missed the Mrs. one bit. More after the jump.

With the sectionals coming, Will had a few ideas about what the judges were looking for ... a little less hip-hop, a little more Broadway. With that in mind, he pulled out "Defying Gravity," the big ballad from Wicked. Rachel was perfect for it, but Kurt stepped up and asked for a chance to compete. From that kernel came an entire show dealing with diversity.

Actually, it was more than that. There was also Artie. Mr. Schu's lesson for the kids, making them spend three hours a day in a wheelchair, was a bit obvious. But they got the message. The solo featuring Kevin McHale singing "Dancing With Myself" was inspired. He really pulled it off. He has a very good voice, and the wheelchair choreography was excellent. (How interesting that Ugly Betty used the same song in last week's episode. It worked well in both shows.)

Kurt's father doesn't get his son's homosexuality, but he loves him and wants to help him. He stood up for Kurt, and in turn, Kurt gave back to his Dad. Their relationship has become one of the most healthy parent-child connections on TV. Neither character has it all together, but together they represent familial love at its best.

The "Defying Gravity" diva-off was done in an interesting way, intercutting Rachael and Kurt. Kurt claimed that he blew the high F on purpose, but I thought Rachel was better at the number. She just has the big Broadway belt in her voice, like a Barbra Streisand or a Patti Lupone or Idina Menzel (who won the Tony for singing it in Wicked on Broadway).

The diversity theme bled into open auditions for the Cheerios. Will suspected that Sue's selection of Becky, a young girl with Down's Syndrome, was part of some scheme. Sue responded to Will's suspicions with the line, "You don't know me at all," setting up the most poignant scene in the show. Sue visited her older sister, Jean, at a nursing home. When Sue read Little Red Riding Hood to her, I welled up with tears and had a lump in my throat. There is much more to Sue Sylvester than the hyper-competitive coach with delusions of grandeur.

It's hard to feel sympathetic about Quinn because she's so hard and deceitful. But she's not wrong to expect the father of her baby to take responsibility for the medical expenses; she's just wrong to continue to lie to Finn about him being the dad. Clearly, Noah wants to step up and be the "man."

In the end, Becky became a Cheerio -- and was glad to be treated like any other cheerleader being pushed by Coach Sylvester -- Rachel got the solo, Kurt got a little closer to his Dad, and New Directions pulled off a great rendition of "Proud Mary" with the entire group dancing in wheelchairs. And they even got the bus to go to sectionals as a team. Woo-hoo!

Superb episode; the kind that wins awards.

SOURCE: http://www.tvsquad.com/2009/11/12/review-glee-wheels-recap/

Will sure likes his old school hip hop and R&B, doesn't he? This week's episode began with Will performing his "personal favorite song" – "Bust a Move." I have to hand it to Matthew Morrison for just going for it in these sequences. There is of course something completely dorky about seeing this guy perform these songs, but Morrison infuses Will with such enjoyment in what he's doing, he completely sells it. And yes, the guy can dance.

This episode dealt head on with what it is to be cool, or in the case of the Glee club, utterly uncool. Finn and Quinn were quite upset to realize they were suddenly on the low end of the social ladder at their school, marked by the ultimate symbol of being an outcast at McKinley – the slushie facial. Meanwhile, we saw the merciless insults Finn was facing from his football teammates over joining "Homo Explosion."

The "Mash-Up" of the title referred, among other things, to characters like Quinn, Finn and Puck who were mashing together two different worlds by joining Glee. And this continued as Puck romantically pursued Rachel. I loved how casually he asked her if she wanted to make out and how quickly she said, "Sure!" There was something both funny and oddly realistic (or at least, realistic feeling) about the random hook up between these two. What was even funnier was finding out that Puck set out on this course after his mom asked him to find a nice Jewish girl, and as he reasoned, "Rachel was a hot Jew and the good lord wanted me to get into her pants." Mark Salling was very good in this episode, including his first big musical performance on "Sweet Caroline."



Seeing Emma sing "I Could Have Danced All Night" was sweet, though was it just me (or my TV), or was the volume on her vocals a bit unusually loud? I also could have done without Will's line telling her she should sing to help her keep the beat as she danced – come on Glee, you're a musical. Embrace it and just let her sing.

Sue's relationship with anchorman Rod was fun but I kind of wish they hadn't ended it within this single episode – it would have been amusing to see happy, in love Sue a bit longer, before her inevitable return to evil. But kudos to the actor who played Rod, who was perfect as the ultimate cheese anchorman, who spoke in the same overly enthusiastic and enunciated voice on and off camera. He got one of the best lines of the week, after Sue caught him with another woman: "I can't be caged in, Sue. That's why I got my tiger tattoo."

The episode's big Glee-related tension was whether the football players would choose Glee or their team when Ken forced them to come to one or the other. It was actually a nice beat to have Finn be the only one of the team to not choose Glee, though inevitably he did return – after getting Ken to ease up on the one or the other thing.

Meanwhile, the newly enraged Sue threw Quinn off the team – leading to the unusual sight of Dianna Agron not wearing her cheerleader uniform anymore. I'm guessing Agron is happy for the change, though I'm thinking some of the viewers are already missing the uniform…

Glee continually is reminding us that one can never get enough Jane Lynch in their entertainment, and wow did this episode deliver in that regard. With Sue now the co-chair of the Glee-club, there was no avoiding her – to Will's horror and our great amusement.

Sue Sylvester has already turned into a truly inspired comic creation – so wonderfully smug and sure of herself that she compares herself to the Greek god Ajax. And then there's the ignorance (she calls a piano a "black, shiny thing") and the casual racism… You need a comic actress like Lynch to pull it off, and to make her someone we love spending time watching on TV (even if we'd hate her in real life), but kudos to Ryan Murphy and his writing team for giving us such a great television character.

Sue's plan to destroy the Glee club from within involved splitting the group into two, and blatantly making it the minorities versus the white (non-gay, non wheelchair bound) kids. An hysterical, jaw-dropping moment had her do her form of role call by calling, "Santana. Wheels. Gay Kid. Asian. Other Asian. Aretha. And Shaft." And while it was of course ludicrous, it was great as she, with Quinn's help, pushed it even further by making the Jewish Puck and the Dutch Britney also feel slighted and marginalized.



I also loved the sequence that began the episode, showing Sue and Will yelling at each other in slow motion, complete with slow-mo roars – and there was even some pseudo fourth wall breaking, as Will bemoaned that they were "Even fighting in our voiceovers."

There were several moments in this episode that were a reminder of how unrealistic Glee is. Terri's sister blackmailed an obstetrician into faking an ultrasound, in a scene that pointed out that it was pretty much impossible for Will not to have figured out Terri is not pregnant at this point; Puck feels like he's being pushed aside due to his Judaism, even though Rachel, also a Jew, is the star of the club. And I found myself chuckling over the fact that every time we see these kids handed a new song, they all are instantly able to perform it, knowing every single lyric and harmony, without looking at lyrics or rehearsing. And the thing is… It's all fine. The show is operating at a bigger than life level, in the manner plenty of musicals do. Taking it seriously isn't really necessary – which is probably why the only thing that tends to bug me are some of the more overly earnest, saccharine moments.

Most of the time though, Glee is just being damn funny, as this episode was a great example of. When Will complained that most of Sue's cheerleaders were doing terribly in Spanish, her amazing response -- "We all know about your devotion to that dying language!" -- was one of the funniest things I'd heard on TV all week. From Finn noting that his baby has, "No mutations or anything, not even any cool ones," to Will, being told the baby he thought was a boy is actually a girl, exclaiming, "Oh my god, did something happen to his...", this is just really funny stuff.

This was one of the funniest episodes yet for Glee, delivering one laugh out loud situation and scene after another. Things got off to a great start with Sue on full throttle, as she interrupted Will and Emma – a great reveal, as it came quite a ways in to an earnest scene between the two, during which we didn't know Sue was sitting right nearby. I loved Sue talking about how she tried to stay quiet, but the sickeningly sweet goings on had put bile inside her – though Sue's best moment was when we watched her write in her diary, and learned that her big dream was to own a hovercraft. Why does that somehow make sense?

You have to appreciate how far this show is willing to go. When Sue decided that she could help cause problems by getting Terri a job at the school, her methods including tripping the poor, old school nurse down the steps – revealed in a hysterical quick cut joke.

While Sue then took a backseat for the remainder of the episode, plenty of great material followed. Finn was given some of his strongest material yet, as we got inside his mind in a bigger way, as he fretted about how busy, and thus exhausted he was, "like presidents, and newscasters and mob bosses", with a schedule that included being "Captain of the Football team… and Glee stud." And a great pop culture reference had Finn talking about his attraction to Rachel, despite the fact that, "She kind of freaks me out, in a Swimfan way."



There was also a nicely done scene between Quinn and Rachel, as Rachel leant her pregnant classmate support. It was well done seeing Quinn simply admit, "I've been awful to you," and tell Rachel, "I would have tortured you if the roles were reversed, you know?" Just by her saying that, you almost got the idea that maybe she wouldn't have been so bad, if the situations truly were reversed. The show could have perhaps let the Quinn/Rachel rivalry play out a bit longer (though I'm sure it will return), but for now, these were some sweet moments between them.

Egged on by Terri, Ken proposed to Emma, which gave us another one of the episode's best lines, as Ken assured Emma the ring he got, "Was cubic zirconium. I know how affected you were by Blood Diamond." Emma accepting Ken's marriage was hampered by how ludicrous all of her caveats were – it was funny to hear her say that her conditions included them living in their own places and keeping the marriage a secret, but if she's lonely enough for settle for Ken (and is openly dating him already), these rules seemed a bit much.

There were only a couple of musical numbers this week, but they were terrific and funny – thanks to the kids all being on drugs at the time. Terri giving the kids a meth-connected pill led to some great moments, which the cast rose to the energetic challenge of. Lea Michele gave just the right dorky spin to Rachel's announcement that they were performing a mash up of "Halo" and "Walking on Sunshine" because what America needs right now is, "sunshine and optimism.. Also, angels!"

The end of the episode found Sue made the new co-chair of the Glee Club, alongside a very unhappy Will. Only six episodes in, I wonder if Glee may be going to the "someone comes in or out of the club, thus disrupting the dynamic" well too fast, too quickly. Still, putting Sue in direct, constant contact with our Glee-ers is hard to resist – when is more Jane Lynch a bad thing?

SOURCE: http://tv.ign.com/articles/103/1033339p1.html

Glee got a healthy dose of awesome this week, via guest star Kristin Chenoweth – right on the heels of her well-deserved Emmy win for Pushing Daisies.

Chenoweth was terrific as April, a former classmate of Will who he decides to recruit to replace Rachel based on a technicality – April never graduated, and thus he brings her back to high school to bring her considerable singing skills to Glee.

Problem is she also brings alcoholism and a healthy sense of promiscuity along with her – which she is first able to use to make friends with all of the Glee members, but soon causes plenty of problems. As always, Glee pushed things to the humorous extreme, as she not only gets Kurt drunk, but offers him "vintage muscle magazines" to better get him on her side. The use of Hall & Oates' "You Make My Dreams Come True" behind the "April makes friends" montage was fun, although that song was just used to brilliantly in (500) Days of Summer, that it feels a bit early for another TV show or movie to use it.

The rest of the episode soared musically, however. Chenoweth and Lea Michele got to duet (albeit not onscreen) on "Maybe This Time" from Cabaret. Hearing these two Broadway veterans go toe to toe – in a vocal sense – was great. And it was very fun hearing Will and April sing Heart's "Alone" together, with the show continuing to cull from many different genres and styles. I even enjoyed Carrie Underwood's "Last Name", and I'm not a country fan of all – though it helped having Chenoweth giving such a great performance of the song, complete with all the Glee members dressed like cowboys.



April was an hysterical creation, and it was clear Chenoweth was having a great time with the role. Her opening scene was perhaps her funniest, as Will goes to find her and discovers a drunken mess of a woman, who makes comical allusions to being a prostitute. I loved her line about having just "cracked open a box of wine." This show definitely can get a bit edgy, which it sometimes tempers by simply not confirming what seems to be going on – After all, it sure seemed like April slept with Puck to befriend him, didn't it?

Meanwhile, we got to see a bit of a darker side to Finn, as he blatantly manipulated Rachel, by using her crush on him to try to lure her back to Glee – it's good to see this, because up until now, Finn's been a bit too straight-laced to totally invest in -- his kick ass car crash into a mailman flashback aside.

On the downside, this episode had too little Jane Lynch – although Stephen Tobolowsky again was extremely funny playing the extremely extreme Sandy. And the resolution to the episode felt rushed, as Will suddenly decided to pull April from a show, after already letting her perform half of it. Not to mention, April's, "I'll get my life back on track" bit also felt a bit forced. Glee still hasn't quite found the right balance between its very fun musical scenes, it's very funny comedic scenes and its more dramatic moments – with the latter often feeling out of place and too earnest in comparison to the rest of the show.

Still though, this was another terrifically entertaining hour of television. And yes, the kids—joined by the returning Rachel -- killed it on Queen's "Somebody to Love" in the finale. There is enough emotion in those moments that the show can afford to tone down some of the more blatant heart to hearts I think.

SOURCE: http://tv.ign.com/articles/103/1030649p1.html
WATCH ONLINE: http://watch-glee-show.blogspot.com/2011/04/glee-season-1-episode-5-rhodes-not.html

Look, a football team do a choreographed dance routine to Beyonce's "Single Ladies" is not something you expect to see on network TV… but damn if it isn't really funny and actually kind of awesome, in a completely ridiculous way.

Last week's episode's subplot about Mercedes' crush on Kurt, and Kurt subsequently coming out to her was okay – but seemed especially unnecessary given the events of this episode, which put Kurt much more front and center, and dealt with his not so shocking secret in a very fun and clever manner. Okay, it was very convenient that Kurt's friend lied to his dad that he was a kicker on the football team, and the football team just happened to need a new kicker, but that's okay – because the events that occurred surrounding Kurt on the team were so funny.

Kurt could kick alright, but he just had to have "Single Ladies" playing to put him in his zone. Chris Colfer really went for it here, hysterically performing Kurt's "audition" for the football team, as he did his dance routine (inspired by Kanye West's choice for "one of the best videos of all time!") leading up to his big kick. What followed was even funnier, as the entire team was forced to learn Kurt's dance routine – including the very unhappy Puck. It all lead up to the requisite Big Game, and the inspired visual of all of these football players, in full uniform, baffling everyone with their dancing. It was quite the memorable TV moment indeed. And Kurt, in the aftermath of helping win the game, had a nice coming out scene with his dad (played by Mike O'Malley) which was both sweet and funny.



With the Kurt storyline dominating, a couple other plotlines also moved forward. It's hard not to be annoyed by Rachel demanding she lead vocals when the Glee Club was performing West Side Story (though I did like her line, "Natalie Wood was a Jew, you know!"). But while I'm not so invested in Rachel's angst, I am very happy with the fact that it lead to lots of great material for Jane Lynch and Stephen Tobolowsky, as the two plotted to steal Rachel away from Glee by offering her a lead in a show Sandy was directing. The scene in which Sue went to Sandy's home was great, as we got even more of an idea of just how incredibly creepy Sandy is, as he traipsed about in a way too short robe. A great moment had Sue deadpanning that Sandy's massive collection of dolls was "lovely and normal", before saying all his home was missing were, "Bodies under the floor board." Tobolowsky is terrific in this role, as Sandy manages to make everything he says ("Take a seat on the casting couch!") sound amazingly disturbing.

Sue's new job on the local news is random, but who cares when it offers more of Jane Lynch being awesome? Her interaction with the TV station's owner (played by another great character actor, Kurt Fuller, who can also currently be seen on Supernatural) led to some priceless Sue moments, as we learned she was the only one "brave enough to take a pro-littering stance" and then went into a racist tinged tangent about helping garbage men "afford tacos for their family."

Lest we forget, there was also the storyline that gave this episode its title – as Quinn revealed to Finn that she was pregnant (Psst! It's really Puck's baby!). Her explanation for how this could be included an awesome call back to Finn's premature ejaculation problem (and mailman hitting flashback), and also dovetailed into Terri still pretending to be pregnant. It was obvious where Terri's mind was going as Will told her about a pregnant cheerleader at school, and I wondered how they would play it.

A woman faking a pregnancy, while planning to eventually take the baby belonging to a pregnant girl trying to hide her pregnancy (whew!) is a very soap opera plotline – but luckily Glee is the kind of show to handle it with humor. I liked the scene in which a sobbing Quinn ran into her car, only for Terri to ominously already be sitting there – So far, Terri has been an incredibly unlikable character. More firmly establishing her as this devilish type of schemer at least pushes her far enough to make her actions entertaining, even as we root against her.

SOURCE: http://tv.ign.com/articles/102/1028285p1.html
WATCH ONLINE: http://watch-glee-show.blogspot.com/2011/04/glee-season-1-episode-4-preggers.html