S05.E11: City of Angels

[Cranberry]

The members of New Directions travel to sunny Los Angeles to compete in Nationals, and bring with them two very special guests.

It was fun to see Skylar Astin fronting another singing group and playing a much douchier character than his Pitch Perfect one.

I laughed when the New Directions lost Nationals. There's only been one time I thought they actually deserved to win one of these competitions (Sectionals in season one, when Rachel sang "Don't Rain on my Parade").

Next week is the big 100th episode, and might actually be worth watching, even if just for the Unholy Trinity. Quinn has always been my favorite.

[Eolivet]

It was fun to see Skylar Astin fronting another singing group and playing a much douchier character than his Pitch Perfect one.

I laughed when the New Directions lost Nationals. There's only been one time I thought they actually deserved to win one of these competitions (Sectionals in season one, when Rachel sang "Don't Rain on my Parade").

Next week is the big 100th episode, and might actually be worth watching, even if just for the Unholy Trinity. Quinn has always been my favorite.

 

I don't usually do the "Wow, he looks too old to play a kid," but I thought that guy was the vocal coach, not a student. Only when he got up onstage and started singing did I realize he was supposed to be a student.

 

I stopped watching "Glee" after the first episode of season 5, came back for "The Quarterback," then quit until "New New York," so as a completist, I'm now watching these in-between episodes.

 

And I not only wished they would lose, but was actively irritated at their performance. What...entitlement. Seriously. I can see why viewers left in droves because it was making me slightly ill to watch the "We're doing this for poor, dead Finn!" disingenuous pile of horse pucky.

 

First of all, I believe there were two ways to handle this -- neither of which they did. Either following Finn's death, the New Directions buckled down and rehearsed really, really hard and re-dedicated themselves to bringing one home for Finn, and lost because they were overrehearsed and didn't keep to the spirit of what made New Directions so appealing. Or nobody wanted to rehearse, they kept intentionally sabotaging themselves because they were grieving, and nobody even really wanted to perform at Nationals until they realized how cathartic it would feel to get everything out through music -- but they never actually expected to win.

 

Referencing their lack of picking a set list in the "previouslies" is cute, funny meta, but then don't in the next breath expect me to actually root for these kids, or make me believe they were anywhere near talented enough to win Nationals. Plus, the whole "Sam is our secret weapon" made absolutely no sense. Hey, geniuses -- you didn't need someone to replace Finn. You needed someone to replace Finn and Rachel -- and not just because Finn was a great leader and a "normal" (non-show choir) presence. It was because Finn and Rachel together (and separately) had star quality and chemistry that was visible in their performances (and in Finn's case, that star quality was far more powerful than his talent). Not in any shipping sense, but just onstage. That was the real elephant in the room -- that your "aww shucks, regular guy" 1) completely lacked star power and 2) had no one off which to play. The fact that nobody even mentioned that Rachel was sort of a major factor in their winning, and they thought they could just replace the everyman and be fine was baffling to me.

 

But first to hold up Finn's drum sticks (blatant manipulation) and then cry crocodile tears about second place and how they wanted to win this one for Finn, with this edge of "I can't believe they didn't give it to us after all we went through" was, to me, so the antithesis of everything Finn ever stood for that it made me want to go all O Fortuna on my computer in an epic, Sue-like hyperbolic rant.