Monday, February 14, 2011

Gleecap : S02E11

So I'm ... guest Gleecapping (GuGleecapping?) this episode, because for some reason I volunteered. I'm doing it sort of as a live blog in the sense that I'm about to watch the episode for the first time and will be doing my screencaps and recapping at the same time with no intention to watch the episode again tonight. So this should be interesting. Or a train wreck. Especially since my computer is doing the computer equivalent and shitting its pants and drooling at the moment. So yay!

My computer wants to kick this gleecap off right by making VLC and the internet crash simultaneously! I'm pretty sure this is a sign that I shouldn't do this. But I must. F.

Okay. Let's get this party started.

We open on the Cheerios practicing a routine (to a song that I should probably know the name of but I don't because I'm not Josh and really you should just get used to that now or you're going to be progressively more disappointed as this goes on. But don't stop reading!). Because it's the Cheerios it is over-the-top in the best way. Not as amazing as The Power of Madonna stilts thing, but it involves flaming rhythmic gymnastics and whip sound effects so that's cool too. Actually they just pulled out some bikes, which explains the ramps, so maybe not so cool. How much do you think other squads hate the Cheerios? Can we have a Bring It On type movie spin off please? Oh god sparkler boob cones. Never mind, this routine wins forever. Also I think the song is California Girls by Katy Perry, but there is 98% chance that I'm wrong on that and just confused because she guested on HIMYM this week.

As to be expected after the routine is over Sue pulls out her megaphone and degrades the Cheerios. I am terrifically surprised, as I'm sure all the viewers were. Of course Sue is fantastic and manages to involve Brittany and Santana in the insulting, and another piece of the absolutely impossible growing autobiography that she seems to be writing (she single-handedly put cheerleading on the map by directing a made for TV movie in 1979 about the Dallas Cowboy cheerleaders called... The Dallas Cowboy Cheerleaders. Real movie? I don't know. The internet is still down. LIVE BLOGGING!) She also gives them fake boobs, which seems to go against the whole pitching a shit fit at Santana for getting a boob job thing, but whatever. ALSO: Katy Perry probably had blue hair in the video, which might be why they're wearing blue wigs.

Sue is very bored with her life. She makes Santana ("sandbags") slap herself and Brittany with the cutlets to demonstrate that things she used to find funny just aren't anymore. It's okay Sue, I didn't laugh either. Live blogging makes things less funny I think. (Confession: definitely laughed when I was getting the screen cap)

Quinn starts lecturing Sue, because she had a child and must have an understanding of life beyond her years or she's really basically a young Sue or whatever, and she seems to get through. She says Sue has to find ways to top herself or else she's bored. To verify this Sue tells her to slap herself with a cutlet. Unfortunately it's title card time, because I probably would have found that a lot more satisfying than the previous two slaps.

After the title card it's football time. The best sign ever is our first sight after the title card. I'm a sucker for puns.

If I understand football, which I don't claim to do, it appears that WMHS (what's their mascot?) is ahead by a few points and there's practically nothing left on the clock. I don't know who has the ball but if WMHS does and they don't take a knee I'm going to be mad. Bet they don't though because it's a TV show and ... well I should probably just watch and find out. Holy balls, Finn actually says they're going to take a knee. Karofsky gives Finn some shit, Finn basically accuses him of being gay, and yeah we all know how on the nose that is.

And instead of taking a knee they go to make a play? Because Finn's feelings were hurt by Karofsky's diss on Glee club? Why isn't he used to that by now? They lose they game (but can still go to the championship as established in the huddle) and the locker room is tense. Someone says something about Ke$ha with regards to Glee club and Puck says he'll go all "tik tok" on his face. I am happy now. Fighting ensues.

Karofsky gets kicked out after he says he isn't blocking for Finn anymore.

Sue journals. It's good, as usual. She's blah about life. She's 31. Please do the math and think about that made for TV movie thing earlier. She got a tattoo and you'll never guess what it's of. Tattoo typos are another thing that I always find funny because I will never get a tattoo.


Artie gets super slushied. It's pretty intense.

Schue and Beiste have a talk about the importance of football. I have to say that I really respect Glee for giving all the extracurriculars a pretty fair treatment instead of just being like MUSIC IS THE MOST IMPORTANT THING! Sue gets to make sense about athletics and Beiste make an argument about the positive effects of a local team winning a championship. This might just be a me thing though.

The team they'll be facing in the championships is better than they are, so they're going to have to rely on the chemistry of the team to pull through, which means the whole Glee club vs. football thing is going to cause problems. Dun dun dun.



Matthew Morrison might be the king of stupid faces.
Never mind. Same face?
Artie comes into Glee all corn-syrup-a-fied and the football boys start to rush out to defend his honor (THEY RUINED HIS SWEATER VEST AND FOR THAT THEY MUST PAY!), but the rest of the team comes into the room first. Oh I forgot to mention Schue said he could help Bieste with her problem. So this isn't really a surprising development.

Apparently they're forcing the team to join Glee club. I am once again super surprised. Mercedes says "Aw hell to the no!" multiple times, because she's sassy and black.

 They all have problems (except Santana who does not give a fuck as usual. Love.) Rachel "I have two gay dads" Berry will not share the choir room with a known homophobe (didn't have a problem when it was Finn, but I guess that only lasted an episode).

So they have decided that they'll show them that being in Glee club is kind of cool by making them join for a week. Azimio will not sing show tunes because it is the music of his oppressors! I always like him so much more than Karofsky, even when they were basically the same person.

It's the Puckleberry song time! Yay! Oh, you know I ship this. It's ... Need You Now or whatever by Lady Antebellum. Puck is hot. Rachel shares some meaningful stares with Finn. Did they break up? Is it worth me remembering? OH. They did. I remember. It was a while ago, huh? Her and her crazy Wham! Christmas number and stuff. Whatever. The football guys are judge-y and headshake-y. And one of them seems to be Vanilla Ice.

Guy on the right seems concerned with Vanilla Ice's presence.
Beiste likes Lady Antebellum apparently. Who are you thinking about Bieste? Is it Schue because he kissed you? I could probably ship that, just for the sheer outrageousness. As long as there are no sex scenes.

They sequester big girls in the choir room. Apparently.
Some of the football guys start grooving. Karofsky hits one of them (softly). Azimio looks moved (or pissed). Puck does that "do something" head move at them during his verse. Lyrical dissonance FTW?
So this was really cute in motion. She like touches him and his tough guy face goes away and they're smiling at
each other and singing, but damn I cannot get a screen cap where Puck doesn't look stupid. Whatever.
Rachel and Finn share another significant glance because Finn knows he cannot stop Puckleberry! It's going to happen (again) god damn it. 

Azimio calls Puck a girl so Puck goes to hit him with the guitar. This seems to be going swimmingly. 

God damn Rachel, you be crazy! Santana sort of looks like she's giving a fuck. 
At this point the live blogging is ending because I'm going to go watch the whole episode with Josh so that I can watch the new episode when it's done downloading. So maybe I'll make more sense when I come back.

Uhh. I'm back. That was fun. I forgot to mention that Sue got a people shooting cannon. This comes up again.

So back to the episode. Puck and Finn are standing in front of the trophy case and Puck is all "We used to be best friends. Before I got your girlfriend pregnant and made out with your other girlfriend." Anyway, he wants to be friends again. For the football team. And so the "Glee studs" can get respect. He sung that duet with Rachel because she asked him to do it to make Finn jealous by the way. They terrorist fist bump.

And now Sue reveals her "Sue-clear weapon" to the Cheerios. Becky breaks a champagne (sparkling grape juice? She's an under-aged Downs kid you guys. I hope it's juice.) 


Anyway, Sue wants to shoot poor Britt-Britt out of the cannon. Even Brittany knows enough to be concerned ("I don't want to die yet. At least not until One Tree Hill gets cancelled."), so Sue agrees to test it with a dummy. Which is destroyed. If that I had been Brittany I probably would've quit watching. Which is why it wasn't. Ryan Murphy knows some things.

So Quinn talks to Schue, who talks to the principal (because Quinn couldn't go right to him, because Schue has to been involved in EVERYTHING!), who is... less than happy. Not so much about the possible Brittany death, but the already sky high insurance premiums. He tells her the only way she can possibly murder a student is if they give their consent first. No forcing someone to get shot out of a cannon. Obviously. Sue pitches the most epic shit fit to the righteous sound of O Fortuna (and that's as far as I got the night I was actually writing this. I got distracted by the internet. Then I got the plague. And now I am all plague-y on Valentine's Day, so I will give a little love to the world and finish this monstrosity). It's your normal Sue-shit-fit,  with the throwing things and screaming. Figgins says that it will all come out of her paycheck and Will (sagely) says that this will be a lawsuit. Sue continues into the hall, shoving students and throwing things. 

Screenshotting action: Hard; Screenshotting reactions: Easier
Then we cut to Will in the locker room with Beiste. He's explaining the shit fit to her. No sooner do the words "I wish you would've seen it" escape his lips does O Fortuna kick in again, apparently following Sue's shit fit around the school. Unfortunately she isn't apparently still on the same rage. She's sending, because she's now switched the Cheerios regionals competition to the same night as the championship football game, so no more half-time show (I'm pretty sure the marching band did the half-time show at our high school, but oh well!). Luckily, Will has an idea! (Do you think it involves Glee? I think it does).

I wish I could've screen capped a bit of this tantrum. Sue is tossing medicine balls, but the last one is too heavy so she lets it fall and kicks it without much result. It's pretty hilarious, but a still is not, plus there's a bench blocking the funny. So visualize! Or watch the episode, since you probably already did.

Anyway, in a twist, the Glee Club (including the football players) will be performing the half time show. Which will be a mash up of Thriller and The Yeah Yeah Yeahs (Azimio: Who is yeah yeah yeah?) Heads Will Roll. And they'll be zombies. They, meaning the jocks (and Lauren Zizes who doesn't understand the point of a halftime show. Love), don't want to do it. Because they have never seen Remember the Titans (shut up Azimio, you know your mom loves Denzel AND YOUR MASCOT IS THE TITANS. Holy balls new levels of YOU SHOULD HAVE SEEN THIS MOVIE just struck me), and none of them understood that being musical makes you HOTTER (seriously, they saw Puck with a guitar. All of them felt strange below the belt pangs). I just DON'T GET THE MAIN CONFLICT OF THIS SHOW YOU GUYS. Anyway... they're going to do it or else they're off the team. Oh, and the Cheerios (meaning Brit-Brit, Sandbags, and Quinn) can choose between being in Glee or going to the Cheerios competition.

So they practice moving like zombies. It's... whatever. Zombies. Dancing. You know how it is. Rachel is way too cheery for the undead though. Not that they point that out. I guess you can't help having a show face. And Artie is a wheelchair zombie. I suppose they're not going for zombie realism here.

Poor quality, yes, but it was a random pause one so be happy.
Karofsky pushes some people to make up for the whole dancing thing. When Schue holds him back after practice (after they've all improved significantly), he thinks it's cause he sucks, but Will says he's really good and should put more energy into this and not into bullying (it's backed by the MEANINGFUL PIANO SCORE so you know it means something). You are gay so you can dance! Welcome to TV! That's why Finn sucks so much. Not sure what that says about Other Asian?

He has awesome abs and can dance. What else can you really say about Mike?
We cut to backstage, where everyone is putting zombie make-up on everyone else. The meaningful piano has carried over to show us that they're all becoming a TEAM you guys. Karofsky comes up to Finn, who assumes they're going to fight ("It's already hard enough not to kick you in the nuts every time I see you"), and suggests they do a warm-up number so they're prepared for the half-time show. They do this warm-up number days before the game though? Is it just to practice together? Couldn't they just practice the intense thing they're going to have do in front of everyone? Do I care? Not really, because I like the song they do, but still. GLEE SHOULD MAKE SENSE.

And now it's time to discuss the Cheerios problem of the week. Brit compares the whole Glee/Football team thing to a double rainbow... a zombie double rainbow. They discuss the possibility of having to loose either Glee or Cheerios. Quinn: I'm torn. Santana: I'm not. Brittany: I'm Brittany. Then Sue walks out of the stall (where she was "enjoying the eavesdropping afforded her by the Swiss time-piece regularity and utter silence of her 2 pm 'ninja poops'") and presents them with a legal thing that they should sign to agree to quit Glee. She also gives Brit a handwritten note from the human cannon, who wants her back.

There's a pictograph eye instead of "I" above this.
Sue also reminds Quinn how shitty of a time she had not being a Cheerio last year. So all of them turn in their resignation to Schue. Bet that will stick.

So Finn yells at Quinn in the hall about the terrible decision she just made. And Sunshine... wait. Blondie? Tennis ball mouth? That guy with the most intense Bieber hair gets mad at him for yelling at his girlfriend and says that maybe he's just a crappy leader and if he were the leader he could bring the worlds of jocks and Glee together and they would ride unicorns and everything would be amazing! So there!

That guy. Sam?
Oh god then they start pushing each other and it's the wussiest fight ever. And Will breaks it up like they were about to snap each other's necks. It's pretty amazing.

Not a face I think you'd make in a real fight. Oh no you di'n't just push me boy!
And now it's time for The Zombies "She's Not There," performed in zombie make-up by the football guys (all of them, including Glee regulars). I actually really enjoyed this song. So there's that. I liked the using letterman jackets as the costume, the make-up looked good, and yeah. I'm not going to actually critique numbers because I'm a week late with this as it is.

Cannot get over wheelchair zombie. Artie rolls!
And Finn got his MJ on a bit. I don't know. It worked for me. Also there's Karofsky if you care. I think.
The Glee girls, Schue, and Beiste are all impressed with the performance. So yay, they're a team now, right? What could possibly go wrong?

So they do they're badass walk/roll through the halls of WMHS, with the song still playing in the background. Yeah, they're cool, they now it, all right. And then they encountered the wickedly mullet-ed hockey team. Who are holding slushies. Fantastic. The hockey players (or "puck-heads") say that football will no longer be ruling the school after they sing and dance at half time (WHY HAS NO ONE SEEN REMEMBER THE TITANS?), but Karofsky says they will think it's awesome after they see it, so lead puck-head, let's call him Wayne, says he's gay. And then they dump the slushies on them. (WHY DO THEY NOT BAN SLUSHIES?! I feel like this would've happened a long, long time ago in a real world school. No fucking slushies. Period.) Hilariously, right before the slushification, Artie wheels himself behind the non-regular Glee clubbers to block the corn syrup-y death.

And Vanilla Ice no longer has the worst hair of the episode
So we cut to the locker where they're washing out the slushies and bitching about how much it hurts. The Glee clubbers just think they're experiencing the first stages of loser-dom, but fuck that, they're popular! Beiste says they look way more like a team covered in slushie then they ever did before, but they quit anyway. Because quitting the football team right before the championship is a way to avoid being slushied. I'm so fucking sure. No one takes football seriously, ever.

Waah waah waah I got corn syrup in my eye. What cruel god would bestow this fate
on such a nice guy like me? I'm going to quit the team. That should stop this from ever
happening again.
(Okay I'm being a little hard on Karofsky. Sort of. I don't know. This recap is super schizo, due to the different times writing it. They are setting up a redemption arc for Karofsky. This is the first real redemption-y episode. They give us a glimpse that maybe he could come 'round, but obviously he can't do that yet. I think that making him a dynamic character is a good choice and taking it slowly is more believable. I hate neither the character nor the direction they're taking with him, but goddamn was he a bastard and I like to pick on him. Sue me.)

And now it's time for the random Dalton Academy scene! Which is always worth it. They perform "Bills, Bills, Bills" by Destiny's Child and it is fantastic. End of story. I'm going to watch it and be happy and maybe find a fun screencap for you. If not I'll be back for the next scene.

Way too intense buddy. Beyonce never made that face.

Guess who got the solo and made funny faces the whole time? Oh yeah.
Your dad pays your telephone bills Kurt. 
And Kurt and Blaine are grabbing coffee with Mercedes and Rachel. Blah blah blah, divas, blah blah blah. Finn hasn't told Kurt about any of the drama, probably because Kurt brings him warm milk every night and why would you do that? Rachel starts talking about how strong Finn is and that it would be better if they were together, so Kurt tells her to let it go. Blaine knows about football. Apparently they only need nine players to play in the championship. And Kurt is hilarious: "Blaine and I love football. Well. Blaine loves football. I love scarves."

None of the thirty guys Beiste cut at the beginning of the season wants to play because then they'd be stupid Glee losers! And get slushied! And die! And high school is really important you guys. Ugh I'm so burnt out on Glee again.


Ha, look at his face. I'm totally back on board with this Gleecap. Thank someone I'm easily amused.
So the Glee guys want Beiste to let the rest of the team back on, just for the championship game, but Beiste will not let that happen, even if they have to forfeit the game. So the girls say they're going to join the team. They'll just lie down right after the snap, they'll just be there for the numbers. Except for Lauren, who will be bringing the pain. Naturally. Have I mentioned how much I love her lately? Anyway, they all have permission slips from the parents, so it's a go. And Rachel literally claps her hands and goes "Football team, football team!"

Sue is still trying to get Brittany to hand over her just precious little life for the sake of winning regionals (which they would do anyway and would probably automatically lose if one of the squads members died during the competition). But this scene wins for this speech:

"Here's your consent form. And as you ponder your decision, I ask you to remember that that cannon has two little baby twin cannons at home and one more on the way. And if you refuse to sign this, well then those two little baby cannons might just go hungry... and the mama cannon has fibromyalgia, so she can't work."

And this face. God how I love pausing on funny looking things.
Britt gives her consent to basically be murdered by X-ing the consent form (at Sue's request after she asked how many M's there are in the letter R.). So that's no bueno.

Okay so now it's game night. And Finn looks super-fly with his helmet hair and he should keep it like that all the time, although it apparently only looks like that when he's on the football field.

The whole pout thing he's got going on should be ignored. Focus on the forehead region. 
So Karofsky et al. come up to give him some shit about how he's not going to be able to play with five guys. So they're there to cue the girls entrance basically. So here come the girls.

Jesus Rachel. Show face and game face are different. And couldn't someone else be number one?  Unless
they were going for a "the bigger the number, the bigger the girl" thing since Tina's probably bigger
than Lea Michelle's skinny ass at this point. I don't know. Oh and Rachel has gold stars on her helmet.
They're kind of her thing.
So they start playing. Unsurprisingly, they get spanked. The girls get a little fed up with not playing (except for Lauren, who has been playing with relish) and on the next play Tina is fairly close to a fumbled ball. She gets up, grabs it, and runs a fair distance before she gets sacked. And then everyone is super concerned that she's dead. When she comes to, or regains her senses or whatever, she asks "Did we win?" in the sweetest voice ever and I'm totally a cynic but it was cute.

So this scare (or something, maybe the meaningful piano score that shows up right after) shows Finn that they need the real players back, so he tells Sam to play QB for him for the rest of the half (2 minutes and some change) while he goes to get the Cheerios and tells Puck to convince the rest of the team to do the half time show with them after the half is over. Which leaves them with 8 players for the rest of the half? Does that mean they can't play? Does logic matter here? NOPE. Oh actually, not on the logic note, but on the why he does this thing: Rachel says their only chance for redemption is to kick ass at the half-time show. Which would sort of suck with only 9 people, so yeah, get those football players and Cheerios back. And then win the game after the half when you have real players. Ready, break!

So anyway, we cut to Brittany looking sadly at the instrument of her imminent death. Quinn and Santana come over to... well I'm not sure what, because when Britt says she's going to die, Santana says (unconvincingly) that it'll be worth it. Finn comes up to stop them from going to regionals, because they love Glee club and Sue is a bitch who wants to kill Brittany. So they agree to go and basically fuck Sue over (according to Sue). So they're officially not Cheerios anymore.

And he either found the time to redo his hair or his hair just immediately goes into that position off the field. I'm hoping
it's the latter, because if he's electing to not rock the better look I'll be very disappointed in big dumb Finn.
Britt looks so happy to not be dying, and Santana just looks like a bitch. Fabulous. 
So now it's time for Puck to do his part. Luckily all of the players have gathered in the locker room, despite not playing in the game. Are the clearing out their lockers now? But why? They should be buying hot dogs or something. It's half time. Or slushies to throw at those Glee losers during the sure to be terrible half time show!

Puck calls them coward losers for giving up their chance to win something, to have something to tell their kids, just because they're afraid of being called geeks, or losers, or gay (guess which one of those featured a cut to Karofsky right after), and now they're settling for being nothing. Azimio agrees to perform at the half-time show (the game apparently means a lot to his dad) and everyone besides Karofsky follows suit. Puck tells them to get their make-up on and get on the field "tout de suite," which is totally a real thing Josh. Although I just realized it had an apparently silent "de" in it. Oh well.

Half-time show time! And it's good. Enjoyable. The band is involved too, so I'm satisfied. Karofsky joins in after seeing how awesome it is and how much the crowd is digging it. And now they can all play together. So that's resolved, thank god.

Maybe it is okay for me to sing and dance and be gay and no one will hate me. Maybe I'm the biggest homophobe/
bully in the school so if I came out and joined Glee Club I could just push the jerks into lockers. Let's dance!

Kurt can't resist dancing along. Also: look at how outrageously happy Karofsky
looks again, it's awesome in an "aww"/hilarious way. Girl behind Kurt is making a weird face too.
Did you expect me to screencap the number? You're hilarious. It just looked kind of chaotic every time I paused it so look it up your damn self. Sorry. Reaching the end of this. I see the light of day (except now it's dark outside) and if I just keep plugging away at this I will be done at some point!

So back in the locker room, Beiste tells them they can all play and that they should keep the zombie make up on to intimidate the other team, because they need all the help they can get.

They regain possession of the ball, possibly by biting an opposing player.

BFFs for realsies you guys
So they get a touchdown and then we skip ahead to 10 seconds left in the game. They're only three points behind, but the opposing team has possession. Everybody but Finn is ready to give up, but he comes up with the master plan of going "Brains, brains, brains" to scare the other QB into fumbling the snap, and the crowd gets in on the act. Schue even steals a drum from a band kid (or so I assume since he didn't have one and then all of a sudden he did). So the fumble happens, they get the ball, and run a touchdown.

This is the face of victory. Wouldn't you almost rather be a loser?
Okay so this next part is weird. Sue is getting interviewed by Katie Couric because she's the Loser of the Year, because she lost regionals, and therefore her shot at her seventh consecutive national cheerleading title. I say this is confusing because I'm not sure if this is canon or not. It's stated that the Glee Club will be receiving the rest of the Cheerios annual budget and Schue says that means they won't be holding a bake sale to get a bus for Regionals. But Finn uses his kissing booth money next episode for that and Schue says they still don't have enough. SO IS THIS CANON?! I don't know. Anyway, it's Katie Couric, it's ridiculous, Sue sucks, etc.

But really, this didn't actually happen. Right? 
Finn finds Karofsky and tells him that he'll go with him to Dalton to apologize to Kurt, so everyone will be cool with Karofsky joining Glee. But Finn, this isn't his actual redemption episode. They wouldn't put that in the Super Bowl episode! They need to get people involved in the story line so that they'll tune in on subsequent weeks to see how these crazy kids turn out! So obviously Karofsky is not down with that plan, because he will not be joining Glee. They just won the damn championship game, he will not be singing and dancing, thank you. See again how happy he looked when he realized it was okay to sing and dance though.

Aww, shut up and dance Karofsky. 
Oh man: "This is high school. People's memories of good stuff last about as long as their Facebook statuses." Karofsky is going to be such a bitch, it's amazing.

And Quinn is in the hall in her street clothes. Finn makes the weirdest face at her. I should probably tell you that there have been a lot of Finn/Quinn moments this episode and I do not give a fuck. They believe in each other, they understand each other, they make eye contact, and one of Finn's eyebrows is on board with the international body language sign for "I want to do you!"

Raising your eyebrows means you want to do someone, btdubs.
Blah blah blah, thank you for helping me do that right thing, blah blah blah, Finn's a pageant queen, aaaand they kiss. Well she kisses him, because his amazing-ness this week reminded her of why she loved him. High school love is serious business.


Then Quinn leaves a very confused Finn behind and THE EPISODE IS OVER. Finally. Tune in at some point for your regular Gleecaps, because I will never be torturing myself this way again!

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