Glee-"Sexy"

Holly Holiday returns to teach people about sex on "Glee"
Credit: FOX

My review of last night's episode of Glee is after the jump.


This episode was a clear mixed bag for me. I really didn't hate the episode, it was better then last week's episode, but I found it on the same level as "Comeback" or Gwyneth Paltrow's first appearance in "The Substitue". When there are at least five or six plotlines per episode, there are bound to be ones that I liked and ones that I disliked. What I found when I watched the episode was that I didn't dislike the episode at a whole, I disliked aspects from the episode. I had the same problems with the show that I had in the past but they were less prevelent in this episode then in past episodes.

This episode featured the return of Gwyneth Paltrow as Holly Holiday. It was completely ridiculous and silly, but I couldn't expect more from this. This week, she helped the glee club tackle sex (*). Paltrow really didn't make an impression as Holly, but she did fit into the world of the show very well. Even if her Oscar performance was pretty terrible, she was able to give a decent performance in this episode and her voice sounded pretty good. I didn't mind this plotline because she was decent enough to make it at least tolerable.

(*) Like last week, it seemed like the show was going overboard to tackle a hot topic, but like last week the topic specifically didn't hurt or help the episode.

Speaking of Will Schuester, the continuing love quadrangle is tiring very quickly. Maybe this might have been better if the show hadn't forgotten that they had John Stamos in the recurring cast since the Rocky Horror episode. It was random in the continuity of the show, and it only seemed like it was being brought up because Paltrow returned in the episode. This was the weak link in the episode and it's what angered me most. I stopped caring about Will and Emma being together because the show had stopped caring about it and having it suddenly return, in my mind, served as an example of the show's storytelling problems. The writers tell the stories that they want to tell but when they stop caring about something they throw it away, but instead of completely getting rid of it, they bring it back randomly. I hated this part of the episode and it almost dragged the episode down with it.

The strongest part of the episode was the plot involving Santana. I never thought that I would say that but her confessing her love for Brittany was the strongest scene in the episode. This was one of the few parts of the episode that worked because it was almost realistic and it worked well in the continuity of the character's arc. It helps that Heather Morris was giving a good performance as Brittany in the episode. She was great in that scene, which was the strongest part of the episode.

The Kurt plotline wasn't as bad as last week but it did seem very "after school special" to me. It wasn't terrible but it wasn't great either. The scene with Kurt Mike O'Malley was very awkward, but that was the point so it didn't take away from the episode. Blaine is starting to fit into the world of the show very well and he's why I'm glad that Kurt went to (as the brilliant Ryan McGee says) "Tolerance Hogwarts" because Darren Criss is a major part of the show. Him going to Burt because he's worried about Kurt's "knowledge" wasn't a terrible idea but it wasn't brilliant either. It worked in a way, but not in the way that I would have wanted.

An episode of Glee is only as good as the musical numbers, and these musical numbers were pretty damn good. Paltrow did a good job (even if she doesn't have a brilliant voice) with "Do You Want to Touch Me" and the number was very fun. Do the Warblers own a abandoned warehouse? Because that's my only detriment to the performance of "Animal". It was a fun song but did they need to autotune that much to make it sound good? I really don't think that that much was needed. I'm not a huge fan of the song "Kiss", I thought Paltrow and Morrison did a good job with the song. My only negatives are with the song itself, not the performance. "Landslide" was a fantastic 3 minutes by Paltrow, River, and Morris. It was a good few minutes. "Afternoon Delight" was just awkward, not very good at all.

Some other thoughts:

• The show finally realized how girls react to Darren Criss, that's completely realistic, at least based on my friends' reactions
• I felt indifferent towards the Puck/Lauren plotline. I was able to successfully tune it out.
• This was an episode with very little Sue, which is where she's the most affective. 
• That scene at the end with Finn and Quinn...I said everything I had to say on that in the past. The relationship ended last season and it should stay ended.
• I should also say something about the constant cucumber references, but all I have to say is they were almost funny.

Overall, I didn't hate the episode but I dislike aspects of it.

What did everyone else think?

Update: Oops, Corrected the major mistake in the Sue bullet in the other thoughts section. Oops!