random recaps: “the new rachel” (glee 4x01)

(Tivli has only one blogger - and I get bored easily - so this blog can’t recap every episode of every show, no matter how much it would like to.  What I can do is have random recaps when I feel like it.)
(Make sure to watch Glee and everything else with Tivli!)

Glee
(FOX, Thursdays @ 9)

Okay, let’s get the important stuff out of the way first:

Episode Rating: 5 knit berets (out of 7)

Best song: It’s Time
Worst song: Americano/Dance Again
Most impressively edited song (that was necessary and well-executed for story but did it really have to be that song?  We get it, she’s in New York): New York State of Mind
Best thing ever: Cookie from Ned’s Declassified School Guide is one of the mean jocks!!!

So our intrepid heroine Rachel Berry is a freshman at New York Academy of Dramatic Arts (it doesn’t exist, I checked).  We begin with Kate Hudson’s impressive corset as Rachel’s dance teacher - basically a younger, more aggressively cruel Sue Sylvester.  I don’t mind Corset Dance Teacher, though.  Kate Hudson’s so terrifyingly beautiful that it kind of makes up for the meh dance sequence she has later.  Also, Hudson is good at playing slightly drunk.  All you need to know here is that Corset Dance Teacher does not like Rachel.  Hoo boy, she does not.

Back at McKinley, we get various updates on the students who haven’t graduated yet.  I was having trouble remembering who was supposed to still be there, so this was helpful.

Rachel meets College Love Interest late night in the co-ed bathroom.  Ew, nothing good ever happens in a co-ed bathroom.  He’s singing the shower, in an updated version of how Finn’s talent was discovered in season 1… though this is a taller, tanner, more college-y version.  I wonder if Rachel will be at all conflicted by this bland yet handsome musical theater major? (Yes.)

SIDENOTE: How many knit berets can one girl own?  Rachel, you know you also have to buy food, right?

OTHER SIDENOTE: Sue has a baby?  Wow, I really skimmed last season.

Back at McKinley, let’s welcome Kitty.  New Head Cheerleader, and shockingly vocal homophobe and racist even for the villains of this show.  Which we learn when UNIQUE (aka the best ever) joins Glee Club.  I could go over the Tumblr word limit easily about how much I love this character and Wade’s journey and that voice and the boogie shoes last season and ugh.  UNIQUE (always bolded and capitalized) is perfection.

Less perfection?  Having to hear four people try to impress us with “Call Me Maybe.”  Hard to dance to, and not a lot of fun vocal stuff.  It’s a fun song, but they didn’t do anything interesting with it.  (Also, Brittany and Tina are great in their ways, but this song made it especially clear that neither of them is vocally on par with Rachel, Mercedes, or Santana.)

Then we see Struggles: Kurt is languishing in Lima, Corset Dance Teacher is making rum smoothies before class, UNIQUE can’t wear her makeup in school, and a cute sophomore girl named Marley wears the first of many newsboy caps.  It’s worse than the berets.

PROTIP: Even if your dance teacher smells like booze, do not say it out loud in front of the class.  She will do a dimly lit sexy pop number directly at your face and it will be weird.

Marley and Jake give awesome auditions (Marley is baby Rachel during a beautifully intercut sequence with Berry 1.0).  Jake has anger issues (turns out he’s half-Puckerman).

3rd SIDENOTE: Kurt looks really good this year.  Even with his creepy loitering in the high school.

Artie assigns Blaine to be the new Rachel, even though it should be UNIQUE.  Obviously.  Blaine sings an Imagine Dragons song to Kurt that I’ve never heard before.  There is cup flipping as percussion and it’s… cute.  Creative.  I feel like we’ve seen the “courtyard Blaine and Kurt song” about eight times already though.  Kurt decides to move to New York.  Really quickly.

You guys, I’m getting really tired and a lot happened in this episode.  Let’s move it along.

Marley reveals her lunchlady heritage and everyone feels bad.

College Love Interest hits on Rachel really obviously.

Rachel gets a little less intimidated by Corset Dance Teacher and it sort of helps.

Kurt and Burt have an incredibly touching goodbye.  I thought I was impervious to being emotionally affected by Glee but I was wrong.  Kurt’s fears and hopes are so well-written, so honest and relatable.  Glee, stop it.

Glee Club apologizes to Marley (no newsboy cap in this scene and I honestly didn’t recognize her for a minute).  They get slushied for it.  Status quo restored.

Marley puts on a formal newsboy cap and sings “Chasing Pavements” while Kurt and Rachel reunite in New York.  It’s kind of lovely.

Okay, done.  To sum up… it’s as uneven as Glee always is, but this episode gives me a lot of hope for the new season and the new characters.

GLEE! (You have to read it in the a cappella choir voice.)

(Tivli has only one blogger - and I get bored easily - so this blog can’t recap every episode of every show, no matter how much it would like to.  What I can do is have random recaps when I feel like it.)
(Make sure to watch Glee and everything else with Tivli!)