Thursday, March 27, 2014

Glee - New Directions


Using her friendship with Sue (Jane Lynch) to her advantage, Holly Holiday (Gwyneth Paltrow) convinces McKinley's principal to give Holly and April Rhodes (Kristin Chenoweth)  one week to try and find a way to "shoehorn music" into the existing clubs following the end of Glee Club. This leads to Holly's performance of Eddie Murphy's "Party All The Time" during a meeting of the school's Animal Husbandry Club which, of course, fails miserably leaving Will (Matthew Morrison) no choice but admit defeat and close the choir room for the final time (but not before we get a host of new and recreated numbers for the show's 101st episode and the past and current members of New Directions coming together to create a short film thanking Mr. Shue and offering their look at the teacher who changed their lives for his future daughter or son).


Mercedes (Amber Riley) and Kurt (Chris Colfer) attempt to heal the rift between Rachel (Lea Michele) and Santana (Naya Rivera) with a performance of "I Am Changing" from Dreamgirls and Brittany (Heather Morris) of all people steps in to talk some sense into Santana after she rebuffs Rachel's insanely generous peace offer. After the pair eventually make-up and Santana decides to leave Funny Girl, Santana and Rachel celebrate with a duet of Oh Honey's "Be Okay." The episode also finds time for graduation, Sue acknowledging Will's accomplishments and setting up an interview for him to coach Vocal Adrenaline, and another bizarre Tina (Jenna Ushkowitz) hallucination (this time in the form of a Friends parody).


Other performances include Blaine (Darren Criss), Sam (Chord Overstreet) and Artie (Kevin McHale) singing "Loser Like Me" to cheer up Tina after she is rejected from another college in New York, Quinn (Dianna Agron) and Puck (Mark Salling) perform a duet of Pink's "Just Give Me a Reason," and all the members of the group come together in the auditorium to offer up one more performance of Journey's "Don't Stop Believin'."


Thankfully the show returns Santana back to the realm of sanity (although the switch is as bizarre return to full-on bitch mode was just a few weeks back) allowing a positive, if melancholy, farewell for everyone in the club. Surprisingly the show ends by putting the final nail in New Directions coffin. With the graduation of the rest of the original cast it also offers the opportunity to bring any or all of them when the focus shifts back to New York and Rachel's upcoming Broadway debut. However, with the show returning for a Sixth Season next year I'd expect to see more of Mr. Shue and Lima, Ohio, both creep back in during the season's remaining six episodes as I doubt we've actually seen the last Glee Club performance just yet.

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