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One of Fox's fall hits, "Glee" got itself in a bit of trouble last week with an episode called, "Wheels." It was about wheelchair user Artie (Kevin McHale) and head Glee-meister, Will Schuester (Matthew Morrison) trying to teach the other Glee kids a little something about living with a disability. Add to that the sight of a Down syndrome student trying out for Sue Sylvester's (Jane Lynch) Cheerios and the keyboards set to tapping in the blogosphere.
But first, for those of you who don't know, "Glee" is about an idealistic high school teacher, Will Schuester who wants to bring back the glory days of the McKinley High School Glee Club. At first the club, made up of a group of misfits, is the laughing stock of the school, but once the plucky group of talented youngsters show what they can do, the club puts itself on the map.
That's not easy because Will's competitor for school notoriety and school funding is the tough talking, hard driving Sue Sylvester, head of the school cheerleading team, hilariously dubbed the Cherrios.
Of course on the personal side, there are teen love triangles, a mousy guidance counselor secretly in love with Will and Will's wife who's pretending she's pregnant. Don't ask.
By all rights I shouldn't like "Glee." Yeah, it's a musical comedy. Yeah, it's got plucky kids trying to prove to the world they matter. Yeah, it's got cute as a button Matthew Morrison pretending he's Justin Timberlake every other week. But honestly I'm kind of tired of high school shows.
Nevertheless, week after week, in spite of myself, I show up to McKinley High School to see what those crazy "Glee" kids are up to.
Stuff I Love
- Really funny moments like when Will and Sue danced to "Sing, Sing, Sing." I thought sure it was a dream/nightmare sequence until the very end when we found out Sue was in a big band dance competition with her new man. That is until she caught him in the arms of someone else.
- Kurt Hummel (Chris Colfer), the gay kid who comes out to his blue collar father only to find out Dad, though a mite confused, is a staunch ally.
- Diva extraordinaire Mercedes (Amber Riley). Did you hear her--Amber, not Mercedes--sing "The Star Spangled Banner" at the World Series!? Man, what pipes!
- Puck (Mark Salling), the football jock with a mohawk and an attitude to match. Except, sometimes he's just a big mush.
Stuff I Hate
- Everything about Rachel (Lea Michele) is annoying, except her voice. And even that can be too much like she's performing in a road tour of "Annie."
- Emma Pillbury's (Jayma Mays) eyes give me nightmares. They look like those crazy "Big Eye" paintings.
- Will's wife, Terri's (Jessalyn Gilsig) got nothing redeeming about her. She's not even evil in a funny way, like Sue is. What fun is a schemer if they're a boring schemer?
- The awful dubbing. These kids may actually be singing, but the show does everything it possibly can to make it look like they aren't.
Back to last week's episode, "Wheels." Will forces the Glee Club to use wheelchairs for a few days to see what it's like for Artie. While they're at it, they do a pretty decent wheelchair rendition of "Proud Mary."
"Rollin' on the river," get it?
And Artie sings an acoustic version of "Dancing With Myself."
To add more diversity to the Cheerios, Sue is forced by the principal to open up auditions and that's when the aforementioned Down syndrome student, Becky shows up and Sue actually puts her on the team.
Will, along with all the rest of us, thinks shes up to something, especially when she rides the girl hard during rehearsals. But by the end of the episode, we discover why Sue decided to give the girl a shot, and why she's not treating her with kid gloves.
***Spoiler Alert***
Turns out Sue's older sister, who's in a nursing home, has Down syndrome. It gave us a whole other side to the "evil" Sue.
I thought it was a good episode, and though a bit heavy handed with the messages, I liked Sue's storyline and our discovery about her at the end. Then there was the great diva-off between Rachel
