‘Glee’ Episode 13 Review

2/18/2011 Posted by Admin

‘Glee’ Episode 13

Television Review

By our guest blogger, Catherine Fuentes


After two solidly stellar ‘Glee’ episodes, I’m not surprised that Tuesday’s episode was lackluster. I felt that too much was going on in this episode--a diva-off, the Justin Bieber Experience, Sue joining glee club, Sam+Quinn+Finn’s love triangle.  And so on. Add some pretty mediocre music, and Tuesday’s ‘Glee’ was unfortunately not as stand out as last week's.

The glee club learned that the theme for regionals will be anthems, and to prepare themselves for the competition, each of them had to perform an anthem as an assignment.

Proving that there’s no escaping Bieber-Fever, Sam tried to impress his estranged girlfriend Quinn by forming a one-man cover band called The Justin Bieber Experience. Now, I know teen girls go bonkers over the Bieber, but aren’t these girls a little too old to be swooning?

Maybe not. I for one really liked Sam’s rendition of “Baby” as it was totally refreshing to hear that inescapable guilty pleasure pop song performed by someone of age. Seeing the girls swoon for the Bieber, all the other guys minus Finn lined up to drink the Bieber Kool-Aid and join the Justin Bieber Experience.

I felt the other Justin Bieber song of the night, “Somebody to Love,” was a bit over done. While I do certainly love any performance that showcases Mike Chang’s incredible dance moves, I felt the jump shots to the girls behaving like teeny boppers was a bit much.

Meanwhile, I was totally excited to see that Sue was forced to join the Glee club as a means of combating her Cheerios-fallout depression. It provided for some excellent Sue Sylvester one-liners, and an opportunity to see Sue scheme and pit Mercedes and Rachel against each other in a diva-off.

In an attempt to one-up Mercedes, Rachel demanded that the diva-off be set to Broadway tunes, and the girls belted out Rent’s “Take Me or Leave Me.” I really liked it. I like hearing the two most powerful voices one-up each other in a song that’s really recognizable, current and fun. And high school girls singing Rent for fun really seemed appropriate and memorable from my own high school days, which made me appreciate the moment.

In her solo debut, Lauren Zizes sang a solo of The Waitresses’ “I Know What Boys Like” complete with imagining the entire glee club in their underwear (nice Power Rangers tee-shirt, Finn) and serious booty dancing from Brittany. I know that this wasn’t supposed to be vocally groundbreaking, but I was almost disappointed that Lauren can’t really sing at all. However, it was the most fun moment of the episode by far, so I hope she comes up with inventive routines to keep us viewers on our toes.

The big finale was the group all clad in flannel – even Sue had a plaid Adidas track suit – singing My Chemical Romance’s “Sing,” which was appropriate, because it finally seemed like the most anthemic song of the night. I don’t particularly care for the song, but to be honest, I really liked Rachel Barry taking lead at first. As Broadway as her voice sounds, I really like when she dials it downs and sings something more restrained and contemporary. It put a likable spin on a song that’s otherwise overplayed and not equated in my mind with vocal excellence. The rest of the routine was your typically saccharine ‘Glee’ performance, and the group vocals weren’t too stand out.

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