"Glee" Episode 14: “Blame It On the Alcohol”

2/24/2011 Posted by Admin

"Glee" Episode 14: “Blame It On the Alcohol”

Television Review

By our guest blogger, Catherine Fuentes


Last week, I honestly started to doubt why I’ve been steadily becoming a fan of ‘Glee’ – I didn’t feel the writing was as sharp as it could be, I didn’t think the musical numbers were anything special. Last week, I felt that ‘Glee’ was missing its spark. This week, all that had changed dramatically. This week might have been the best episode of ‘Glee’ I’ve seen in a while.

I wasn’t a fan of ‘Glee’ in its first season since I felt it was far too cheesy for my tastes. People got me to give the show a chance because the writing is sharp, witty and funny, and I don’t think there’s enough brilliant writing on television.

This week’s episode of ‘Glee’ was one of the best-written episodes I’ve ever seen. The jokes seemed effortless and witty, the situational anecdotes seemed appropriate, relatable and hilariously comical.

The music was also appropriately themed and well executed. At your pop culturally cliché quiet-get-togethers turned ragers when the parents are out of town, after the glee club got drunk and played spin the bottle, Rachel and Blaine sang a great duet of “Don’t You Want Me.” Kudos to ‘Glee’ for staging the drunken sing-along to an 80’s hit. Of course Rachel’s dads would have this song in their karaoke repertoire. That being said, seeing Rachel and Blaine let loose and still sound incredible just shows their talent and depth of range.

After some appropriately witty dialogue over bloody marys, Artie busts out into singing Jamie Foxx’s hit “Blame It.” I’ve really been a huge fan of Artie lately, and I think he’s been taking lead on the best songs each week. Seeing Artie become the go-to R&B guy is also wonderfully hilarious.

The harmonies were so great, the choreography was well stylized and not too over-the-top cheesy, and as always, I really like seeing the glee club sing a song that you wouldn’t expect a high school glee club to sing.

Proving that even adults can have an embarrassingly drunk night themselves, Coach Beiste brought Mr. Schuester to her favorite honky tonk bar, which reminded me way too much of my favorite college hangout. Country music isn’t my forte, but I felt that Coach Beiste and Mr. Schuester’s rendition of “One Bourbon, One Scotch, One Beer” was theme appropriate and sounded nice. Country music doesn’t seem to be either of their strong suits vocally, but it fit the episode, and it made me wish that live music existed at Shooters.

The big school assembly was a cover of Ke$ha’s ubiquitous hit “Tik Tok.” And honestly, this episode would’ve been less believable without a drunken rendition of the party girl du jour’s hit about getting drunk. Never mind the fact that Brittany taking lead looked like a prettier, cleaned-up version of Ke$ha (until the blue vomit, of course), this song was just well done.

It’s hard to critique the vocals of a Ke$ha performance, because the songstress herself isn’t exactly known for being a good singer, and Brittany is more talented in dance than she is in song. It would’ve been wrong to have someone turn a Ke$ha song into a diva moment, so kudos again to you, ‘Glee.’

The one quasi-complaint--if this was supposed to be an episode on alcohol awareness as a preventative measure, I think it missed the mark a little.

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