Gleecap: Funeral

May 19th, 2011

After last week’s upbeat Prom episode the writers of Glee opted for a more plot-changing, demure episode. We saw lots of things come to an end, including a relationship and even a life.

Mr. Schue decided to hire Jesse St. James as a show choir consultant to get New Directions geared up for Nationals in New York. His suggestion was to find the star player and build the whole performance around that one person. The club wasn’t down for this but Mr. Schue followed Jesse’s advice and held open auditions to find the “star” of New Directions. Out of the whole club only Santana, Kurt, Mercedes and Rachel agreed to audition. Jesse called Santana too boring, Kurt too feminine and Merdeces too lazy. But he had nothing but praise for Rachel which really upset the other three.

We saw Sue’s League of Doom strike again, this time with an extra evil plan. They re-routed New Directions’ flights to Libya instead of New York. But there was a reason for this extra negativity which we found out later. Sue’s downs syndrome sister Jean died from pneumonia. She was so devastated by the loss that she couldn’t stand the thought of planning a funeral. That’s where Kurt and Finn came in to help. Both having lost close loved ones they empathized with Sue and offered to plan the funeral themselves, even with Nationals a week away. Jesse wasn’t very happy with the idea but the whole club agreed to help too without hesitation.

The funeral was nothing short of perfect. Kurt and Finn made it Willy Wonka themed after Jean’s favourite movie. When it came time for Sue to get up and speak, she had a hard time getting the words to come out. So Mr. Schue came up and read the touching speech for her. Then New Directions got up and sang “Pure Imagination” from “Charlie and the Chocolate Factory” with a montage of videos and pictures of Jean playing on the TV in the background. The most touching moment of the funeral by far was Sue grabbing Will’s hand.

Mr. Schue’s ex-wife Terri felt bad for fooling with New Direction’s flights, so she managed to score them first-class tickets. She also informed Mr. Schue she was moving down to Miami to manage a Sheets and Things. It was a nice, peaceful goodbye showing the two still have a mutual respect for each other.

After the funeral, Finn was in his car when Quinn came in to join him. After Sue’s speech about the tethering effect love has on people he realized he didn’t really feel tethered to Quinn and didn’t love her like he loves Rachel. Quinn was not very happy about the breakup and said she had “plans” for New York. I’m thinking these plans will involve payback for Rachel. So was this the week Finchel made their big comeback?

Nope. Jessie met Rachel in the auditorium and told her Mr. Schue and him picked her as the star of New Directions for the Nationals number. He also let her know he had everything to do with the decision and then kissed her! And right at the door with a flower in his hand was, you guessed it…Finn. He missed this chance and now Rachel’s back together with Jesse. We’ll just have to wait a little longer for the notorious return of Finchel.

Next week is the finale, and the club travels to New York for Nationals. Don’t miss it!

Tags: recaps, tv