It was the moment we've all been waiting for–the Madonna episode of Glee. Did it live up to our expectations and make up for last week's mediocre spring premiere? Yes, and then some! This was singlehandedly one of the best episodes of the show, combining exciting plot elements with equally riveting vocal performances.
If you missed this one, you need to click through immediately and hit the play button. I mean, how else are you gonna be able to disagree with my extensive review of the musical numbers? It took damn long to compile all of that, so I look forward to hearing your alternative arguments in the comments section.
Next week's episode seems promising, thanks to another guest appearance by actress Kristen Chenoweth. She'll be contributing vocals for up to three songs, so that'll hopefully give us a break from the standard Finn and Rachel duets. Plus, Mercedes will be doing her rendition of Christina Aguilera's "Beautiful"! Are you as ready to get Glee-tarded as I am?
– Dewitt
To watch the episode, read more and hear the songs, follow the JUMP:
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FULL EPISODE:
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Express Yourself (Female Cast): Inspired by the cheer team, Schuester gives the students an assignment to perform songs by Madonna, as an attempt to illuminate and repair the sexism of the group's male members. Seeing this as a threat to their machismo, the guys aren't too keen on the idea. Also, they're not really sure what the word "misogynist" means. Seeing an opportunity to enlighten others, Brittany drops some knowledge: "When I pulled my hamstring, I went to a misogynist."
In a desperate last move, Puck attempts to evade the challenge by saying that the pop legend's sound doesn't translate well to show choir. Rachel disagrees on this point, so she grabs the rest of the ladies for a musical number.
The girls' rendition of "Express Yourself" is quite good. Rachel steps out of the spotlight for a moment to let Mercedes and Quinn take some of the vocals, but this is more about the ensemble than the soloists. They really work well together!
So what's my nit-picky feedback on this one? Well, it doesn't have anything to do with the music, choreography or context. But did anyone notice that Quinn was magically not pregnant for a few minutes? Apparently the power of Madonna involves temporary abortions. (4.5 Points)
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Borderline / Open Your Heart (Lea Michele & Cory Monteith): Sue Sylvester challenges the Cheerios to unleash their inner cougar by dating younger men. Brittany nabs herself a seven-year old who plays soccer with her sister, prompting Santana to set her eyes (and later her vagina) on Finn. She makes a bid for his virginity, but he reveals that he still has feeling for Rachel. To avoid this obstacle, Santana lets it "slip" that Rachel's dating Jessie St. James of rival group Vocal Adrenaline.
Finn goes to confront Rachel about her relationship with Jessie. Her instinct to lie backfires immediately, as the truth comes pouring out of her mouth. Finn agrees to accept their secret affair, but threatens to withdraw his friendship if it causes any problems for the club.
And then they sing. There's enough sexual tension in the following scene to make you blindly root for the Rachel and Finn pairing. They not only look good together, but for once they actually sound good together. The number ends with heavy breathing and a lingering moment where a kiss should be. Alas, they just head in different directions. (4.5 Points)
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Vogue (Jane Lynch with Amber Riley & Chris Colfer): Opting to take a different approach to the assignment, Kurt and Mercedes team up with the audio-visual club to make a music video. They witness an argument between Schuester and Sue Sylvester, and tap the cheer coach to star in the project.
You know how I feel about this video, so I'm not going to repeat myself. This remains one of the best things the show has ever done. (5 Points)
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Like A Virgin (Lea Michele, Jonathan Groff, Naya Rivera, Cory Monteith, Jayma Mays & Matthew Morrison): Finn decides to accept Santana's offer after hearing that Rachel's still seeing Jessie, but he's not the only person who makes plans to lose their V-card. Rachel and Emma both make the choice to give it up, and you can probably guess which musical number this leads to…
Now before I go any further, can we address how fucking hot Naya Rivera is? I'd go hetero for her in a heartbeat. It's like she had surgery to install sex lasers into her eyeballs, a la model Zeb Ringle. Honestly, I may have more of a boner for her than any of the guys on the show.
Speaking of boners, the "Like A Virgin" scene is so sexy that it's almost uncomfortable. The trio of absurdly attractive couples gyrate their way through the lyrics, with seldom-heard soloists Emma and Santana chiming in for the mix. It's a bit of a letdown to discover that it's all a fantasy, as only one of the three winds up getting their cherry popped. (5 Points)
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4 Minutes (Amber Riley & Chris Colfer): Rachel lies to Finn about having sex with Jessie. She winds up turning him down for the good of the team. Finn lies to Rachel about not having sex with Santana. He goes through with it but winds up disappointed that it didn't mean anything.
Jessie winds up transferring to McKinley High to please Rachel. He becomes the newest member of New Directions, much to the chagrin of second-string soloists like Kurt and Mercedes. Feeling unappreciated and underutilized, the two get a taste of school-wide fame as the newest members of The Cheerios. They placate the fears of Schuester (and the viewers) by announcing that they plan on being members of both groups.
In this scene, one of Madonna's worst singles gets a High School Musical makeover, complete with a full band and cheerleader back-up dancers. It might have been more enjoyable if "4 Minutes" wasn't such a terrible song. Even so, the inclusion of Kurt and Mercedes on the cheer team provides hope that Chris Colfer and Amber Riley will receive more solos, and that's enough to gain the producers another half point. (3.5 Points)
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What It Feels Like For A Girl (Male Cast): Gathered around the piano with Mr. Schuester, the boys learn a lesson with this selection from Music. Puck maintains an arrogant douchebag stance about everything, but Artie and Finn agree to tie up loose ends with the ladies. Of course, Artie may have been more threatened by the "righteous blade of equality".
Finn fails to understand the concept of objectification with lines like "I could have had you" and "I'll stay away from your girl". I mean, isn't the whole point to not treat women like they're objects or property?
And while I understand that it was supposed to be "cute" or "ironic" for all these macho dudes to be singing this song, it just didn't work for me. As usual, it was nice to hear Mark Salling, Kevin McHale and Chris Colfer get their own individual solos, but there wasn't much else redeeming about this. (2 Points)
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Like A Prayer (Full Cast): Because no episode is complete without a grand finale, the full cast assembles on stage for this totally random moment. Then a gospel choir shows up out of nowhere. Not even kidding.
If we can suspend our disbelief for a moment, this was quite a treat in the musical sense. The best vocalists in the group all got their moments to shine, while the production was tighter than what we usually get from these Glee tracks. With that said, the presence of this song seemed entirely superfluous in the context of the episode. How did this particular song help sum up the entire episode's theme? (4 Points)
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BREAKDOWN OF POINTS SYSTEM:
- 5 Points = Excellent or exceeding expectations in regards to vocal performance, choreography and arrangement. Fits well within the context of the episode, and potentially better than the original version.
- 4 Points = Not too shabby! May not be entirely on par with the original, but a fantastic effort by the actors and vocalists.
- 3 Points = Tolerable. Did not induce eye rolls or kept them to a minimum.
- 2 Points = Could be a variety of factors, including poor song choice or lackluster performance. Boring or uninspired. May be an insult to the original artist.
- 1 Point = Absolutely painful. Couldn't wait for it to be over.
Last nights Glee … KICKED SERIOUS ASS … I loved it and was blown away by the spy changing schools to be close to that easy tramp … sheesh at least Finn was true of heart … not that I would kick either of the men out of bed … her on the other hand can sleep outside with all of the other stray pussy cats well the guys and I have our fun with my partner
A this point there is a bit of a problem with Rachel. She is much too mature for Finn. She seems like a 25 year old women and he seems like a 16 year old boy. My other concern is the delicious Sue Sylvester. The writers are treading on Jack and Karen water here. They may need to reel her character back in a bit to not wear the audience out. We don’t want to start rolling our eyes at her behavior. They should remember to concentrate on the music first and the crazy behavior second.
What an amazing episode of GLEE. Loved the Madonna theme!!!!
I really, really, really liked the STORY last night. Sue is fantastic; I love the complexity of the Rachel and Finn narrative (their mutual lie to each other?), and Brittany is a riot. But I was underwhelmed by the songs: their use was incredibly obvious. The Rachel/Finn duet was great because it was creative (although I’d like it if we could return to using the word “medley” for medleys), and I liked the boys singing “Girl.” But I’ve come to expect more creative song placement, use, plot incorporation. (And what’s up with the V post comment about the GLEE boys not being hot? I beg to differ.)
After the airing of the pilot, I became one of Glee’s biggest supporters during the summer but I found all of the fall episodes fell flat as did the first episode back. But this episode truly had the charm and spark of the pilot. Totally awesome.
With that being said, Sue’s hair comments about Shue are getting old, and I also couldn’t get past Quinn’s missing stomach. I think the Like a Prayer recording is awesome but the fit in the show was also wrong and didn’t really play up the interaction between the different soloists which include a Finn/Rachel/Jesse portion
I thought this was the worst episode of GLEE to date, and many of my friends agree. They are running out of story and now just place the “GLEE Characters” in new senarios.
Uhm, John Bavon, isn’t that what shows are about? Putting characters in different scenarios?
While there’s little doubt they’re very entertaining, can we have a bit of a mix other than Finn and Rachel singing? These other kids need to be more than just window dressing as Rachel gives a broadway belter treatment to every song she sings. These are talented kids, but if you watched this show regularly you’d think the only one with a voice was the character Rachel — with the black girl coming in and belting a finale occasionally. You’ve got a talented ensemble. USE THEM for god’s sake!
i can’t keep from repeatedly listening to 4 minutes! so nice to hear kurt and mercedes singing for a change (and back up doesn’t count)!
they shoulda got the material gurl herself to guest star…
right at the end, with all the gleeks and the pompoms together, and lady M comes out singing with them…lol
I love you madge-ick…
Ok, even as a mega-fan of this show I have to admit, that was a horrible episode of Glee.
Look, we’ve known from the beginning that this show is just as much about the catchy numbers as it is about the characters and storyline, and so it’s ok when we, the audience, are expected to suspend disbelief a bit for the sake of making a number work. But that was stretched a bit far this episode. This episode seemed more about individually licking the many, many folds of Madonna’s punani than crafting a believing-yet-fun episode based on her music.
–Sue Sylvester doing “Vogue” was an all-out riot…when it was just an easter egg at the end of last week’s episode. Inserting it into an actual episode was a bit off, not only because we’d already seen the scene, but because as suspended as my belief is never in a million years would I believe the character Sue Sylvester would willingly glam herself up for a Madonna fan video. It was too ridiculous, even for Glee. It should have remained a little treat for the fans, not an actual part of the storyline.
–The whole Sue Sylvester being a mega-obsessed Madonna fan was a little hard to believe in general. And the hair jokes…ok, only the first two were funny. By the 7th time the producers should have realized that shtick was old.
–I was a little annoyed by the Schuester/Emma back-and-forth last season, but only two episodes in and they’ve already kicked the annoyance level up by 10. Last episode we saw them together, and then by the end we had the tearful “we’re both too fucked up to be together right now” goodbye (which made TOTAL sense)…and then in the very next episode they’re fucking (or at least attempting to)? Can the writers pick an emotional state for these two characters and STICK TO IT for one — maybe two episodes? On the plus side, I think the Finn/Rachel back-and-forth is being paced quite well.
–Like a Prayer, completely superfluous. And where’d that gospel choir come from? And on that same note…last season it was a bit easier to buy that the old guy sitting at the piano would have the sheet music to every song the glee kids needed to sing at that moment. You tend to believe that wizened old men sitting at a piano would be able to whip out “Maybe This Time” on a whim. But now we have a “house band” of Gap-ed out kids who know how to play EVERYTHING in EVERY key and all you have to do is giggle over to them and whisper the song in their ear? I think I would rather have the music coming from nowhere, than have to look at a group of children who magically know how to play everything.
–Rachel. Shut Up. Her voice doesn’t fit everything, so why is she singing EVERYTHING? If I were Mercedes and Kurt I’d have left New Directions AGES ago.
–On the plus side, I actually think the “Like a Virgin” scene was the best musical scene in the show thus far. The context and cinematography between all three couples just simply worked. And WHOA! Why is Santany only just now getting a solo moment? That voice surprised the hell outta me.
My Glee for the show is seriously fading fast!!