or sign in with email

'Glee' Recap: "On My Way"

Fighting a losing battle is an increasingly difficult thing to do, and as much as I wish I was talking about anything within Glee, I’m more referring to my slow mental retreat from writing these boisterous grievances about how awful this show’s become. After three seasons of bitching and moaning, at some point there has to be an acceptance that this is what Glee is, and you’re either going to like it or you’re going to stop watching. In any world, to take a person’s attempted suicide and make it a catalyst to the rushed wedding that no one seems to support and make it a reason to sing songs about sex loudly and dance suggestively on stage is an absolutely ridiculous idea, a preposterous suggestion for any show that took itself seriously. But on Glee, to sacrifice Karofsky for Finn and Rachel to get married and for the Warblers to dedicate their performance of “Glad You Came” (a horribly sexy song) to a kid Sebastian talked to once… well, that just seems like the Glee thing to do.

There’s the sense that Karofsky’s attempted suicide was done more for shock of the show than character growth of any kind, being that there was virtually zero buildup to the whole tragedy, not an ounce of a hint that whoa, this David kid is really hanging on by a thread. Not until this week, when all of a sudden Sebastian was super rude to him and Kurt was ignoring his phone calls because he didn’t want to date the kid. I do like Karofsky as a sub-character, going through the motions of coming out and accepting himself in a way that mostly happens off-screen, so it’s a lot less messy than Kurt’s debacles and more like a man coming into his own on his time. This is all countered by the fact that he just unceremoniously tried to kill himself, but you kinda have to deal with the fact that Ryan Murphy is going to take every character he possibly can and push them to whatever extreme he can think of.

But it’s all ostensibly done to reel you into an hour where REGIONALS!!! are still the most important thing, and even they felt shortchanged amidst a tragic storyline of an almost death that also didn’t find its fair due. There’s parts of Regionals that are supposed to be for Karofsky: at one point, Sebastian dedicates their Regionals performance to him, but then they start singing “Glad You Came”, which is the absolute last song you should dedicate to someone on their deathbed. There’s also a quick tidbit in there about how no one should ever try and kill themselves, but Will once did, and the most important thing that we deserve to know about that is that if Will ever committed suicide, he would have never gotten to coach a ragtag bunch of sex-crazed and insensibly stupid two-time losers. Or something.

Basically, “On My Way” is an hour that’s thrown together terribly and could have been arranged better to give each story its due time and space, but instead has a beginning chunk where Karofsky might be dead and then a huge middle section of SEXY REGIONALS! and then one end part that all of a sudden remembered that Karofsky was in the hospital and then a bit of cryptic Sue on the end for good measure.

There’s a no-looking-back point where Glee pointedly becomes about how shocking it can possibly be, and that’s been crossed a while ago but it’s still a little bewildering to see what it will do for that shock and not value, despite how righteous and poignant it likes to believe it is. So I remember the things that I used to like about Glee, and the qualities that can make it a good show, and I’ve been trying to hang onto those so that whenever it gets ridiculous, I can remember the one time that Tina was lying about her stutter and that was the most controversial thing in the world.

SumOlogy: Karofsky’s not dead, but Quinn might be? Wait… what?

Grade: 6/10

 

Leftovers

I refuse to even acknowledge how painfully obvious it was that Quinn was going to get in an accident from the moment she said she was going to come to Rachel’s wedding and then was transported into THE MIDDLE OF F*CKING TRAINTRACKS NOWHERE, OHIO for ABSOLUTELY NO REASON. Nor will I acknowledge the fact that she’s dead. Because she’s not.

That "Glad You Came" song is my ish.

Just a thought: how long can New Directions get away with never practicing for competitions?

--

More Glee: Recaps | News | All Ology TV Recaps | TVOlogy

Want to connect with other Glee Ologists? Join the conversation over on My.Ology!

Follow Terron R. Moore on Twitter: @cityfitch

Recommended Ologies: