Glee Lives Up to Its Name in its First 13 Episodes

Last May, around the time LOST and American Idol were wrapping up, FOX provided a preview to whet my appetite for fall television, making me a little less annoyed at having to wait until January for the return of my favorite shows. Years ago, I watched The Glee Club, a season three episode of The Wonder Years in which a naive teacher tries to turn Kevin and his fellow eight-graders into a functional choir, and to this day I think it’s one of the most disastrously hilarious television episodes I’ve ever seen, so I figured that Glee, a series seemingly born out of a similar premise, had plenty of potential. Except boy, can those kids in Glee sing!

Glee, created by Ryan Murphy, Brad Falchuk and Ian Brennan, is an hour-long musical dramedy that, like Ugly Betty and Pushing Daisies, seems just a step away from reality. Of course, there’s the bursting-into-song-in-the-middle-of-the-hallway thing, but there’s also the outrageous behavior of some of the characters, none more so than Sue Sylvester (Jane Lynch), the demented cheerleading coach who is a veritable fount of startling statements. Ruthless and competitive, she immediately sees red when idealistic Spanish teacher Will Schuester (Matthew Morrison) decides to revive the Glee Club he so loved when he attended McKinley High School a decade and a half earlier. She fears that if the club succeeds, it will divert both resources and acclaim away from her “Cheerios,” and there is nothing she won’t do to sabotage Will’s efforts.

But Will is one determined guy. With a passion for music and for making a difference in the lives of troubled teens, he assembles a ragtag team of misfits, only just enough to qualify the group to compete at Sectionals in the mid-season finale. (Frankly, this is one of the most unbelievable aspects of the show for me. After seven years of American Idol and three installments of High School Musical, I can’t quite accept that only a dozen students in the entire school want to join the Glee Club, and that nearly everyone else in the student body regards each member of that club as the epitome of loserdom.) Most prominent among his singers are Finn Hudson (Cory Monteith) and Rachel Berry (Lea Michele). To a certain extent, I think these two get a little more screen time than they deserve, to the exclusion of their equally talented castmates. But there’s no denying their talent.

Finn is cut out of the same mold as Troy, the basketball-dribbling crooner Zac Efron plays in High School Musical. His game of choice is football, and at the beginning of the series, he is most definitely one of the cool kids. But when Will overhears him singing in the locker room shower, he knows he can’t let that talent slip out of his fingers and reels Finn in through his laughable gullibility. He stays, though, because he really does love to sing and finds it freeing to spend so much time among people who accept him for who he really is. Finn, who has been raised by his devoted mother and a series of her boyfriends, is an incredibly sweet-natured boy who is gentlemanly, courteous and ethical. When faced with the choice between being hip and being considerate, he nearly always chooses the latter. Unfortunately, his easy-going, overly trusting nature leads him to be taken in by his not-nearly-as-perfect-as-she-seems girlfriend Quinn Fabray (Dianna Agron), whose contemptuous treatment of him throughout this first half-season despite his stalwart loyalty to her is the biggest strike against her.

Rachel isn’t quite as lovable as Finn, simply because she is such a diva. A Barbra Streisand wannabe, she’s spent most of her young life preparing for stardom, under the watch of her doting dads, who we have yet to meet. Consequently, she is incredibly talented but equally unpopular. The more she seeks attention through methods like going online and posting a steady stream of videos of her singing, the more derision she invites. She seems to have been born to be the Glee Club’s star member. But that doesn’t sit so well with the other singers in the group, who are tired of always being upstaged. Scarcely an episode passes in which Rachel does not severely grate on my nerves, but the feeling always passes, since in many ways she is a very kind-hearted girl. She harbors a thinly veiled crush on Finn, and, considering how he is being taken advantage of in his existing relationship, it’s hard to resist rooting for the two of them to have a shot together, especially when they clearly have so much natural chemistry.

While Quinn, the straight-laced daughter of strict parents, is to be pitied for the unfortunate situation in which she finds herself, what’s deplorable is the way she deceives Finn and doesn’t even treat him with a greater degree of respect for standing by her after she informs him that he is the father of her unborn baby, even though he, out of respect for her religious convictions and role as the president of the Chastity Club, remains a virgin. Clearly the boy needs some remedial biology. Quinn, having made a stupid mistake while intoxicated, cheated on Finn with his best friend Noah “Puck” Puckerman (Mark Salling), a macho football player who uses his pool-cleaning business to snag cougars. Though joining the Glee Club brings out his sensitivity, he’s definitely the bad boy of the bunch.

On the opposite end of the spectrum is Kurt Hummel (Chris Colfer), described by one character as looking like “an eleven-year-old milkmaid”. With his soft, high voice and acute attentiveness to the world of fashion, he reminds me of Justin, the flamboyant nephew on Ugly Betty. Like Rachel, Kurt has dreams of singing glory, though he fears that pursuing them too far might pain his father (Mike O‘Malley), a widowed mechanic. Throughout the season, he navigates the rough waters of his identity, trying out football in an effort to please his very masculine dad and struggling with his unrequited affection for Finn. He also must figure out how to deal with the amorous advances of Mercedes Jones (Amber Riley), a plus-sized tour de force who pours her soul into her songs and is most disdainful of Rachel’s leading role in the club. Sassy but sweet, Mercedes has a deep kinship with him. Among the club members, she’s one of the most likely to extend a spontaneous hand in empathy.

While there are twelve students in the club, the only remaining member who has been fleshed out much to date is Artie “Wheels” Abrams (Kevin McHale), a deep-voiced boy with thick glasses who has been relegated to a wheelchair since he was in a car accident several years earlier. His lower register is so much deeper than anyone else’s in the group, it makes a wonderful impact upon the harmonies during group numbers. His unique situation is the focus of Wheels, arguably the most touching episode of the series thus far, which has Will insisting that the members of Glee Club come to school in wheelchairs in order to truly appreciate what he must go through each day; in a subplot, Sue reveals her softer side after she recruits a student with Down Syndrome to the Cheerios. The five remaining members include bubble-brained Brittany (Heather Morris), stuttering Tina Cohen-Chang (Jenna Ushkowitz), cheerleader Santana Lopez (Naya Rivera) and football players Matt Rutherford (Dijon Talton) and Mike Chang (Harry Shum).

While managing the dynamics of this diverse group of students, Will, a starry-eyed educator who already has earned a place among a list of inspiring fictional teachers, has his peers to deal with as well. Whenever Sue antagonizes him, he finds himself in the office of Principal Figgins (Igbal Theba), a mostly competent, ethical administrator doing his best do get by with limited resources. He thinks Will is crazy for starting up Glee Club again but grants his permission anyway, with certain conditions. Though he sometimes proves a stumbling block, more often than not he is in Will’s corner. Occasionally, Will comes into contact with Sandy Ryerson (Stephen Tobolowsky), the eccentric former leader of the Glee Club who now comes across just a hair shy of sociopathic. Eventually teaming up with Sue, he becomes a sort of shadow villain as the season progresses.

And then there is Emma Pillsbury (Jayma Mays), the guidance counselor who enjoys an easy rapport with Will and shares his concern for each member of the student body. Innocent and doe-eyed, she tries to hide her deep desire for her married co-worker, but it’s an open secret, particularly since there are times when the affection seems mutual. While burly, taciturn football coach Ken Tanaka (Patrick Gallagher) attempts to woo her away from Will, it’s clear even after she begins to date him that she only has eyes for the charming Glee Club director. And of all the potential romances on the show, theirs is the easiest to root for, given their extreme compatibility and tenderness. Except that Will is married. But his wife Terri (Jessalyn Gilsig) is so thoroughly shrewish, it’s hard to imagine how he ever could have fallen in love with her. His marital situation reminds me of the fairy tale-like It Could Happen To You; evidently both parties have changed since high school, and she took a turn for the worse while he honed his altruism. When she embarks upon a deception as audacious as Quinn’s in an attempt to salvage their deteriorating marriage, it seems even rockier times are inevitable for the couple.

While we mostly see the same people week after week, certain episodes have allowed for the addition of guest stars. My favorite among these is probably Victor Garber as Will’s supportive dad, though Kristen Chenoweth’s appearance as April Rhodes, a washed-up high school diva, is a nice salve after Pushing Daisies was so mercilessly cancelled and Josh Groban’s cameo as himself is a hoot.

If these characters were not so engrossing, both in terms of how they are written and how they are portrayed, we might not be so eager to embrace their musical stylings. As it is, however, the performances that fill each episode are a treat. Sometimes exuberant, often character-revealing, these musical numbers are not limited to the members of the Glee Club, though the students and Will are responsible for the majority of the songs. Will gets an unusual amount of time in the spotlight in Acafellas, when he forms a quartet, though perhaps my favorite of his performances is the hilariously icky mashup of Don’t Stand So Close to Me and Young Love, sung in an effort to dissuade Rachel from developing a schoolgirl crush on him.

Kurt soars as he battles Rachel in Defying Gravity, Puck gets a big smile out of me with his upbeat rendition of Sweet Caroline and Mercedes gives Jennifer Hudson a run for her money with her version of And I Am Telling You I’m Not Going. Finn and Rachel wind up with a duet in just about every episode, but it’s hard to beat their impassioned performance of Don’t Stop Believin’ from the Pilot. Of the group-oriented numbers, my favorites include the supportive Keep Holding On and Lean On Me; the heartfelt Imagine, performed with a deaf choir; the riotous Single Ladies dance put together by the floundering football team; and Proud Mary, which includes some rather impressive wheelchair choreography and puts Artie in the spotlight.

If you didn’t get to see Glee while it was on, I recommend giving it a shot on DVD. The second half of the season doesn’t begin until April, so you have plenty of time to catch up. With its captivating characters, complex plots that broach issues faced by many contemporary teens and exhilarating musical numbers, Glee is a show that truly lives up to its title.