Holy mackerel, we're up to date on something

[jethrien]

Last night we caught up to the current episode of Glee. I don't think I've actually been up to date on a TV series since...umm...high school. Yep, high school. Weird.

Of course, it won't last. Chuckro's not home on Tuesday because of class, and he'll be sad if I watch it without him. Knowing us, we're likely to stockpile and then watch two or three episodes in a row. But for a brief, shining moment, we're actually current on something pop-culture.

So a lot of people have already noted some irritation with Mercedes dragging Kurt to church. I agree with their annoyance, and I'm not going to make the whole argument again. I was relieved that they didn't betray Kurt so far as to have him suddenly convert or change his mind, which I'd been worried about.

My secondary beef with the writers is that they didn't have the courage to stick to their convictions. Here's the thing--some of the best music we have is religious. From Handel to spirituals, an enormous swath of Western choral tradition is explicitly Christian. And a large swath of our country is Christian (and while some of them are asshole intolerant fundies, most of them are just nice, good, faithful people). The Powers-That-Be decided to court the Christians with this episode and risk alienating the non-Christians. It's made pretty clear in the dialogue and in the events of the episode that some of the characters are true believers and that the PTB have some sympathy for them. So given those two facts--that there's an enormous catalogue of amazing Jesus-centric music, and the producers have decided to explicitly support Christianity, at least in the form of Mercedes--why the hell was "I Look to You" the closest thing to a religious song in the episode?

Don't get me wrong, I think including "Losing My Religion" and "Only the Good Die Young" was perfect. But they have Mercedes in church, backed up by a full gospel choir, and the song they choose is "Bridge Over Troubled Waters"? What the heck? (Hell just doesn't seem appropriate in that sentence.) They could use "Bridge Over Troubled Waters" in any episode. Any episode at all. Having the big climactic song sung in a church by a black gospel choir and making that song a basically secular song by a white guy undermines Mercedes' point as much as dragging Kurt to the church in the first place undermines Kurt. Either they never should have gone there--nearly orphanining the outcast gay boy and then criticizing him for not wanting to walk into a place that is notorious for condemning him, while forcing his best friend to ride roughshod over his pain so she can convert him--or they should have stuck to their convictions. I was ok with how things finally come out--Mercedes still believes, Kurt still doesn't, Finn doesn't know what he believes but finally stops praying to a sandwich--but on the way there, they managed to betray basically everybody by trying to have it both ways.

Also, I totally called "One of Us" being the last song less than halfway through the episode.

"Rocky Horror" was quite a lot of fun. But oh, Will. When a "Sue Sees It" piece blasts you and she's actually completely sane, logical, and 100% right, you know you've ceded the moral high ground.

Chuckro did point out something interesting, though--by this point last year, you knew what the driving arcs of the season were going to be. The baby mama drama plus Rachel trying to win Finn powered the season. Now? No clue what the arc is, if there is one. We've got a bunch of B-plots in search of a theme.

Edited:I apparently can't spell fish names.

Comments

[chuckro.livejournal.com]

They never knew what to do with the black guy, and then they dumped him unceremoniously in favor of another white boy. I very much appreciate the fact that the show features a particularly multiracial ragtag bunch of misfits, but there are some "minority designations" they seem much more comfortable with (or interested in) handling.