Glee: Mash Off

What Happened, Yo?:

-Puck is "Hot For Teacher". Shelby is a sub in one of his classes, because apparently she needs more to do than just coach Troubletones.
-Sue is running absurdly ridiculous attack ads against Burt Hummel, and tells Kurt that he doesn't have a chance winning the election, because he refuses to play dirty.
-New Directions and Troubletones will be facing off at sectionals, so Will and Shelby decide to have a friendly "mashoff" competition.
-Quinn is suspicious as to why child protective services haven't come yet.
-Rachel gets Shelby to write a letter of recommendation for Rachel's college application. She mentions that other kids wanting to get in won't have a prayer without a lot of activites like Rachel has.
-Kurt is still mad at Rachel for being in the student president race.
-Santana is insulting Finn and the two decide to gather their Glee clubs for a dodgeball match.
-Shelby tries to underplay Puck's feelings as just a crush, but Puck insists he has strong feelings. Shelby does admit that Beth likes him.
-Quinn still playing nice with Shelby.
-Dodgeball! Set to both clubs doing a mash-up of One Way Or Another and Hit Me With Your Best Shot. Troubletones win and then beat Rory with dodgeballs for some reason until Kurt gets them to stop.
-Mercedes officially becomes leader of Troubletones and demands Santana apologize to Finn and start playing nice.
-Santana gives a series of increasingly thinly veiled insults-disguised-as-apologies to Finn, until Finn uses the one weapon he has and says Santana only tears people down, because she tears herself down, because she's in the closet, and in love with Brittany who may not love her back.
-New Directions performs an Hall and Oates Mash-up.
-Puck admits to Shelby that Quinn planted a bunch of things in the apartment because she wants Beth back.
-Class President debates. Kurt rallies to ban dodgeball as the first step to stopping bullying. Rachel drops out of the race to support him for never playing dirty..
-Rachel and Kurt make up.
-Shelby tells Quinn off and hopes it'll be a wake-up call for her.
-Santana learns that the niece of one of Sue's competitors overheard Finn telling her to come out of the closet and her lesbianism is about to be used as part of an attack ad against Sue, outing her to everybody.
-Troubletones does an Adele mash-up. It's beautiful.
-Santana notices Finn whispering to Rachel. Though he's just whispering how good he thought Santana was, she yells at him, slaps him and yells some more declaring that because of him, everybody will know.
-To be continued.

I Liked This:

There was a bunch of stuff I liked in this episode. All the mash-ups, Santana vs. Finn, Rachel dropping out of the class president race to support Kurt, Sugar trying to copy Santana and saying she sounds exactly like Adele, Puck telling Shelby what Quinn's doing, and Shelby reprimanding Quinn. I even appreciated the over-the-topness of Sue's campaign ad. But for me, the best part of the episode was Naya Rivera and the ending.

Naya Rivera is great as Santana, who has become one of my favorite characters on the show. And this episode gives her lots of comedic material to work with. But in the last five minutes of the episode, when she finds out she's about to be outed to everyone in Ohio, goes to deliver one of her best musical performances in Rumour Has It/Somebody Like You, and then freaks out when Finn whispers something to Rachel, slaps him and shouts at him, Naya also gives perhaps the best performance she's ever given. It really elevates the episode as a whole. The ending itself is one of those well-earned legitimate twist endings you don't see coming (Maybe the first one Glee has done since Mattress. Mercedes joining Troubletones was a twist, but it wasn't unexpected.), and is very powerful stuff, but it's Naya Rivera who truly gives it an impact. If the whole episode was on par with this last scene, Mashoff would get a perfect rating easily.

But...: The whole episode isn't like the last scene and I still have some complaints. I continue to be annoyed with Quinn's big villainous turn. I really hope this is leading somewhere good for the character, because Quinn has turned into early season 1 Quinn again and I don't like early season 1 Quinn. Plus, whether he's 18 or not, I still have issues with the Puck/Shelby romance. I did like the scene where he confesses what Quinn has done, and his scenes with Beth were cute, but I did not care for the opening sequence at all. And Kurt's "Let's ban dodgeball" speech was overly preachy (even for Kurt) and felt shoehorned in, in order to give the earlier dodgeball sequence more purpose than just being an excuse to do a musical number and finally justify the dodgeball motif the season's iTunes singles have been using. As was the crowds enthusiastic reaction to it.

Bottom Line: Honestly, I wasn't sure how I felt about this episode of Glee until the final minutes. There was good stuff and there was bad stuff, and I was hovering around giving the "pretty good" grade again, but that final sequence was well done enough to make me not care so much about the negative parts of the episode and give it a solid...

Grade: Awesome! (Good)

Memorable Moments

-Best Musical Performance: Rumour has it/Somebody like you. No question.
-Worst Musical Performance: Was not a fan of Hot For Teacher. Just didn't think it was well done.
-Fun Fact: Rumour Has It/Somebody Like You is Glee's 300th musical performance.
-Fun Fact #2: This is the 3rd time that Glee's 6th episode of the season has been a mash-up episode.
-Santana: “You guys, hurry up. Go get some wet towels, We have to keep Finn wet before we can roll him back into the sea.”
-Rory is not good at insults. “You’re skinny like all the crops failed on your family’s farm failed.”
-Brittany on Adele: “She sounds like what banana cream pie sounds like when it sings.”
-One last thing: I also liked that it's unclear who's at fault for outing Santana. Finn did say it in public, but Santana provoked him heavily, and neither of them could've predicted what would happen. Personally, I think they're both at fault, but it wouldn't surprise me if the show comes back in 2 weeks clearly on the side of "It's all Finn's fault".