Glee: The Purple Piano Project

All the shows I love first have a moment when like becomes love. When I realize that I will follow this show to the bitter end, no matter how bad it gets. For lack of a better name, let's call this: "The Moment of Truth". The Moment of Truth could come early on in a show's run. It may come later on. But when it comes, I'm pretty much stuck.

Glee's "Moment of Truth" came towards the end of episode 1, which I saw back in May 2009 when Fox had a "special preview" for the show. It wasn't Don't Stop Believing. It wasn't anything Sue said. It wasn't even a major story moment, really. It happens right before Finn changes his mind about leaving Glee club. Basically Finn has gone back to his football buddies and Puck tells him they got a welcome back present. We learn that Artie has been trapped in the Porta Pottie and they want Finn to tip it over. Finn: "Couldn't he get seriously hurt?" Puck's reply: "So? He's already in a wheelchair." In that hilarious, brilliant moment of casual cruelty, I knew I loved Glee and would always love Glee, no matter how bad it got.

So when the second season began to veer all over the place in terms of consistency, put far too much emphasis on Kurt (which I wouldn't have minded, except suddenly they took away all of his flaws and made him a saint basically.) and focused too much on big, loud, spectacle instead of the characters, I endured. Even as a bunch of people I knew who loved Glee in the first season turned away and gave up on it, I kept the faith, enjoying the show when it was good (which actually was still often. Season 2 wasn't that bad. It just wasn't season 1 good.) and looking for bright spots when it wasn't. Because for better or for worse, I was part of this now. And I had to believe my faith would one day be rewarded. And, despite a bunch of behind-the-scenes wackiness before season 3 began, and despite Ryan Murphy basically making the same promises he made before season 2 (more focus on the characters, less special episodes, less guest stars in the beginning, etc.), it looks like that day has arrived.

The Purple Piano Project starts off really similar to the season 2 opener Auditions, with Jacob Ben Israel interviewing all the members of the Glee Club with one big difference. In Auditions, the opening was very meta and basically used Jacob to address all the criticisms made about season 1 (Another thing about season 2 was they'd always acknowledge criticism but never really fixed anything). In Purple Piano Project, besides a bit of expository dialogue to write Sam out of the show and introduce Mercede's new beau, the interviews were all focused on the characters and their plans for this year and beyond (Plus show who's graduating and who isn't). So already, season 3 is more focused.

Also more focused is Will Schuester who, with Emma finally at his side is going to push the Glee Club harder than ever before and make up for their devastating loss at National's last season (I do find it unrealistic that getting 12th place out of 50 makes them the laughingstock losers again, unless it's more because they could've placed higher if not for the kiss. Still why would a YouTube video of this be so popular? Only on Glee, I guess.). His plan involves putting refurbished, purple pianos all around the school, where the glee kids are supposed to sing whenever they see one in an effort to rally new recruits. Of course you'd think that after two years, Will would know that this is a bad idea that probably won't end well, but he doesn't.

The presence of these pianos comes at a good time for Sue, who's following through on her plans to run for Congress but without a solid platform (She's pro-deportation.), she's in 9th place behind a convict running from prison and undecided. So when she guts one of the pianos in a rage, tired of being nice to glee kids (after one day) an encouragement from an arts-hating geometry teacher gives her a platform: stopping funding for the arts in public schools. Which puts her on the warpath with Will Scheuster again (whether this breaks Ryan Murphy's promise that Sue wouldn't go after glee club this year is debatable because she's not directly attacking them but they're still a target.). Will won't stand for this anymore though and glitter bombs Sue in an act of protest (He films it too.). Unfortunately this actually helps Sue in the polls because everyone loves a martyr.

Meanwhile, the glee kids put on a big performance of The Go-Go's We Got the Beat in the cafeteria because a purple piano is there. This of course leads to a massive food fight (started by Cheerio's co-captain, Becky who along with other co-captain Santana has been ordered by Sue to wreck the purple pianos.), and doesn't get anyone to audition, except for Sugar Motta.

I'm going to be honest. Though I had my moment of truth for Glee long ago, last night my love for Glee got reaffirmed with one line of dialogue from Sugar Motta. "I have self-diagnosed Aspberger's so I can say whatever I want". As someone who actually has Aspberger's (something I wasn't going to mention until I talked about my Community moment of truth.), I found this incredibly funny. When Sugar would say something hurtful and offensive and justify it by saying "Aspberger's", it was even funnier. Plus she's pretty delusional and tone-deaf (Her audition scene is hilarious). I hope we see more Sugar in the future, because she's already one of my favorite side characters right up there with Sandy Ryerson, Becky, and Figgins.

We won't see much of her in New Directions though, because Will makes the tough decision (but probably the right one if he's serious about wanting the club to win) to reject Sugar from the club. In keeping with Will's character, this doesn't come easy for him and the show does a good job making his choice believable and in line with his character. As does his other tough decision of kicking Santana out of the club for burning a purple piano at the end of a musical number by Blaine (who's transferred to McKinley now, but everybody saw that coming especially since he's a regular now.). Santana can't play for both Team Sue and Team Glee anymore. The club needs members who are going to be loyal.

In another plot that's also well-done, Rachel and Kurt find out that their plans to go to Juliard together have one big flaw: Juliard doesn't actually have a musical theater program. Emma directs them to another New York-based school with a great, though exclusive, musical theater program. Even though they only take 20 people a year, Rachel and Kurt are sure they're the most talented applicants and go to a pre-mixer of sorts for prospective applicants where they are promptly humbled and given a massive reality check when it turns out that everyone there  (including one of the finalists from last summer's reality show, The Glee Project) is just like them and just as talented, as they show in a mash-up of the songs Anything Goes and Anything You Can Do. This leads to a great scene, where the pair encourage each other not to give up and resolve to do everything they can to get into that school.

In the end, this was a great start for Glee's third season, setting up some interesting stories and character arcs and providing a lot of fun. Of course Auditions started off season 2 well and well... sophomore slump. I have high hopes though. As long as they stay the course with their storylines, Glee is well on it's way to being great again.

Grade: Toally Awesome! (Great)

Memorable Moments
-No I didn't forget about Quinn. I just didn't talk about it up there because it wasn't really a storyline. Quinn's self-reinvention as a pink-haired bad girl who has forsaken Cheerios and Glee and hangs with a group known as the Skanks (who I want to see more of.) is definitely intersting and I'm a bit disappointed we didn't see more of her. Then again, the woman she gave her baby too is returning next week, so I can only hope we'll see more Quinn, then.
-Also Lauren is leaving New Directions and Puck which seems weird after all the focus on her in the latter part of season 2. Fox has her listed in returning in episode 3, so she's not gone for good though.
-More Sugar next week too!
-I was really happy that Finn and Rachel's relationship was not a focus this week.
-Also Emma thinking Kurt and Rachel were about to start dating was really funny.
-Best Musical Number: Either You Can't Stop The Beat or Anything Goes/Anything You Can Do
-Worst Musical Number: Was not a fan of Ding Dong, The Witch is Dead
-"Wait, are you building a time machine, also?" Oh, Brittany. You still make me laugh.
-Future (I imagine) Storylines set up in this episode that were outright stated: The school musical, Kurt runs for class president.
-Future (I imagine) Storylines set up in this episode that were more implied and I picked up on it: Mike Chang graduating a year before Tina (and his parents being kind of controlling in his life. They're coming in episode 3.), Finn being unsure about plans for the future.
-One last thing. Episode titles so far this season are awesome. Next weeks is I Am Unicorn (Something tells me Brittany will be a focus) and the week after that is Asian F (Which should have lots of my favorite character: Mike Chang!).
-That's it for now. Gleek out!