Glee: Hold On To Sixteen

What Happened, Yo!:

-Quinn tells Rachel she plans to get Shelby fired by telling people she's sleeping with Puck. Rachel points out that if Quinn does this, she will be hurting her child and will truly hit rock bottom.
-Sectionals is at McKinley this year.
-Finn tells Mr. Schue that they need to get Sam Evans to win Sectionals and he's only 4 hours away.
-Blaine laments to Kurt that Finn won't let him help the Glee club. Sebastian shows up and while Blaine is gone, he and Kurt express their dislike for each other.
-Rachel and Finn travel to Kentucky to get Sam, where they find that Sam is secretly working in a male strip club to help pay for some of his family's needs. They convince him to go back with them.
-Quinn tries to get back together with Sam so he can help her raise Beth when she gets Shelby fired. Sam tells her she has "rich white girl problems" and encourages her to just enjoy her senior year.
-Tina tries to get Mike to apply for a school where he can dance, but Mike tells her that he's applied to Stamford Pre-Med because he doesn't want to rip his family apart. Tina tells him not to be a coward and follow his passion, but Mike gets upset.
-Sam tries to convince the boys that they need "sex appeal" to win, and most of the boys are ready to go with that, but Blaine disagrees. He takes a crack at Sam for selling himself and they have a brief physical altercation.
-Blaine asks Finn what his problem with him is. Finn admits that he was jealous, but they need Blaine to win. Fin apologises and they unite.
-Sam tries to get Mercedes back. Mercedes tells him to move on, but Sam tells her he's going to get her back.
-Tina confronts Mike's dad and tries to get him to watch the West Side Story DVD with Mike's performance. Mike Sr. tells Tina that the path of the performer will be filled with hardship and there won't be lots of opportunities for them. Tina tells him she doesn't care if there's hardships and he should honour his son's gifts.
-The Troubletones approach New Directions and tell them that when they lose, they can join Troubletones for Regionals. This makes New Directions indignant and Will tells him they're going to focus on winning, while Quinn makes an oblique reference to knowing Shelby's secret.
-At Sectionals, the first group performs, and they have that Glee Project Girl from the first episode. They're good.
-Quinn is heading to get Shelby fired, when Rachel pleads with her to wait until after Sectionals.
-Quinn confronts Shelby, who tells her she's ending it with Puck, and that Quinn should enjoy being young before it slips away from her. She also apologizes.
-Troubletones perform and are good but Finn and Blaine are still confident.
-As New Directions begin their performance, Mike Chang Sr. arrives and seems impressed. Their rendition of ABC gets the crowd to their feet.
-New Directions also does Control and Man in the Mirror. At the end they get a standing ovation from even Mike Chang Sr.
-New Directions celebrates their good performance. Mike's dad tells him that dancing is his path and he and his mother will help him anyway they can. Mike's worried that he missed the deadlines for the schools he wanted, but Tina has sent in his application just in case.
-New Directions wins Sectionals! Troubletones come in second and are devastated.
-Quinn tells Rachel that she's not going to get Shelby fired and thanks her for stopping her from doing something stupid. They finally become friends and Quinn decides she wants to go to Yale for the Drama program.
-Quinn tries to gets Mercedes, Santana, and Brittany back to New Directions with a promise from Will and Rachel that Troubletones will get one number a competition. She also tells them that they'll all be gone soon, and with her life in front of her, she wants to be with her girls while she can.
-Mercedes, Santana, Brittany, and Sugar come to the auditorium during the victory rendition of "We Are Young", and join in, finally reconciling the two clubs together.

I Liked This: Glee took a real stumble last week, but they always manage to do good competition episodes and this one was a good one. I liked that the main dramatic thrust of the episode was redeeming the character of Quinn, and finally getting her back on a path to some kind of stability. I liked that the writers found a suitable way to possibly lure Mercedes and Santana back to the Glee club (and that Brittany was more than willing to go back.). I liked that Tina had a storyline, even if it was another part of Mike Chang's storyline. I liked that Glee shared the wealth with their sectional numbers and got everyone involved in some way. I was also a fan of Finn and Blaine's stuff this week. And somehow the writers were able to get in an appropiate amount of tension, even though everyone knew New Directions would win (I also didn't miss having a scene with the judges. After season 1, those scenes were never as good, and really the only judge I wanted to hear from was Tickles the clown.). Plus Tina and Mike Chang did lots of singing! Really, this was a swell episode of Glee.

But...: There was still flaws with this episode. The beginning of the episode made a big deal over needing to get Sam back, and besides the fact that they thought the best way to reintroduce the character was to put him in a strip club (Though I could somewhat appreciate his justification of it.), we don't get any real resolution to his conflict with Blaine and he doesn't seem that instrumental to their victory. And I would've liked to see one more thing of New Directions getting ready for Sectionals, before (or possibly after) their scene with the Troubletones.

The Bottom Line: It wasn't as good as the first two sectionals (I really liked Special Education, even in that mess of a first part of season 2.), but Hold On To Sixteen was a solid installment and a good resolution of the plotlines for the initial part of the season.

Grade: Awesome! (Good)

Memorable Moments

-Best Musical Number: I really dug ABC the most out of all the Sectionals numbers.
-Worst Musical Number: Red Solo Cup. What was the point, besides "Chord Overstreet decided he wanted to return after all, so let's give him a solo to welcome him back!".
-Now that I think of it, Sam's stripping may have been the writer's way of getting back at him for leaving. Good one, writers.
-Tonight was the first episode in a while where the theme was incredibly obvious. In case you missed it, it was "stop being young the first chance you get" (Yes, I'm being sarcastic.).
-Good to see they remembered that they needed 12 people and recruited some people from the bad. Because I would've been pissed off if they just waved that off.
-Dalton Academy also advances to Regionals, which means we get to see more of Sebastian. I'm fine with that.
-Santana had already prewritten her welcome back insult to Sam: "Welcome back, Lisa Rinna. I've missed you so much since your family packed their bags, loaded them into your mouth, and skipped town. I can't tell you how many times I've wanted to enjoy a crisp pickle but couldn't find anyone to suck the lid off the jar. I assume you've been working as a baby polisher, where young mothers place their infants heads in your mouth to get back that newborn shine. So glad you're back. I haven't seen a smile that big since the abominable snowman got his teeth pulled by that little gay elf dentist. Love, Santana."
-Blaine is a good boxer! "I also started the Dalton branch of the fight club. Which I obviously can't talk about."
-I liked Tickles line about getting to be around kids that are only sick with talent. Honestly, of all the ideas for ridiculous judges, Tickles is the best one since the Comptroller from season 1.