Season 1, Episode 16, “Home”
Mercedes and Kurt are in Sue’s office, enjoying, at least for the moment, their newly found place in the Cheerios and in school, until Sue lets them know, in a surprisingly subtle way – believe me, I have met some neon plaid sweaters with more tact – that Mercedes is not really up to the Cheerios standard and needs to drop a few pounds. Kurt reassures her that she should be happy to be comfortable in her body, but Sue issues an ultimatum to Mercedes; lose ten pounds before Tracey Pendergrass, reporter for Splitts! Magazine, shows up next week or she’s off the team. I mean, who would want the Cheerleading Coach of the Last Two Thousand Years to have anything aside from skinny stereotypical cheerleaders on their squad? Kurt tries to reassure Mercedes, but then Sue says that he could lose to drop some weight too, lest he want to continue to appear “pear hips”. Both Kurt and Mercedes are shocked by this news.
The auditorium has been padlocked, preventing New Directions from practicing, but luckily for her, Sue has the sign up sheet and the Cheerios have the room booked for the week in preparation for her magazine feature. When Will says he’ll go to Figgins, Sue reminds him that she’s still blackmailing Figgins, so Will’s out of luck, but assures his students that he will find an alternate place soon. Before everyone leaves, Kurt, still nursing his crush on Finn, asks for his advice on redecorating. Poor kid.
At lunch, Mercedes tries to make healthy choices, eating a meal that Jamie Oliver would approve of, but Kurt seems to be buckling under the pressure since he had Splenda for breakfast and is only eating peeled celery. Mercedes asks Santana and Brittany for advice on staying thin and they let her in on the recipe for the Sue Sylvester Master Cleanse (I totally want one of those Cheerios water bottles). The secret ingredient is ipecac! It’s kept Sue thin since 1987. Quinn watches all this and looks genuinely concerned for Mercedes.
At Finn’s house, Finn’s mom, Carole, is selling a bunch of their old furniture, which really upsets him because these objects are the only things he has to remind him of his father. When the buyer takes interest in an old recliner, Finn refuses to let him have it because it was his father’s and Finn’s only picture with him was on that chair. When he asks his mom what caused this change of heart and appearance – she’s got a new haircut and clothes -, she reveals that she’s been seeing someone: Kurt’s dad Burt (played by the wonderful Mike O’Malley, who I still remember as the host of Nickelodeon’s GUTS from the 90’s).
Will heads to a roller rink – because they still have those in Ohio, apparently – looking to rent the place in order to have rehearsal, and runs into April Rhodes (Kristen Chenoweth, reprising her role from earlier in the season), who gives us our first song of the night, a duet of Springsteen’s “Fire”. April is back off the wagon and is mistress to a elderly strip mall tycoon, and as owner/operator of the cabaret/roller rink, she has no problem having the Glee club rehearse at her place. Will reveals he’s also selling his place to look for something smaller, and wouldn’t you know, April is looking too. Time to April to get a bikini wax and do some househunting, and by househunting I mean have sex with people and by people I mean people like Mr. Schue.
Mercedes arrives at weigh-in and in spite of her change in diet and constant walking, has somehow gained two pounds. Sue says she needs to do whatever it takes to get the weight off. Finn confronts Kurt about how their parents got together and Kurt explains that “nothing is impossible when it comes to love” – their parents met at parent teacher conferences a month prior, during that long hiatus. Kurt fails to mention to Finn that he played a little more than aggressive Cupid for the both of them, though that’s a minor detail. However, Kurt also has the creepy dial turned all the way up here, as he talks to Finn about “giving in to inevitability” and decorating their room together. Kurt, you can do better. Straight boys are nothing but a world of hurt.
Kurt drives this point home to Finn and everyone else when he sings “A House Is Not A Home”. Kurt’s portion of the song is actually done quite well and his voice fits the song and you can really hear emotion in his voice when he does it. The action during the song, however, adds to Kurt’s creepiness with his longing looks to Finn and possibly suggests that Brittany and Santana are lady lovers? The worst part of this whole thing is Finn, whose affair with auto tune reaches T-Pain proportions in a section of the song clearly out of his range. Either get him a voice coach or have him sing songs in his range. You can’t have him sing everything.
April arrives at Will’s toting a huge Louis Vuitton tote bag, which she acquired, by the looks of it, after raiding Elle Driver’s wardrobe. April wants to stay the night and get a feel for the place, though Will is suspicious and makes her promise “no funny business”, which apparently does not cover Burt Bacharach. April slips off her jacket and reveals a nightie slinkier than anything anyone wore in last week’s “Like a Virgin” and does her own rendition of “One Less Bell To Answer”, with a little help from Will. April ends the song with an emotional piece from “A House Is Not A Home” and both Will and April are in bed together with their loneliness and each other.
At a Breadstix, perhaps a companion restaurant to Croutons from Ryan Murphy’s other high school show Popular, Kurt proposes a toast to his father and Finn’s mother getting together, while Finn looks about ready to kill himself. Finn makes a point that they are not yet family, and Burt concedes, but the two quickly bond over a love of getting knocked out playing football. Kurt tries to drive conversation (and his father’s attention) by commenting on the results of the makeover he’s given Carole, but to no avail. Kurt is quite hurt by this, because he’s never really had that level of engagement with his father and tells him that Finn is “the son he always wanted” and for Burt to try and see things from his perspective. Kurt starts to come undone realizing that his plan hasn’t worked out the way he wanted to, even though his father is happy.
Back at school, Mercedes is staring down a lettuce leaf, some cottage cheese and a slice of tomato and is looking incredibly frustrated. Tina and Artie tell Mercedes that the plan she has for herself isn’t at all healthy and it probably won’t work. Mercedes explodes at them about how hard it’s been for her and all the sacrifices she’s made to be on the Cheerios, but before long, she’s so hungry, that everyone starts looking like food and she passes out. Rachel as a cupcake, complete with hat, is priceless though.
In the nurse’s office, Mercedes finds out that her blood pressure is low, which is probably why she fainted. That, and the whole not eating thing. Quinn comes in and gives her a granola bar, and tells her that she’s been there, complete with the culinary anthropomorphic hallucinations. Quinn, in a huge change of character, hands Mercedes a granola bar, a clear olive branch, tells Mercedes to be thankful that she has always been so comfortable in her body, and not to let Sue change that about her. It is one of the most genuine and truthful moments the season has had so far. Quinn tells Mercedes that she is beautiful, and we all know what song is coming up next.
Back at the roller rink, Mr. Schue turns down April’s offer to spend the night again and gives her advice similar to what he told her before – that she deserves better for herself and she doesn’t need to be someone’s mistress. April resolves to end things with the old man and do better.
Kurt suggests that he and Finn should do a reverse Parent Trap, and Finn tells Kurt that he knew that Kurt was hurt by the interaction he had with Burt, and the two agree to break up their parents. When Finn goes home and attempts to flush dad down the toilet, Carole tells her son that he’s being crazy and they might as well start sitting down for dinner with the urn containing his father’s ashes and that Finn should be happy that she is happy because ultimately he never knew his father and what they really need is a family.
At the end of the week assembly, Tracey Pendergrass, a man to Sue’s surprise, shows up and tells her that he isn’t just writing a fluff piece, but is an investigative journalist. The Cheerios walk out and Mercedes walks out and gives an impassioned speech about what it really means to be a Cheerio and moves into a version of Christina Aguilera’s “Beautiful” and other members of the school join her in chorus. The song is a bit on the nose, but it works because Amber Reilly’s voice is a match for Aguilera’s in tone and feel. Unfortunately, Mercedes is only given the first verse and the end section, which keeps her in her big-voiced box.
Tracey tells Sue that he intended to write an exposé on her that would show that she was a cheater who enforced stereotypes, but that Mercedes’ performance about “empowerment and inclusion” proved him wrong by helping to redefine what cheerleading is. Sue, for once, is speechless.
Burt is at Finn’s house, and Finn immediately becomes defensive. Burt lays it out simply: he can’t replace Finn’s father, but he is really in love with Carole and he will be “her hero for as long as she’ll take [him]”. It’s quite touching and beautifully acted. The show ends with Finn and Burt connecting over a hatred of Duke, and reaching his pinnacle of creepiness, Kurt sitting outside the window staring in longingly.
Turns out that April did okay for herself – the old man she was sleeping with died and she’s a millionaire. She’s cleaning up, and doing an all white production of “The Wiz” on Broadway. As a gift, she bought back the auditorium, which is now the April Rhodes Civil Pavillion. The episode ends with April, in full Streisand mode, and New Directions as her back, performing “Home” from The Wiz, with everyone in tears, even me.
This was far and away one of the best episodes of the season, and definitely the best of the back nine so far. It finally broke out of the many patterns it had fallen into: focusing on Rachel and Finn and other couples almost exclusively, using songs that everyone recognizes in order to garner attention without allowing them to aid in storytelling or development of character, and relying too much on the established things that people expect (ie – Sue being mean and having no filter, Rachel being pretentious and causing drama, Mercedes coming in only for the big notes at the end of the episode) and really used the gimmick of the show effectively.
The thing that many people, including myself, like about musicals is the way that the music is used to intensify an emotional moment that a character has and to aid in the storytelling in a non-conventional way. By pulling away from the Top 40 songs the show has been using lately and really finding what songs work in the moment is what makes the show great. I hope that we continue to see this in the future and the show explores all of its characters in a more balanced way, not just the leads.
See you next week, Gleeks!
Best Song
“One Less Bell To Answer”/ “A House Is Not A Home” – Chenoweth and Morrison are pitch perfect in this duet and don’t have to rely on autotuning because the both of them have chops that have been cut on Broadway so there is no worry about the integrity of the music being lost in studio effects. This allows for the emotion of the song to really come through. I was in tears by the end of this song, which is something that Glee hasn’t been able to do to me in quite a long time.
Worst Song
While Kurt’s take on “A House Is Not A Home” is emotional and well sung, abeit with a creepy sorts of overtone. Mercedes needs to smack some sense in that kid. However Finn’s part of “House Is Not A Home” almost ruined what was otherwise a good song with his over autotuned voice, that even with electronic help sounded pinched. However, it wasn’t the smartest decision to have Finn sing the highest part of the song when it was something that Kurt could have easily handles.
Top Three Jokes
I’m also going to include some great lines from this episode, since it leaned a little more to the dramatic side than the comedic.
Quinn – “What I realized is that if I’m so willing to eat right to take care of this baby, why am I not doing it for myself?”
These are the kinds of messages our kids need to be hearing, and is indicitive of some of the best episodes of Popular, which balanced humor and positive messages for teenagers.
Apirl – “So you’re free to date? And by date I mean sleep with people. And by sleep with, I mean have sex with people. People like me?”
I’m totally using this as a pick up line in the future.
Sue – “Now if you’ll excuse me, I have to put in a call to the Ohio Secretary of State notifying them I will no longer be carrying a photo ID. You know why? People should know who I am.”
People will try to use this, but none of them will be able to pull it off because no one is quite as awesome as Jane Lynch.
Honorable Mention
Rachel having almost no lines. I think just about everyone was a bit tired of her.
