The Gleek Critique: "I Kissed a Girl" Episode

The girls sing Katy Perry's "I Kissed a Girl."  Image property of Fox.

by Jack Garcia

The lesbian focus on Glee continues with tonight’s episode, where we see the immediate repercussions of Finn’s outing of Santana last episode.  In order to make it up to her, Finn lies to Principal Figgins and insists that Santana never really slapped him.  It was a stage slap.  Just pretend.  And aside from helping her to avoid any disciplinary action she might have received for her violent outburst, he and the other New Directions members showed their love and support for the lady-lovin’ latina by serenading her with songs written and sung by female artists.  Eventually Santana’s hard heart was softened, and bolstered with confidence she came out to her family.  We are told that her parents were accepting, but in a heartbreaking scene with her abuelita we see that not everybody is ready to handle her lifestyle choice.

Speaking of breaking hearts, Coach Beiste’s inability to communicate her feelings to her crush Cooter the Recruiter left the playing field wide open for Sue to snatch him up.  Sue’s only motivation for dating him is to boost her numbers in the polls—and to rub it in Beiste’s face.  Beiste is determined to fight for her man, and Sue’s tactics don’t even work out for her in the end.  She loses the election to Burt Hummel.

And while we are on the subject of elections, Kurt discovers he has won class president and is initially thrilled… that is, until he is pulled into the principal’s office for stuffing the ballot boxes.  Nobody believes he didn’t do it, until Rachel comes in and admits it was she who did the dirty deed.  Her punishment?  Suspension for a week, a mark on her permanent record and a ban from competing in Sectionals.

Oh, Puck and Shelby have sex too… just throwing that in there.

The Pros:

• Sue's list of "booty calls" was hilarious!  Dan Quayle (too needy), Steve Baldwin (train wreck) and Vladimir Putin (contact through Russian embassy) were some of the lucky men to find themselves in that little black book!
• I liked Finn's slowed down rendition of Cyndi Lauper's "Girls Just Want to Have Fun" and Santana's final number of K.D. Lang's "Constant Craving" the best this episode, although neither one of them was half as powerful as last episode's Adelle mash-up.
• "I Kissed a Girl" was pretty fun, and I liked how all the girls stood up for Santana.
• Finn acted very maturely!  Way to go!
• Coach Beiste sang for the first time!  That was a happy surprise, even if her rendition of Dolly Parton's "Jolene" was less than impressive.
• Santana is officially out of the closet now, which is a good thing I think.

The Cons:

• Somehow Santana's storyline wasn't as emotional as it was last episode...
• Puck told Quinn about he and Shelby, which is a very dumb move!
• After all the praise Kurt received for playing fair in the elections, I was surprised to see him consider stuffing the ballots.  It just didn't seem like something he would even think about.
• Kurt's weird half-sweater thing cut on the diagonal.  What happened to the rest of it?
• Has everyone forgotten the minimum number of show choir members necessary to compete in Sectionals?  Because neither New Directions nor Troubletones make the cut.