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“Glee” Episode 304 Recap: “Lord Tubbington Thinks You’re Purrfect, and So Do I.”

There are those for whom the appearance of new kid at McKinley, Rory Flanagan, played by one of apparently legion winners of The Glee Project, Damian McGinty, was the whole point of tonight’s episode.

There were those for whom it was about an inexplicably badly-dressed and even-more-badly chapeau’d Blaine dancing to another Katy Perry song.

But I write this recap for those of us for whom this was the episode in which Brittany and Santana acknowledged they were dating. Also: taking baths together. And for whom Blaine’s sartorial mistakes paled when compared to the fact that he lay down on the floor and put his arm around Brittany while Santana glared at him. And who really would have been perfectly happy if Santana had whipped those razor blades out of her hair instead of just threatening wee Rory with torture and suffering if he didn’t back off her gf.

Now that you know where I’m coming from, let’s recap, shall we?

Brittany has an Irish exchange student living at her house, Rory. She believes several things about Rory, including that he’s a leprechaun and that he can make her wishes come true and that the language he speaks is not English.

Rory believes he can get into Brittany’s “pot o’ gold” by perpetuating her belief that he’s magical and granting her three wishes. First wish: She wants a box of Lucky Charms cereal that’s all marshmallows.

In the next scene, Puck and Quinn at their most wholesome march into Miss Cochran‘s choir room and give her a tube of under-eye concealer for the bags caused by her late nights taking care of Beth. In other words, hint, hint, Shelby, even though Puck thinks you’re still the “most tappable” teacher at McKinley, if you want to get some rest or just a night away from the crying, the two of them are volunteering to babysit.

Quinn offers up their magical night babysitting for Will‘s ex-sister-in-law’s demon spawn as a reference, and Shelby takes the bait. (We know there’s an ulterior motive because Quinn and Puck had one back on their first babysitting job, too. In other words, little bit of foreshadowing. Glee is getting tricky.)

Next up is Sue, running for Congress, doing her on-air commentary on the nightly news, ignoring every form of equal time law in existence while she rants against excessive regulation leading to waste like throwing away 300 pounds of expired turkey gravy just because the government thought it had too many weevils in it.

“Know what has no expiration date, voters?” she snarls. “My rage.”

She’s also furious that McKinley, a public school, is going to spend $2,004 putting on West Side Story, a “musical about a race war that glorifies gang violence yet still seems extraordinarily gay.” After all, she says, $2,004 could pay a whole year’s salary for a math teacher.

“If this nation wants to impress its future Chinese overlords, we need to get our priorities straight,” she says, and asks parents to call the high school and protest.

Cut to the phones at McKinley ringing off the hook. Sue has inspired a Tea Party-esque reaction in at least one parent, who heaves a brick at Principal Figgins while screaming, “My son can’t read, and you want him to sing and dance?”

So Figgins decides to cancel the musical to save its $2004 budget, despite Will pointing out that Sue’s pom pom budget alone is $4000 a month. As usual when it comes to standing up to Sue, Figgins doesn’t.

Santana is at her locker, which has a little drawing of Lord Tubbington on the door that says, “Lord Tubbington thinks you’re purrfect and so do I.” Since Santana and Lord Tubbington are my two favorite characters on Glee, this may be my most favoritest moment ever until later when Santana… well, that would be getting ahead of myself.

Mercedes strolls up to Santana, and says, “Hi, Santana How many solos did you get in Glee Club last year?”

The world’s hottest Cheerio shrugs. “A few.”

“One,” Mercedes corrects her. “‘Valerie.’ I loved it.”

Santana drops her eyes, then points out, “I was also the lips in Rocky Horror.”

Mercedes ignores that, as she should, and tells Santana that if she leaves New Directions and joins Miss Cochran’s rival club, she and Mercedes will get all the solos and all the duets. “Plus,” she adds, “It’s an all-girls group.”

“Why would I care about all-girl?” Santana asks, deep in denial.

Mercedes ignores that, too, and tells her that it’s “all lady power, all the time,” and that Shelby is a great teacher. All the while, we realize, Finn is stalking them down the hall, eavesdropping.

Santana comes clean. “You know, honestly I wish I could. But somebody’s got to look after Brittany. That special place where she lives, yeah, it’s beautiful, but somebody’s got to help her cross the street. I could never just leave her.”

At that point, Twitter and Tumblr both had to add extra servers to carry the load created by a nation of lesbians squeeing.

But to Mercedes, the solution is obvious: “Get her to come with you.”

Finn does not like this.

Later in the choir room, Tina is crying because Mercedes left New Directions. Blaine tries to rally the troops, saying no one is irreplaceable.

Finn points out that’s easy to say “when your waiting list has a waiting list,” but things are different at McKinley. “Dude, I know you’re a big deal at Dalton or whatever, but we don’t wear blazers here. Have a seat. I’m giving a pep talk.”

But Blaine just gives him a cool look and says, “Didn’t you just say something about us not turning on each other?”

Yes, Finn. Didn’t you? Besides, dude: This is your brother’s boyfriend. Can you sheathe the claws?

They all decide they’re going to sell ads in the musical program to pay for the production so yay, West Side Story will be saved.

Now, much as it pains me to say this, while I thought Blaine handled this quite well, he really looked terrible in this scene. Who is dressing this boy? Fire him.

Finn walks into a room where Rory is sorting Lucky Charms, putting just the marshmallows back into the box.

Rory looks up, delighted, and leaps to his feet. “Finn Hudson.”

Finn frowns. “You know who I am?”

Rory nods. “I’ve seen you on YouTube losing Nationals after tongue-kissing your girlfriend for ten minutes. I’m a big, big fan.”

Finn looks, as he so often does, bewildered, but just says, “Thanks.” And since Rory is still standing, he adds, “At ease.”

Rory sits, and a second later, Finn does, too.

“So, who are you?”

Rory says he’s an Irish exchange student who “loves America, especially NASCAR, your half-black president, and the Victoria’s Secret catalog.”

He adds that he’s “staying at the home of Brittany S Pierce, and she thinks I’m a leprechaun.”

“Yeah, she’s kind of like Rain Man with boobs,” Finn says.

That doesn’t stop Rory from wanting to “snog” her. Dream on, little green man.

Rory tells Finn that America hasn’t quite lived up to its hype. He hasn’t made any friends, and he thought America was all about diverse people coming together as one.

“That’s a really old brochure, dude,” Finn tells him.

Rory asks Finn if he wants to be friends, and Finn looks alarmed. “Whoa, in America, dudes don’t ask dudes to be friends. Except on Facebook. And even then it can take

years.”

But Finn does offer to be Rory’s friend if Rory will be his spy in Brittany’s house and let him know if she plans on leaving New Directions. Rory agrees.

As if asking a lonely boy to spy on his host isn’t bad enough, now Quinn is planting books on baby massacres and “baby botulism” in Shelby’s apartment, so she can call Child Protective Services on her and get her baby back. Puck is pretty sure this is a bad idea, but he goes along with it for the moment. Moving on.

Kurt goes to his dad to ask him to buy an ad in the program to help save West Side Story, and Burt blows up. He ends up in Figgins office with three strangers, and tells the principal, “Allow me to introduce you to some friends of mine from down at the Rotary Club. These are the directors of Lima’s three funeral parlors.”

“Strictly speaking, mine is a pet funeral parlor,” interrupts one.

“And mine is a crematorium, so we also bake and deliver delicious brick oven pizza,” says another.

Burt goes on, “These three businessmen wrote a check today to fund West Side Story

in completion.” He hands Figgins said check.

And the last mortician weighs in: “I’m a big fan of the show just because there are so many deaths in it.”

On the way out, Burt and Will run into Sue, who says, “Why, if it isn’t Porcelain’s dad, who may or may not have a baboon heart.”

Burt says he’s going to raise money to keep her from being elected, at which she threatens to rip his heart out.

Burt just smiles. “Bullies don’t have a very good track record of messing with the Hummels.”

“I heard,” Sue says, “and I am literally horny with fear.” She goes on to insult his lack of hair.

On the way out, Burt tells Will, “I would just like to see that woman lose, just once.” Ah, more foreshadowing.

Rory is getting bullied a lot in this episode, but after a couple of ugly incidents, he sees Brittany and cheers right up. He gives her the box of all-marshmallow Lucky Charms, and finds out her next wish: That Lord Tubbington would poop candy bars.

He invites her to dinner, but she says she already has plans.

Then he sings Kermit the Frog’s “It’s Not Easy Being Green.” I didn’t like anyone on The Glee Project, including this guy. I don’t like his voice, I don’t like this character, and I don’t like that we’re getting dragged away from our core storylines with a solo that does zip to advance the story or even Rory’s character and chews up time that could have been spent on, say, Brittany and Santana making out.

Who are in the very next scene sitting at a table at Breadstix.

Santana looks a bit uneasy, and says, “Brit, I want to talk about, you know, that thing that we never talk about?”

“What,” says Brittany, “that Sour Patch Kids are just Gummy Bears that turned to drugs?”

“Are we dating, or what?”

Brittany looks confused. “Wait, isn’t this a date? Aren’t you paying?” She looks down at her plate. “Because I ordered shrimp. Wasn’t last week when we were taking a bath together, wasn’t that a date?” She frowns. “Are you crying?”

Santana sweeps her lashes down, then up. “It’s just that I’m really happy.” You and every lesbian in teevee land, Santana.

Brittany looks at her fondly. “Well, I told you last year that if I’m single and you’re single, that we’d mingle.” Then she says that if that brings down her campaign for the presidency, she’ll just use her remaining leprechaun wish to win.

Which is when Santana learns that Brittany thinks Rory is a leprechaun and can grant wishes.

Then Brittany asks if Santana has any wishes, and she says she does. She wants to join the new glee club, because she’s sick of always being back-up for Rachel; she wants to shine on her own. “But I won’t join without you,” she tells her.

Brittany hesitates. “I really don’t want to be known as a quitter. Doesn’t my presidential

campaign need continuity?”

Campaign manager Santana seems to think that’s reasonable. Clearly she did not manage Sarah Palin’s political career.

“Can I think about it for like a day?” Brittany asks.

Santana seems upset, and a little surprised, but says, of course. “But in the meantime, I do have one more wish. I wish you’d hold my hand.”

So they hold hands. Although Santana does cover their hands with a napkin. Oh, Santana.

I saw a lot of negative reaction to this on Twitter, and references to promises from the show’s producers that the Brittana fandom would get what we’d been waiting for in this episode.

Unlike a lot of other fans, I wasn’t disappointed and I wasn’t surprised. I loved it. What we got was an explicit acknowledgement that the two girls are a couple, even if Santana is still freaked out about being too open. That’s something we kept saying we wanted, remember?

And it’s not like we didn’t see last season that these two are already having sex together, and get told in tonight’s episode that they were having sex now, too. (Well, if by “sex” you mean “bath,” which I as a Xena/Gabrielle shipper from way back have come to understand as code for lesbian sex on television. At least in this episode; have we forgotten last season’s scissoring?)

So if they’re already having sex, then were we really waiting to see more kissing? Don’t get me wrong, I want to see the sweet lady kisses, but for the moment knowing they’re happening is enough. What I wanted was an explicit statement that they were a couple. So you know, I was happy. I squeed. I helped break Twitter.

Anyway, back on the show… Puck is cleaning a pool with his new assistant and rhapsodizing about cougars. However, the next one who hits on him gets treated to cell phone photos of his daughter, and that’s not the hot pool boy encounter said cougar had in mind.

Later, Quinn and Puck are together at school, and we see a side of Quinn that’s really very scary — not in a funny way, like her pink-haired skank days, but total breakdown scary.

One of the best scenes with Quinn ever, in my opinion, was when she told Rachel why she should just stay away from Finn and let Quinn have him, because Rachel was going to be a star but Quinn was going to stay in Lima, marry Finn, and become a real estate agent. That was when I realized that Quinn didn’t have any belief in herself at all, not in her beauty, her talent, or her value as a human being.

It was sad. It really was. But it wasn’t terrifying like tonight’s admission that she believed getting Beth back was the only worthwhile thing she’d ever do in her life. She calls Beth her “one perfect thing,” also scary. Babies are not “things.” Quinn is pegging her entire future, her whole identity, on Beth. It’s delusional. It’s so messed up. It’s heartbreaking, but it’s so troubling it’s almost like my compassion is being overwhelmed by my desire to get her admitted to a residential care facility yesterday.

In the choir room, we get the good news about Kurt’s dad saving the musical, and Blaine gets up and sings while Finn gives him the evil eye. Why, Finn, why don’t you like Blaine? (I actually know; Santana’s right that he’s jealous. I’m not really asking, just deploring.)

So Blaine rocks out to Katy Perry’s “Last Friday Night (T.G.I.F.),” while Santana glares at him and drags Brittany away from his clutches. So cute. She then sits down in the back row and watches everyone else, even Finn, sing and dance along, “No me gusta” written all over her face.

Blaine and Kurt dance, and it would be super cute if Blaine didn’t look like a total idiot in his tight clothes, short pants, and stupid hat.

In the next scene, Santana spies Rory Leprechaun and lays down the law. “Do not even think about talking for the next 30 seconds,” she tells him, pony tail snapping. “Nod so I know you understand me.”

He nods.

“Good. Here’s the deal, Pixie Boy. You’ve got a crush on my girl, Brittany. I understand. She’s beautiful, she’s innocent, she’s everything that’s good in this miserable, stinking world. Do you agree? Nod.”

He nods again. Lesbians faint, Twitter explodes. You know the drill.

“Good. Also, she thinks you’re a spritely green mythological creature. But you and I know you’re just a potato-eating poser. But since Brittany likes having a pet Irish, I’m not going to explode you. So here’s what’s going to go down.”

We don’t hear what it is, but what Santana expects is to have a wish of her own granted. She flounces off, leaving a stunned Rory behind.

In the next scene, Rory is in Brittany’s bedroom when she walks in, Lord Tubbington in her arms. “Lord Tubbington snuck out and I found him at Arby’s,” she says. “How did you get in my room?”

He tells her he blinked, and she buys it. Then he tells her that Santana discovered he was a leprechaun, and her one wish, which he has to grant, is to have Brittany join the new glee club. Brittany is dismayed, because she doesn’t want to hurt her friends.

Meanwhile (this is a word I never use except when writing recaps), Will goes to Burt’s business and says he wants him to run against Sue. Turns out Burt had already decided that on his own. He has to run as a write-in candidate, but figures at least his name is easier to spell than “that chick in Alaska” (Lisa Murkowski). The Sarah Palin/Alaska references in this episode are really mounting up.

Burt is going to run on a platform of saving the arts. He tells Will, “Your glee club saved my kid’s life. Turns out art can do that.” Awwww. I love Burt so much.

Will wants to be his campaign manager, and Burt says, “Kurt already claimed the gig, but I guess he’s gonna need some adult supervision, so welcome aboard.”

Shelby is pacing around her condo with a crying Beth. She’s putting her in her crib, looking like she’s going to cry herself, when there’s a knock at her door. It’s Puck, thanking her for getting him the pool job in her building. He asks to use her bathroom, and uses it as an opportunity to remove all the things Quinn had planted. He sings a really weak version of a weak song, Foreigner‘s “Waiting For a Girl Like You,” which quiets her down. Then he and Shelby have a heart to heart that’s totally inappropriate for a woman in her 40s to be having with a 17-year-old boy who fathered her adopted baby.

At McKinley, Rory tells Finn that Brittany is leaving New Directions, and Finn storms

up to her in the hall. “Is it true?”

“No, of course not,” she says.

“So you’re not leaving the Glee Club?”

“Oh, I thought you meant the Selena Gomez pregnancy rumors.”

Finn tries to talk her out of it by stressing what a family they are, but Santana walks up and cuts him off.

“You are such a bacon-wrapped, bug-eyed hypocrite. It’s hilarious how jealous of Blaine you are,” says the girl who pouted for an hour after pulling Brittany away from gay Blaine. “Every time he opens his dreamboat acapella mouth, you’re just itching to kick him in the warblers.”

Finn doesn’t respond to her, just begs Brittany again. She says she didn’t want to leave, but explains about the Rory Leprechaun wish. Finn blows up, telling her leprechauns aren’t real, neither is Santa, and it’s time for her to “grow up and stopping being such an idiot.”

She looks at him in angry disbelief. “What did you just call me?”

He knows he’s gone too far, as he frequently does. “Brittany, I didn’t mean it like that.”

“Yeah, all the guys in Glee Club call me that, and you’re their leader, so that makes you worst of all,” she says. “You cannot call your future president an idiot. It’s mean, it’s bullying, and I won’t accept it.”

And she goes off with Santana to tell Mercedes they’re in.

Burt’s wasted no time invoking his right to equal time on the airwaves, and is doing his own “Burt’s Corner” on the same newscast Sue is a regular on.

As she watches, he tells the viewers, “Sue Sylvester has gotten a lot of mileage coming on this show and scaring you into thinking that a high school putting on a musical is the reason your neighbor’s house got foreclosed on. What she doesn’t tell you is that she spends the entire McKinley art department budget on things like leg warmers for her Cheerios.”

As if Burt smacking down Sue wasn’t enough, we now get to see Santana crush the egomaniacal Sugar Motta.

When Sugar greets Santana and Brittany as more back-up for her, she gets the smack down we’ve all been wanting to see since the first time she opened her mouth.

“Okay, I did not just leave one diva-driven glee club to join another,” Santana tells her. “So let me write you a reality check, richy bitch. I’ve seen what you can do, and what you can do is stand in the back, and sway, and sing very, very quietly.”

Sugar clearly had been waiting for an alpha bitch to come along, because she crumbles instantly. “I just wanted to be on the winning team for once,” she whimpers.

Mercedes smiles. “So just turn down the ‘tude, and you will be.”

Suddenly Shelby, who has been standing two feet away, gets her sense of hearing back and starts a discussion about the group’s new name. Hot Bitches, Hot Messes, and Free Beer don’t make the cut, but The Troubletones does.

Once they have a name, they also have awesome costumes, back-up dancers, a band, and a well-choreographed rendition of Christina Aguilera‘s “Candyman.” It was fantastic. I’m sure it was, even if I spent the whole thing ogling Santana in her blue Andrews Sisters suit and not really watching anything else.

Finn and Will are watching in the audience, and when the girls are done, Finn says, “We’ve got trouble.”

“Big trouble,” Will agrees.

In the hall later, Finn walks up to Mercedes, Brittany, and Santana and apologizes to Brittany for calling her an idiot. He wishes them well and says they’re great, and tells them he doesn’t want to see their friendships end.

Brittany accepts his apology and they hug, with Rory watching on, beaming. It turns out he thinks this means Brittany’s last wish has come true; it was apparently that no one would be hurt by her leaving New Directions.

But Brittany has gotten wise. She tells him Finn’s not happy, he’s heartbroken. And that there’s no such thing as leprechauns, although it would be a good thing if there were. She walks off, leaving a stricken Rory behind.

Santana delivers the final blow, telling him her one last wish is for him to disappear.

Back at the only restaurant in Lima, the Hudson-Hummels are strategizing Burt’s congressional run. Kurt’s worried about the effect it will have on his health, but Burt says that it took almost dying to get him to see what was really important.

Kurt was also worried about the effect of having a gay son on Burt’s campaign, but Burt said he was proud of Kurt and it wasn’t going to matter.

Sue shows up with a quintuple-decker bacon cheeseburger in hand, and encourages Burt to eat it up. She thanks him for helping her get her focus back. She says she’s going to start talking about a truly important issue, the need for special education in the schools, in honor of her late sister.

Kurt asks if that means she’s going to stop trying to shut down the arts programs, and she snorts. “Sweet Porcelain, so naïve,” she says. No, she’s still going after the arts, because at McKinley they have no special ed teachers or classes, and she thinks those would be “a better use of school funds than flying the Glee Club to New York without a set list only to lose at Nationals with a song they made up the night before.”

Sue is obviously on Tumblr.

Back at school the next day, Finn sees Rory getting bullied by mullet boy and his friends, and tells them to leave him alone. They’re not deterred, laughing about him running off to tell Mr. Schuester.

Not Mr. Schu,” Finn says. “Coach Bieste.”

They’re outta there.

Then Finn brings Rory to audition for New Directions. He sings Teddy Thompson‘s “Take Care of Yourself,” a song I don’t like. And even if I did, what a waste to give two solos to a character we don’t even know. Could we not have heard from Tina, for instance? No, because I guess it’s enough that while he’s singing we see her, along with Artie and Kurt, try to be friendly with Mercedes, only to have Santana pull her away.

The song is also intercut with a scene where Puck and Shelby kiss at her apartment. Look, I know Justin in Queer as Folk was also 17, and Brian was much older, and I liked them just fine. But Brian was only 29, not in his 40s, and he was not a teacher at Justin’s school, and Justin was not the father of his illegitimate child.

Of course, Mark Salling looks, and is, almost 30, while Randy Harrison looked 12. Still, whatever kind of hypocrite it makes me, I can’t stand to see Puck and Shelby kissing and I really think this is a disgusting storyline. No me gusta.

On the other hand, the preview for next week had a kiss I like very, very much. We see Blaine and Kurt kiss, right in preview. And from what I’ve heard and what’s implied in the preview, we’re going to see a whole lot more than that.

Where were shows like this when I was growing up?

And now, my favoprite #gaysharks tweets from last night…

Lesbian Apparel and Accessories Gay All Day sweatshirt -- AE exclusive

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