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“Glee” Episode 205 Recap: “Oh, the Horror!”

Greetings. Your regular recapper, Christie Keith, couldn’t be here this week. She had um, a prior commitment that required her attention.

Okay, okay … I hit her over the head and locked her in my laboratory’s freezer. But there was no way I was going to let anyone else recap the Rocky Horror episode.

When I was in high school, I actually got a job at a department store just so I could make friends with the stoners who worked there, just so I could find someone who could drive me to the midnight Rocky Horror screening while my parents thought I was at a friend’s house studying for the SAT’s. Which was totally worth it. Obviously.

Basically, I love this movie, and I love Glee and was curious to see what they’d do with it. I also had ample warning (as we all did) that liberties were going to be taken. But I figured the songs are always so much fun — and it would be so much fun seeing the Glee gang doing them — that all the episode had to do to was not be a total travesty and I’d be happy.

And the verdict? Not a total travesty! Yay, I guess?

Also, I thought it would be fun for a change to recap a show that gets about 800 comments in any given week. Here, watch this …

“Brittana.”

It’s like yelling “fire” in a crowded movie house. I just got 32 comments just for that. 15 of them loved it, 15 didn’t get why the other 15 loved it, and 2 of them threatened to come to my house and smash my computer. Hey, this is fun! Anyway, onto the recap proper …

And God said, “Let There Be Lips.” And there were. Brittany’s lips, I think, singing “Science Fiction Double Feature,” but I can’t tell for sure. Whoever it is, they have nice teeth. Apparently getting pumped full of nitrous oxide and Britney Spears music while getting orally probed by your guidance counselor’s boyfriend has its advantages.

During the song, the title “The Rocky Horror Glee Show” appears in the same font as the movie, and we even get opening credits featuring the characters’ names. It’s a nice little touch.

Then we segue right into the middle of some sort of Rocky Horror dress rehearsal in the school auditorium. For once, the set actually looks like something in a high school production, rather than the Caeser’s Palace revue extravaganzas that miraculously materialize anytime a character decides to work out personal issues through song.

We see Finn-as-Brad and Rachel-as-Janet doing an okay version of “Over at the Frankenstein Place.” But the background vocals come across as way too Lite F.M., and so far, I’m not too impressed with the music.

Then again, this isn’t really my favorite song in the movie. The best thing about it is that it’s the part where some audience members would put newspapers over their heads, and others sitting right next to them would light lighters, and nobody realized that this might be a problem. Hey, nobody ever said going to this movie made you smart. Or sober.

Halfway through the song, Dr. Carl (John Stamos) comes onstage. Dressed head-to-toe in leather. Somebody needs to tell him that that bar he’s looking for is next to the school, not inside of it. He accuses Mr. Schue of trying to steal his woman.

Faced with confrontation, Will performs the amazing evasive move of freezing time and retreating into a flashback. “How did it get to this?” his voice-over muses. “How did a production of Rocky Horror turn into my horror?”

It all started, we’re told, a week ago in the lunch room, where Will found Emma doing something shocking … eating a sandwich with crusts still on.

When Will comments on this, she laughs it off, saying she must have forgotten. You see, she and Carl had had such an amazing weekend, having gone to see Rocky Horror. Which means that she’s no longer a virgin, which you’d think would make Will happy.

But Will finds this even more shocking than the crusts, given the movie theater is such a germ-ridden dive. Emma responds that she was having so much fun she didn’t even notice. In that respect, she’s doing much better than me these days. I’ve stopped going to movies because, as everybody knows, bedbugs love them. Having all my clothing and furniture infested by tiny, insidious mites just for the sake of seeing The Town? No thank you.

Anyway, Emma is now so taken with Rocky Horror that she and Dr. Carl plan to dress up for Halloween as characters and go trick-or-treating. I don’t know what’s weirder about that — that they’re adults who plan to go trick-or-treating, or that he’s a dentist who plans to go trick-or-treating. He clearly was one of those four out of five dentists who went running around demanding his patients chew Trident.

Will thinks to himself that Emma is clearly getting better, and it’s thanks to Dr. Carl’s influence. This means Dr. Carl is “winning,” and he can’t have that. So he blurts out that it’s funny she loves Rocky Horror so much because he does too! In fact, he’s going to have the glee club perform Rocky Horror for the school.

She points out that there’s some pretty risqué material in it. But he pooh-poohs that by saying he’ll just make some edits.

This comment at least justifies some of the sanitization evident in the pre-released song clips that had so many people so upset. And it’s a legitimate issue — schools do wind up having to edit musicals all the time. Why in my high school alone, when we did Naked Boys Singing, we had to do it fully clothed, so there you go.

In the glee room, the kids are talking about Halloween. Asked what she’s going to be, Brittany says, naturally, “I’m going as a peanut allergy.” Best line of the episode right there.

Will makes the big announcement that instead of their usual assignment, they’re going to do a musical. “Please be Evita, please be Evita,” Rachel begs (don’t worry Rachel — I’m sure the Andrew Lloyd Weber-themed episode is coming).

When Will says it’s Rocky Horror, there’s much excitement over this, although Finn mentions he’s never seen it, and Rachel cautions about the show’s adult themes. Kurt seconds this, talking about the outrage that surrounded a high school production of Rent in Texas that forced the show to be cancelled.

Will makes a passionate defense of his choice, saying that this is part of the purpose of the arts … to “push boundaries” and do things people say you can’t do for the sake of “self expression.” Will elaborates that he’s got it all figured out; he’s cut the more racy sections, and he’s going to get all their parents to sign permission slips.

Then they turn to the issue of casting, which in this case amounts to everybody simply calling out the parts they want without any need to audition. They go for the totally obvious, with Finn and Rachel taking Brad and Janet, and Artie figuring he’s got to be Dr. Scott, the guy in the wheelchair.

With things practically casting themselves, Will thinks it’s only natural that the gay kid would be the sweet transvestite. But when he announces this, Kurt takes offense, saying there’s no way he’s wearing heels, fishnets and lipstick. Santana sneers, “Why? Because that look was last season.”

There isn’t much discussion about why Kurt feels this way, but it’s clear to me that it’s not that he’s afraid or ashamed to do it (as I’m guessing some will claim); this is the guy, after all, who did “Single Ladies” in the middle of a football game. I think it’s more that doing drag on stage just isn’t his thing, and it’s wrong to assume it has to be his thing just because he’s gay. Maybe he’s more into being a Riff Raff than a Franke N. Furter, and that’s okay. One of the whole points of Rocky Horror and the dress-up games that went with it was people being given the freedom to act out the parts they really wanted to.

To everyone’s surprise, Other Asian Mike announces he’d like to do it. After his number in “Duets,” he’s feeling more confident. Although I’m thinking that after his number in “Duets” he should really stick to dancing.

Since they’re short women’s roles, the girls will have to double up on Magentas and Columbias. Oh, and one more role …. “[Chord Overstreet],” Will says, “I’d like to see you as Rocky.”

When he’s teased a bit about how little clothing the part requires, Sam assures everyone that you could cut glass on his abs and that he has no problem showing off his body.

You know who does have a problem with his body, though? Finn. When Rachel is rehearsing with him and explains the scene requires they strip down to their undies, he balks at having to appear in his “tighty whiteys” in front of the whole school. “I know I’m a big athlete,” he says, “and it’s not manly, but I’m kind of insecure about how I look.”

Obviously Finn’s body is nothing to slouch at, as we all know from all those singing-in-the-shower scenes. But it’s interesting to me, and I think pretty accurate and a pretty powerful statement, that even someone like him might be made to feel self conscious.

We cut now to a news broadcast already in progress. The anchors are finishing up a story about the first Unitarian monkey wedding ceremony in six years, and they have a picture of the happy bride and groom to prove it. Somewhere Maggie Gallagher is having a serious crisis over this story. On the one hand, she certainly approves that it’s a male and female monkey getting married. On the other, could the fact they got married indicate they’ve evolved?

The news item is a lead-in to Sue’s Corner. If I’m not mistaken, this is the first Sue’s Corner of the season, and it’s a doozie. Her subject is Halloween, “The day when parents encourage little boys to dress like little girls, and little girls to dress like whores.” Hey, what about the boys who want to dress like whores? Let’s not forget us.

Sue says that Halloween is now all about people going door-to-door freeloading candy off of hard-working Americans, and we’ve lost the true meaning of the holiday … fear.

After the broadcast, Sue is approached by two men-in-black who announce they’re the new station managers. Awesomely, they’re played by original-Brad, Barry Bostwick, and original-Eddie, Meatloaf (who apparently has a last name — who knew?). But it’s a crying shame that we get these great cameos from these guys and they don’t get to sing. It’s like when Barbra Streisand cast Mandy Patinkin in Yentl and then hogged all the songs for herself.

Anyway, the station guys explain to Sue that the key to great cable news coverage is fear. You throw in a “killer bees” or “terrorists” or “Mexicans,” and you create a flurry of panicked news coverage and get yourself ratings. This, BTW, is so like what really goes on with today’s news that it threatens to veer this entire episode into docudrama.

They think there’s just such a story brewing at Sue’s school, because they’ve heard of the pending Rocky Horror production. It’s the perfect topic by which to drum up fear-mongering news stories about the “secular progressive agenda” invading the public schools, and they want her help. Seeing a daytime Emmy in her future, Sue agrees to go undercover and report on the production from the inside.

Back at the school, Will is starting rehearsal, and the girls are teasing Finn about having to take his shirt off for the scene. When Rachel says this isn’t fair, Quinn points out that girls have to put up with being objectified all the time, what with all the comments about their looks from the boys. Not to mention certain “naughty schoolgirl” spreads in certain men’s magazines catering to thirtysomething stock brokers. Just saying.

As evidence of Quinn’s view, Santana mentions how earlier, Artie asked if he could have an omelet with the ostrich eggs she’s smuggling in her bra. I’m surprised she didn’t pummel him over that, but then again, she was probably flattered. Sam, meanwhile, promises everyone he’s going to be “abulous” in his gold bikini.

They rehearse “Damn It Janet,” and it’s a bit better than “Frankenstein Place” was, but still nothing transcendent.

Sue interrupts the song and pulls Will outside. To his surprise, she’s not threatening to shut down the show; quite the opposite, she wants to participate, claiming to be a big supporter of the arts. He’s suspicious (as he should be) but agrees to let her be The Criminologist. Which is perfect casting. Naturally, though, she insists on making her own rewrites.

Locker room. Sam, Finn, and Artie are all working out together. Finn says he doesn’t like having to worry about his looks, wondering when this sort of thing happened to guys. Artie blames it on Internet porn, which he claims made it too easy for girls to access porn and ogle guy’s bodies, thereby addling their brains and making them think more like men. Uh huh. Because Internet porn had no effect whatsoever on teenaged boys. And anyway, this whole obsession with male body image is obviously the fault of the metrosexuals.

Finn bemoans all the work involved in maintaining a six pack. Sam helpfully says it’s worth it because it’s the price you need to pay to be popular. Showing up on stage looking like a Pillsbury doughboy is doom. (I don’t know about that; Pillsbury dough has its fans.)

Meanwhile, Will continues with his brilliant plan to put on an elaborate musical in only a week for the noble purpose of getting in Emma’s pants. (A bottle of wine and some flowers might have been easier, just saying.) He asks her to help him out with costumes, and she says she’d love to.

A knock on the door, and Other Asian Mike comes in to interrupt them. His parents read the script, and there’s no way they’re going to allow their son to play “a tranny.” Hey, Other Asian Parents, that’s not P.C.

Meanwhile, a scene with Sue and Becky reveals that Becky shares something important with the majority of gay men in the world … namely, she’s planning on dressing as Sue Sylvester for Halloween. Naturally Sue approves.

Will interrupts with the bad news that without a Frank N. Furter, they need to cancel the show. (This is totally bogus, because he already pointed out they have to double up on other parts so presumably there are still plenty of kids who could have done it, but we’ll just all hold our heads and go “la la la la la” and go along with it. Trust me, it just makes things easier.)

Later on, Dr. Carl shows up at school to show Emma the Frank N. Furter costume he’s got picked out for Halloween. Sue spies this from across the hall and comes running over, demanding they take their “sick perverted sex games out of the school,” adding that people who dress like librarians are “all sex addicts.”

Emma makes introductions (“Sue, how do you do?”), and Dr. Carl explains how he’s a huge Rocky Horror fan. This gives Sue an idea how she can save the show and still get the underhanded expose that will win her an Emmy. She asks Carl to take over the role, explaining how endangered the arts are at their school; without arts, she says, kids do drugs, and on drugs, they lose their teeth. In fact, 70% of the teeth in the school are wooden.

Will at least thinks Dr. Carl needs to audition for the role, which leads to the sight of Dr. Carl thrusting his pelvis in the faces of a group of teenagers while singing “Hot Patootie, Bless My Soul.”

It’s actually a terrific number. Stamos has a great voice, and they wisely highlight the show’s two best dancers, Brittany and Other Asian. By the end of the number, everybody is up and dancing, and this comes close to how the movie makes me feel, like I just want to be up there dancing along with everybody else.

Afterward, though, Sue, as she is prone to do, is a total buzzkill. She says they don’t need an Eddie, since she wrote that part out, but they do need a Frank N. Furter. Dr. Carl, though, thinks that while he likes to get his “freak on” wearing the bustier in the privacy of his own home, doing it on stage in a high school show is “inappropriate.” At least Eddie, he points out, doesn’t have to grind against the other characters.

Will starts getting into a bit of a pissing contest with Carl over not directing his show for him. But then Mercedes steps in and says she’d like to be Frank N. Furter. Like the script itself says, “Don’t dream it, be it.” She’s dreamed of doing a lead part, so why not let her have the role.

BTW, even though this means the sweet transvestite is now being played by a woman, I totally approve of this casting. To me, it’s very much in keeping with the spirit of not only of the movie, with it’s “don’t dream it, be it” message, but also the spirit of the cult screenings, with the people who showed up in costume doing lines of dialogue and put that “be it” message into action.

First dress rehearsal. The kids are getting all diva-ish about their clothes. Finn requests permission to keep his clothes on for now and do the tighty whiteys on opening night. Sam, finally in the gold lamé shorts, asks if he could instead wear board shorts. The lamé is so tight, he’s worried people can see some “nuttage.” I’d say they might also see some “weenage,” and maybe even some “prostateage,” not that I’m complaining. Will tells them there’s no time for changes right now, and they just need to keep going.

Mercedes comes in as Frank N. Furter and does “Sweet Transvestite” and she just kills it. Which is why it also just kills me — kills me! — that they changed the lyrics and switched out “transsexual Transylvania” for “sin-sational Transylvania.” Even with the explanation we’re given earlier of having to tame down the show’s content for the school setting, I’m baffled why this particular word would be an issue. (And if this is a cut that was required by the network, I’m certainly baffled why it’s okay to say “tranny” but not “transsexual.”)

Just when Mercedes finishes, leaving us shivering with antici — say it! — patience, Dr. Carl, as Eddie, crashes through on his motorcycle. Will chastises him for entering two acts too earle, claiming he’s supposed to crash through in the dinner scene, which, not to get all comic-book-guy about it, but … no. Just … no. In the movie, he’s dead at the dinner party scene, so there’s no way that’s supposed to be when he enters.

After rehearsal, Will takes Carl’s bad entrance as an opportunity to approach Emma and tell her he thinks Carl isn’t working out. Emma says she thought he was perfect, so Will bolsters his argument by saying he now agrees with her, that some of these parts are too adult. She totally agrees, mentioning how uncomfortable Sam seemed in his outfit.

Will agrees too! So much so that he’s now going to humbly take the part of Rocky himself and spare Sam the embarrassment. What a great guy, huh? Because a teacher dancing on stage in nuttage-showing shorts is completely appropriate.

Will says he needs Emma’s help rehearsing the part, particularly with the “Touch-a, Touch Me” number. She agrees, apparently not finding it strange that he needs help with a song where the only thing he really has to do is say “creature of the night” while grinding his crotch into her chest.

But it gives an excuse to give us “Touch-a, Touch Me” this episode, which I approve of, although I have serious mixed feelings with the results. This is one of my favorite songs in the movie, and I think it’s inclusion in this episode evidences one of the things Glee does at its best — taking familiar songs out of context as a way of showing us interesting sides to the characters on the show.

So I thought it was really clever here to have a character with a notorious aversion to touching or being touched sing this song. Also, Emma rarely sings on the show, and she actually has a decent voice, and it was really fun to see her let loose that sexiness that’s so often kept buttoned up. I also liked how they had Brittany and Santana, not in character, still providing the Magenta/Columbia voyeurism.

But changes in the lyrics here made me even crazier than the “sin-sational” business, with “heavy petting and seat wetting” toned down to “fretting.” Of course, it’s okay that we see them actually heavy petting and a whole lot more. That’s okay, apparently, but saying the words, a big no no.

Anyway, Emma winds up tearing off Will’s shirt but then runs out of the room.

Back in the weight room, Sam reports to Finn that he’s not playing Rocky any more. He wonders if it was because he made a fuss over his shorts. Finn fears he’s screwing up his own part by making a fuss over the tighty whiteys. Sam assures him that the part of Brad is not about being hot but having confidence in “who you are and how you look no matter how douche-y you are … just be you, and the sexy will flow through.”

Use of the word “douche-y” aside, it’s actually sweet to see the two of them confide in each other about body issues this way. Sam’s advice gets through, too, because Finn leaves feeling more confident and ready to show off his goods.

Another rehearsal. It’s the “Janet!” “Dr. Scott!” scene, but Finn isn’t there, so Will keeps doing Finn’s lines as well as his own. It’s totally annoying, only made tolerable by Sue’s continued interruptions commenting on how terrible and implausible the whole thing is.

They don’t know why Finn isn’t there, until Principal Figgins summons Will to his office to explain.

Finn has been suspended for walking down the hall in his undies. We get a flashback glimpse of him doing this, and sadly they’re not actually tighty whiteys but boxers (booo!), and we see his jocky classmates being just as friendly and supportive as you’d expect high school kids to be about this sort of thing.

Finn explains that he was just trying to get comfortable with his character. But Principal Figgins doesn’t mess around when it comes to suspension and wants to keep him out for four weeks. Will reminds him about how during a school-approved Cheerios celebration, Santana pantsed Brittany, who was wearing a lot less than underwear, so there was precedence.

Figgins agrees to give Finn a warning. But then he questions Will’s motives for doing the show and warns him that he’s putting his reputation and the club itself on the line and should be ready to face any potential consequences.

This brings us full circle back to the opening of the episode, when Dr. Carl interrupts rehearsal and asks if Will is messing with his woman. Apparently Emma went running to him and blabbed all about her little “Touch-a Me” moment with Will.

Later on, Will receives a trick-or-treat visit from Becky, who happily tells him that “Rocky Horror is an abomination.” When Will hears that she learned that from a tape she saw in Sue’s office, he goes running to investigate, as Becky calls after him, “Give me chocolate or I will cut you.”

Will watches the tape of Sue’s news report, in which she blah blah blahs about the menace to our children of programs in the name of the “arts.” “Squeamishness about what we want our children exposed to,” she says, “is not the same as bigotry.” I guess she does have a point, but I’ll tell you, a lot of times that so-called “squeamishness” looks an awful lot like bigotry to me. Just saying.

Will confronts Sue and accuses her of setting him up. She asks him if anything she said was unreasonable, then raises her suspicion that the reason he pushed limits with this production was more for his own motives than for the kids. He argues back that the kids are exposed to material like this everywhere, especially on the Internet, but she counters that it’s their jobs as teachers to guide them safely through all that.

This is definitely an interesting debate, at least about material introduced into the schools. But what’s troubling, I think, is where Glee, and this episode in particular, fit into this debate. The episode seems to endorse the P.O.V. that it’s okay to “protect” high school kids from certain “inappropriate” material in the school, but Glee the show, certainly watched by a fair number of high school kids, repeatedly features material that some might find “squeamish.” Can it really have it both ways?

Will acknowledges that Sue is right about everything, and announces he’s cancelling the show. This of course outrages Sue because it means no expose and no daytime Emmy.

Will then goes to see Emma and fesses up to putting the show on just to get close to her. She replies that love can make you do some crazy things. He apologizes and says he sees that being with Carl, for now, is the best thing for her. If he loves her, he realizes he needs to back off.

Finally, Will tells the glee kids the show is off. He says Rocky Horror isn’t about pushing boundaries — that was his own issue. But what it originally was about was embracing outsiders, which is something the Glee club, and Gleeks everywhere, can certainly relate to. So they’re going to do the show, but just for themselves.

And with that, we get a rollicking final “Time Warp.” Kurt, who hasn’t been featured nearly enough in this episode, manages to be better with his few lines as Riff Raff than anybody else. But at this point, that’s no surprise. Is there anyone on T.V. required to be so versatile? Every week, they make such extreme demands on Chris Colfer, and he’s always up to them. Next week they could ask him to do a hip-hop version of an opera aria in a chicken suit and he’d pull it off.

“The Time Warp” is a fun way to end the episode, and again puts me in a good mood, not just from hearing music that always puts me in a good mood, but from seeing characters I like also enjoying that music so much. The music to me was the best part of this pretty mediocre episode, one that aimed for “sin-sational” and instead settled for “sweet.”

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