We discuss the pilot episode of Glee, from the dozens of characters, to the difference between diegetic and non-diegetic musical numbers, to the ins and outs of Midwestern lawn care.
We discuss the pilot episode of Glee, from the dozens of characters, to the difference between diegetic and non-diegetic musical numbers, to the ins and outs of Midwestern lawn care.
Find us on Twitter: @inmyqueuepod • @adinaterrific • @karaaa_powell
or send comments, questions, and show suggestions to us at itsinmyqueuepod@gmail.com!
Kara: [00:00:00] podcast where we talk about TV pilots. I'm Kara.
Adina: And I'm Adina.
Kara: And today we're going to talk about glee. Before we get into talking about glee, let's Do a little bit of talking about Gilmore Girls from last week.
Adina: Yes, so
thank you very much to everyone who listened and a few of you who sent in some of your thoughts about Gilmore Girls. We've picked a couple of our favorite listener comments that we'll now read and discuss. One listener had this to say: "I liked the discussion about how if we were supposed to like Emily Gilmore because when I was 11 and watching it, I was team Lorelai and basically just adoringly on Lorelai's side for everything and sided with her every time. But now that I'm older, Emily is literally my favorite character next to Paris, of course." I have to say I kind [00:01:00] of agree with that. I definitely found Emily to be kind of a villain at first. But now that I'm older, I still disagree with some things that she does, but I find myself having a lot more sympathy for her, especially after A Year in the Life what do you think?
Kara: Yeah, I would agree. I would also say that Emily's story for A Year in the Life was probably the only thing I enjoyed about it. I feel like I the first since I was like 18 when I first watched it. I don't necessarily know that I like liked Emily at all. But like, as I've like rewatched, I haven't like rewatched it all the way through.
I don't think but I think that I think maybe it is a thing of like age and perspective that kind of makes Emily more sympathetic.
Adina: Yeah, and also I think we talked about this a little bit in the episode, but as we get older, feeling maybe less universally sympathetic to Lorelai and Rory coming to see some of their faults as well. So yeah, this is a really deep show. It's something that you can appreciate at different parts [00:02:00] of your life in different ways, and they, that's one of kind of the iconic things of the show. It has main characters from three different generations so you get Different perspectives from different points in life.
Yeah. And then we had another listener who brought up a couple of different points. They wrote, "the discussion about the contrast between Mrs. Kim and Lorelai was interesting and something I hadn't fully realized, meaning how they were such an extreme end of the spectrum". It also helped me notice something, which is that Mrs. Kim is also a single mother, something the show never really discusses, if I remember correctly, which that is an interesting point. Because I don't know if she's supposed to be a single mother. I don't know if Lane is supposed to have a father. They never show Lane's father, but they also never discuss Mrs. Kim being a single mother, and I feel like there might be one fleeting mention to the father at some point. So it's like unclear if he exists, or if he's dead, or like if he exists but he's always off screen. That's one of those weird things about Gilmore Girls that's never really explained.
Kara: Yeah, I feel like I remember this one [00:03:00] random mention of Lane's dad, and then like never again.
Adina: It has to be purposeful, because it went on too long without a mention. So I do wonder, I wonder why they made that decision. It's one of those like weird TV show lore things, like Who is Mr. Kim?
Kara: But if Mrs. Kim was also a single mom, she'd have a bit more grace for Lorelai.
Adina: I think it's supposed to be a quirky thing of like he's never around, or like he's so passive that Mrs. Kim is the only one that you ever, you only ever feel her presence. So? There's one more question. They said that we mentioned how Amy Sherman-Palladino's writing is very unique and wondered if we could give other examples of how her writing is unique aside from just having a lot of words.
Kara: I feel like we might have mentioned this, but the way that The characters talk is like not, not like the speed at which they talk, but just the general, like the way they talk, like the words they use and that sort of thing, like with a lot of shows, you there's like [00:04:00] dialogue you get that is fairly standard to what you'd hear someone talking in real life. But in Gilmore Girls, it's kind of like, I feel like they say things and it's like, I would never say that to someone.
Adina: And I think another quirk of her shows is that Everybody on the shows talks that way. It is something that is that world. Every single person talks fast. Every single person is witty and sarcastic. Every single person uses pop culture references. And that's another thing that contributes to it being kind of unrealistic. Like, in the real world, maybe some people kind of talk like that to some extent, but other not everyone does. I don't know, it's just one of the conditions of her world is that everybody is witty, sarcastic, fast talking, humorous. And it oddly kind of works. It creates this heightened world, as I think we talked about. It's kind of like how in Shakespeare, everybody talks in iambic pentameter. I mean, not everybody. We could do a whole Shakespeare thing about how some characters don't talk in meter. I know some of our theater friends would love that, but that's not what this podcast is about.
Well, thank you guys [00:05:00] so much for sending in your thoughts, and like we said, feel free to ask us any questions, or give us any, any points that you think we might have missed about shows that we discussed, because we would love to hear from you, and we will put them in our next episode. Thanks so much!
Kara: So obviously, spoilers for the first episode of Glee. So I just remembered a meme that I saw recently that I'm gonna pull up. Cause it kind of describes Here it is. It says, "If you were born before 1996, you are a millennial. If you were born after 2005, you are Gen Z. If you were born in between, then you are a Gleek."
Adina: I mean, that makes sense. I was even going to say it feels like it's an even more narrow window than that. I feel like it's like, honestly, like 94 to like 98. Like, those few years, we were really into Glee, and anybody on either side of that is like, What? Like, I watched a couple episodes, [00:06:00] but was not into it. And I think we just hit the right sweet spot, where like, when it was airing, we were like, like, a little younger than the kids on the show, like a year or two younger than what they were supposed to be. So, there was still that illusion of like, they were like, a little bit cooler than us, and like, it still felt just barely believable that these 30 year olds were high schoolers, because they were a little older than us.
And, like, we wanted to believe that this crazy stuff could happen and, like, be funny. But then it got really bad, so we wised up and wised out of it.
Kara: Yeah, that's, it was, it got pretty ridiculous.
Adina: It got serious acclaim in the first season, right? Didn't it get, like, a lot of critical attention?
Kara: I think it won an Emmy, and Chris Colfer won a Golden Globe for it.
Adina: Oh, really? I didn't know that. I probably knew it at some point.
Kara: But I forgot yeah, Chris Colfer and Jane Lynch were the two actors that got recognized the most for the show Because I remember like Chris Colfer winning a lot of the like [00:07:00] audience choice sort of awards that back in the day But yeah, I think I'm pretty sure he won a Golden Globe.
So yeah, Some things about Glee. The pilot was broadcast on May 19th, 2009, and the first season aired from September 9th, 2009 to June 8th, 2010. It was created by Ryan Murphy, Brad Falchuk, and Ian Brennan. And if fun fact, Ian Brennan originally conceived of Glee as a film. It was based on his experience when he was at Prospect High School in their show choir. So he wrote it in 2005 as the film and couldn't really generate any interest in it. So, he had this friend, Mike Novick, who's also a TV producer, who went to the same gym as Ryan Murphy. He showed Ryan Murphy the script. And Ryan Murphy did show choir in college apparently. So he like really related to it. And then he brought on Brad Falchuk, who he knew from Nip/Tuck and he suggested that they produce it as a television show. Then it was picked up by [00:08:00] Fox within 15 hours of being received.
And Murphy kind of credits the success of American Idol with Fox being interested in it. So, Murphy and Falchuk were then the executive producers and showrunners, and Brennan was a co executive producer, and Novick was a producer. The first two seasons Ryan Murphy, Brad Felchuk, and Ian Brennan wrote all of the episodes, but they hired staff writers starting in season three.
Fun fact, the showrunner for Riverdale, Roberto Aguirre Sacasa, was one of the Glee staff writers, which, it actually makes a lot of sense.
Glee has a lot of people in it that are now kind of like notable names. It originally started out starring Matthew Morrison, Jane Lynch, Jayma Mays, Jessalyn Gilsig, Diana Agron, Chris Colfer, Kevin McHale, Lea Michele, Corey Monteith, Amber Riley, Mark Salling, and Jenna Ushkowitz.
But then I feel like I must [00:09:00] mention the other notable cast members who came along later. Heather Morris, Naya Rivera, Darren Criss, Horde Overstreet, and Harry Shum Jr. Those are, those are like all the ones I remember from when I watched it. Yeah, so it's set in Lima, Ohio. Ryan Murphy grew up in Indiana and kind of liked the idea of the Midwest setting.
He was kind of looking not to create a show where people burst out into song. He considered it more of like a postmodern musical, kind of.
Adina: Like I, I kinda see what he means, but I'm skeptical. I'm skeptical of that claim.
Kara: I feel like there are moments that feel very breakout into songy and glee. To me, but
Adina: I mean there are a lot like they do a mix of what we call diegetic and non diegetic performances. So for those of you that aren't musical nerds and haven't heard that term before a diegetic performance Within a movie or musical or whatever means that within the universe [00:10:00] of the story the character is doing a performance So for example in Glee when they Most of their performances are diegetic, where they're getting up on stage and they're saying, I'm performing this song for Glee Club.
But there are also some non diegetic performances, which are the type you see in most musicals, where the characters do just burst out into song, and within the universe of the story, you're not meant to believe they're singing. You're meant to believe they're just expressing their feelings. And Glee has some of those as well, where it's not an actual Glee Club performance, and they just start singing.
Like, the one that comes to my mind immediately is "Bust Your Windows."
Kara: Bust your windows!
Adina: Which is in like episode four, maybe three or four so. Won't spoil exactly what happens for those of you that haven't seen Glee, but it's a pretty iconic performance.
Kara: It is so iconic. It is, that is the first episode of Glee that I actually watched.
So, I remember it vividly. It's really great.
Adina: Season one of Glee was something special.
Kara: Where were we? Yeah, [00:11:00] Ryan Murphy was, like, really interested in Glee because he wanted it to be a form of escapism, so, because there was really nothing like that on TV at the time, which is why I think people kind of were super into it.
Adina: Yeah, I think that's, that's really true. It like, it was really different at the time and it's easy to look back like at revolutionary shows, especially ones that inspired like copycats and be like, oh, that's not original or like it wasn't executed as well as it could have been. Glee had, like, a really big effect on TV, I think, in inspiring musical episodes and musical shows, and also, I feel like, inspiring this genre.
I mean, not that camp didn't exist before Glee. Glee didn't exist before camp, but, like, I feel like it kind of brought camp back a little bit into, like, network TV, and just, like, these really wacky characters and insane situations in an ostensibly real world setting.
Kara: Yeah. In terms of looking for actors for the show, Ryan Murphy turned to Broadway. He found [00:12:00] Matthew Morrison from Broadway at the time he was starring in the revival of South Pacific. He also found Lea Michele, who was in Spring Awakening at the time, and Jenna Ushkowitz, who was a swing in Spring Awakening.
Kara: All right, so I guess now we can go get into the first episode. I took so, so, so many notes because so much happened
Adina: in the first minutes. Yeah, the first, like, the first thing that I noticed as I was taking notes is just like, I mean, compared to most shows, but especially compared to Gilmore Girls, which we just watched, it goes so fast. There's so many fast transitions.
It's like whiplash from one thing to the next. It's insane.
Kara: Yeah, and I also noticed that, that there are so many characters that you see, but you don't get to always learn their names. So, then you're like, who is this? Until like a few minutes later,
Adina: or a few episodes later. I literally remember when I was first watching Glee, I didn't know Puck's name until like [00:13:00] episode 5 or 6, and he becomes significantly involved in the plot in episode 4.
I won't say how, because for those of you that haven't seen Glee, you don't know, but It's a big thing, but I still didn't know his name for a while, they like hardly ever mention it.
Kara: So we open and they're on a high school cheerleading team, and they're practicing a routine, which to me, I thought they looked pretty good.
So the camera pans to their coach, who looks kind of displeased with them, and then she, like, speaks into her megaphone. You think this is hard? Try being waterboarded. That's hard. And then the whistle blows, and it cuts to the title.
Sue Sylvester, who we learn her name later, who's in charge, and just the way that she wants her team to work. The thing I noticed in this episode of Glee is that there is a lot of like bullying and people that aren't very nice. And Sue is, like, one of the main bullies, actually, and she's a teacher, but a fun fact about [00:14:00] Jane Lynch, who plays Sue Sylvester she was only supposed to be a recurring character, But she was made a series regular when a pilot she was working on for ABC fell through, which I think is a good thing because Glee would not have been the same without her and her one liners.
Adina: So I feel split about Sue Sylvester because I think she's very funny and I love Jane Lynch and she has so many great moments, but also it created a little bit of Tension later on, I feel like, because they would alternate between having her be this bully and this awful person, and then sometimes be the voice of reason.
And it's like you can't really have it both ways. You can't show this character being straight up abusive to students. And then also in the next episode, have her be like the one who's actually looking out for their wellbeing against Mr. Schue, who's also, yeah, bad, but
Kara: oh my gosh, we will get there.
Adina: So that's where it kind of fell apart for me. Also about the teaser. I found it a little bit odd that the show opened with a shot of cheerleading, because I'm like, well, that's not really what [00:15:00] the show is about. It's about glee. It's not like the cheerleaders are part of it, but it struck me as Odd, but also it's so brief that like it's just supposed to be like a funny moment to like catch your eye and get you to keep watching, I guess, which it does.
Kara: As I was watching this pilot, I had the sense that I don't think I've ever seen this pilot all the way through. It felt all very new to me except for like a few bits. So next, after we get the title, it just says Glee we see Will, or Mr. Schuster. I feel like I'm gonna go back and forth between calling him Will and Mr. Schue, I guess, depending on who he's talking to. And he's in this really run down car. And he's, like, driving up to school, and then he's kind of walking by this group of jocks who seem to be bullying this boy named Kurt. Will stops one of the students, Finn, and tells him that he owes him a report, and Finn is like, on what?
And he's like, on what you did last summer, which he says in Spanish, so then you learn that Will [00:16:00] is the Spanish teacher. And then, after he leaves, the bullies continue to put Kurt in the dumpster that they were about to throw him in, and Kurt protests by saying his outfit is the Marc Jacobs new collection. And so Finns like guys wait. And it stops, and they all stop, so that Kurt can take off his jacket, and then they throw him in the dumpster. And then you see, there's kind of a close up on Finn's face, where he has this kind of like look about, that's like, hey, what am I doing? So I guess that's kind of setting up his whole conflict for the first episode of, is this really who I am? Which we will get more into later.
We get a couple of these transition moments of cheerleaders doing poses in the air.
Adina: I just wrote in my notebook, weird music, weird cuts, because They're just weird. And the, like, if you've watched Glee, they don't really do that at all after the first episode, I don't think.
So that's just an interesting [00:17:00] little stylistic thing they started and then gave up on. Never did again. It gave me like That 70s show vibes. . You know when they dance and they have those little transitions? Yeah.
Kara: Yes. Ah, what a fun time. We don't know who that cheerleader is yet, but she is important.
After that little, like, transition y pose thing, you see Will looking at a trophy case, like, in the school, and you see him staring at the 1993 Show Choir First Place Trophy. The camera pans up to a plaque of Lillian Adler, who we assume would have been the show choir director. back then. And then it has the years of her life, which are 1937 through 1997. It pans down so you can see the quote on the plaque that says, by its very definition, glee is about opening yourself up to joy. And then it pans back to Will's face and he's kind of like, he looks really happy. And then you see kind of more like school moments because you have Will teaching his [00:18:00] Spanish class.
Finn looking very bored, staring at the clock, and then another cheerleader pops up as the bell rings.
Adina: Can we talk a little bit about like what they're setting up with Will though? Yeah. Like how they're introducing him as a character because honestly Mm-Hmm. I, what I love and also hate because will kind of sucks, but I love the way they did this moment when he walks by and he asks Finn about his paper while those kids are about to throw Kurt into the dumpster. Mm-Hmm. . He asked Finn about his paper and then just walks away and does not stop the bullying. That's clearly in progress in front of him.
Kara: Yeah, because it's like. At first, you think that he's, because he like asks Kurt, how's it going or whatever and you, it kind of seems like he's coming to stop that, but all he wanted to do was say, Finn, you owe me this paper, and he just fully is like, carry on.
Adina: I love how he clearly has this weird fixation on Finn, even before what happens later in this episode. He definitely projects himself onto Finn. Yeah. I, yeah, I feel like it isn't super obvious in this episode, but they kind of, sort of, imply and give the vibe that he's not a very good Spanish teacher, he seems a [00:19:00] little bit checked out in class.
Yeah, so it just kind of tells you
Kara: Honestly, it seems like he's not a very good teacher.
Adina: Well, well, yes. But he's, he's a better Glee teacher than he is a Spanish teacher. Oh, for sure. I think that's why they set it up that way. They show us, yes, he's a Spanish teacher, this is not his full passion. And then we're about to learn what his real passion is in a few minutes.
Kara: Yes, and we kind of get that vibe from him staring at the trophy case, like, so longingly. It's like, weirdly longingly. So then, the bell rings, and we get an after school scene moment. There's a teacher sitting at the piano with a student who is standing next to him. They're singing a duet. Did you know what the song was?
Adina: It's "Where is Love" from Oliver!
Kara: Okay. It seemed like a weird thing for them to be singing together. And also, the kid looks visibly uncomfortable. They have some really interesting camera work in this episode, I feel like. There's a lot of, like, panning moments that I think they did really well.
This was one of them, so you see the teacher's [00:20:00] hand reach out, and he kind of touches the student's shirt, and it's his hand kind of starts to travel down, and then the camera pans away. Okay. So that we've noticed that someone's watching and we don't know who it is, but she looks very upset.
Adina: The costuming for her, for this character that we don't know the name of yet, is so odd in later seasons, but it's especially odd in season one.
Kara: Yeah, it's like, I wonder what era she's from. It feels as though she is not in the same era as everyone else sometimes.
Adina: And she actually gets bullied for it though, so it kind of makes sense.
Kara: Yeah, and that happens very quickly as well. Also, I would like to note that I feel like we're only about Four minutes into the show and so much has already happened.
Adina: Yeah, I mean, we literally, I, I paused and counted. I think I waited until after the next scene that we haven't talked about yet, but I paused and counted and I saw it was four minutes in and we had been introduced to ten major characters from the show. We didn't know all their names, but we'd seen ten major characters and it was a lot.
Kara: [00:21:00] Yeah, it was a lot. I feel like I was, I paused so many times in like the first ten minutes while watching to take notes like feverishly. The first episode also kind of sets up the fact that we're going to be following both the teachers and the students, so we cut to the faculty room there's some empty coffee burners, and Will's like, where's the coffee pot?
The football coach mentions that Figgins, the principal, got rid of it, so this is our next sighting of Sue Sylvester, she comes in with coffee and sits down at a table by herself. And the other teacher that Will was talking with immediately is way more preoccupied with her as he walks into the room. And he's like "Hi, Emma," And she like, says hi, but kind of brushes him off and then makes a really huge point of saying hi will to, will himself. Next up, it's Sue starts to explain that she feels bad that the principal cut the coffee in the break room to pay for the Cheerios new nutritionist.
So this is a moment where we learn the value of the cheerleading [00:22:00] team to the school. Or specifically to the principal. Which I would also like to point out that before Sue leaves, she makes a brag about having an iPhone. It's 2009. Which is really funny because now most everyone has an iPhone, so I watched this and like started laughing. I was like, stop.
Adina: In 2009, they had been out for a couple years, so I feel like it wasn't Like it was still not a lot of people had them, but it wasn't like crazy impressive.
Kara: So yes, so then we see Emma taking out her gloves and starting wiping the things down around her. I did not notice the grapes. So thank you for that.
Adina: That might be from a different episode, honestly. Like I might just be misremembering because she does, like, they established that she has OCD, which we won't go into how it's a problematic representation, but. They established that she has OCD, which in this version means she needs everything to be super clean and polish her fruit before she eats it. Whatever. We won't touch that.
Kara: I mean, she wiped down the [00:23:00] table. She wiped down the table, I remember noticing, which I feel like that's fine. I would also. It's gross. It's a school, so that, that seems fine to me. So then, Emma says to Will and the coach, whose name is Ken, I don't know if I said, and she's like, did you hear that Sandy got fired?
And Sandy was the man that we saw earlier at the piano with the student. Will's first thought is not. Oh, what, what happened? But wait, what's going to happen to Glee Club? And then it immediately cuts to Will saying to Principal Figgins, I want to take over Glee Club. And Principal Figgins says, you want to captain the Titanic too?
Adina: I love Figgins so much.
Kara: Oh gosh, he's amazing. He has such good lines.
Adina: Guys, for those of you Who don't know or who haven't seen Glee, Figgins, the Principal, is played by the same guy who plays the Kidney Stones guy on Friends when Joey gets [00:24:00] Kidney Stones. Do you know what I'm talking about?
Kara: I do know what you're talking about.
Adina: He's so funny. I love him.
Kara: He has such dry delivery. It works super well. Basically this is another scene where you see what Figgins priorities are in terms of the school and the clubs, because he says he doesn't want to give Will any money for the club. because they don't do well when they have their competitions, So he basically says to Will, you have to pay your own 60 to keep this club running, which is really ridiculous.
But he's like, if they don't bring prestige to the school, then why on earth would I give you money? And then, We get our first instance of voiceover after this scene. So we see Will in bed, lying in bed at night with his wife, his wife Terri, who we will talk about.
Adina: Oh my god, we will.
Kara: So he's in bed with his wife Terri, and he's like thinking about how he's gonna hide the money from [00:25:00] her, and then he's like, we need a different name.
And then he sits up and he's like, New Directions,
Adina: which, can I, can I say the thing that maybe you've already heard before, but maybe our listeners who are innocent and we're not in the online Glee fandom have not heard before? Oh my god. So, New Directions, that's the name of the Glee Club. But if you say it fast, "NewDirections," "Nude erections..."
Kara: Oh my god. I've never heard that before.
Adina: And two things, number one, you can tell that Lea Michele slash Rachel Berry, which I feel like it's a very Rachel Berry thing to do, whenever she says the name of their club, like at performances, she says, this is the new Directions, and I think she says it that way to make it very clear it won't be misheard. It's also a dumb name for a club, if we're being honest. It's so good! All of the other glee clubs they went up against had better names. New Direction, that's pretty terrible.
Kara: Yeah, it's like so basic. I was like, just because [00:26:00] you want to take the club in a new direction doesn't mean that's what you should call it.
Adina: Yeah, exactly. Even Aural Intensity is better. For listeners who haven't seen Glee, that's another Glee club they go up against in later episodes, but it's spelled A U R A L, Aural Intensity, because that means, like, aural as in, like, pertaining to sound. But! It also sounds like Oral O R A L.
Kara: Very silly, very silly. So, then, after Will has come up with his bad name for the Glee Club, he puts a sign up sheet for auditions. We get to see a bunch of people audition. So, first up is Mercedes, played by Amber Riley, who I've also seen in a production. I saw her in Dreamgirls in London. She was amazing.
So, she walks up to audition, and As she's, like, walking up to sign her name on the piece of paper, you hear her say her name, and then it cuts to her auditioning, and she auditions with respect by [00:27:00] Aretha Franklin. It sounds great. Next up, after Mercedes is Kurt. He comes up, he signs his name, and he sings Mr. Cellophane, which, fun fact, Chris Colfer originally auditioned to play Artie. by singing Mr. Cellophane. But the part of Artie went to Kevin McHale. Ryan Murphy liked Chris Colfer so much though that he wrote Kurt for him.
Adina: Also I just want to kind of note that Chris Colfer is the only one of like the main Glee Club cast members who's actually high school aged. He's the only one who's, he was 18 when he got this part. And all the rest of them are like 24 to 30. And like, you can tell in season one, he's still a little baby.
Kara: Yeah. It's interesting though. Cause I was, yeah. Cause I was looking things up and I, I saw his age and I was like, wait, he's only 29. And I was like, Oh, I see.
Adina: Was the proper age to be, well, almost the proper age. He was 18 playing a 16 year old. Yeah.
Kara: So Kurt sings that song. And then we have Artie and Tina. Who walk [00:28:00] up to the Yeah,
Artie doesn't get to sing though, which is maybe sad.
Adina: Yeah, I noticed that. I was like, why doesn't Artie have a song? But so Tina signs both her name and Artie's name.
And Tina, we see Tina's audition and she sings, I Kissed a Girl.
I feel like
Tina's audition, like, they're trying to give us a taste of each character's personality. And I feel like Tina's audition sets her up to be this really edgy character. Just frankly, the writers never ever knew what they were doing with Tina and They do such a disservice to her as a character over the series, they literally never made up their mind about what she was supposed to be, but like, I just Just pour one out for Tina Cohen-Chang, she could have been a good character.
Kara: Ah, before we get into the next audition, I thought it would be fun to talk about everyone's audition songs because, like, as you said before, you get, you learn a lot about the characters based on what they sang. And I really like Kurt's song, it's the way that he performs Mr. Cellophane that really gets me.
It's because Mr. Cellophane for anyone that doesn't [00:29:00] know, is a song from Chicago that Roxy's husband, Amos, sings about being invisible. You can tell that that's kind of how Kurt feels, but at the same time, he's singing the song with, like, such an air of confidence. He's got his hip popped, and he's like, I know I'm good.
And we're going to be singing a song that I thought was interesting the way that that is paired with him singing a song about no one noticing him.
Adina: For any of you actors listening out there, that's a great way to get yourself noticed at an audition. Show a song in like a new light, so it's memorable and it feels specific to you because then people will remember it.
They're not going to remember the third girl who sings Take Me or Leave Me, and is just belting her face off angrily because that's how everyone sings it. But they will remember the guy who sings Mr. Cellophane, but confidently. That's your hot tip for the day. Tune in for more.
Kara: Did you have any other thoughts on people's audition songs before we get into the next one?
Adina: Why didn't Artie get to sing an audition song? I don't know.
Kara: I [00:30:00] did wonder that, cause I was like, the auditions were also another bit that I actually remembered. And I was like, wait, Artie doesn't sing? So Artie doesn't sing. Sad.
Adina: My theory is twofold. My theory is maybe they filmed one for him and cut it because of time. And maybe the reason they cut it because of time is because he gets to sing a brief solo later. Yeah. So, they were like, if he's already being shown to sing in this episode, maybe we cut his audition if we're pressed for time.
Kara: Yeah, that's a good theory.
So, next. This scene, introducing Rachel, is very intense, as is Rachel herself. So she walks up to the board, and we kind of, we get to see her head on.
She's the only one that walks up to the board, and we see the camera is like, on her. And so, she signs the board. And she starts to sing "On My Own" from Les Mis. She starts a voiceover, so as she's signing her name, she puts a gold star next to it. And the voiceover starts saying, "You might laugh, because every time I sign my name, I put a gold star after it. But it's a [00:31:00] metaphor. And metaphors are important. My gold stars are metaphors for me being a star."
Adina: I love this character intro so much. I feel like when I was, when I first saw the show, when I was in high school, I didn't. u appreciate it. I was like, this is stupid. It's too much.
It's head on. I don't like Rachel. But now I appreciate it so much. Introducing a character in such an in your face, obnoxious way like that makes you feel something viscerally for this character. If you hate her from her first line, that's honestly a good thing. That's like a strong character. And I love this entire voiceover montage with Rachel.
Kara: Yeah, and then there was, I wrote down, there's this weird, like, fiery effect that they do, which I guess adds to the intensity of Rachel as a person, and then after the fire goes away, she immediately gets a slushie to the face,
Adina: which is the first slushie of the whole series, and that's something I wrote that down because that's something that becomes [00:32:00] very iconic of Glee later on, like, if you've heard of Glee, you might have heard that there's, like, slushies involved.
And, oh, fun fact, I don't know if you have this fun fact written down, but it's one that I know, later on in the series, when they started doing more slushies, They made like fake slushies made out of like gel so it wasn't that painful But in the first few episodes they used real slushies And so Lea Michele is getting a real slushie in the face in that moment and like there are some interviews where they talk about It and she's like yeah Like me and like Chris or whoever the people that got slushied in the first few episodes were the ones that know how bad it Really felt because they got their real one And they described it as feeling like being bitch slapped by an iceberg.
Which is pretty miserable.
Kara: In this moment, we also learn that Rachel is the one that turned This is also in voiceover, and we learn that Rachel turned Sandy in, and that's how, that's why he got fired, because she saw that.
Adina: He didn't give her enough solos or something.
Kara: Yes, and she's saying the reason that she turned him in [00:33:00] is not because he didn't give her a solo. And gave it to that kid instead. But as she's walking intensely down the hallway to the principal's office, it's like we, we know it's because she's upset about the solo. And then we learn that Rachel, this is also in voiceover, I found it funny, so we learn that Rachel has two gay dads, and she's talking about how they did, what is that called?
Adina: They put, they mixed up their sperm and put it in a turkey baster.
Kara: Yes, and so then she's like, and we still don't know which dad is, is my real dad, which is funny because one of them is Black and it's clearly not the Black one. It's just not him.
Adina: I love everything about that backstory and you get to meet her dads in season three, like they refer to them a lot over the course of the series, and you finally get to meet them in season three. And I have to say, the payoff is great. They cast, I won't say who it is, but they cast two. Incredible actors as her dads and it's so good.
Kara: Oh, that's amazing. And so we, we see her talking about her [00:34:00] show experience and how her dads are the reason that she's been performing and that she loves performing so much. Another fun reference that's super dated is this is her talking about her MySpace.
Adina: Yeah, I love how she has MySpace and is like promoting herself on MySpace like all actors do now on like Instagram. Also, I love the pink laptop with the stickers, and one of them says Hot Stuff, and I wrote down in my notebook, what is with this laptop, what is with these decorations, this is 2009, not 2001, but it just kind of shows how, like, Rachel, for all that she wants to be famous, so she is an awkward kid, like, she's kind, she's awkward in style, she wears weird clothes, she has a weird laptop.
She gets made fun of for all that she has a big ego, and I really like when they show those kind of vulnerable sides of her, because it makes you feel for her.
Kara: So you see as she's like opening her laptop and MySpace page, she says, This is another quote I wrote down. "Nowadays, being anonymous is worse [00:35:00] than being poor. Fame is the most important thing in our culture now." So, you can, you kind of know what Rachel deems to be important, like, immediately. She wants to succeed, but then we get a quick moment of the cheerleaders watching her MySpace video, and they are sending mean comments to her, and it's like a very sad moment when she then goes back to her laptop and she sees all so much for watching, and I'll see you next time.
The video and then going back to the audition. I liked that transition a lot.
Adina: It's really smart. Mm hmm Because we were talking about song choices I think this song choice is also really brilliant because you first hear it she goes I'm gonna be singing on my own which if you're a musical theater person, you know, it's [00:36:00] like a really overdone song. Every girl wants to sing it like if you've seen auditions, you're sick of hearing it It's like don't do that song and you think she's just picked it because she's a diva And she wants to sing the popular song, but then they show you that it actually is poignant for her.
She really is on her own. She really is, you know, she doesn't really have friends. I also like, just to divert a little bit, this is, I mean, not counting that maybe weird transition before, this is the first time we see Quinn, and we don't know her name, and we don't know who she is. But we it's the first time we see Quinn and she's commenting on Rachel's videos It's kind of implied that she comments on like most of Rachel's videos like follows her page exclusively to bully her So that's introduced before she's introduced as Finn's girlfriend later on just want to throw that out there for the Faberry shippers that are listening, That was a thing. We won't go into it now, but it's a fact.
Kara: So, Rachel's audition is the last audition, so we cut then to their first [00:37:00] rehearsal. You can see that, clearly, Ardy, Tina, Mercedes, Kurt, and Rachel are the only people that auditioned, because they are the only ones at rehearsal. They are singing "Sit Down, You're Rockin the Boat." and Artie has the solo in this one. I think they sound pretty good, but their, like, choreography is just not, it's not fair. It's not where it needs to be, I feel like.
Adina: I wrote down that, like, I thought they sounded good, and, like, if that was a high school performance, I'd be like, yo, that's pretty good. Although, we learn later on in the series that the standards for the competitions they go to are very high, so it's, it's not as good as they need to be. But I think it's cute. I like it. Yeah.
Kara: Yeah. I liked this moment. It's like, I was like, well, the, the, your voices are not the problem. It's the dancing.
Adina: The weird gloves they were wearing. That was creepy.
Kara: Yeah, the gloves were very weird. Also, I would like to shout out the accompanist who is just there.
Adina: I love him so much.
Kara: Yeah, he, does he ever say anything?
Adina: I'm pretty sure, I [00:38:00] might be making this up, but I'm pretty sure there's one moment in like maybe end of season 3 or maybe in season 4 where he does get to talk, but I can't remember what it is. I'm pretty sure they did a gag with him at one point though. Okay, but there is a moment in season one later on where, even though he doesn't talk, that he's just like always randomly there when they need him, it's like someone singing a song clearly after hours, and then he just walks in, and then I think it's Rachel, she just goes, oh, he's just always here.
Kara: Oh, I love that. I think that sounds familiar, I think I remember that. So basically they finished, and Rachel's like, we suck. She's really upset about it. Mr. Schuster is trying to be nice, and he's like, we just need some practice, and then Rachel has this moment where she's like, why is does the boy in a wheelchair have the solo for this song?
And then Artie says, I think Mr. Schue is using irony to enhance the performance. And I felt so bad. I was like, oh.
Adina: I was like because it was like Rude. Also, like, can we talk about how [00:39:00] Glee, throughout the series, they make a lot of unfortunate jokes about Artie being in a wheelchair, which at sometimes I feel like they hit the right level of irony, and at sometimes they really don't.
Also, like, speaking as an able bodied person, like, I feel like my opinion on it isn't necessarily the most valid, but also it's weird because Kevin McHale is not a wheelchair user in real life. Yeah. He is. And I'm so excited to be here. And I'm so excited to be here. Also making insensitive jokes about it a lot of the time is like not a great combination.
Kara: No, it's not. It's not very good,
Adina: but we won't go into all of that right now. There's too much to unpack.
Kara: So Next Rachel storms out, and we cut again to [00:40:00] Cheerios practice, and Sue is shouting at the cheerleaders because they're not doing, they're not doing a good job, apparently, they still look fine.
Next we see Mr. Schuster finding Rachel on the bleachers, and she has this She has this like really vulnerable moment where she kind of admits that she's tired of being laughed at and she really wants to be a part of something special.
Adina: A part of something special makes you special. Oh my god, that melts my heart.
Kara: Then basically she's telling Mr. Schue, he's like, well, I can work with Artie to like, with the training a little bit, because it's one of those things where it's like, you can tell that Rachel probably has the most actual classical training of all of the people in the group.
And she's like, no, I need a male lead who can keep up with me vocally, or I'm out. That's basically what she says to him. After that, we see that Figgins wants to cut Glee Club, and Will tells him, at least wait until we see what happens at regionals. So basically,
Adina: there's your deadline. There's our arc for season one. They sneak it in there.
Kara: So now Will [00:41:00] has until regionals, and they have to place, basically. Or, the club is going to be cut. The next scene starts with Terri, who works at a store that kind of looks like Bed, Bath, and Beyond, but it's called Sheets and Things.
Adina: Well, it's based off of linens and things. I think they might be bankrupt, but they existed in 2009.
Kara: So Will comes to visit her at work and he brings her a sandwich, which has mayo on it, and she mentions that she can't have mayo because she is worried that her diabetes will come back and they want to get pregnant.
So, so that's a moment where, you You learn what what's up with Will and his wife.
Adina: And also that like he can never do anything good enough for her Like yes, very obvious from the first moment.
Kara: Yeah, he's working super hard to please her It seems like she is the hardest person on the planet to please.
Adina: I love she has this line where she's like "Will I am working so hard I am on my feet four hours a day three days a week here."
Kara: So we see that she has [00:42:00] this like part time thing and Will's a teacher. So it's kind of set up that they really don't make very much money. So then another thing that happens at Sheets and Things is that we see Sandy, the teacher that got fired, and he talks about how it was the best thing to ever happen to him because he's making a lot more money now as a drug dealer.
And then Will asks him, like, who are you selling to? And then it cuts to a moment of. Ken, the football coach, getting his weed from Sandy. Sandy then gives some to Will, even though Will didn't ask for it. Didn't seem to want it and then Will just has it and you're like he's like what am I supposed to do with this?
Later on Will is trying to get more people to join glee club because as Rachel said I'm the email lead or I'm out, he wants to go to Soo to try and recruit some Cheerios.
Adina: Wait can we talk about this next scene? It's like, intercut two different scenes, which is interesting, because it's not really something they do a lot otherwise.
And it creates this, like, ominous back and forth effect, [00:43:00] because it's intercut between Will talking to Sue about the Cheerios, and then he's also talking to Emma, and Emma's giving him much more positive advice, saying, like, if you get one or two popular kids, the others will follow, and then it won't be embarrassing anymore. So it's just, it's this very effective juxtaposition of two people giving him very different advice, kind of like the angel and devil on his shoulder, I feel like, and it's cool. And both of them have, they both end on lines, so like, with the word cares in them, I think, like Sue says something like, if you really care about these kids, you'll quit, and then Emma says something like, you really care about these kids and it's so great, or something like that.
And also the whole thing has the super ominous acapella underscoring that gives it this like weird feel of urgency. I just really liked it.
Kara: There's a lot of fun a cappella underscoring in this episode. There's a lot of Gollywog's Cakewalk.
Adina: There's some Beethoven's Fifth too. Yeah.
Kara: It's very fun. So next, Will goes to talk to Ken, who's the football coach again. He's like, Ken, please just [00:44:00] give me a few minutes to talk to the football team.
I need some guys for the club. And Ken is like, all right, well, you have to put in a good word for me with Emma. And Will kind of brushes over that and is like, whatever. Yeah, sure. And so that's how he gets to talk to the football team. So he comes in and Ken is like listen to this man or else you have to do laps.
And so Will starts talking about joining Glee Club and none of them look interested. And then we get a line from Puck where he's like, oh, I can sing.
Adina: Do we, I don't think we know his name is Puck yet. They seriously don't mention it until many episodes in.
Kara: And we, like, know he's kind of important because we see him talking to Finn all the time, but we still don't know his name. So, basically, he walks up to the front of the room, because Will is like, oh, you can sing? That's so exciting. And then he just lets out a fart,
Adina: That honestly caught me by surprise. I forgot about that moment, and I was like, wait, does Puck actually sing? Does he actually sign up for Glee Club in this episode?
I don't remember that. And then he farted, and I was like, oh, okay.
Kara: The [00:45:00] football guys aren't taking it seriously. So Will has a sign up sheet up in the locker room. But then they're just putting, like, fake names on it, like, buttlunch or whatever.
Adina: Lord Wiener, buttlunch, and penis.
Kara: Yes, that is what they wrote. I wrote those down.
Thank you. The next scene is you see Will looking at the sign up sheet and he's, like, really down about it because he's like, I really need some guys to, so that Rachel doesn't leave. Because if Rachel leaves, he's like, what am I to do?
So then you hear someone singing In the Shower. So then the camera pans to Finn, who's in the shower, and he's singing "Can't Fight This Feeling" by REO Speedwagon, which I would like to say, this is my next fun fact, when the auditions process was happening, Cory Monteith only submitted a tape of himself acting, but then he was asked to send a second tape where he sang this song.
So yeah, that was him singing this song, he's in the shower and Will kind of walks further in Yeah, this is where Will [00:46:00] starts to get weird, guys.
Adina: Yeah, like, he already, he was like, whatever, a checked out teacher before, but this, and then the very next scene that follows it, is where he really makes it clear that he's an awful teacher and an awful person, and I take a lot of issue with it.
This is why I, I frankly, I was never able to like Mr. Shue, even as I watched Glee and was into Glee, I hated Mr. Shue the whole time. I think he's the worst. I don't understand how they expect us to see him as a protagonist because he's truly so unsympathetic as we learn in the scene where he creeps on a student in the shower. Questionable at best. And then is it, does it directly cut to the next thing?
Kara: You see his face where he's like, how do I get this guy in Glee Club? That's the type of face that he's And then it cuts to him in his office talking to Finn with the packet of weed that Sandy gave him at Sheets and Things, which he made it seem like Finn had, and Finn is so conf poor [00:47:00] Finn is so confused this whole time.
Adina: It's not his weed! I think Mr. Shue is like literally a sociopath because he, he's so good at the acting, he's like, like, just confess up to its son, he's like, this could go on your permanent record, it could be a felony, possession is eight tenths of the law, and like, not showing any kind of hesitation or remorse, making Finn believe that he truly will go to jail, and then he's just like, Well, unless you joined Glee Club.
Kara: Finn is really freaking out. He's like, I'll pee on the cup. I swear, it's not mine. I don't, I don't know how I got it. Poor boy. Oh my god. And I, I really felt for Finn in this moment.
Adina: Oh, sweet. Also, I wrote, Cory Monteith is very clearly a 30 year old man, but he has a certain innocent quality about him that still makes him kind of believable as a high schooler.
Kara: Yeah, I feel, yeah, I like, knew that he was definitely on the older side. And I'm going to be talking about the casting of this man. [00:48:00] So then we get a Finn voiceover, as we kind of start to learn more about Finn as a person. He talks about how it's just him, it's just been him and his mom because his dad left to fight in the war and died.
He started singing when one of his mom's boyfriends, who did The Lawn he would sing with him.
Adina: Can we talk about how weird that montage is of him and the guy, Darren, spraying the grass and singing Journey? It's like a little bit sweet, but also really weird. Like, why is it a grass spraying guy? Where did they get that idea from? I don't know. But it's really specific and really unique, which is good when you're writing, because it sticks in your head.
Kara: Yeah, I kind of wondered, is, is this, I don't, since I, I don't, we're not, I'm not from the Midwest, you're not from the Midwest, we're both from the East Coast, so it was like, was this a Midwest thing?
Adina: Does everyone get their lawn sprayed? I don't know, [00:49:00] we have landscapers here, but like, I, it's not really a spray thing, people get, they'll get the grass, like, laid, like the sod or whatever you call it, but I've never seen people spraying their lawns like that.
Kara: Okay, email call out, people from the Midwest.
Adina: Let us know about how people do lawn care.
Kara: Yeah, is this a thing? We're confused. And basically, he wants to project this whole confident facade because he is the star quarterback of I'm not sure if he's like, he's not that confident. I mean, he's like, he's not that confident in his school's team, but he's really not that confident. He's kind of just like, chugging along in life like everyone else.
Adina: Side note that's maybe getting ahead of us a little bit, but like, I feel like Mr. Schue has some lines to fit in this episode that's like, you have a real talent for singing. I don't want you to like, throw away your talent, your thing that makes you special, which is like a valid point of view.
But also he has a talent for football. Like he's already pursuing a talent, seriously. So like, yeah, as much as I value the arts and think everybody should value the arts, I also had a moment where I was like, wait, he's, [00:50:00] he's already going after something he wants and he's good at, like, why, why not let him do that?
He's happy.
Kara: It's kind of, it's kind of ridiculous. So then we cut to Finn. At his first Glee Club rehearsal. Oh, I love his feet. So they're all in a line on the stage, and they're singing "You're the One That I Want" from Grease. So Finn is singing, you know, It's Fine. He and Rachel are on opposite sides of the stage, and he's standing on his one side, just kind of singing the song.
And then you see, it really freaks him out. Because Rachel, as it's her turn to start singing, kind of just gets up and starts moving towards him, and he's like, his face, like, what the heck is going on? He's like, I don't know.
Adina: I love when they switch to the point of view camera, and like, they're like, moving back and forth, and you see the close up on Rachel's face, and she's got total show face, she's smiling, and then you see the close up on Finn's face, and he is so freaked out.
Great camera work.
Kara: Yeah, it's so good. It's [00:51:00] so good. This episode really made me love Finn. Like, right off the bat, I think he was my favorite.
Adina: Yeah, I, on my re watch, like, when I first watched, I didn't like Finn that much. On my re watches, I have grown to appreciate him a lot more. He still has some really shitty moments, as, honestly, every character on this show has shitty moments, because they're all written so inconsistently, whatever. But Finn has some really good moments, too.
Kara: Mm hmm. So, basically, then The this moment gets broken up because Mercedes is upset about the fact that she's singing backup She's like, "this is not what I signed up for," I would also like to point out that this is very Effie White of her and that's who she played in Dreamgirls.
Adina: I love when she sings. Oh, what's the song called?
Kara: "And I'm telling you I'm not going."
Adina: No, no, the other one that she does in season three. Shit, what's it called? The one where it's like the montage of she's imagining the people inside her head, telling her to quit.
" It's All Over"?
Adina: Yes, that, it's so good. That was one of my favorite songs from that [00:52:00] season.
Kara: Anyway. Yes, She, she's amazing. She's a powerhouse. Yeah, wow. Go Amber Riley. So, basically, they, after that, they kind of are all like, oh, well, there's chances for everyone to sing something else later, and she kind of is like, fine. And she goes back to her, their backup, the, the back of the line, because that's where all the other people who were singing were standing.
The next scene is another Will and Terri moment, kind of, Establishing more about their relationship. They're doing a puzzle in what Terri calls her craft room or whatever. They start to have a fight over money and sort of talking about how money is tight. Because Will wants to follow his passion and she's like, why couldn't you just be an accountant?
Adina: There's these two lines that made me laugh so hard. Will says, "I don't want to be an accountant". And then "Terri says, Dr. Phil said that people can change." I actually love Terri so much. I, [00:53:00] like, she's a horrible person, but I, she's so funny.
Kara: Yeah, she's very funny, but then you also are immediately getting the sense of, like, this woman is hella manipulative.
Adina: She has issues. Hardcore.
Kara: She's not nice at all. And they're very much clinging to what their relationship used to be like and not what the two of them are like now.
Adina: Because we learn, I think we learn in a later scene, but only a few minutes later, that they were high school sweethearts. But it's funny because Terri also, Terri has a line to Will that's like, high school is over, like, like, things have changed, which, like, kind of foreshadows how their relationship is gonna fall apart, spoilers, but not really spoilers, and it's funny that she can say that, but also not really be aware of it at the same time.
Yeah. Also, I love one of the last lines that she says in this scene, where she's like, Will, "it's not bad to want nice things." And then she's fussing with her glue gun and she goes "And to have a glue gun that works!"
Kara: It's also kind of ridiculous that Teri is so upset with [00:54:00] Will about money as if he's the one spending it because she has a Pottery Barn credit card.
Adina: Yeah, she bought three mahogany toilet brush holders.
Kara: Which is so silly. Yeah, so silly.
Adina: They really set her up to be this caricature of like the annoying wife that you want to hate which Like it's funny and like they give her funny lines, but the thing that I like that they do a little bit later on I I like that they make her a little bit complex later on.
I don't want to spoil what happens, but they give her a level of vulnerability. Part of her arc in the first season is she realizes that Will is, like, not happy and wants to leave her. And then she does some very desperate and very horrible things to try and keep him there, which are inexcusable. But Jessalyn Gilsig, who plays Terri, I think she does a really good job at portraying that vulnerability in later episodes.
So, like, I felt a shred of sympathy for her. Which is saying a lot for how bad of a character she is that I felt any, any tiny scrap of sympathy for [00:55:00] her, so.
Kara: Yeah, the scene kind of ends with them in this fight and she's like, upset with Will for trying to relive his high school glory days through these children.
So then the next thing we see is another scene in the faculty room. So we have, at first you see Ken, who is staring at Emma. And then we see Emma, who is staring at Will, as Will puts up a sign, oh, I forgot this, this was probably important to mention in the scene before Will asks Terri if she would like to chaperone a trip on Saturday to go see Vocal Adrenaline, one of the other show choirs.
At their high school. And Terri's like, no, I have to work at Sheets and Things. Didn't you, did you forget? That was another thing that happened in the scene before. So he puts a sign up sheet and then Emma sees it and she goes and she signs her name.
The next scene is Puck is in the background, or not in the background, he's in the foreground, and Ken is yelling at Finn in the background because he has to miss practice, [00:56:00] because he has to go on this field trip, the vocal adrenaline field trip. And so Puck overhears it, and he's like, what's up? And he's like, oh, well, I can't come to practice on Saturday. And he's like, why not? He's like, my mom's getting surgery. And he's like, what's wrong with your mom? She's, and he's like, he's getting her prostate removed. .
Adina: And then puck's just like. I hope it goes well.
Kara: Then there's another quick sue moment. Yes. Where she says. "You think this is hard? I'm living with hepatitis. That's hard."
Adina: They really established that as a catchphrase for her.
Kara: It's also like kind of a good, good like break from some of the other stuff, just those little quick bits of her saying those things.
Adina: It helps transition. It helps segue.
Kara: Yeah. So then we get a moment of Ken going up to Will and being really mad. And it seems like he's mad because Will is taking his star quarterback on a field trip on Saturday. But we then learned like through kind of [00:57:00] an intercut moment, that he's mad. That Emma keeps refusing his advances because she likes Will.
And here's the thing about Ken. We can use this moment to talk about it. Ken, so it's made very clear immediately that Ken is super into Emma, and he's asked her out a bunch of times, I think even in the episode already. And she's always politely like, no thank you, and it's like, so weird.
Adina: They're also clearly wrong for each other, like he invites her to see Monster Trucks, and we've hardly even seen Emma much in the episode so far, but we can already tell that's the wrong kind of date to ask her on.
Yeah, no, absolutely not. And so he clearly, he, he's in love with her, like, or obsessed with her from afar, but has like no conception of who she actually is. She's tried to let him down politely, but he is not taking the hint. Yeah, it's just. That, it just makes me feel icky, like, sorry, Ken, but I, like, I'm never gonna sympathize with a character like that.
Like, I sympathize with Terri more than with him. [00:58:00]
Kara: Oh yeah, I would agree. He's basically like, you, you don't want to come to the monster trucks, and she's like, no, and she's like, she literally, she kind of looks at him like, my god, you must stop asking me out because she's clearly so tired of it, so she finally says to him, I, I like someone else.
And he realizes that the someone else's will, which is why he's upset. We then get to go to the field trip to the other high school. I think it's called Carmel something. And it's our first scene of Rachel and Finn, like, talking to each other. Just speaking. And she's like, you're very talented. And he's like, thank you. And she was like, I would know because I'm also very talented.
Adina: That's such a great line. And then she goes, I think the rest of the group expects us to become an item. Yes. The most awkward way to flirt, like, I just, Rachel, again, she's one who I didn't really like when I first watched the show, but now when I rewatch it, I love her so much, cause she's like, she has a lot of, like, pain and awkwardness inside [00:59:00] her, and she just tries to mask it by being really obnoxious, but like, oh, poor girl, she, oh,
Kara: yeah. There are a lot of characters in this first episode who are putting on an absurd amount of confidence when they're actually not that confident.
Adina: I would say that's like a big theme of the show. Mm hmm. Rejection versus the reality.
Kara: Yeah, so then Finn mentions, oh, well, I have a girlfriend. And she's like, oh, who?
And he says, Quinn Fabray. And then that's the first time we get this cheerleader's name. So Rachel's like, Quinn Fabray, Quinn Fabray, the president of the Celibacy Club?
Adina: And then it cuts to a cutaway gag of Quinn and Finn making out. And I guess that's the first moment when you actually get her face paired with the name.
And they're making out and then she stops and she goes, let's pray.
Kara: Which is so, so funny, because Finn was very clearly, like, thinking something else was about to happen. It was, it was such a good moment. We get to that moment, and then I also think you [01:00:00] see a moment of Finn, of Rachel, Rachel, not Finn being like, Oh, this is the girl you're dating?
Cause Quinn is like her main bully, so she's like, And Finn seems so nice, that I think she's kind of thrown by this.
Adina: In retrospect, I guess maybe it's a recent thing at the time of the pilot, but in retrospect, it feels odd to me that she didn't know they were already dating because then they, they play it up like Finn and Quinn are like the it couple of the school in later episodes.
But maybe I get, he says it was four months that they've been dating, but maybe like, not everyone knows yet. I don't really know. They didn't have Facebook and Insta. They might have had Facebook.
Kara: So we get that little moment with them. And then you also have, there's another moment between Will and Emma, where they're in line to get a snack, but the line's very long.
And then Emma's like, well, I've got a peanut butter sandwich. And they split the sandwich. This is a moment where Will starts talking to Emma about all of his marital problems. So this is the moment where we learn that Will and Terri are high school sweethearts.
Adina: Also, we learn that Terri is [01:01:00] allergic to peanuts, so we stan. Peanut Allergy Club. This is why I love Terri.
Kara: Yeah, so Will hasn't had a peanut butter sandwich in a really long time because Terri is allergic and he's stopped eating it and she's, and Emma's like, oh, that's so nice that you stopped eating that for your wife, like, in solidarity. And that's when he's starting to be like, yeah, that's, it's nice, but like there's all these things that are wrong.
Adina: Yeah, you get the sense that it's not really him doing something nice. It's more so that, like, she would not let him.
Kara: Yeah, he kind of like word vomits all of their issues.
Adina: I feel like this scene is Will like emotionally cheating. Not that I'm saying he's the one, the only one in the wrong in his marriage, but throughout season one he has all these like intimate conversations with Emma and like even though he doesn't physically do anything with her while he's married to Terri, like, I, Like, that term emotional cheating, I don't know, it's kind of loaded, but like, it's clear that she becomes his main confidante and [01:02:00] main person that he talks to, more so than his wife, which is like, dicey.
Kara: It's not the best. So, next, we get the amazing performance by Vocal Adrenaline. And so, Will is like, Will says to them before it starts, he's like, guys, this is our, like, biggest competition. And they come out, and they perform "Rehab" by Amy Winehouse. And it was It was amazing. I was like, these are high school students, what? And now I wrote down that I wonder, do people really go off? This much for show choir. Like I feel like, 'cause I feel like everyone was at this performance and I was like,
Adina: I think it's only because they're Vocal Adrenaline. They are like the best in the whole region and everybody knows it. So like they're, I can buy that, like the number one show choir would draw a big audience.
Kara: That, yeah, that's fair. I was, cause I was like, I feel like Show Choir just wasn't a thing at my school at all. So, I feel like just the entire idea of it is still so [01:03:00] foreign to me that it's like, wow, people actually do this. If anyone wants to tell us about Show Choir, you can email us too.
So, basically, they're all really shook, cause they're like, what, we have to beat these people? And they're like we're screwed, basically. Which I think actually Tina says. No, we're doomed. So then, after, after that performance, Finn seems really down in the dumps.
Adina: Okay, can I just say, as Finn's walking in the next scene, this is a minor detail, but he walks by some people that are just like playing steel drums outside the school? What?
Kara: And they're also playing "Don't Worry, Be Happy."
Adina: Like, are these, like, just students that happen to be playing steel drums recreationally outside? Or, like, are they street performers? Like, just a very strange moment that I had to bring up.
Kara: That's so odd. So basically, he So he's walking by the steel drums, and this is where he gets caught in his lie about his mom's prostate surgery, because Puck is like,
Adina: [01:04:00] Puck is so mad.
Kara: "Chicks don't have prostates. I looked it up." And so basically he's like you betrayed us, and all of them have like these paintball guns, and Finn's like, guys. It's like, please don't do this or whatever. He's like, I really don't. Yeah. He's like, and then, but then they paintball him. The next scene will gets home from the your face, sorry, will gets home
Adina: because the first line he says, when he, he walks in, it blows my mind. He sees the congratulations banner and the champagne that Terri has, and he goes. "Well, this is nice, but the kids haven't won anything yet." He actually thinks that she put up a banner about the Glee Club existing or whatever. Like, just shows you that how checked out he is. Like, yes, she sucks, but he's also super checked out from their married life already.
Kara: Yeah, also, Terri does not care at all about Glee Club. She's trying to get him to stop it, so.
Adina: But actually, the banner is because she's pregnant.
Kara: Yes, so she's like, I'm pregnant and he's like very excited. He's like, oh my God, [01:05:00] we're gonna have a and this is the moment where he's like We have no money, I have to leave.
So he tells the Glee kids that he's gonna leave the school. And they're all really upset. Except for Finn. Except for Finn, who's
Adina: like, can I go now?
Kara: Yeah, he's like, oh, I don't have to do this anymore. Cause we see him walk out onto the stage. There is a guitar sitting on a stool. He walks out and he picks it up.
And he starts playing, "Leaving on a Jet Plane". And singing.
Adina: I used to always skip through all of Will's solos. 100 percent of the time, I could not possibly care less about hearing him sing. I don't see the appeal. His numbers were not good. Matthew Morrison has a nice voice. It's not that he doesn't have a nice voice, but his numbers, I'm gonna make a bold statement and say that they never added anything useful to the plot. I could not stand them. Just had to get that out there.
But in this pilot episode, I think the [01:06:00] purpose it serves is like, first of all, it establishes that he is going to sing, that he can sing. That's the thing we're going to see in the series as well as the series. And then they also intercut it with that montage of him.
Like there's a few things in that montage. They show him like filling out an accountant application. They show. Other people gossiping about him, and then Emma hears that he is having a baby, and while she's in the middle of, like, she's literally drawing a heart around his face in the yearbook, which is, like, cute, but also, like, girl, you're an adult.
You're, like, 30, in your 30s, and you're drawing a heart. Okay.
Kara: I thought it was pretty weird. Yeah, it is weird. I don't think I would have done that, like, as a younger person.
Adina: Yeah. They do kind of weirdly infantilize Emma a lot. Which is another thing we don't have time to unpack, that could be a whole other podcast.
Kara: Oh, oh my goodness. Yeah, it's not us. It's not us, guys. Someone else can talk about it. So basically, after, as, like, once the song is over, Emma tells Will that he should come to the [01:07:00] Career Center because she has career advice for him. He's like, I'm leaving. She's like, you should just, just hear me out.
Adina: She's like, you need some guidance, which that is kind of a sweet moment, I will say.
Kara: Yeah, it was very nice of her. So next we see, he's at his locker, he slams the door and Rachel is just standing there, right behind it.
Adina: She has no social awareness, this girl.
Kara: And he's really freaked out. And she's like, where are you at Glee Club? And he's like, Mr. Shoe's leaving. She's like, well, I'm in charge now.
Basically, she's like, she's like, I'm gonna take over the role so that we can keep going. And she's like, we need you. So then Quinn walks over with, he calls,
Adina: with Santana. Yeah.
Kara: With Santana, who has not said a word and does not have a name yet. Yeah.
Adina: She's just a cheerleader number two at this point. No hint that she is going to become one of the most popular and influential characters in the series later on.
No hint at all. And then Quinn calls Rachel RuPaul,
Kara: which I was confused about.
Adina: Okay, [01:08:00] well, not to take us on a whole tangent, but I will just briefly summarize that there exist many analysis posts on the internet from Faberry shippers, mostly, about how Quinn frequently uses male coded insults in order to masculine, masculinize Rachel.
And then they take that interpretation further, but it is true. She, she calls her things like RuPaul, like manhands, a lot of other, like, masculine insults. Just throwing that out there. If, if you're interested in further reading, Google that, because we won't go into it here.
Kara: Rachel is of the opinion that she doesn't want Finn to work, and she doesn't get why he cares so much.
And then we have another moment where Puck comes up to Fin and he's like, I don't understand why you joined the Glee Club. They're a bunch of losers. And so then they bring him over to these Port A Potties where they've, they've, sadly, they've stuck Artie in the Port A Potty. Yeah,
Adina: and then, and then Puck's like, I got you a [01:09:00] gift by putting this guy in the Port A Potty. You can have the first roll which I don't even want a picture. So, yeah. And then Finn lets them out.
Kara: Yeah, and Puck's like, why are you defending this loser?
Adina: And Finn's like, we're all losers! Don't you get it, man? We're all losers! I love this speech, it's so angsty. We're all losers stuck in this loser town and we'll never get out!
Which, it's a little cheesy, but it sets up Finn's problem, effectively. Can I give us a quick diverging question that I feel like applies to the whole series, but now is maybe a good time to bring it up. There's so much talk in this series about, like, loser versus popular, different social groups, social castes.
Like, I know that's generally a trope in a lot of, like, high school. So, you guys are all from a different media, but it's especially pronounced in Glee. So my question for you, for us, as a discussion question is, was your high school like that at all? Because mine, like, yes, there were friend groups and maybe some people were more popular, but nothing even close to the realm of what's portrayed in [01:10:00] this show.
Kara: Yeah, no. So I think the biggest reason is because I didn't actually go to public school for high school. So for one thing, I don't think there were as many people because, like, my class of girls, I went to an all girls school. There were 68 of us, there were very clearly groups of people, but for the most part because we all knew each other, we all kind of stuck together, and I think that was also because everyone hated our grade.
So there, there were like, there were like cliquey people and like some in fighting, but not in the way that I feel like it gets portrayed. In like high school shows, you know.
Adina: Yeah, I went to a decently large public school. There was about 500 kids in my grade. But, it was not like that.
Like, like, yes, some people were bigger personalities and a little bit more well known. And like, I don't want to be naive and say there wasn't bullying. There almost certainly was a lot of bullying. I was lucky enough to not really be involved in any of it. Like, I was not popular. I was a nerdy kid, but I had my nerdy friends and we [01:11:00] just kind of like, Hanging out with each other and I wasn't aware of a ton of bullying happening like some minor stuff but nothing like no like slushies in the face, I know that's an extreme example.
But yeah every time I watch high school media like this I'm like am I really lucky that my school was not like that? Or are any schools like that? Really? I don't know.
Kara: Yeah, I'm not super sure. I feel like it depends on the kids that are there. And also I will say I wasn't, I feel like I kind of drifted between groups because I like hung out with the people that did the shows and then I hung out with other Black students.
I was kind of very good at like just kind of going around where I felt like going. Yeah. So. I don't, I did not experience high school in this way. Still had its bad moments, but it was not like that. Well, and then this is where this is the, a fun Finn moment where Finn realizes that he likes football and he likes singing, and he's gonna do both.
And this is where I would like to [01:12:00] compare Finn to Troy Bolton from High School Musical, because Really, I wrote down in my notes, "a Troy Bolton serve," because Troy Bolton does the exact same thing, but with basketball. He does his basketball, and he does his singing, and it's his serve. Yeah, so then at the moment where he's like, I'm gonna do both, he turns around and sees the lawn guy that used presumably used to date his mother, and he
Adina: Yeah, that moment was super weird.
Like, the long guy just happens to be there. Like, I, I literally had a moment where I was like, Is Finn imagining seeing this guy? Or is he really there? Because that's a really strange coincidence.
Kara: Yeah. It was like, so bizarre. And it also, it seems like the woman that he left his mom for is also there. And they're playing Journey. And that's Finn.
Adina: You would think that that would piss Finn off. But it's weirdly inspirational for him.
Kara: Yeah, he was like, I have an idea. You so clearly see that he has this idea. And [01:13:00] then, and then we cut to Glee Club rehearsal where Rachel's in charge and she's not, she's not boosting morale in any type of way.
Kurt says, I'm sorry. Did I miss the election for queen? Because I didn't vote for you, which I thought was, I think that was my favorite line of his from the episode. He also doesn't really say that much.
At this moment, Finn comes in and he brings Artie back, and he apologizes for like quitting and being a dick, and he is like, bring, he kind of brings back the morale with him. He is the guy that's like, we can do this.
Adina: He has that leadership quality, which makes sense because he's the quarterback and that's kind of similar job. Yeah, but we, can I say my favorite line from that scene? He's like assigning jobs to everybody. He's like, Mercedes, get the costumes, like whoever, blah, blah, blah. And then he goes, Tina, what are you good at? And she goes she starts stammering and he just goes, "we'll figure something out for you."
Kara: Yeah. He's like, he's like, it's okay. Everyone has something they're good at. It's so cute and inspirational. He's like, we can do this. I'm like, this is so cute. [01:14:00] Yeah, Finn was definitely, if I had to pick a favorite character just from the pilot, I would pick Finn.
Adina: Yeah, he does shine in the pilot. I feel like the pilot kind of frames two slash three main characters, definitely Will, definitely Finn. I'm debating about whether or not I feel like Rachel is also framed as a protagonist in the pilot. It's kind of dubious. She's definitely picked up as a protagonist in episode two. Episode two is very centered around her, I remember. But, I mean, this show, as you probably already have gotten the sense of, and you definitely know if you've seen more of it, it very much has an ensemble cast.
They really try and develop all these characters as much as possible, which is awesome, because you get a lot of different cool characters, but also the show kind of feels unbalanced sometimes, because they're trying to juggle so many things. But in this pilot, I would say, Will and Finn, debatably Rachel, are the ones that come out looking like main characters.
Kara: Yeah, definitely. So in the next scene, we see Emma and Will in Emma's office and she pulls up a video of him, [01:15:00] of, well, we don't know originally, initially, that it's him, so she pulls up a video of the William McKinley Glee Club in, at the 1993 Nationals. And you, you, we don't see the video, but we, like, hear singing, and that's how we learned that, yeah, that he was in show choir, and that's why he cares so much about bringing show choir back to what it used to be,
Adina: because it's like, that was the happiest moment of my life, when, he's like, we were halfway through the song, and I knew we were gonna win. Clearly, it was his highest moment of his life, and He, then there's that moment where he's like, Emma's like, don't you, like, doesn't it matter to you? Like, don't you want to do what you love? But then he still says, Nope. I like being a father and being there for my family is still more important to me.
Kara: He's like, it's like a moment of picking what he feels like he's most passionate about. And in that moment, he's like, I am really passionate about this, but I am more passionate about [01:16:00] providing for my family. So like he gets out,
Adina: that's a hard choice.
Kara: Yeah, for sure. So, he is not convinced by Emma, so he gets up to leave, and he hears, he hears some singing, some acapella singing.
This is the iconic moment. The beginning of it. This is like the thing that If you don't know Glee, you know this, I would say.
Adina: This or, I would say, the football team doing single ladies might be more iconic, actually.
Kara: That's true.
So, he hears a song coming from the auditorium, so he walks in, and You see the Glee Club members all in red and black.
Adina: I love those costumes because they look like costumes they actually could have scrounged up from their own closets. I love, like, later in the series, they're constantly talking about how they have no budget and have to reuse their costumes, but they have these elaborate costumes anyway.
But in this one, it's like, oh, they all went home and, like, got red clothes from their closet. Okay, I buy it.
Kara: Yeah. So they're singing "Don't Stop Believin'" by Journey, [01:17:00] which was how Finn got inspired from the Lawn Guy. And you see them rehearsing. They sound really good.
Adina: Also, you can tell there's clearly like 30 background singers on the recording. There's only five of them, which is something they always do, but it's especially obvious when there's only like five members of Glee Club. Later on, when they have 12 people, it's less obvious that they're layering an extra background vocals.
But with five of them, and then clearly. 20 plus people singing, it's incredibly obvious.
Kara: Yeah, so then, this is, this was another kind of high school musical callback to me, even though Ryan Murphy had never seen High School Musical. The whole moment, where it This whole moment where then you see Sue, Quinn, and Santana watching from the balcony, and then you also see Puck walking into the auditorium.
Oh, I forgot about that. And then kind of like walking out, very much reminds me of when Troy and Gabriella were singing Breaking Free, and their, both of their parents came in. So you see like [01:18:00] Gabriella's mom walk in to the auditorium and you see Troy's dad walk in. So that, that felt very reminiscent of that, even though Ryan Murphy was like, I've never seen High School Musical.
That's what it felt like. Yes, High School Musical is very important to me. So these are things that I know. So they perform. I think when watching it, this I cried this time, but I think that's just nostalgia talking.
Adina: Yeah, I mean, like, it is a really sweet moment. Like it's become cliche now, but It's really sweet. Like, it's a really nice way to end the pilot. Like, I buy that seeing that would change Will's mind. I believe that. Yeah. And then it does change his mind. He claps for them, and then he's just starts coaching them. And they're like, wait, does that mean you're back? And he goes, yep, from the top. And then that's the last line.
Kara: And that's the pilot.
Adina: Oh my god, we're finally through the episode. That was so much. So much happened. So now I guess we can talk about it more generally. Like, yeah, I mean, I guess the question like, would you want to keep watching? For me, like, the answer [01:19:00] was yes, because I, I don't even remember why I started wanting to watch Glee.
Like, I literally don't remember what prompted me to start. try and watch it but I watched it all like on illegal streaming when I was a freshman in high school and then binged it really fast got really into it for some reason . I can't remember why I think it's just because everything's so wacky like there's just so much going on that it's there's always something new to look for even when there were scenes I didn't like there was always something else new coming to interest me so I think like that just kept me really engaged so yeah but even I think if I saw it today, I would probably keep watching hesitantly because now I'm a little more discerning about writing quality, and this pilot is like pretty good, I would say, but it also brings up some concerns.
I think my biggest concern would be that I don't like Will, and he's poised to be a main character. That would be my biggest hesitance if I was watching it today, but I would keep watching, I think. It's a, it's a solid concept. Wacky characters. It's funny. It's [01:20:00] funny and it's constantly moving and the music is good.
That's another kind of interesting element. We don't need to unpack how it spawned a lot of copycats and musical episodes and stuff that, Don't need to be musical, but I don't know. What about, what about you? Would you keep watching from this episode?
Kara: As I, as I think I mentioned earlier, I have actually, as I was watching this, I feel like I had no memory of ever seeing the first episode all the way through.
I feel like I might've seen bits and pieces of it because it's not the first episode I watched because my parents watched Glee when it first aired, but they wouldn't let me watch it. I remember the Bust Your Windows episode because I like came into the room while they were watching it and that was what happened to be happening and then a few weeks later, I was over at a friend's house for a sleepover and it was like a weeknight and it was when Glee came on, so I watched an episode later into season one with her and then I kept watching it. So I think I missed the first few episodes because that was before I [01:21:00] did any type of streaming because I didn't have my own laptop yet.
Adina: Honestly, episode four is where it like really kicks in.
Kara: And then I watched, yeah, so then I was like, yeah, I'll keep watching this, because it was fun, I was very into musical theatre at the time, so it seemed, it was like, very much to my interest,
Adina: That's why I started watching, because like, that was also the time of my life where I was getting more seriously interested in musicals.
And like, I guess maybe I heard like, oh, it's a, it's a show with a lot of musical theater in it. Like you should watch it if you're interested in that. Maybe that's why. I don't remember.
Kara: Yeah, we would watch the next episode of Glee. Also, I feel like this is, I guess this is like in kind of going past the pilot, but I kind of agree about Mr. Schuster slash Will, because I feel like when I was watching it as like a 14 year old, I was kind of like, this man makes me feel uncomfortable. And I feel like I also kind of questioned some of his choices for songs that he picked for a bunch of teenagers to do. I [01:22:00] think that was the thing that got me sometimes. I was like, why, why are they singing this? Why did this high school do Rocky Horror? I mean, it got stopped, spoiler.
Adina: I can't remember a single moment, frankly, of this show. I can't think of a single moment when I've liked Will. That's like the biggest deal breaker for me on this show, even as much as there's other problematic things. There are lots of other problematic things about Glee, but Will Schuster is the worst part. Like, I'm sorry, Matthew Morrison. I think he's a talented guy, but this character, I just, I So, cannot deal with. There's nothing redeeming about him. Yeah.
Kara: Any other thoughts?
Adina: I guess we could do the little ask of like, based on this pilot, what do you think would be the trajectory of the season and the trajectory of the show? It's a little hard for me to try and answer that just based on the pilot because I do know what happens.
Cause like, they mention regionals as the deadline. And I know that the season one finale is them at regionals. I don't know if I would have necessarily picked up on that line if I didn't already know that. But I definitely [01:23:00] think the show would be about these characters journeys through high school and like seeing where they go and what they accomplish while they're in high school because there was a lot of talk about like, Oh, I want to make something of myself before I'm out of high school.
I don't want to leave high school without having accomplished anything. And then on the other side, you have the adults like Terri and Will being, talking about their high school glory days. There was a lot of like fetishization of high school as like the only important time of your life. Which I'm just like, No, no, high school is like not a great time of your life and then better things happen afterwards.
Kara: Yeah, it's like, I think that's the thing that I feel like now that we are out of high school and college and everyone's like, these are supposed to be the best days of your life. I'm like, God, I hope not. Because honestly, like, even in college, which was like, markedly more fun. Oh, I was like, is this the only fun I'm going to have for the rest of my life? That sounds stupid.
Adina: Any kids out there listening, it gets better.
Kara: [01:24:00] Yeah, for sure. I was like, my goodness, high school is not the be all end all of your life. Has to be put out there. Like, every high school show makes you think it for some reason. And I don't, I definitely thought that for
a while too.
Adina: Because all of these shows are written by kids that were unpopular in high school, and they're trying to retell their own story for themselves. That's the tea.
Kara: Yeah, I would say that the first episode definitely sets up a huge rivalry. Between cheerleading and Glee club in the way that it's framed, especially because the cheerleaders were the first thing we saw.
I mentioned this to you yesterday. I don't super remember the first season of Glee, just like very. moments. So I feel that would be my main takeaway from it, besides like the and also the fact that since they mentioned Regionals, it's like, Oh, well they're gonna get to Regionals. And I'm like, I hope they win. So yeah we know that we [01:25:00] want to watch more of Glee as we have watched it already.
Adina: If I could go back, would I stop myself from watching Glee? There are moments when I wish, but no it was It was an important part of my high school experience, I think. I think I had to go through my Glee phase.
Okay. Wait, one last thing before we sign off. Okay. Because I love asking this to people. I feel like it says so much about a person. Who is your favorite character from Glee?
Kara: Well, this is very hard because I only watched the first two.
Adina: Well, honestly, the first two matter the most. So based on seasons one and two.
Kara: Well, back in the day. When I was watching, my favorite was Blaine. I feel like, I feel like he was my favorite.
Adina: Blaine Blanderson was your favorite? Really?
Kara: Well, here's the thing. I feel like my favorite, my favorite songs were all the ones the Warblers sang.
Adina: You're [01:26:00] allowed to have your favorite. I shouldn't, I shouldn't judge it. For me Santana was definitely my favorite the first time I was watching it. But, I feel like as I've re watched it since then, as an adult, I still like parts of Santana, but she's also like really a bitch. Like, she, she pumps that up as her brand, but she's also like really a bitch to everybody in Glee Club. And like, spoilers, spoilers about to happen, but, like. I get, like, she has internalized angst about coming out, but she's still a bitch. There's no excuse for that. She, like, continuously berates Finn. She straight up, like, gives Finn body dysmorphia disorder, which is really, oh my god.
So I I feel like if I have to answer now, my favorite character might be Rachel, because even though she sucks, she's like, she's one of the most consistent characters, I would say. Yeah, because even though she [01:27:00] does a lot of terrible things, she has, she's written with more consistency because it's always, she has her one guiding want, which is fame and attention, which is not always sympathetic, but it's clear.
I like her because she's clear and well defined. And, and she evokes visceral reaction. Yeah, so I think that's a good character.
Kara: I like that. I also like Britney.
Adina: I liked Britney, but it really upset me what they did to her in later seasons. If you didn't watch season 3, you probably don't know. Spoilers, again, spoilers for season 3. In season 3, they had her straight up fail high school and fail to graduate and said she had, cause my headcanon as I was watching was that she was like, she's like ditzy and like stupid, but I kind of figured like, oh, she's like playing it up and like messing with people. She's not really that. Stupid, but then they straight up,
Kara: I thought that, I thought that I was a thing. That she was like kind, actually kind of smart.
Adina: Okay. So here's the thing I, that was the vibe I was getting from the first couple seasons 'cause she would just have those random one-liners that were like stupid, but also like maybe smart season [01:28:00] three. They really leaned into her being stupid. Had her straight up fail high school so she could stick around for another year. Because I guess they just wanted to keep her on the show for another year, but it was so horrible, because literally another plotline that season was about Puck almost failing, and that was treated completely seriously, and everybody rallied to help make sure he passed, and then in the same time, they had a throwaway joke about Brittany failing, and nobody cared. It's funny, because she's a dumb blonde. I'm like, what?
Kara: Oh, that's so sad.
Adina: And then, she stuck around in Season 4, and then they had a weird plotline where she, they had like a Good Will Hunting plotline, basically, where she, like, became a math genius randomly, and that was even stupider.
Kara: Oh. That's very confusing.
Adina: I also, I feel like I liked Emma a lot. I didn't like some of the plots they did with her that were a little weird. And Icky. But as a character, I liked her. I feel like she was, like, sweet and also, like, a good voice of reason a lot of the time.
Kara: [01:29:00] Yeah, I feel like everyone in the show was a little bit crazy. It was like, what's up with you?
So yeah that was the first episode of Glee. What a wild ride it was.
Adina: My God, what a wild ride
Kara: As was the entire show, even though I didn't watch the rest of it. I know it was pretty crazy. It just too much started happening, so I gave up. So anyway, thanks for listening.
Thanks for listening. We wanna hear from you Now, if you have any thoughts about the Glee Pilot that you'd like to share with us or suggestions for shows we should watch, you can email us at itsinmyqueuepod@gmail.com.
In case you wanna prepare for the next episode discussion with us, the next pilot we will watch is What We Do in the Shadows. So go ahead and watch that or rewatch it if you've already seen it before. So you'll be ready for our thoughts on that.
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I am [01:30:00] @adinaterrific
and I'm @karaaa_powell. Thanks for listening, and we hope we've helped you clear out your queue.