Hell-O

glee
season 1, episode 14: Hell-O
review by: ian
episode rating: TV-14


episode recap:
It's after sectionals and Principal Figgins (Iqbal Theba) tells Will (Matthew Morrison) that they need to place at regionals to guarantee the Glee club staying in business (of course). Sue (Jane Lynch) is now blackmailing Figgins because she date-raped him and took a picture of them together so he had to let her back into the school, and she really has it out for the glee club now. Rachel (Lea Michele) and Finn (Cory Monteith) are now a couple, even though Finn still isn't sure how it happened, and Sue wants to break them up so Rachel will leave the Glee club, so she tries to get Brittany (Heather Morris) and Santana (Naya Rivera) to compete for the head cheerleader spot by seeing who can date Finn. They both end up trying to date him at the same time, which causes him to break up with Rachel. The Glee club has a "Hello" theme episode, where Will challenges each person to sing a song with the words "hello" repeated in it, but Rachel takes it a little too far after she sings "Gives you Hell" to mostly Finn after he breaks up with her.
Rachel starts dating the rival glee club (Vocal Adrenaline) star Jesse St. James (Jonathan Groff), and the Glee club starts to get a little paranoid that they want to swing her over to their school so they tell her to choose between the glee club and Jesse. Rachel chooses the glee club but feels bad about her decision. Will and Emma (Jayma Mays) are now dating, but after Emma says she's a virgin (and after Terri [Jessalyn Gilsig] tells her a few things about Will) she thinks they need to spend time apart. Will accidentally starts making out with Shelby Corcoran (Idina Menzel) the head of Vocal Adrenaline because apparently there was a "spark" there, and even though he was dating Emma during the time he felt bad about it and sent her away, but she still did tell him to "call her" when he's ready for her.


episode review:
The episode was a little more strong in inappropriateness than I thought. With the whole Shelby-Will make-out session and the Sue-Figgins date raping thing, it wasn't a great topic to be viewing with your family, if you know what I mean. I don't know how big the whole the writers dug themselves into, but it was a pretty big one. Because... "What are they going to do to end the Sue-Figgins story?" Surely they can't keep on having her pull blackmailing stints to Figgins to stay at the school, and when time runs out and gets to Sue Sylvester, she won't have any leverage over Figgins anymore! What happens after that? How will she stay on the show? The writers better know what they're doing here, because other wise, I see her date raping him as just another way to keep Sue Sylvester on the show.
I liked Terri in this episode, I always have. I'm sure the millions of fans out there hate Terri but I, like her. I liked her episode cameo, except I don't know exactly where "Operation: Redeem Terri" is starting (The writers are trying to explore her storyline in this part of the season).
I loved some of the one liners delivered by Sue, Puck and Brittany in the episode. "Did you know dolphins are just gay sharks?" - Brittany. 
"I don't dig on fat chicks" - Puck, "I'm pregnant!" - Quinn
What happened to the supporting characters in this episode? They were only in the background and each had like, one line in the episode. What up with that?
I didn't like it how the supporting characters were singing "Gives you Hell" with Rachel, I thought it would be better just to have her sing it and have them just sit in their chairs and be the fake people that they are.


overall episode grade: B+