GLEE: ‘The Rocky Horror Glee Show’

Hey, fellow Gleeks! Kath is out of town, so I’ll be handling the GLEE recap this week.

Before we start, I want to say that I was familiar with THE ROCKY HORROR PICTURE SHOW before last night’s episode, but I’m not an uber die-hard fan. If I missed any winks to the die-hards during the hour, I apologize, and please feel free to let me know in the comments section.

So, with that disclaimer out of the way, let’s get to it…

The episode opens up much like the original feature film version of THE ROCKY HORROR PICTURE SHOW does, with red lips singing “Science Fiction Double Feature.” I know it’s Naya Rivera (Santana) belting out the song, but damn if she doesn’t sound exactly like Dianna Agron (Quinn) in portions of the tune.

We see Rachel and Finn singing “There’s A Light (Over at the Frankenstein Place)” on a stage, all dressed up as the characters Janet and Brad. Carl interrupts their performance when he comes storming in, yelling at Will for messing with his woman. A Will voice-over informs us that he has really stepped in it this time.

Cut to a week earlier in the teachers’ lounge when Will notes that Emma is eating a sandwich with the crusts on it — something the normally OCD/set-in-her-ways Ms. Pillsbury wouldn’t do. Emma happily shares that Carl took her to see a midnight showing of THE ROCKY HORROR PICTURE SHOW and the two of them have come to love it — she’s been having so much fun, she must have forgotten to take the crust off her bread. Will is jealous and starts babbling about how much he too loves TRHPS — so much so that he’s having New Directions perform it as the school musical, he blurts out. Emma is confused about how they’re going to pull off the risque material, but Will says he’ll do some script editing.

Will tells the kids they’ll be doing TRHPS and they assign themselves roles. Rachel immediately volunteers herself and Finn for the parts of Brad and Janet, which is fine with him until he realizes they have to appear in front of the whole student body in their underwear. It seems Finn has some body image issues. The poor guy won’t even take off his shirt to go to the pool. Rachel sweetly informs him that he’s the hottest guy in the school.

After the latest segment of “Sue’s Corner” on the local news show, the new station managers (played by original TRHPS stars Meat Loaf and Barry Bostwick) give Ms. Sylvester a lesson on scaring people into paying attention. Peep this amazing exchange:

Barry Jeffries: Good news is about information, but great news is about fear. For example, Tim, did you hear about that swarm of Africanized killer bees?

Tim Stanwick: No, wouldn’t it be awful to see an entire town overrun by killer bees?

Barry Jeffries: I’m sorry, Tim, did you just say “an entire town overrun by killer bees?”

Tim Stanwick: Well, I–

Barry Jeffries: There’s your quote.

Tim Stanwick: And you can replace killer bees with whatever you want. Terrorists!

Barry Jeffries: Mexicans!

Tim Stanwick: Mexican terrorists!

Barry Jeffries: Ants!

Tim Stanwick: Mexican terrorist ants!

They then tell her that someone at her school is trying to get the stage rights to TRHPS. As it turns out, Sue is familiar with the movie, because she took her sister to a screening of it and mistakenly thought that the audience threw toast at them because they were enraged by seeing a disabled person. (Fans actually throw toast at the screen at the point in the film when Frank-N-Furter proposes a toast… Imagine the NBC “The More You Know” music playing here.)

The new station managers talk Sue into letting New Directions put on TRHPS so they can film an expose — one which could make her a shoo-in for a local Emmy. And you know Sue Sylvester wants her some Emmy-bling.

Sue pulls Will out of the club’s rehearsal of “Dammit Janet” to tell him she knows about the production and she isn’t going to try and stop him. Was anyone else a little disappointed that they didn’t wait until after the song was finished to leave the room? I found myself straining my ears to hear the remainder of it.

We then see Finn, Sam and Artie working out and the boys inform Finn that his appearance on the stage will be judged. After all, if he takes off his shirt and is flabby, how can he remain cool? They seemingly undo all the progress Rachel made with her kind words and Finn is back to freaking out.

Will asks Emma to design the costumes for the play and she’s delighted — until Mike, who was set to play Frank-N-Furter, tells them that his parents won’t let him be in the production. Can’t have the performance without your male lead, so Will tells Sue the play is off. Sue catches Emma and Carl together and realizes that he could fill in for Mike and keep her dream of winning a local Emmy alive. Sue convinces Will to give Carl a shot at auditioning.

Everyone is charmed by Carl’s version of “Hot Patootie – Bless My Soul.” Will is cranky throughout the number, but there’s no denying Carl is good. And the show does need a Frank-N-Furter. Carl says he isn’t comfortable grinding up against the students — finally, an adult who understands boundaries! — so Mercedes volunteers herself for the role of Frank. Sue says this is perfect, because Mercedes can be Frank and Carl can be Eddie. Looks like Will won’t be able to get rid of Carl that easily.

Finn is still dealing with body image issues and refuses to take his shirt off for the first dress rehearsal, saying he’s saving his shirtless-ness for opening night. Oh boy.

Mercedes rocks “Sweet Transvestite.” Apparently, the lyrics were a little too racy for television because the line “I’m just a sweet transvestite from Transsexual, Transylvania” got changed to “I’m just a sweet transvestite from sensational Transylvania.” Wonder who made that call?

Carl arrives early for the play, much to the delight of Emma and the annoyance of Will. Will later tells Emma that Carl is right, some of these roles are too adult for the kids to play. Truthfully, Will just wants to worm his way into the play and he tells Sam that he’ll be taking over the role of Rocky. Oh, Will. This is why people want to smack you. Heck, I wanted to smack you and I’ve defended you more than I should have in the past. Way to be a horrible, horrible, horrible, HORRIBLE role model to your students.

Emma questions the appropriateness of Will —  their teacher — being in the play, but he talks her into rehearsing “Touch-a, Touch-a, Touch-a, Touch Me.” Emma takes a second to get into it, but when she does, holy mother of all that is pure and evil. Will looked like he was half in shock/half about to spontaneously combust. She’s ripping off his shirt (thank you, Emma), grinding on him, and taking charge of her sexuality in a way we haven’t seen thus far. Emma throws everything off her desk. When the songs ends, Will and Emma are very, very close and she panics.

Can we just linger on this scene for a moment? Emma singing “Touch-a, Touch-a, Touch-a, Touch Me” has been so wildly addictive in my brain that I almost feel the need to be quarantined until I trust myself to not bust out the lyrics in public. It’s a problem. And goodness, what a change to see our Emma so naughty. What did you think, Wemma fans? Was this the hottest scene the duo has done to date?

Meanwhile, Sam isn’t so happy about losing the part of Rocky. He thinks that he lost the role because he’s too fat. Dude, it didn’t look like you have an ounce of fat on you. Seeing him pinch his skin and lamenting about the food he ate is utterly depressing. He does, however, tell Finn that playing Brad is all about confidence.

But New Directions then tries to rehearse without Finn, who is MIA. Sadly, the timing is all off. Principal Figgins interrupts them and informs Will that Finn is suspended. Apparently that newfound confidence he’s got led him to walk down the school hallway in his underwear. But really, why were those kids so traumatized by Finn’s nakedness? Nine kids need therapy?! Really? Thankfully, Will talks Figgins out of the suspension, but he notes that Will is putting a lot on the line for murky reasons.

Now we’re back to where the episode started off — Carl interrupting the rehearsal and calling Will out for using the show to pick up other guys’ chicks. The glee club looks on during the exchange. Awkward, much?

Later, Becky comes to Mr. Schue’s office looking for trick-or-treat candy and tells him that Sue says “TRHPS” is an abomination and shows him a pre-taped “Sue’s Corner” segment bashing the glee club and their musical. Will dukes it out with Sue the next day and, in the process, realizes he was in the wrong and that he can’t put on the show.

Will tells Emma he’s canceling the production because he chose it for the wrong reasons — AKA her. He admits that Carl is making her better “and if I really love you, I need to back off and accept that at least for now, being with him is the best thing for you.”

I’m not going to lie, I had to fight a serious urge to stand up an applaud this speech when I first saw it. IT’S ABOUT TIME, WILL. Ever since he split from Terri, he’s been acting like a teenager, and this is the first sign of maturity we’ve seen from him in a while. He’s right. If he does love Emma, he should be man enough to realize that right now, she’s happy with someone else. Someone else is helping her progress. He should take advantage of his current single status by developing a better understanding of who he is, so when/if the time comes where Emma is free, he won’t frak it up by immediately cheating on her. (Funny how he always seems to forget that little detail.)

Mr. Schue takes his new maturity kick a step further and apologizes to the kids for putting them through this ordeal. He says TRHPS is perfect for their club of misfits, but it wasn’t right for school. However, he still wants them to put on the show for themselves. The episode closes with the gang doing “Time Warp.”

Some highlights/favorite quotes:

• Sue’s Corner Halloween rant. Click on the video below to relive the entire twisted thing. It is amazing.

• Finn: “I have no clue what’s going on in this script, and it’s not in a cool, INCEPTION kind of way.”
• Becky dressing up as Sue Sylvester for Halloween? Amazing.
• Brittany S. Pierce’s Halloween costume: “I’m going as a peanut allergy.”
• Sue: “I should have known. People who dress like librarians are all sex addicts.”
• Sue: “Are you ready for a chilling statistic? 70% of all teeth in this school are wooden.”
• And my absolute favorite line of the night? Thanks to Becky for this gem, which I promise to use on a regular basis: “Give me some chocolate or I will cut you.”

And that’s about it. But before I turn things over to the comments section, I would like to know what you guys thought about two of the episode’s more obvious tie-ins to real life:

The boys’ self-image problems — I will say, I understand what the show was trying to do with this storyline, but it felt a little hypocritical to me. GLEE co-creator Ryan Murphy allegedly wouldn’t tell the show’s male actors who would be playing Rocky and freaked out them out so much that several went on diets, fearing they’d be the one in the mankini. None of those guys needed to be panicked about their weight, but an undue pressure was put on them and supposedly the-powers-that-be did nothing to calm their own body fears.

The GQ controversy — Obviously, the cast’s controversial GQ cover just hit last week, so the parallels are obvious, even if they were unintentional. THE ROCKY HORROR PICTURE SHOW actually is GLEE in this case. Is either entirely appropriate for children? No. Some of the music is innocent enough, but for the most part, both are for more mature audiences. When Sue told Will, “You can’t yell fire in a theater and you can’t expose kids to material like this. Not on the tax payers’ dime,” he argued that they have the internet and are already exposed. She fired back with, “Don’t lead them to it, don’t make it okay. They’re kids. And now more than ever, high school is a dangerous place and it’s our job to guide them through it safely.” Sure, the GLEE stars aren’t teachers or coaches or guidance counselors, but most of that scene could have very easily applied to the GQ controversy, no?

The next episode won’t air for another two weeks, but the promo made it look good. Puck is back, Artie is cool, there are some big numbers happening. But perhaps even more importantly, “LIVIN’ ON A PRAYER” IS IN THE NEXT HOUR! GLEE has proven in the past that they do Bon Jovi well, so I cannot wait.

Enough of me, I want to hear from you. Did you guys like the episode? Have a favorite moment? Let’s chat!

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