GLEE Season Finale Recap: ‘New York’

“I don’t like cities, but I like New York. Other cities make me feel like a dork.” Oddly enough, I can see where Finn is coming from with this rhymetastic lyric. NYC was a perfect backdrop for the drama and love and dreams and disappointment that characterize our dear show. I got such a kick out of the New Yorkness of this episode. Romance in Central Park. Breakfast at Tiffany’s – or bagel and coffee outside of Tiffany’s. Running into Patti Freaking LuPone at Sardi’s. Those red steps in Times Square in front of the tkts booth, which I happen to have been sitting at just a week ago. I don’t know about that comment about it always smelling “wet.” I think that stench is more accurately described as “urine.”

I thought it was ballsy of them to arrive in New York without any original songs written. I’d have thought they’d have their setlist finalized beforehand. Like, what about that thing called rehearsal? Their hotel songwriting sesh produced yet another gem, “Say what’s up to my cup,” which, dare I say, could give “Trouty Mouth” a run for it’s money. It’s definitely better than that silly “New York is the best, Texas is for golf” song they wrote while out and about. Fun seeing them run around town, but silly, silly song.

As it appears, Mr. Schuester is going to carry out his plan of realizing his Broadway dreams, and thus leaving the Glee club behind. He sings on stage to the empty theater an ORIGINAL song. And as Kath pointed out on Twitter, how dare he keep the kids on songwriting lockdown in the hotel room while he had an original in his back pocket? Typical, hypocritical Schue-nanigans. To give him the benefit of the doubt, maybe it’s not a good group song. The song is actually off Matthew Morrison’s solo record, co-penned by the incomparable Kris Allen. It’s not so much Broadway, nor is it “Bu-blake” (Matty Mo’s favorite way to describe his own “sound” – a melding of Buble and Timberlake, which makes a lot of sense) but it sounded, well, Kris Allen. I could totally hear Kris singing that song (better), can’t you?

As Finn obsesses over dueting with Rachel, Puck calls out the “Jewish elephant” in the room and tells him to ask her out already. Thank you, Puckerman. Finn texts Rachel to meet him in Central Park — and to dress up! Ah! Every girl’s dream. They’re standing by the water, he gives her flowers as the background music plays a string instrumental of “Someone To Watch Over Me.” But I’m not crying yet. They have dinner at Sardi’s and he admires her for dreaming big, and for looking pretty. But I’m not crying yet. Then they take a beautiful evening walk, straight out of those romantic comedies. The boys pop out from around the corner, Puck with an accordion, and they start singing “Bella Notte” from LADY AND THE TRAMP. And THAT, ladies and gents, is what brought the waterworks. What can I say, I’m a sucker for that canine couple. My tearful joy quickly turned into sloppy wet heartbreak as Rachel denies Finn his kiss. And then I composed myself and decided that before the turn of the hour, everything will be better again and nothing will hurt. Damn, that was an emotional roller coaster.

Kurt and Rachel sneak into the Gershwin Theater (another dream of mine, to sneak into a theater) where “Wicked” is playing, and sing “For Good,” which is not only the best BFF duet ever, but sang just today by Kristin Chenoweth to Oprah on the  OPRAH farewell episode as O bawled her big eyes out, and I followed suit. So tonight’s was a repeat performance in more ways and one as, you guessed it, I cried like a little girl during Rachel and Kurt’s duet. Oh how far they’ve come since their first “Wicked” duet, “Defying Gravity.” They went from battling for the spotlight to bonding over their shared dreams. And since then the show has gone from good writing and great promise to overexposure, inconsistency and mediocrit- bah, I’m not going to ruin this moment with my negativity. It was byootiful.

I’ve been hard on Quinn lately, but her scene with Santana and Brittany was a revelation. Props to Miss Dianna for great acting. She is a lonely lost girl who is trying to deal with it and ends up putting walls up. So were her big New York plans to sabotage the competition? It wasn’t her haircut? I owe some people some money.

Evil Dustin Goolsby who is trapped in the body of hot Cheyenne Jackson does some meddling and tells the New Ds of Schuester’s Broadway plans. His plan backfires as he inadvertently reminds Schuester how much he loves those kids and needs to be part of their lives. Meanwhile, I am still waiting for Cheyenne to SING.

A very stage-frightened Sunshine Corazon runs into Rachel in the bathroom and says she’s going to get herself deported, because it’s the only way she’s going to avoid this Vocal Adrenaline thing. (Or she could just, ya know, not perform?) Finally some redemption for Rachel and crack house-gate as she gives Sunshine some words of reassurance and tells her to look to her during the performance if ever she feels like barfing. Rachel may have ruined her own teams chances by helping out the enemy, but she did the right thing. And Sunshine sang her little butt off, as usual.

Backstage prior to a Finchel duet is always heavy. Sometimes good, sometimes bad. Last year Finn told her he loved her. This time it’s not so happy. Finn, like a typical guy, tells her he doesn’t understand why she doesn’t want him now since that’s all she ever wants. I mean I want them to be together, too. But Finny, she has been patient and been a good friend to you even as you were dating someone else and it was breaking her heart, and now that you want her so she should too? Their duet is about “will we ever share our feelings” and “will we ever be together…” Will they? Will they?! It was no “Faithfully,” but that kiss at the end was pretty epic. They don’t place in the top ten and Jesse gets in everyone’s head that the kiss is what cost them at Nationals. A) So false. B) Even if that was true, why is Santana coming at Rachel when Finn was equally responsible, if not moreso?

They get back to Ohio, Kurt is telling Blaine that in spite of the drama, it was an incredible experience. And Blaine tells Kurt he loves him. Kurt seems to be taken off guard but sweetly tells him he loves him too. Possibly the most honest moment of the whole episode. Almost brought the waterworks back. Darren Criss is incredible, in the minute of airtime he got this episode, he just knocked it out of the park. And Kurt hit the nail on the head with his comment about how Kurt Hummel has had a great year. So has Chris Colfer.

Mercedes and Sam walk in. As soon as she said, “We ran into each other in the parking lot” with that huge grin on her face, I KNEW what was up. And for the next 15 seconds I eagerly awaited the reveal. Finally a love for Mercedes! Sam and Mercedes! Samcedes! Mersamdes? So excited for this storyline.

Brittany and Santana have a very touching scene. Brittany shows that ditzes can be profound too, as she likens the New Ds to a family, and that means anything is possible when it comes to her love for Santana. (I believe I debuted the term “New Ds” during this recap, but am going to retire it now since out loud it sounds like “nudies.”) I don’t know if that means there is a romantic future between them (I’m sure it does) but I like that they are not stressing about it or frantic about labeling their relationship. First and foremost, they are best friends. And that’s more than enough.

Looks like all is well in the Finchel world. Rachel still knows she wants to go to New York, but as Finn so shrewdly points out, they still have a year to mess around until then. Thank you, you should have had this conversation in New York.

Musically, the only song that gave me goosbumps was “For Good,” but there was a lot of story that I was happy about. As finales go, I still rank it behind last year’s “Regionals,” which ranks still behind the first mid-season finale (“Sectionals”) with “Don’t Rain On My Parade” and “My Life Would Suck Without You” and that Will and Emma kiss. As Season 2 episodes go, it ranks at pretty darn good. Not the best (I think that award goes to “Prom”) but a satisfying close to the second year.

What did you think of “New York”?