Glee 1x19- A Gleem Come True

You may think to yourselves “Self, what two people can come together to make a great show even greater?” Well good thing that Glee knew the answer and it came in the form of Joss Whedon and Neil Patrick Harris. I am a huge fan of both these guys. I have seen every single episode of Buffy and Firefly as well as every episode of How I Met Your Mother. I have been waiting for months for this episode to air. It was filled with so much emotion and the musical numbers were fantastic. This may be the best episode of Glee yet!

Performances:

Piano Man: Quick random story first: I was at trivia night on Monday and one the questions was “What was Billy Joel’s first hit?” The answer was Piano Man; no one at my table got it though. Okay, back to the show. This was not a full performance, and the song is not being released on iTunes, but it was still really fun. Bryan Ryan, the man who made Will’s life hell in H.S., comes to McKinley High to cut the budget for the Glee club. He is running a Show Choir help group for people whose lives were ruined by show choir and hates all things show choir. After crushing all of the glee members’ dreams, Will brings him out to a bar, plays “Piano Man” on the jukebox and gets Bryan Ryan to sing with him. It is very playful and you get to see Bryan fall back in love with singing and with show choir. It is also funny how only one girl in the bar is watching these two men sing.

Dream On: Will convinces Bryan Ryan to try out for the local production of Les Miserable, but when the two of them arrive, they end up auditioning for the same exact part. Since the director of the play (who also played a stuck up singer on Grey’s a while back) can only leave his dry cleaning store for 30 minutes at a time, the two have to sing a duet. This was a full on rocking performance. Neil Patrick Harris’s was able to hit Stephen Tyler’s high notes easily and the two of them played off each other so well. It was yet again, another entertaining and emotionally driven performance. Both men trying proving to the other that they were better and that they deserve the part.

Safety Dance: When Tina finds out that Artie’s dream is to someday dance she tries to create a performance that would involve him dancing in his wheel chair, like in the “Proud Mary” but better. The “Safety Dance” performance was a dream sequence (if you did not get that the second he stood up, well I don’t know what to say to you) and it showed yet again how versatile Kevin McHale’s voice is. He stands up out of his chair, puts a CD into the mall’s audio system and sings and dances to a song about dance. One of the lyrics of the song is "'Cause your friends don't dance and if they don't dance/Well they're no friends of mine " Well thank God that is not true becuase I would have no friends! Kevin McHale is an awesome dancer, and it is a shame he is stuck in the chair and cannot show it. Everyone in the mall starts joining in on the dance, first Brittany (who is the best female dancer on the show and used to do backup for Beyonce) and Unamed Glee Member 1 (UGM1) join and then everyone else. It is just like the Improv Everywhere video where they create a musical out of nowhere. It was a great song and dance number and it was one of the first times we really got to see deeper into Artie’s character



I also find it interesting that there is a man posing with a cane on his sweater. Not sure whether or not there is deeper meaning to that.

I Dreamed A Dream: Rachel’s dream in this episode is to discover who her birth mother is. After her initial investigations of the situation she discovers that the famous Patti LuPone is her mother, but Jesse tells her that is not correct and to be realistic. They search through her dad’s “creepy but flattering” shrine dedicated to Rachel in the basement where all her childhood things are, to find more clues. Jesse slips a tape into the box and tells Rachel it is from her mother. I am not going to lie guys, I was really scared that Jesse was going to pretend that Shelby was Rachel’s birth mother when she really was not. I am so relieved that was not the case. Apparently Shelby signed a contract that she could not contact Rachel until she is 18 so this tape is the only way to contact her now. The tape contains a recording of Shelby singing “I Dreamed a Dream” from Les Miserable and Rachel joins in.

I love this storyline because it shows that the writers and producers of the show are listening to the fans. For a long time fans of the show have been saying that Idina Menzel should play Rachel’s mother and they listened. This song was fantastic. As one of my friends said to me the other day “Those are the two best voices I have ever heard in my life.” So obviously, when you add them together, it is like synergy and it sounds even better. There was so much raw emotion in this song and they belted it out like champions, I was in awe. They are both wearing black, on a stage with a black background. They end the song holding in each other and I was a little teary eyed. It was beautiful. Just beautiful.

Dream A Little Dream: This was also a sad performance. This is the number that Tina and Artie had been planning since the beginning of the episode. In the end, Artie does not want to perform, but says that he will still sing the song. Tina chooses..... MIKE CHANG to be her dance partner. MIKE CHANG, oh my god, for the first time in the series they have said UGM1 name (If I am wrong and they have already said his name please correct me and point me to the episode number). All the glee members are sitting one benches in a row, with Artie at the end, and Tina and MIKE CHANG are tap dancing. It is sad, and at one point Quinn puts her hand on Artie's should to comfort him. See is becoming such a better person, and I love it.

So that is all I got for you this time on Glee. Did you guys think this was the best episode yet as well? Let me know comments or questions.

Later,
APB

(All videos and clips courtesy of FOX)