What’s the best way to keep a lie going when you’re running out of excuses? Create a distraction. Call it hairography, if you will. It’s all smoke and mirrors to keep people from seeing what’s really going on but in the end, when the smoke clears, all you have left is a mirror that shines the truth bright and clear.
Quinn distracts Finn
As things aren’t at their best with Finn, Quinn decides to distract Finn with Rachel so she can have the chance to see if Puck, her real baby-daddy is fit to be a father. She recruits Kurt to give Rachel a makeover. Kurt, learning that Rachel’s got eyes for Finn, attempts to sabotage her chances by convincing her to ho-up her look. It doesn’t work as Finn admits he prefers her sequined legwarmers more than the more distracting, skin-tight catsuit look.
It’s the confrontation that Rachel has with Kurt later that stands out most with this whole mini-mess. Rachel and Kurt are both pining for a guy who’s spoken for. And while it wasn’t exactly polite of Rachel to so bluntly point out that Kurt has no chance with Finn, she did have a point. Sure, Rachel’s chances aren’t great right now either as Finn appears to be gullibly blinded by Quinn’s deceit but still, at least he’s making eyes at her (and feeling guilty about it later).
Terri distracts Quinn
Nothing like a dose of reality to remind Quinn that being a parent isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. Terri’s sister comes up with the brilliant plan to have Quinn babysit her brats so she can see what a nightmare being a parent is. Quinn uses that as an opportunity to take Puck on a test-run and invites him along. At first the night seems like it’s a disaster as Quinn and Puck end up tied up while the kids trash the place. Then Quinn comes up with the idea to sing to the kids. By the time Terri and her sister return home, they find the little ones snug in bed, bathed and happy. So the plan backfired and Quinn’s feeling optimistic about the potential plan to shift from Finn to Puck.
Just as things seemed like they might be heading in the right direction with this whole Finn/Quinn/Puck mess, one of the cheerios boasts to Quinn that she and Puck were “sexting” while Quinn was on her so totally ‘90’s babysitting date with her baby-daddy. Quinn confronted Puck about the situation and found all the dirty sex-texts on his phone. This is where I got confused. Sure, we’ve always known that Puck is complete and total cougar-bait who is getting more sex than any single high school student should be but he really seemed genuine about wanting to win Quinn and be the acting father of their baby. So what was his whole “I’m not going to change who I am” thing all about? Ok, so Quinn hasn’t “given it up” to him since he got her drunk on wine coolers and knocked her up but come on. Does he really expect her to put up with him fooling around with other girls (even if it’s just the hot ones) while she’s raising his kid?
And at the same time, I have a hard time feeling all that sympathetic toward Quinn as she’s been treating this baby-daddy issue as though it’s some kind of choice. You don’t just pin the responsibility on whoever you think is fit for the gig. Puck’s the dad, for better or worse. So as hard as it is to see her get a dose of reality in Puck’s reminder of his true character, she’s still lying.
Quinn went to Terri after the whole confrontation with Puck and agreed to give her the baby. It’s less about not wanting it herself as it is about wanting the baby to have a good father and Mr. Schu does appear to have the chops to handle parenting.
Terri distracts Will
After the pillow-divider in the bed isn’t working to ward off Will’s advances to be intimate with his wife, Terri decides to buy him a blue bomber similar to the one he had back in high school. While the car does serve as a temporary distraction, he ends up selling it and buying a dad-mobile. Now that Quinn’s on board to hand her baby over to the other liar, Terri can at least be relieved that they have a hideous but safe minivan to cruise around in.
Terri’s deceit is just as bad as Quinn’s. While Quinn’s lying to Finn about having his baby, Terri’s lying to her husband about having a baby at all. And meanwhile, Finn and Will are looking like total chumps right now. I’m thinking we can expect serious trust issues from both of these guys once the truth inevitably comes out.
Will distracts the audience
After finding out that Sue’s been offering up the glee club’s routines to two other schools, Will invites the Jane Adams Academy to use the school auditorium for a little scrimmage. When the girls show up and put on a flashy show with their rendition of “Bootylicious,” Will is convinced that hairography is the best approach to winning over the judges at the next competition. Rachel’s opinion of the Jane Adams girls is that it was all smoke and mirrors to compensate for their mediocre singing, and while I can’t agree that the singing was just ok (I thought it was pretty good), I agree with her that their glee club didn’t need to resort to flashiness to get the job done. This is something Will has to figure out for himself. It doesn’t help that his budding nemesis Sue tries to talk him out of the hairography approach. She had a point when she explained that she had her cheerleaders tie their hair back because she didn’t want anything to distract from their talent.
Will tells the kids that their next routine would be themed to the Hair production. Anyone who doesn’t have enough hair to flip around wears a wig and they all practice what Brittany describes as “cool epilepsy.” The hair flipping is brought into their production of “Crazy in Love,” which they put on for the Haverbrook school for the deaf. And all the deaf kids, unable to hear the singing, stare at the glee club and comment in sign language about how ridiculous the routine is. I guess there really is no such thing as cool epilepsy.
When the representative from Haverbrook first showed up at the school to demand to know why their school hadn’t been invited to scrimmage as the Jane Adams school was, I thought the whole deaf-people thing was going to be a complete joke. After all, the guy spent half his conversation with Will screaming “What? I can’t hear you! Deaf in one ear! Scarlett fever!” Ha-ha. He’s deaf. He can’t hear. Hilarious. So I was caught off guard when the Haverbrook kids stepped up in front of the glee club and started “singing.” I actually thought it was going to another step further in the off color deaf-humor we saw earlier.
The Haverbrook kids did a performance of John Lennon’s “Imagine” in sign language, with one kid doing his best to sing the words. It was here that Will realizes that the hair distraction is really a distraction from what is good about singing and performance. And I got choked up (as I so often do with this show) as the glee club kids got up one by one and joined the Haverbrook kids to sing with them.
So, Sue was right. Flashiness does have a tendency to distract from talent and it seems Will came to figure that out as the episode ended with the glee kids performing a bare-bones version of “True Colors.”
And that covers this week’s episode of Glee. Other notable moments of humor include the remarks about Rachel’s look being both like a grandmother and a toddler and her room being like the place where Strawberry Shortcake and Holly Hobby come to hook up. Special thanks to Quinn and Kurt for those laugh-out-loud moments.
