Last night, Glee grabbed the nipple clamps of fabulousness and cranked it up to 11. What resulted was the gayest gay to ever gay a gay on television (GAY!). For 90 minutes, Glee brought the rainbow hammer down on prime-time television with an entire episode dedicated to Lady Gaga’s “Express This Way”… I mean “Born Yourself”… I mean FUCK! Anyway, what better way to summarize last night’s queer tour de force than by counting down its 10 gayest moments? Let’s break it down:
#10 – Finn and Mike’s dance number
After delivering a hand square to the centre of Rachel’s annoying face, Finn has to face the fact that he dances and emotes like cardboard. The solution: dancing with Mike Chang! Despite not containing a single gay character, it just barely inches onto the list by the sole virtue of its being two muscular jocks dancing together. Also, is it too much to ask that they stop writing lines for Harry Shum Jr and just start making him communicate via interpretive dancing? Make it happen.
#9 – Dave Karofsky cruises Sam
In an attempt to win the title of prom queen and get Brittany back, everyone’s favourite bitchy cheerleader, Santana, decides to start dating Dave as part of some long, convoluted plot to win votes. But TWIST! Santana spots Dave checking out Sam’s ass like it’s last call at Woody’s and concludes without the shadow of a doubt that Dave is playing for the winning team. And as it turns out, he’s an ass-man. Who knew?
#8 – Brittany’s “Lebanese” shirt
One part of the glee club’s assignment this week is to come up with shirts emblazoned with something about themselves that they’re teased for. Naturally, Brittany makes one for Santana with “Lebanese” written across the chest, which clearly should have read “Lesbian.” Sadly, Brittany wasn’t given a lot to do this week other than to have Santana pine over her in a bitchy fashion, but it’s a solid joke that even manages to out-gay Kurt’s “Likes Boys” shirt. By the way, how long until those start popping up in American Apparel and Urban Outfitters stores? And do they come in a small?
#7 – BARBRA STREISAND! (Ooo-ooo-ooo-ooo!)
The previously mentioned bitchslap to the shnoz left Rachel with the choice of getting a nose job while they were fixing everything up, so of course she spends the better part of the episode planning to retool her face. This, of course, leads up to a big flash-mob dance number in the mall to Duck Sauce’s stupidly mesmerizing dance hit, “Barbra Streisand.” What does a dance number to a song with no real lyrical content have to do with nose jobs? No idea, but Kurt wears a Stars and Stripes-inspired ensemble and werqs it like a drag queen lip-synching for her life, so it makes the cut.
#6 – Dave and Santana beard for each other
After realizing she’ll never be able to get Dave to take a trip to downtown Santanaville, she decides to cut her losses and reel him into the oldest marriage of convenience in the books: the beard. It’s just like a real high school romance, except it’s a loveless sham that inevitably ends with both parties embracing their homosexuality… Okay, so it’s exactly like a real high school romance. Bonus points for giving us the line of the night: “The only straight I am is straight-up bitch.”
#5 – The hats!
Kudos to the wardrobe department on last night’s episode, specifically on their use of hats. The headgear, from Dave and Santana’s delightful red berets to Kurt’s top hat or red pork-pie hat, contained enough vitamin G to make Fred Phelps shit a brick. *Slow clap*
#4 – “Kurt Hummel’s back in McKinley!”
And with the above line, everyone’s favourite albino-skinned countertenor is back where he belongs. This might be just a tad premature, but I’m going to go ahead and list this as our generation’s over-the-top “Donna Martin graduates!” moment. The only difference here is that, unlike Tori Spelling, Colfer is actually likable and doesn’t look like one half of a donkey show.
#3 – Blaine and the Pips sing their goodbyes
Now that Kurt’s back at McKinley, Blaine and the Dalton Warblers put together a goodbye number to Keane’s “Somewhere Only We Know.” And if I may, thank God they’re gone. Blaine was a little too perfect to be real, and when you think about how many solos he got, I can only assume that he’s some sort of iron-fisted overlord. At best, Dalton is a benign dictatorship that revolves around Mr Perfect, and at worst, it’s a subservient cult that worships Blaine’s eyebrows as a pair of angry, all-knowing gods that can strike down any student at a moment’s notice. I’m assuming it’s the latter.
#2 – “Born This Way”
What?! The Lady Gaga number they built an entire episode around, and it’s only at number two?! Blasphemy! Well, the unfortunate part is that while the cast did a perfectly good job with the song, it’s kind of indistinguishable from the original. Not only that, but they completely left out any mention of the queer community in the song, which is sort of the fucking point of the song. I mean yes, it’s a show on Fox, so chances are they need to appeal to the broadest audience possible, but that’s like covering Rihanna’s “Umbrella” and leaving out any mention of umbrellas.
#1 – “As If We Never Said Goodbye”
Well, what did you expect? You can’t give Chris Colfer a Broadway number from Patti LuPone and expect it to come off straight as an arrow. I mean, really – the key necklaces, the literal cardboard trees, the almost Beyoncé-esque weave-pat halfway through the song… All understated, but all just over-the-top enough to land this in the number one spot.
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