A Missed “Glee” Opportunity

Posted By: Peter DavidPosted On:

In this week’s episode, the ever-scheming Sue concocted a plan where the New York City-bound “New Directions” would wind up on a plane that would dump them in Libya instead. Without giving away anything major (they’ve been promoting the hëll out of the NYC episode) let’s just say it doesn’t work out that way.

I think that’s a crying shame.

Would the plot machinations for them to be oblivious that their flight was heading to Tripoli instead of Manhattan been preposterous? Sure. But it would have been totally worth it to see the glee club wind up in the middle of a war zone. In an episode I call “Tripoli the Light Fantastic,” as bullets are being fired at them, they become nostalgic for the days when the worst thing thrown at them was slushees. And then, when they’re all against the wall and about to be shot, they start singing “We are the World” and suddenly Kadaffy shows up and says, “Are you guys a glee club? I love glee clubs! I’ve got quite a good voice, you know.” (Which allegedly he really does). And using the power of song, they manage to settle all the unrest. At which point the State Department shows up and is so impressed that they decide to send them to the Middle East to sort out all those problems. The name of that episode? “Jumping the Sheik.” (Which is, from what I understand, what they did in “Sex and the City II.”)

But no. They’re just going to NYC. Big deal.

PAD

9 comments on “A Missed “Glee” Opportunity”

  1. SPOILERS:
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    Am I the only one who spent at least half of the episode (right up until the kids start helping Sue pack up things) wondering if Sue lied about her sister dying and was trying to distract the kids and keep them occupied so they couldn’t rehearse for NY? It would have so *totally* in character.

    1. Oh, I wondered the same thing! And I was really sad to see that she wasn’t lying. I liked her sister, and I loved the scenes with the two of them.

  2. Replace Libya with Abu Dhabi and you have the plot of many episodes of the old Garfield Show.

  3. For some reason I spent what seemed like an entire night dreaming about Tripoli last week. Apparently it was a favored vacation spot for my “dream self” (it was my fourth trip there), and it was so vivid that the next morning I had to constantly remind myself that I’ve never actually been to Tripoli. And then the Glee kids almost went there, and my first instinct was to think, “Oh, Tripoli, they’ll love it there!”
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    But anyway, I thought it was a great episode, and Jane Lynch pretty much guaranteed herself another Emmy.

  4. I’m generally not a fan of Glee (I really don’t like most of the main characters) but I’m glad I caught this one. My sister has Down Syndrome, so it really touched home for me. I was basically a big mess of tears the entire time, cursing myself for crying at a show I don’t even like. Jane Lynch knocked it out of the park. The last scene with her and Becky was fantastic.

  5. Or maybe they could run into a group of Mormon missionaries?

    (Sorry, listened to “Fresh Air” today, with Stone and Parker on to discuss “Book of Mormon.” Now I’ve got something to root for when I watch The Tonys.)

  6. PAD’s imagined description of GLEE reminded me of a SOUTH PARK episode (I forget the title) where the SP kids were in a glee club-type group that only lip-synced songs. They wound up somewhere dangerous — South America? — where they had to perform for a military dictator.

  7. My real question about the episode is can the show go back to Sue being the glee club’s nemesis again? I have a bad feeling they’re going to do something horribly contrived at the beginning of next season to reset her character. My guess would be make here jealous that the glee club won at nationals and are the now school darlings, eclipsing her Cheerios.

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