Glee's sophomore season got off to a good start last night, I thought. I kind of love how Jacob's video blog brought us up to date with what everyone's been up to over the summer. I love even more how he addressed a lot of people's smaller complaints about the show, like Will rapping and the overuse of Auto-Tune. I also really love how they're doing Finn/Rachel (I'm such a canon-thumper and have nothing but love for this pairing) - we don't get all the awkward new couple stuff. They're together and they're very different people, but they really care about each other. There will no doubt be issues to challenge their mutual declaration that they'll never break up, but it's not just "okay, they're together, what do we do now?, oh look, let's have them attracted to other people almost immediately!" For a show that moves as fast as Glee does through character motivations and plot lines, I'm glad it can take its time when it wants to.
Coach Bieste? Awesome. I really dig the way they're establishing her insecurities, not only as a female football coach, but as a woman who, shall we say, doesn't look like the traditional feminine ideal. As much as I love to hate Sue, I thought the "bad touch" thing was particularly vile, even for her, and tapped into several layers of ugliness. Ugliness which, quite fittingly, all comes back to Bieste's appearance (and the fact that - FOR SHAME - she is a woman in a male-dominated profession). HOWEVER, Sue's berating of Santana for surgically altering her still-developing body was GOLD and reminds us that, though she can be a truly awful person, she is still an educator and cares about her job. Most of the time. ;)
Okay, here's where I stick up for Rachel. Not - NOT - as a human being, but as a character on a satirical television show. Her actions regarding Sunshine were totally over-the-top and way-HAY the hell out of line, and I couldn't help seeing the puppet strings behind them; I'm guessing this sets up one of Rachel's big obstacles for the season, which may see her sidelined for her ruthless behavior and arrogance, giving other singers more of a shot at the solos that she still manages to monopolize. This also could be something Finn helps her deal with; she defines herself so much by her talent that she cannot conceive of anything else she has to offer (as we saw last season when she had laryngitis and thought her life was over). ANYWAY, while her actions were inexcusable and pretty unforgivable, the emotions behind them were all too realistic. Because I was SO that person in high school who couldn't stand for someone else to be as good as me or better than me at certain things. And there's still a part of me that feels that way sometimes. I would never (at least deliberately) do anything like what Rachel did here, but again, she's a character in a satire and her actions shouldn't be seen in real-life terms.
Rachel's kind of a strange character, and I can see why people have a hard time liking or even tolerating her. I have trouble myself with the shifts she makes between genuine emotions and the sillier elements that we're presumably not supposed to take seriously. She's kind of the avatar for the show itself and the problems I have with it. Both Rachel as a character and the show as a whole like to have it both ways, and I don't always feel it's appropriate for it to do so.
But hey, it's television, not real life. It's entertaining and, ultimately, that's what matters most to me. Good music last night, too. I've been listening to "Empire State of Mind" and "What I Did for Love" (which I thought was an inspired choice for Rachel's plot line) all day.
Great Moments in Brittany: "Stop the violence."
Great Moments in Sue: "The two of you are making a very serious mistake today, the likes of which have not been seen since the Mexican Indians sold Manhattan to George Washington for an up-skirt photo of Betsy Ross."
Coach Bieste? Awesome. I really dig the way they're establishing her insecurities, not only as a female football coach, but as a woman who, shall we say, doesn't look like the traditional feminine ideal. As much as I love to hate Sue, I thought the "bad touch" thing was particularly vile, even for her, and tapped into several layers of ugliness. Ugliness which, quite fittingly, all comes back to Bieste's appearance (and the fact that - FOR SHAME - she is a woman in a male-dominated profession). HOWEVER, Sue's berating of Santana for surgically altering her still-developing body was GOLD and reminds us that, though she can be a truly awful person, she is still an educator and cares about her job. Most of the time. ;)
Okay, here's where I stick up for Rachel. Not - NOT - as a human being, but as a character on a satirical television show. Her actions regarding Sunshine were totally over-the-top and way-HAY the hell out of line, and I couldn't help seeing the puppet strings behind them; I'm guessing this sets up one of Rachel's big obstacles for the season, which may see her sidelined for her ruthless behavior and arrogance, giving other singers more of a shot at the solos that she still manages to monopolize. This also could be something Finn helps her deal with; she defines herself so much by her talent that she cannot conceive of anything else she has to offer (as we saw last season when she had laryngitis and thought her life was over). ANYWAY, while her actions were inexcusable and pretty unforgivable, the emotions behind them were all too realistic. Because I was SO that person in high school who couldn't stand for someone else to be as good as me or better than me at certain things. And there's still a part of me that feels that way sometimes. I would never (at least deliberately) do anything like what Rachel did here, but again, she's a character in a satire and her actions shouldn't be seen in real-life terms.
Rachel's kind of a strange character, and I can see why people have a hard time liking or even tolerating her. I have trouble myself with the shifts she makes between genuine emotions and the sillier elements that we're presumably not supposed to take seriously. She's kind of the avatar for the show itself and the problems I have with it. Both Rachel as a character and the show as a whole like to have it both ways, and I don't always feel it's appropriate for it to do so.
But hey, it's television, not real life. It's entertaining and, ultimately, that's what matters most to me. Good music last night, too. I've been listening to "Empire State of Mind" and "What I Did for Love" (which I thought was an inspired choice for Rachel's plot line) all day.
Great Moments in Brittany: "Stop the violence."
Great Moments in Sue: "The two of you are making a very serious mistake today, the likes of which have not been seen since the Mexican Indians sold Manhattan to George Washington for an up-skirt photo of Betsy Ross."