Glee 4×09 ‘Swan Song’ review: I’m just not buying it

I can’t get over how ridiculous everyone in this episode sounds. Let’s start with Sam, a character I usually adore but whose story line and dialogue I totally hate this season. I know he’s supposed to be this huge idiot and all now, but there is no way he has ALWAYS had a crush on Brittany. If he did, he wouldn’t have called Quinn ‘the best thing to ever happen to him’ and sung Justin Bieber songs to her (my favorite episode ever, ‘Comeback’) and he would have moved on in a heartbeat after coming back to McKinley to find Mercedes dating Shane. Again, the writers make it sound as though he never even dated Mercedes last year. Every other former couple has gotten their own story line this season except for them. RUDE. In addition, Santana’s use of hilarious nicknames such as ‘Richie Poor’ is not limited to Sam only. The argument that her widespread cruelty had something to do with Brittany (Artie=’Stubbles McCripple Pants’) does not hold up because Finn has never had any sort of romantic involvement with her ex other than when he dated both girls at the same time in season one (‘Hello’). She’s basically just a raging b-word.

Speaking of Brittany, how is she all of a sudden in love with Sam too? Maybe that’s a dumb question. Just look at Chord Overstreet. One gigantic, chapsticked smile would make any woman forget that just two weeks ago she was on stage singing ‘You’re the One That I Want’ with her ex-girlfriend, conflicted as can be. However, I had a hard time watching them kiss (it’s hard watching him kiss anyone else) and believing that they were truly meant to be when his hands were jammed in his pockets the whole time. The only thing that saved the scene was the Forrest Gump impression that followed.

Don’t even get me started on Rachel, the poor, little, rich girl who hasn’t struggled for anything in her entire life. She’s talented, she always ends up with a cute guy somehow, and she’s going to her first choice school and living in a sweet apartment with her best friend. Now she’s the only freshman to be invited to the winter showcase and the only freshman ever to win. Sidebar: Why do they call it a showcase when it’s a contest? Isn’t the point of a showcase just to show off the school’s talent? How do they pick one winner out of completely different acts? Isn’t that like comparing apples to oranges? Back to the point, as the main character of the show, I demand more character growth from Rachel. She needs to be knocked down a peg and learn some humility for a change. It would make much more sense for her to have been the big fish in a small pond at McKinley, then get to New York to find that there actually are people who are better than her. But no, everyone at NYADA seems to think she farts clouds of glitter and craps golden nuggets too!

Then she has the nerve to call Finn on the heels of her huge victory. When she says, ‘I just wanted to hear your voice after—‘ I wanted so desperately to finish the sentence for Finn with: ‘After what? After you kissed Brody, held his hand in public and won your dumb NYADA contest while his life is completely falling apart?’ OK, so she gave him good advice, which I can’t stand hearing from people whose lives are always so incredibly easy, but she really needs to leave that poor boy alone. Moving on to Finn, where does he get off being mad at the other members of New Directions for joining other school organizations when he juggled both football and basketball while in glee club?

The music in this episode was just okay. ‘Somethin’ Stupid’ kind of annoyed me because I’m really sick of this idea that Sam is just as dumb as Brittany, but it was a cute duet. ‘All That Jazz’ bore a striking resemblance to the Chicago medley Rachel performed with Holly Holiday, another blonde educator with whom she did not get along, and this number  wasn’t nearly as entertaining to watch. Plus, I just can’t stand Cassie (not in the good way as if she plays a good villain) and Rachel has gotten way too big for her britches. ‘Being Good Isn’t Good Enough’ was ‘good enough.’ It was very fitting that Rachel picked a Barbara Streisand song, but I don’t think she would have gotten an encore. ‘O Holy Night’ made me wonder yet again why Rachel sings so many Christmas songs when she’s Jewish. She sang ‘Last Christmas’ and ‘Merry Christmas Darling,’ but she sang them to Finn so she had a good excuse then. I have Buddhist friends that celebrate Christmas merely for the gift giving aspect of it, but this song is literally about ‘the night of our dear Savior’s birth.’ It’s one of my favorite songs and she sings it well, plus there aren’t many popular Hanukkah songs, but she could have picked something else. I think one of the main reasons it was written into the episode is because Ryan Murphy is a tightwad (hence why he reused so many songs on The Glee Project) and already had both the rights to the song and a track of Lea Michele singing it from a previous Christmas album. I don’t have much to say about ‘Being Alive,’ other than Kurt looked like a total statue while singing and that sort of creeped me out. ‘Don’t Dream it’s Over’ isn’t one of my favorite songs but it was the obvious choice for the situation, and I feel like they did the whole we-think-we’re-singing-by-ourselves-until-everyone-else shows-up thing last week with all the graduates.

What did you think of this week’s episode? What do you think about Bram (Brittany and Sam) and Brachel (is that what we’re gonna call Brody and Rachel?) getting together?