Glee ‘All or Nothing’ recap: Season finale?

Brittany

The episode opens with Brittany S. Pearce at MIT. She is in a meeting with the recruiters from the College and they explain how surprised they were with her SAT grades, which, if you recall, were the result of her answering the questions randomly and using the spots to draw stuff like ribbons. They also explain, in one of those exposition moments Glee loves so much, how they decided that Brittany should get another test and proceed to clarify how she answered everything with crayons and got 0 points on it. And here comes the plot twist; as well as writing the wrong answer to every single question, she also draws a full page of numbers on the back of the exam. One of the lecturers explains that those random numbers that popped in Brittany’s head had a profound mathematical meaning depending on how you read them –too complicated for me to explain – and that she is possibly the brightest mind since Albert Einstein. They also say that they have a proposal for her.

In the next Glee club meeting, Will is counting the students as they enter the classroom and reminding us with “Are Joe and Sugar here?” that these two are still in the Glee Club, even if we hadn’t seen them for weeks. While the possibly most hated teacher in the history of TV is talking about their song list for Regionals, and points that this time it’s all or nothing, Brittany arrives and pulls an I-am-a-diva-so-give-me-all-the-solos tantrum, breaks up with Sam by text and leaves the room, making us all think that she’s finally gone nuts. Her superiority complex goes on as she burns her uniform in front of Coach Roz and impersonates Martin Luther himself by nailing a list of 95 reasons why she is leaving the Cheerios to Roz’s office door.

Seeing that Brittany is a mess, Mr. Schue and Coach Silvester decide to make an intervention, but Brittany establishes that if they want to have a chat, it has to be according to her own terms. Therefore, Sue and Will participate in the first episode of Fondue for Two we’ve seen in a while. There, we find Will and Emma are indeed getting married and Britt reveals that Sue’s baby’s famous father is in fact the singer Michael Bolton, proving once more that she is not as stupid as we might have thought. As for the intervention, well, the writers probably forgot that was the whole point of this, so it never happens.

Sam is also concerned about Brittany, and phones Santana to ask for her help. The girl, as a good friend and ex, goes to confront Britt, and we find ourselves in the second Fondue for Two of the episode. Santana is not into the show, and points to Brittany that she’s not been acting like herself lately. Finally, she opens up and the scene ends with an intriguing “what I’m about to tell you will change everything”.

Blaine

Back at McKinley, Blam are on their way to the chorus room. Blaine is overexcited about his plan to propose to Kurt and apparently he cannot stop talking about it with Sam. Trouty Mouth becomes the voice of reason in this episode and explains once more why this a bad idea — teenagers, high school, they are not even dating anymore… and Blaine insists once more on the fact that gays can get married. Yes, Blaine, we know gays can and should get married. But nobody should get married for the sake of getting married, and that is your whole argument every time someone questions your choices; that just comes to prove that you’re not ready for it — did I mention you are not even in a relationship with Kurt? For god’s sake!

After that, Blaine and Tina go ring-shopping, because, hey, Burt and Sam and everybody’s concern about this stupid idea won’t make Blaine Warbler change his mind. Ignoring the fact that Tina has one of those stalker moments we’re beginning to get used to. Remember the Vapo-rape? This whole scene is sweet. Blaine meets the old lady who owns the shop, Jan (Patty Duke), who happens to be gay herself, encourages him to follow his heart and offers to mentor him in his (inexistent) relationship. Sam also goes to the shop because, despite this being a horrible idea, he is the best friend in the world and Blaine wants him to be the best man. And this whole plot line is worth it just for hearing Trouty Mouth say, “He wants to do me, but we are just friends” and then tell Blaine in exasperation, “You DO wanna do me!”. He’s precious.

After that, in Breadsticks, we find Kurt and Blaine are having supper with Jan and her partner, Liz, and the women talk to them about all the difficulties they had to face as a gay couple back when they were young. They begin to give the boys some advice, but Kurt points something out I’ve already mentioned: “We’re not a couple” I don’t think Blaine got that memo. Finally, Patty Duke’s character stands up and proposes, saying that even if gay marriage is not legal in Ohio, it is legal in many other places and they should get married. Liz accepts and everybody in the restaurant cheers as if the scene was the end of a bad romcom.

Glee club and Regionals

We find ourselves once again with one of those chats Rider is having with whoever Katie is, as Glee tries to unsuccessfully make us get interested on the predictable catfish plotline. Then, Will explains that in a pretty convenient turn of events, Regionals will be in McKinley’s auditorium — that’s been happening quite often lately, anyway. He also tells everybody to send positive energy to Rachel, who is having her callback for Funny Girl at that same instant. Then, the scene jumps to NYC, where Rachel sings an emotional version of To Love You More by Celine Dion, and I swear that if she’s not cast as Fanny, the director of Funny Girl is plain stupid.

During the next Glee club meeting, Ryder finally explodes. Really, this should have happened at least a week ago, but whatever.  He begins yelling at everybody that he’s not participating in Regionals unless he knows who’s Catfishing him. Finally, Marley takes one for the team and confesses it was her, and when Jake tries to defend her, Ryder gets pissed off and leaves the meeting.

Marley tries to convince Ryder to stay in New Directions for Regionals, and he asks her why she would pretend to be Katie and humiliate him that way. Then, Unique, who was apparently hiding behind a column and overhearing the whole conversation, interrupts them. She explains that she was the one pretending to be Katie, but that she didn’t mean to hurt Ryder. She did it because she has a crush on him, but she knows he doesn’t understand the whole I’m-a-girl-in-a-boy’s-body situation. In return, he says that he’ll never ever talk to her again –that’s sweet, Ryder!

Finally, it’s Regionals day; we’ve been waiting for it forever. And once more we are left with the impression that any of the other groups should have beaten New Directions, but they are the main characters, so our Glee Club obviously wins. On the bright side, Marley didn’t collapse this time. Before their show, though, Ryder says that he’s quitting after Regionals and Brittany has a heart to heart with her fellow glee-clubbers. She explains that her weird behavior was her way of coping with having to leave McKinley before the end of the year: she’s been offered early, immediate admission into MIT.

After the competition, once they have their award and they are all happy and cheerful and everything, Emma arrives to the choir room with a priest and says that she and Will are getting married “right here, right now” — and I cannot believe somebody with such a bad OCD case would ever do that. They tie the knot in front of their beloved glee club and the episode ends in a really anticlimactic way, with Blaine looking lovingly at Kurt while holding a ring box behind his back, Rachel’s callback being more of a loose-end than a cliffhanger and a stupid wedding that makes no sense. All in all, it seems more like a mid-season finale than a proper one, and leaves us with a weird mixture of feelings of both wanting to know more and not really caring at all about the main storylines. How do they expect to fix this mess? Will they pick the story up from the same point? We’ll see what happens after the summer, but maybe Mr Murphy will decide to cross out what he has planned for this stories and start anew. It wouldn’t be the first time.