Miss last night’s episode? Here’s what you need to know about GLEE’s “The Break Up”
AIRDATE: 04/10/12 WRITER: Ryan Murphy DIRECTOR: Alfonso Gomez-Rejon SYNOPSIS: Ominously and appropriately title, “The Break Up,” Thursday’s highly touted fourth episode of the season found multiple couples, including-but-not-limited-to: Rachel and Finn; Kurt and Blaine; Brittany and Santana; And Emma and Will, at a precipice. Cue an emotionally gut-wrenching beautiful episode featuring betrayal, break ups and more than a few tears. INTRODUCED: Callbacks. A New York based karaoke bar with a very liberal view on underage clientele which afforded Rachel, Brodie and Blaine the opportunity to emote through song. Cue, Blaine’s haunting acoustic rendition of Teenage Dream and Brody/Rachel’s powerhouse performance of Demi Lovato’s Give Your Heart a Break duet. NOTABLE QUOTABLE: Leave it to Santa to tell it like it is and call out Kurt’s ridiculous career trajectory at Vogue Magazine, “I mean, I’m not jealous, I just think that it’s insane that all Porcelain had to do to get an internship with Vogue.com was take photos of every ridiculous outfit he’s ever paired with a Cossack hat and a see-through raincoat and then show up at an interview where he is lauded as a visionary because his jodhpurs happened to match his riding crop.” LESSON LEARNED: One should never take episode titles too literally considering “The Break Up” actually involved multiple break ups! Damn You Ryan Murphy! CRITIQUE: Considering it’s not everyday that an episode of television actually lives up to the hype — especially hype that had co-creator Ryan Murphy tweeting that it was “the best episode we’ve ever done” — it probably should come as no surprise that we really don’t have anything negative to say about “The Break Up.” And while certain segments of the fandom may be angry apoplectic with what went down (So much so that in what we can’t help but think is a bizarre first, actor Darren Criss pre-emptively took to his Facebook page in an attempt to defuse fans from burning his name in effigy!) we applaud the show’s, well, err.. new direction. One that while painful and heartbreaking for fans in the short-term will no doubt afford the writers the opportunity to take these characters on interesting and new journeys infused with fantastic musical numbers to boot in the long term. GRADE: A
GLEE airs Thursdays at 9PM on FOX (Global TV in Canada) and stars Dianna Agron, Chris Colfer, Jane Lynch, Jayma Mays, Kevin McHale, Lea Michele, Cory Monteith, Matthew Morrison, Amber Riley, Mark Salling, Jenna Ushkowitz, Naya Rivera, Heather Morris, Harry Shum Jr. and Darren Criss. Catch up with past episodes you may have missed for free online at clicktowatch.tv