I'm a Gleek. I'm not afraid to admit it. Glee is my guilty pleasure and when I saw Ryan Murphy tweet out a picture a few weeks ago of Kitty dressed like Ginger Spice my head almost exploded, because Glee doing the Spice Girls is nothing short of amazing. So imagine my delight when I tuned in tonight to see that the entire episode was dedicated to musical 'guilty pleasures.' Because Wham! plus the Spice Girls plus ABBA equals amazingness. Pure and simple.
Blaine admitting to Sam that his favorite band of all time is Wham! was only made better by their rendition of 'Wake Me Up Before You Go Go' complete with 'Choose Life' shirts and a healthy dose of neon. The only thing missing was the hoop earrings and it would have been perfect. Sam admits that he's a 'Fanilow' and launches into a respectable version of 'Copacabana' that makes the rest of the Glee Club admit that they, too, share his love of the Manilow. I mean, deep down, aren't we all Fanilows?! And can we all admit that Blaine's version of Phil Collins 'Against All Odds' made us all long for a Klaine reunion?! I might have actually shed a tear.
Then, while the Glee girls are busy deciding who's going to be what Spice Girl (I have issues with their choices) something happens that makes me love Glee more tonight than I thought possible. They finally call out Chris Brown for the douche that he is. While Jake is contemplating singing a Chris Brown song for his guilty pleasure, the girls remind him just why Chris Brown is such a terrible person. And while Jake can't seem to fathom that you can't separate the artist from the art, the girls continue to encourage him to change his song choice. I can't tell you how happy I was to see a prime time show address the issue of Chris Brown's vicious assault on Rihanna. Finally! Huge props to Ryan Murphy for not being afraid to call out Brown for the woman beater he is and for refusing to have his music on his show. This also gave way to Jake ditching the idea to perform a Christ Brown song and instead performing Bobby Brown's 'My Prerogative' so it was a win/win situation all around!
The girls rendition of 'Wannabe' was good, although I still would have made Unique Scary Spice and Tina Baby Spice, while Kitty would have made a better Posh and Marley a better Ginger, but at least Brittany was perfect as Sporty. I might really like the Spice Girls and have put a lot more thought into this than most might have.
Rachel and Brody singing Radiohead's 'Creep' was great but didn't really fit in the episode. At all. In fact I could have done without Rachel Berry's over emoting face for at least one episode, except for the fact that her heartbreak led to one of the greatest song covers ever performed on Glee -- and that was ABBA's 'Mamma Mia.' Watching Rachel, Kurt and Santana sing in their apartment, complete with the close up shots on their faces, was so great because we all know that ABBA is everyone's guilty pleasure. Then watching the rest of the cast in full white classic ABBA wardrobe was the perfect ending to a fabulous episode.
I've heard a lot of people complain about Glee so far this season, but to me this is when Glee is the best: when they don't try to force a storyline that we might not care about and just focus on the music. I haven't been tuning in so much lately, not because I stopped liking the show, but because there wasn't anything compelling me to watch it. I love Glee when Glee is about the music and last night, Glee was all about the music. Glee is totally my guilty pleasure.