Oh Glee, you had me so excited after your season premiere, but you did it again. You disappointed me with a lackluster second episode. Britney 2.0 premiered last night and while I enjoyed our favorite Glee club members paying tribute to Britney Spears once again, this was an episode I wished would have come a little more mid-season, instead of as the second episode in.
After a season premiere that had me excited once again to watch Glee, the Britney 2.0 episode was a letdown. While I loved watching Heather Morrison's Brittany have a Britney-esque meltdown, complete with cheese puffs and a paparazzi umbrella beat down, I would have rather seen a few more episodes of our favorite characters adjusting to the new school year before we hit the theme shows. Everything just seemed rather rushed last night.
I love that Rachel and Kurt are now living together in a rundown warehouse in very far outer stretches of NYC but I wanted more of their friendship, not just Kurt as a vehicle for Rachel to talk about how much she misses Finn which turns into a vehicle for new guy Brody to talk about how much he likes Rachel. I wanted Rachel and Kurt taking on NYC! The scenes last week between Blaine and Kurt made me realize how much I miss seeing Kurt in a more prominent role, not just relegated to gay BFF for Rachel. More Kurt, less Brody please.
I'm not sure yet why we need to care so much about Marley and Jake. I get that they're new characters and they're trying to build their fan base, but too much too soon. We get it -- Jake is going to be this year's new bad boy that will be saved by the love of a good woman and the Glee club, but we don't need to see it all in the second episode. I'm not sure I care enough about his character yet to even care who he dates, much less whether Marley's feelings are hurt by it. And if they're trying to make Unique the new Mercedes they're going to have to do a whole lot better than her overly snap happy, hair flipping version of '"Womanizer." Next to the opening number of "Hold It Against Me" they were by far the biggest disappointments of the show. Also, if I was Jenna Ushkowitz, I would be seriously pissed that I've already been relegated to the back-up singer at only the second episode in.
What I did love was Brittany's meltdown throughout the show culminating in the amazing performance of '"Gimme More." I love that Glee had the nerve to 'go there' by parodying Britney Spears catastrophic performance at the 2007 MTV VMA's. It was fun watching Brittany react to being left behind after most of her friends and her girlfriend have moved on to life beyond high school. What I didn't love were the majority of the performances. If they're going to give us another Britney episode I expect more, better musical numbers. Even Rachel's performance of 'Oops I Did It Again' was just OK, although I blame that more on how the footage was shot than the actual performance. Sometimes it's nice to see a dance number without a dozen camera angles constantly cutting away to different shots.
All in all I liked the second episode but I didn't love it. Once again the writers managed to come up with a few amazing lines, this week with Mark Salling's Puck delivering the best of the show with "I had my first threesome at 7, and once I beat up a police horse!" It's the fun and clever writing like this that will keep me coming back next week, but they're definitely going to have to "Gimme More" if they want me to keep tuning in long-term.