“I hope you respect that I want glee club to remain a place where I, Brittany S. Pierce, can escape the torment of Britney Spears.” – Brittany
From a comedy standpoint, this was one of the funnier Glee episodes in quite some time.
There were far too many great one-liners for me to share them all here, most coming from dim bulb Brittany (Heather Morris), who received her biggest showcase to date.
Musically and story-wise, it was less successful. The writers apparently couldn’t find any good ways to incorporate Britney songs in the story, so they used anesthesia-induced dreams to essentially reenact her music videos. I much prefer it when the show finds songs that fit naturally into the story they want to tell, rather than grabbing a handful of songs and trying to make the story work around them, and this was mostly the latter. If someone wasn’t a fan of the songs, parts of this episode may have been quite the chore.
Anyway, the show starts with Will Schuester (Matthew Morrison) passing out a Christopher Cross song and trying to convince the kids how cool that music is. They’re not buying it. I must admit I really had no idea who Cross was until I looked it up just now, but I guess that’s probably the point. How many times are they going to do the song selection tug-of-war between Will and the club? They’ve used the plot before, and we know he always caves in the end. In this case, the club wants to sing Britney Spears, which Kurt (Chris Colfer) explains was prompted by a Facebook campaign. “You don’t get much more overtly meta than that.” Almost too meta for my taste, but I’ll let it slide.
Mr. Schuester declines, and is supported by Brittany, who is tired of living in the shadow of the superstar who (sort of) shares her name. “I hope you respect that I want glee club to remain a place where I, Brittany S. Pierce, can escape the torment of Britney Spears,” she says with unusual eloquence.
I was about to be bored by a Will-Emma (Jayma Mays) conversation, when suddenly JOHN STAMOS shows up. This show needed a little Uncle Jesse, I think. He’s playing Emma’s charming dentist boyfriend, Carl, and Will tries to overcome his jealousy by inviting him to the glee club to embarrass the kids who have bad teeth.
Brittany (“I thought Dr. Pepper was a dentist”) has the worst teeth of them all, so she takes the first trip to John Stamos’ office. “This room looks like the one on the spaceship where I got probed,” she says dryly, before entering a nitrous oxide hallucination of “I’m a Slave 4 U.” This is the first time we’ve really got to hear Heather Morris sing, and she did a fine job. But really, this was all about Morris looking hot while dancing in a variety of Britney outfits, and she pulled that off magnificently.
Later she’s joined by bestie Santana (Naya Rivera) who accompanies her for “Me Against the Music.” That’s right, they join each other in a dream, so for those of you pining for an Inception-Glee crossover, wish granted. Here we get the first of three Britney Spears cameos for the night, all of which were completely pointless.
Next up, Rachel (Lea Michele) takes her trip to Dr. Stamos. Rachel and Finn (Cory Monteith) had a lovers’ quarrel earlier when she told him that she didn’t want him to play football because she wants to be the only thing that makes him happy. Rachel has always been self-centered and insecure, but she’s bordering on creepy stalker the last couple of episodes. Hopefully they tone it down a bit.
Anyway, Finn countered by agreeing with Santana when she said that dresses “like one of the bait girls on To Catch a Predator.” This naturally causes Rachel to have a dentist room fantasy where she performs “Baby One More Time,” which causes her to feel confident enough to dress that way in real life, which causes boys to look at her and Finn to be jealous. No wonder people hate the dentist.
Sue Sylvester (Jane Lynch) shows up to remind Will how vile Britney Spears is, after she witnessed Jacob (Jewish afro geek) jerking it to a video of Rachel in Britney gear. Yes, that’s really what happened, and yes, it was as disturbing as you think. Will’s natural response to this development is to reverse course and let the kids sing Britney. They are excited until he makes the awkward declaration that he will join them, in an effort to stop being so uptight and impress Emma. Sigh.
What follows is the only non-fantasy Britney song of the night, a pep rally performance of “Toxic.” Musically this was my favorite of the night, but visually it was tainted by multiple cuts to Jewfro orgasming in the crowd. This had shades of Season One’s “Push It” number, and it sets off what Sue calls a “sex riot” in the students. I know teenagers are horny, but I’m guessing most kids would have spent their time rolling their eyes and texting rather than creating such frenzy.
Rachel goes back to dressing like she used to, but she wants Finn to quit football in return. He is flummoxed by this ultimatum but earns her trust when he turns down an advance from Quinn (Dianna Agron), who was actually in cahoots with Rachel. She apologizes by singing Paramore’s “The Only Exception” to the club. This was a lovely emotional vocal from Lea Michele, but it felt a bit out of place closing out a Britney Spears episode. And seriously, back-to-back weeks with a melancholy Rachel song ending the show? That’s going to get old really fast. Lea Michele is awesome, but oversaturating these dramatic ballads is not smart.
Probably a C+ effort from the Glee folks today. “I laughed a lot, but the story, and its connection to the songs, was sloppy.” A few other thoughts:
- Apparently it’s not against the rules to use a kid in a wheelchair as a battering ram in a football game. Good to know. After hallucinating a performance of “Stronger,” which allowed McHale to utilize some of his boy band background, Artie is even more motivated to join the team. This time, coach Beiste is more sympathetic. After Kurt’s improbable success last season, this is getting a little tiring.
- I didn’t touch on the Will-Emma-Stamos-Terri quadrangle. Frankly I don’t care about their story much at all, and this episode did little to change that. Stamos does bring a fun energy, though. He’s good for this role.
- Is it just me, or is Will becoming more and more of an awkward dork every week? Grow some self-awareness, buddy. You’re supposed to be the adult here.
- I’m please they avoided doing the obvious “Not a Girl, Not Yet a Woman” song. I was sure they’d throw that onto Rachel.
- Next week look like an emotional, Kurt-centric episode. Can’t wait.
From Around the Web: Glee, “Britney/Brittany”
- Watch With Kristen: If there was such a thing as death from overstimulation, then we would like the “Britney/Brittany” episode of Glee to be the final nail in our coffin. So much to look at! So so much choreography to practice by ourselves later in our bedrooms!
- Speakeasy: The real Britney makes cameos here and there — and we wished she could have been used more. Alas, acting can only take you so far. Remember “Crossroads”? Never mind.
- Lisa de Moraes: Show creator Ryan Murphy and writers wove together an episode of Britney tunes with such disparate titles as “I’m a Slave 4 U,” “Toxic,” and “Me Against the Music” the only way possible: through drugs.
Some stats and info about Glee, “Britney/Brittany”
TV SHOW – Glee
SEASON/EPISODE – Season 2, Episode 2
AIRED ON – September 28th, 2010
NETWORK/STREAMING SERVICE – FOX/Hulu
GENRE – Drama, Musicals, Comedy
CREATED BY – Ian Brennan, Brad Falchuk, Ryan Murphy
CAST – Chris Colfer, Jane Lynch, Lea Michele, Matthew Morrison, Kevin McHale, Naya Rivera, Jenna Ushkowitz, Amber Riley, Mark Salling, Heather Elizabeth Morris, Chord Overstreet, Darren Criss, Harry Shum Jr., Cory Monteith, Jayma Mays, Dianna Agron
This review originally appeared on TV Geek Army.