Oh Glee, I loved you the whole first season, and all of this second season. You have been a show that I could sit and watch with my kids. We could laugh together, drool over Puck together, and enjoy some awesome music together.
Then last night, Glee…you had to get naughty on me.
You pulled out the alcohol, and you just got naughty.
In case you missed it, the episode started with Principal Figgins telling Mr. Schuester and the Glee Club they would be performing an anti-alcohol musical number in front of the school because they had so many incidents of students coming to school drunk. Apparently, there was a rampant problem of binge drinking in the school, and it was up to the Glee Club to save the day. I thought it was funny when Principal Figgins mentioned performing a number by “Key-dollar-sign-ha” (Ke$ha), but the drunk fat student pressing his stomach against the window of the principal’s office? Come on!
Fast forward to Rachel writing a ballad about her headband, and actually titling it “Headband.” Then Puck peer pressuring Rachel into ditching her “total bore” personality and throwing a party while her two gay dads are gone on a Rosie O’Donnell cruise.
Rachel ends up throwing a party, dressed in a Laura Ingalls lookalike dress, offering two wine coolers per guest, until all the party-goers get ready to leave because the party is el-lame-o. Then someone persuades her bust into Daddys’ liquor cabinet, and thats when the party gets started.
And that’s where Glee gets funny, but also gets uncomfortable to watch with my kids.
My daughters are 10 and 15, and I had to explain on one hand why I am laughing, but on the other hand why drinking and getting drunk is NOT FUN AND NOT ALLOWED AND IS ILLEGAL AND YOU SHOULDN’T DO IT … and why do I feel like I am going all crazy cakes right now trying to justify this lecture when these kids on TV are having a blast of a time drinking?
So I tell my daughters while drinking may seem fun at the time, theres a price to pay the next day. You feel horrible the next day, blah, blah, and I’m still feeling stabby towards the TV while Brittany is doing a striptease for Artie on the show.
But then at school on Monday, of course they all have hangovers. They feel like crap. They regret drinking. Good job, Glee. Way to go showing the effects of alcohol…
But then here comes Artie in his wheelchair, shoving a Thermos of Bloody Marys in everyone’s face, saying its the perfect cure for hangovers.
Oh hell no, Glee.
But there’s more.
Mr. Schuester gets drunk, the football coach gets drunk. There’s drunk dialing, there’s drinking before their practice performance of Jamie Foxx’s “Blame It on the Alcohol.”
The finale performance is the “Key-dollar-sign-ha” song “Tik-Tok” performed by Brittany and the rest of the Glee Clubbers, all of whom chugged some of Rachel’s pre-performance concoction of whatever liquor remained in Daddy’s liquor cabinet after the party– combined with some crushed Oreo’s and um, cough syrup.
Their tipsy, yet kinda awesome, performance was almost complete, when Brittany projectile-vomited on Rachel, leading Santana to then puke all over center stage.
At the end, Glee tried to save face by Mr. Schuester pulling out a contract for all the Glee Clubbers to sign where they all agreed to not drink until after Nationals. If they did, they agreed to call him, day or night, and he agreed to come get them. No questions asked.
So, Glee, your alcohol-filled episode left me with a lot of ‘splainin’ to do to my kids. Most of you will say I could have just changed the channel, or shut the TV off. You’re right, I could have. But this is a show that we watch every week together, and it was either watch it and explain the issues, or not let them watch and explain why. I was so darn proud with the way this show dealt with the bullying issue, I thought they would deal with teen drinking the same way. Now I feel like they just made more of a mockery of teen drinking rather than dealing with it as a serious issue.
Did you watch it? What did you think?
