Glee recap (1.10): "Ballad"

The official title of this week's episode is "Ballad", and while that does provide the narrative backbone, the real theme is crushes. But we'll get to that. First, Will tells the kids that they have to do a ballad at sectionals this year, so they will all have to pair up and sing ballads to each other. Finn gets Kurt, much to Kurt's delight. Since Matt is out sick, Rachel gets Will.

To demonstrate what a ballad is, Rachel insists she and Will sing "Endless Love." As Will starts to sing the first verse, we hear Kurt's inner thoughts, "I could totally sing this with Finn. But screw him if he thinks he's taking the Diana Ross part from me!" Ha!

Meanwhile, Puck is thinking about how he's free-balling. Aaaaand I'm distracted.

I hate this song. I never cared for Diana Ross and Lionel Richie's version, and I didn't like it any more when Mariah Carey and Luther Vandross did it. And I have to say, while Rachel's voice sounds really sweet in this range, I still don't like it. It's just too ... treacly.

Anyway, one verse into the song and suddenly Rachel is crushing on Will big time. Mkay. Now, I know teen girls (and teen boys) often get crushes on their attractive male high school teachers, but in the course of one song? Take a shot. She's chasing Will around the piano and looking all kinds of love sick. Or as Will thinks, "She looks crazy right now!"

Quinn is starting to show, and we finally get to meet her parents. They are pretty much what we've been led to expect. They're the worst kind of Christians. You know, all the judgment, none of the love. Her dad yells at one point, "Hey Judy! Glenn Beck is on!" 'Nuff said.

Isn't it awesome that if you need to quickly establish someone as a mindless, mean-spirited, bigot you only have to invoke the name of Glenn Beck now? It's handy like that.

Rachel brings Will a present, and he runs off to whine to Emma about it, naturally. He tells her he can't be blunt with Rachel because teen girls are fragile. He supports this theory with the story of Suzy Pepper who had a crush on him two years earlier. When he spurned her advances, she tried to kill herself by ...e ating a hot pepper. Which burned a hole in her esophagus.

I'll let you soak that one in. Go ahead. I'll wait. Are you back? Great. I have your shots already lined up for you. That's right, Two of 'em. It's that stupid.