Glee is finally back after that ridiculously long hiatus (although nothing tops last year’s wait) and I’m so glad it’s back on TV. Despite the fact that it has been a bit of an up and down season, my love for Glee has never disappeared. The lack of Glee had really left a hole in my TV schedule. Historically, Super Bowl episodes are rather grandiose and generally involve some crazy ad campaign or interactive game.
Contrary to the past, the details of the Glee Super Bowl episode had been kept generally under wraps, besides a few leaks of musical numbers and some tid-bits from some of the actors. But everyone knew it would be a big, huge, over the top episode…and that it was. And in my opinion, it was in the best of possible ways.
“The Sue Sylvester Shuffle” starts out with Sue watching a crazy elaborate Cheerios routine to Katy Perry’s “California Gurls.” I kind of really enjoyed this besides the crazy bikers and fire going on all over the place. But I fail to see how it would be a Cheerios routine. In any case, Sue is very bored and decides to buy a human canon to shoot Brittany out of. Poor Brittany. One of her best lines is when she sees the canon: “I don’t want to die yet. At least not until One Tree Hill gets canceled.” I love the CW joke.
Besides Sue’s crazy Cheerios antics, the main story of the episode is the every growing divide between the football team/jocks and the Glee Club. On the field, Karofsky is being a homophobic jerk, and the football jocks slushie Artie. But Beiste has had enough. She seeks the advice of her new ally, Schue, who says that he knows a way to unite the jocks and the the glee clubbers. The football team is told to go to the choir room but what they don’t know is that it’s a set up to join the Glee Club for a week. Both groups are super pissed and not having it but Beiste threatens to not let them play in the championship game. Looks like they are stuck together.
Puck and Rachel sing “Need You Now” by Lady Antebellum. Which is totally my latest addiction, although the original is much better but this one also does the trick. A fight breaks out after between jocks and glee clubbers. This is certainly not the first or last time this happens in the episode. Puck wants to reunite with Finn so they can win the football championship. Which was very much expected.
Back in crazy land, Figgins gets word of the human canon and forbids Sue to use it. She goes on a crazy and hilarious rampage which was ridiculously amusing. And in order to sabotage the Glee Club, Sue requested to move her Cheerios championship to the same day as the game.
Because of Sue’s sabotage, the jocks have to perform the half time show and play in the game. Schue wants everyone to do Thriller as a half time performance, and mash it up with “Heads Will Roll.” This show seemed to get slightly meta when Mercedes pointed out “isn’t that what they are expecting us to do?” regarding Thriller.
After rehearsal with crazy zombie makeup, Schue talks to Karofsky and tells him he is really good. Karfosky seems to make peace with Finn so they can look good in school. I have a feeling this won’t last long. In Cheerios land, Quinn tries to call out Sue for the dangerous human canon but is shot down. Sue wants them to choose between Cheerios and Glee. The three of them give Schue their resignation letter that Sue typed up.
The next musical number is some random song originally sung by The Zombies, performed in zombie makeup. Not sure how I feel about this song but they are all entertaining as zombies. They are all excited about their new number, and then get slusheed. Beiste threatens to kick Karofsky out if he gives up on Glee Club (due to the slushee situation) and he does.
We then check in on our favorite two Warblers, Kurt and Blaine. Darren Criss and The Warblers sing “Bills, Bills, Bills.” I loved it so much. I love Darren Criss a ridiculous amount. Seriously, he could sing the phonebook to me and I am sure he’d make it fantastic. Later, Blaine, Kurt, Rachel and Mercedes go out for coffee. Rachel can’t let Finn go. Mercedes and Rachel want to help the Football team so they don’t forfeit the championship. Blaine says they only really need 4 more guys. That gives them an idea. The Glee girls say they want to join the football team. They don’t want to actually play just fill out the football team so the guys get to play for the national championship.
The championship game arrives and it’s off to a rough start. The girls look super cute in their uniforms though! The ball lands near Tina as she’s lying down and she runs almost all the way for a touch down and then gets tackled. Finn takes over and tells Sam to play quarterback and tell Puck that he needs to convince the rest of the football jocks to do the halftime show. He goes to talk to the Cheerios to tell them to do the half time show and choose Glee Club. They all agree. They quit Cheerios. AW! There was an especially cute Finn and Quinn moment here where he tells her she is strong enough to do this. Puck gets the jocks to agree to perform at the halftime show so they can play in the 2nd half. Karofsky won’t do it.
Next comes the Thriller/Heads Will Roll halftime show. Karofsky watches on regretfully and then joins in. It was seriously an awesome number, probably one of my favorites of all time just for its creativity and originality. After the halftime show, it is still looking bleak for McKinley to pull out a win, but they act like crazy zombies and the opposing quarterback fumbles and McKinley High wins! Quinn and Finn make eyes at each other. There is a lot of development in this relationship next week.
At the end of the episode, Katie Couric interviews Sue. The Cheerios lost the national championship. The remainder of the Cheerios budget is going to Glee Club. Sue is all depressed. Schue says on TV that Sue got what was coming to her. This will not lead to anywhere good at all.
After what appeared to be a halftime show that united two very separate cliques at McKinley, Finn approaches Karofsky about joining the Glee club permanently. He’d have to apologize to Kurt but they’d let him in. Karofsky apparently has no desire to do that, and he doesn’t want to change anything and unite two groups. I guess the peace couldn’t last that long. At the very end, Quinn was so impressed with Finn that she kisses him. I saw this coming but I liked it nonetheless.
It looks like Mr. Ryan Murphy finally understood that we don’t care about super famous guest stars and tribute episodes. What we care about when it comes to this show is exactly what he delivered in last night’s episode: Friendship, camaraderie, team spirit, high school drama and out of this world music numbers. In that order. This is what Glee is all about. This was what got me hooked to the show in the first place.
Because “The Sue Sylvester Shuffle” was easily one of the best episodes to date. If not the very best. It had everything we love about Glee, including a complete meltdown from Sue, which was disturbingly hilarious to watch. She really lost it in this episode, when she decided she wanted to do a human cannon ball for the Cheerios routine for Regionals and recruited poor Brittany to do the job. I honestly thought they were going to go through with it for a moment there and I felt so bad for Brit, who was afraid she was going to die.
After a huge Post Super bowl comeback Glee returns to its Tuesday Schedule with the Valentine's Day special titled "Silly Love Songs" - Director Will Schuester (Matthew Morrison) assigns the McKinley High glee club to perform love songs in honor of Valentine's Day. The club also sets up a kissing booth for the occasion. Meanwhile, Blaine (Darren Criss) and the Dalton Academy Warblers perform "When I Get You Alone" at a Gap clothing store.
