The Daily Binge

Episode 103, “Acafellas” Air Date: 9/16/09

Um, I just meant for this to be a quick little post of some of the funniest quotes from last night’s episode of “Glee.” But…  I’m pretty sure this is just going to end up being a normal-sized recap, because there were a lot of great lines. But not enough Jane Lynch (Sue)!

Terry cooks dinner for Will’s parents. (Re: the hamburger casserole, Terry says, “Watch out for bones.” Yuck!) Will announces to his family that Terry is pregnant, even though Terry asked him not to. He’s so excited! He just can’t hide it!

Will’s dad is Victor Garber! (I love Victor Garber.) In a bowtie. And he spent six months in the Hanoi Hilton. How John McCain-esque. Will worries that he’s not equipped to be a father, and Victor Garber blames Will’s low confidence on his own lack of guts. He wanted to be a lawyer!

It’s a sad scene, with Victor Garber regretting all the ways in which he’s been a bad father. (And yes, I’m just going to keep calling him Victor Garber.)

Rachel interrupts Will as he teaches the Glee kids a new dance. “You don’t have to ask me every time for permission to go to the bathroom, Rachel,” Will says. “You can just go.” Wow, I wasn’t afforded that type of freedom until college.

The Cheerios of Glee (you know, the spies) have convinced Rachel that the Glee club needs a trained choreographer. “Dakota Stanley was the understudy to the candelabra in Beauty & the Beast on Broadway.” So he’s the obvious choice? I mean, it’s Ohio.

(Remember last week on SYTYCD, how Adam Shankman called that crazy “Shatter Shatter” guy’s dance “Off-Broadway, like Cleveland”? I guess that’s what we’re dealing with here.)

Will’s not convinced about the merits of Dakota.

Will: Just because he understudied, doesn’t mean he ever performed.

Cheerio Quinn: Did you ever perform, Mr. S?

Oooh, dirty! I love it.

Will takes his problem to Emma.”They say it takes more certainly than talent to be a star,” she says. “I mean, look at John Stamos.” Ha!

Actually, that’s not a bad idea. Let’s look at him.

Okay, back to work.

Emma is in a (sham) relationship with Ken Tanaka. So that she won’t seem like she’s overtly hitting on Will, I guess. Re: Ken, Emma tells Will that there’s nothing sexier in a man than confidence.

By the end of this recap/episode, it’s going to be incredibly apparent that this week’s theme is “confidence.” You gotta have confidence!

Teacher’s lounge. Big Gay Sandy (Stephen Tobolowsky, of “Heroes” fame) waltzes in wearing his pastel sweater stuff. He’s the former Glee teacher.

Will: Sandy. I thought you weren’t allowed on campus.

Sandy: No William, I’m not allowed within fifty feet of children.

Distinctions. Learn them!

The male teachers are assembling to welcome back the shop teacher, Henri. He’s addicted to over-the-counter medicine, and… accidentally cut off his thumbs. Gross! (And unlike “True Blood,” his fingers were apparently not re-attachable.) Sandy and Henri go way back… in fact, Sandy was the mastermind behind McKinley High’s wood shop program?

Sandy: I told Figgins that you are going to have a school full of nancies unless you get some hot wood in those teenagers’ hands.

Hot wood! I can’t believe that made it past the censors. But I’m glad. So glad.

Henri enters with his bandaged hands, and he is sad. “I’ll never hitchhike across Europe,” he laments. “That was a dream, man.” Probably an ill-conceived dream. Doesn’t Henri know what happens to hitchhikers? (I’ve seen the ads for the horror movies.)

Terry’s co-worker, Howard, brings the cake that Terry was supposed to bring. She’s stuck doing Howard’s inventory, because Howard can’t count to thirty? Sad. And the cake has two nubby-looking hands on it. Sensitive.

The men sit around eating cake (Henri has trouble, without thumbs), and Will says that he’s glad to hang with the guys and talk about feelings.

Ken: Want to know what I’m feeling? I live at the YMCA, and I only have one pair of long pants…

Ugh, and Emma is dating him! It must be hard to date, with only one pair of pants. And, you know, nowhere to live.

Sandy: Oh please, my life is a disaster with no creative outlet, other than writing my “Desperate Housewives” fan fiction.

Howard: I’m afraid of my vacuum.

Will: I know how you guys feel. I apparently don’t know how to dance.

Henri: I don’t have thumbs!

Henri wins, especially since this is his pity party. The other guys sing “For He’s a Jolly Good Fellow” and, THE MUSIC MAN-style, they realize that they harmonize well. (Long story short: Harold Hill teaches the important men of River City how to be a barbershop quartet, so that they’ll be too busy singing to figure out that he’s a fraud.) (Watch it here!)

Around this time, Roomie and I discussed the fact that we both attended middle schools where one or more of the staff were missing fingers. And it was verboten to say,”Thumbs up!” to the thumbless ones. (I mean, for obvious sensitivity reasons.) I guess that’s a common thing? (Or at least, more common than you’d think?) Teachers without thumbs?

Will, Ken, Henri, and Howard form an acappella hip-hop group. Ken wants to call the group the Testostertones (HA), but Howard says, “Acafellas,” and Will loves it. Singing with the Acafellas makes Will feel confident. He found his happy place!

Sandy tries to come to rehearsal, but Will turns him away.

Will: Sandy, we voted. When you’re in the group, it’s creepy.

There is another perk to being an Acafella. Will thinks that his singing is making Terry have more sex with him, but it’s really because she wants to get pregnant. (Remember, everybody thinks she already IS pregnant.)

Will: It was amazing. I mean, we started doing it once a week.

Will’s so busy with the Acafellas that he tells the kids to go ahead and hire Dakota Stanley. He doesn’t have time to choreograph Glee, anyhow. He has his Fellas, now.

The Cheerios (Santana in particular) have convinced Rachel that Glee is all about winning, and this troubles Finn. He tries to approach Rachel in the hallway.

Rachel: Look you have your popular clique and your football and your cliche of a blonde girlfriend, but Glee is my one shot. If this doesn’t work out, then my whole high school life will be nothing but an embarrassment.

Finn: What’s a cliche? Is that a bad thing?

Looking back at high school, I don’t remember feeling like it mattered all that much if my high school life was an embarrassment. I just wanted to graduate and move on. But… I guess Rachel needs to prove herself. And redeem herself? She has faced a lot of humiliation.

Finn asks Rachel if this is one of those girl things where you act like you’re mad about one thing, but you’re really mad about something else. Very perceptive, Finn!

Finn: For a while there you were all over me, and now you just yell at me all the time.

Rachel: I’ve moved on and I’m focusing on my career now.

Hahaha, I think Rachel is my TV character soul mate right now. Rachel, Liz Lemon from “30 Rock,” and Peggy from “Mad Men.” She’s totally right about this phenomenon. Girls just want to Know What’s Up, so if you get a little bit of interest from a guy and then he’s back to nothing, he’s going to get the “I’m annoyed at you” treatment. Now you know, guys.

(And in case you’re not sure what I’m talking about, Finn kissed Rachel last week. And now… nothing!)

Rachel’s bottom line to Finn: “You have feelings for me, and you don’t have the guts to admit it.”

Finn threatens to quit if they hire Dakota. OH NO.

You may be wondering why the Cheerios want Glee to hire a great choreographer. Quinn explains her tactics to Coach Sue. “Glee is soft,” she says. “Dakota will eat them alive.”

Sue: I learned a lot in special forces. I was on the strike team in Panama when we extracted Noriega. We took out the shepherd, and then we went after the sheep. You have to go after these Glee-clubbers one by one. I want my full budget restored. I need a fog machine.

Ha!

Mercedes stands at her locker, watching all of the high school couples kiss. Fabulous Kurt approaches, wearing a coat that looks like it belongs on Napoleon, or a marching band kid.

Mercedes: Have you ever kissed anybody?

Kurt: Yes, if by someone you mean the tender crook of my elbow.

Aw! Kurt explains that being in Glee means that “special ed kids will get more play than we will.” That was definitely the case, in my high school experience. (And I was only in glee club in elementary school.)

Kurt and Mercedes plan a trip to the mall, to pick something out for her to wear to their scope-out of Vocal Adrenaline (the amazing Glee club from the premiere… which is one of Dakota’s schools). “Every moment of your life is an opportunity for fashion,” Kurt says, before waltzing away.

Immediately, Mercedes is surrounded by the Cheerios of Glee. Somehow, they convince her that Kurt is interested in being her boyfriend. UH OH. (And… what?)

The Acafellas do a hilarious performance at Benchwarmers Sports Bar (what a terrible name for a sports bar). Principal Figgins, Emma, Terry, and Will’s parents are all in the audience. (Don’t these people have anything to do with their lives?)

Victor Garber to Will: We just sold all 17 copies of your CD!

Will’s Mom: I didn’t have to show any of them my bosoms!

Oh yeah, PS: Will’s mom is a total alcoholic.

Victor bought a CD for Will’s future baby. Aww. Victor Garber is the best dad! (Well, maybe not on “Alias.”)

Figgins invites the Acafellas to sing at a PTA meeting.

Figgins: I need those parents happy! They found out we’re been serving their children prison food.

Actually, my friend once explained to me that big food corporations often manufacture food for various types of institutions, and that the food is distinguished by stars. Like, 5-star food is for nice hotels, and 2-star food is for prisons? But it all comes from the same place? Or something? So maybe the prison food thing isn’t so surprising?

When I was in elementary school, my friend saw a fly in her pre-packaged pizza hot lunch before she even unwrapped it. We took it over to the principal. The principal unwrapped the pizza, picked the fly out of it with a spork, and handed it back to my friend. Good to go!

So yeah… truth is stranger than fiction?

The next day, the Acafellas get a great write-up in the paper. Will reads it to the rest of the group.  My favorite line is, “Ken Tanaka’s smoky baritone is like a cool fog that sweeps over a deep ocean of emotional intensity.”

Sandy is still trying to get into the group. He tells the guys that Josh Groban is coming to the PTA meeting.

Howard: Who is Josh Groban?

Sandy: Who is Josh Groban?! Kill yourself!… He is an angel sent from heaven to deliver platinum records unto us. And if he were here right now, I would club you to death with his Critic’s Choice award.

Poor Howard! But… hilarious lines.

Ken: Why would he come to our show?

Sandy: Because I invited him. Josh and I have become frequent pen pals since he accidentally friended me on MySpace. And being my close personal confidant, he is only interested if I am in the group.

But Will still refuses to let Sandy into the Acafellas. Sandy tells the guys that “the blogs are all atwitter” (ha), because apparently Josh Groban is looking for an opening act. Is it possible that he’s coming to scout the Acafellas?

The Glee kids and the Evil Glee Cheerios arrive at the high school where Vocal Adrenaline is housed.

Rachel: Vocal Adrenaline rehearses every day from two-thirty until midnight.

Hahaha! And sad, because I actually knew kids in high school who were forced into insane rehearsals. (Actually… I was one of them? How soon I forget.) (I blocked it out.)

Mercedes is wearing weird (unflattering) denim overalls, but Kurt says they look “fly.” Mercedes asks Kurt if he’d like to hang out later. (You know, like a date.) Kurt says, “Come over, it’s Liza Minnelli week on AMC.”

Now, you might be pounding your head against your television, saying, “DUH DUH DUH, KURT IS GAY!” But… it’s high school. And… sometimes we lie to ourselves, in the name of love (or something). (And as fine-tuned as my gaydar is now, I can’t say that I never dated a gay guy when I was in high school.)

The Glee-sters happen upon one Vocal Adrenaline girl barfing into a trashcan. A girl in a neck brace is standing over her. “You can’t leave rehearsals for any reason,” the neck brace girl says. “That includes heat exhaustion, or Crohn’s disease!” Ha! (Crohn’s disease isn’t funny, but hearing it get a shout-out on TV is funny. Such a specific thing on the no-excuses list.)

The girls warn the Glee-sters that Dakota Stanley is a monster.

Vocal Adrenaline puts on a hot performance of the Duffy song “Mercy.” (Thanks to Roomie for that intel.) It’s pretty cool that this show is giving so many dancers and/or singers work. At the end of that amazingness, we see Dakota (Whit Hertford) in the wings. Of course, he’s irate: “Get off my stage!” UH OH.

(I was expecting Dakota to be surprising, but I am double-surprised by the fact that he was in a short film that I wrote! Haha. It’s a small town!)

The Glee kids run up to Dakota as he gets into a top-down car (er, a convertible) with a hot blonde. He tells them that his fee is $8000/number, plus $10,000 if they make top three… at state? At nationals? (Maybe I missed it.) “And with Dakota Stanley at the wheel, you will place in the top three.” He speeds away, and the kids despair. Where will they get that much money?

Meanwhile, Will is dealing with his own disappointments. Howard quits Acafellas. “I’m doing inventory,” he tells Will over the phone. “It was never my dream.” Emma brings some bad news to rehearsal: Henri drank six bottles of cough syrup, and has to go to rehab before he can be around kids again. It seems that Acafellas was adding too much stress to his thumbless life.

Will’s ready to throw in the towel and disband Acafellas for good, but Emma tells him not to give up so easy.

Finn comes to Will to vent about his problems with Glee.

Finn: I’m quitting Glee too.

Will: I didn’t quit Glee.

Finn tells Will that Rachel has “gone all chick-batty.” Plus…

Finn: I gotta be honest with you, it’s hard being the quarterback when I get in the huddle and all the guys are calling me Deepthroat.

Wow, yet another one past the censors. I wonder what they ARE catching? I’d love to hear those lines.

Will tells Finn that if he quits Glee now, he’ll regret it for the rest of his life. “Trust me, I know.” Um… projecting much, Will? I don’t think Finn would regret it THAT much. And then… Will invites Finn to be in Acafellas? (Or maybe that comes later? Either way, Finn ends up being an Acafella.)

High school bully Puck (the one with the mohawk) asks Will and Ken if he can join the Acafellas because he wants to pick up cougar moms at the PTA meeting. Turns out that Cheerio-Santana broke up with Puck because his credit score is terrible. But “a cougar never disappoints.”

Puck delivers the following little monologue over the sweet sounds of a sexy Spanish song, accompanied by acoustic guitar (it’s a great choice). I guess it’s supposed to be Puck’s song? We see him (above-ground) poolside, shirtless, seducing a cougar.

Puck: “My above-ground pool-cleaning business went through the roof once I embraced my gift for music and gave these fine ladies the romance they were missing. I also stopped beating people up so much.”

Ken worries that Puck isn’t serious about the Acafellas. He grabs Puck by the collar.

Ken: My love life is hanging by a thread, and that thread is Acafellas. It drives my girlfriend nuts in the pants.

He says more, but that’s all you need to hear.

So Finn and Puck are in Acafellas, and Will tries to teach them some dance moves. But they’re having trouble. “Dude, my bowels have better moves than you,” Puck gripes to Finn. Will tries a different approach, and asks what the baseball coach tells them about hitting.

Puck: You charge the pitcher, bring the bat.

Ha!

Will teaches the guys that it’s all about the hips. He tells them to imagine that they are in Madison Square Garden. “All the beautiful ladies out there, swing that big old bat.” Sexual!

Rachel and Tina (the Asian Glee-ster with the stutter) try to have a “gay-vention” with Mercedes.

Tina: It’s Kurt. He’s lady-fabulous.

Mercedes is annoyed: “Just because he wears nice clothes, doesn’t mean he’s on the down-low.”

Rachel: He wore a corset to second period today.

Tina tells Mercedes that she can find a better man, but Mercedes worries that she can’t. If Kurt likes her for her, why not pursue him? Uh oh.

The Cheerios and Glee kids have a car wash to raise money, so that they can afford to hire Dakota. Hilariously, the Cheerios have bikini-top cheer uniforms, for occasions such as this one. Coach Sue and Emma stand off to the side, watching. Sue calls Emma “Irma.” Burn?

Emma: When I was little if I got all As my dad would let me wash his car, so I’d get my little toothbrush out and I’d clean it all weekend long.

Sue: You know, the way you use your mental illness to help these kids is really inspiring. I’m SHOCKED you’re not married.

Mercedes and Kurt are washing his really expensive-looking SUV. (I don’t know what it is… an Escalade?) We already found out before that Kurt’s dad is allowing him to use the car in exchange for… not acting too gay.

Mercedes to Kurt: Your rims are clean. We polished them like three times already.

Oh my goodness! Rims. Dirty. And if you weren’t totally convinced that Kurt is gay, by… every possible clue in the world… there’s this:

Kurt: Did you bring a change of clothes? Because we’re going straight to the sing-along SOUND OF MUSIC.

Mercedes tells Kurt that now that they’ve been on a couple of dates, she wants to make it official that they’re a couple. Kurt’s like, Whuh? He says he’s in love with someone else, and looks longingly at Finn. Mercedes turns and sees Rachel, and when she calls Kurt on it, he doesn’t disagree. He fibs that’s he’s been in love with Rachel for several years.

So… Mercedes smashes a hole in the wind shield of Kurt’s car. Harsh! (I’m not sure what she smashes it with… a car-washing sponge? That doesn’t make sense.)

Then Mercedes sings a bangin’ version of Jazmine Sullivan’s “Bust Your Windows” (which… I had to look up, I’ve never heard it before), backed by the sexy cheerleaders. It’s probably my favorite number of the night.

Okay, now Dakota Stanley is at Glee practice. And I think he’s more of a Cogsworth than a Lumiere. The candelabra was tall, wasn’t he? And Dakota is… vertically challenged. He passes something out to the Glee-sters.

Dakota: Please examine your personalized menus. This is what you’re going to be eating for the next six months.

Mercedes: Um, mine just says coffee.

Dakota: Mm hm.

Rachel: What’s smelt?

Dakota: A pungent, low-carb freshwater fish. Okay, let’s start with today’s business. Artie, you’re cut. You’re not trying hard enough.

Artie: At what?

Dakota: At walking. Can’t be wheeling you around during every number. Throws off the whole dynamic, and it’s depressing.

In case you haven’t noticed, Dakota is a dick. But I’m laughing at his outrageousness.

Kurt tries to stick up for Artie.

Kurt: You can’t kick people out of Glee club because you don’t like the way they look.

Dakota: Um, why don’t you shut your face gash and stay away from aerosol cans, because you could burst into flames at any second.

Now that we know that Kurt’s in the closet, we can understand why this shuts him up. (Also, Kurt standing in a line-up? This is so SOUND OF MUSIC.)

Of course, Dakota thinks that the Glee Cheerios are perfect. He tells them not to change a thing. Next is Rachel. Dakota looks at her and says, “Nose job.”

Finn: Wait a second!

Dakota: What was that, Frankenteen?

This makes me laugh because I just found out that the actor who plays Finn is twenty-seven years old. That kind of constitutes a Frankenteen, if you ask me. “What’s wrong with you?” Finn asks Dakota.

D: What’s wrong with me is that you’re freakishly tall. I feel like a woodland creature!

He kind of LOOKS like a woodland creature. It’s funny. Dakota says that he thought the Glee-sters wanted somebody who respected them enough to tell the truth. “But maybe you don’t have the confidence to hear it.” Ooh, evil reverse psychology. Or something.

Everybody wants to quit, but Rachel stops all of the original Glee kids from leaving. She says that Barbara Streisand refused to get a nose job when she was a “young ingenue.”

Dakota: Where’s this going, Yentl?

“We’re gonna win because we’re different,” Rachel tells Dakota. The other Glee kids get into the spirit.

Mercedes: They told J-Lo her booty was too big.

Artie: And Curtis Mayfield was more successful after he became paralyzed.

Finn: Jim Abbott. He was a one-armed pitcher for the Yankees. Pitched a no-hitter.

What’s up with Jim Abbott references on TV shows this year? (That’s a clip of a Jim Abbott-related pep talk on “Party Down.”)

Dakota wants to know what the point is of telling him about all these “freaks.”

Rachel: Out point is that you’re fired. And I’m taller than you.

Dakota: Barely.

Backstage at the PTA meeting (what?), the guys are getting ready to perform. And I guess Sandy’s in, after all? He runs in, bursting with the good news.

Sandy: He’s here! He’s here! Josh Groban is here. Front row, big brown eyes, cute as a buttermilk biscuit. I barfed.

HA!

The guys sing a very well-produced (for a PTA meeting… they’re on a dark stage, with spotlights and all) version of… “Tick Tock, You Don’t Stop”? I guess it’s a song. Sandy has a hilarious part where he raps, “I KNOW you’re not gonna sing that song.”

The song is oddly sexual, for a PTA meeting. And when Puck humps the floor, Jane Lynch (Sue) pulls a face that makes me think that something sex-related is going to happen between Sue and Puck, this season. Ew. (Also, felony?)

In the audience, Terry sees Emma looking at Will. Uh oh.

Backstage after the performance, Josh Groban enters with his body guard, Flex. (Ha.) “I was inducting Run DMC into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame last night,” he tells the Acafellas. “So I thought I’d stop by and say hello.” But most importantly, Josh came to tell Sandy to stop emailing him. He hands Sandy a restraining order.

Josh: Stop sending me nude photos. Stop calling me. I don’t know how you got my number. I don’t know how you got my number again after I changed it. But I don’t want any more of your edible gift baskets, or locks of your hair and I don’t want to read any more of those sonnets you wrote for me.

Flex: That stuff got crazy, dude.

But the goods new is that Josh loved the show. He give them two thumbs up (thumbs!) and calls it explosive. Ha.

Outside in the parking lot, Terry apologizes for not being more supportive. She’s turning up the heat, in response to the Emma threat! Will puts his scarf around Terry and pulls her in for a kiss. It’s cuuute.

Victor Garber is looking for Will’s alcoholic mom. (He calls her Doodle? Haha.) We see that she’s flirting with Josh backstage.

Josh: Now you might be thinking, Why would a pop star like me come over here and talk to you? But let me tell you something: throngs of screaming teenagers don’t do it for Josh Groban. No, Josh Groban loves a blousy alcoholic.

Damn! I guess my chances are dashed. (Josh Groban is a cutie. And a good sport!) (And he didn’t even sing?) (Maybe he sang for the soundtrack? Who knows.)

Will realizes that being a good teacher is enough for him. He doesn’t need the Acafellas anymore! Victor Garber tells Will that he’s going to night classes, as a precursor to going back to law school. Will inspired him. It’s never too late to go after your dreams!

Back in the Hall of Lockers, Mercedes apologizes to Kurt about bustin’ up his windshield. Turns out that it doesn’t matter: Kurt’s dad took the car away when he found the tiara collection in his hope chest.

Kurt admits to Mercedes that he doesn’t like Rachel. He’s gay, and he’s never told anyone before. “You shouldn’t be ashamed of who you are, Kurt,” Mercedes says. She says that he ought to tell the Glee kids, since their singing is all about expressing what’s really inside. But Kurt says he’s not that confident. (Have you figured out yet that this week’s theme is confidence?)

Sue finds out that Will is back with Glee, and that the club is “more confident than ever.” She makes the Cheerios of Glee smell their armpits. “That’s the smell of failure, and it’s stinking up my office.” Coach Sue revokes their tanning privileges for the rest of the semester. Santana runs out sobbing. Ha!

Quinn thanks Sue for teaching her an important lesson. “When you really believe in yourself, you don’t have to bring other people down.” Hmm… is Quinn going to switch sides? I can’t really read her.

In conclusion, Will teaches the kids a clappy dance. They love it! Clap clap!

Next week on: Rachel sings that song that was used in the “Private Practice” promos at one point. (Oh, it’s “Taking Chances” by Celine Dion.)

Whew, that was long. If you’re still reading… you deserve some ice cream.

xoxo…

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