Katie will be back with a full recap later, but for now, here are my thoughts on tonight’s Glee premiere – “The New Rachel.” (Sorry we didn’t get to liveblog the whole episode – you guys were a little too excited about the premiere and crashed the site! We love it!)
—They explained it away with the “fame went to our heads” explanation and subsequent slushying, but I don’t believe the sudden attitude shift of the New Direction kids. They were in school for a few weeks, max, after Nationals, and back at school for no more than a week or so at the start of the episode, but suddenly they’re in with the cool kids? In deep enough to do complete 180s? There are ways to write that, ways that aren’t heavy-handed and a lazy plot device. I look forward to the day the Glee writers figure that out.
—I wish we would’ve seen more about the relationships and what happened over the summer. A two-line reference to Tina and Mike’s breakup, another scissoring reference to sum up Brittany and Santana, nothing about Sam and Mercedes, and Rachel calling Finn her boyfriend when I was pretty sure they broke up at the end of last season. They came through a (very) little with Kurt and Blaine; Kurt reminded Blaine not to get too full of himself and Blaine encouraged Kurt to believe in himself and refuse to be complacent before sending him off with a song.
—Mike O’Malley continues to do so much with so little screentime. When he said “You can always come back. But you won’t,” and teared up as he sent Kurt to New York, I was fighting back tears of my own.
—I was apathetic about most of the new characters before tonight, but I’m optimistic. Marley is a bit too much of a Mary Sue for me at this point but Brody is charming and Jake holds a lot of promise, especially once Puck finds out about him. Ever since it was mentioned at the end of last season I’ve been pulling for a Unique transfer, so I’m excited to see where this new dynamic takes everyone.
—Not sure how I feel about the split yet. Maybe now that Kurt is in New York, with Finn and Santana likely to follow, there will be more storylines it will even out. But there are over a dozen characters and Rachel ate up more than half of the screen time. Why did they need to find a “New Rachel” if the old one was still hanging around?
Next week we revisit Britney. God help us all.
What did you think of the split focus between Lima and New York? What do you think of the new ND members? Are you excited for Britney? Let us know in the comments!
