| 1 | %% Image replaced on page per Image Pickin' thread: https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/posts.php?discussion=1473019514042196600 |
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| 4 | [[quoteright:300:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/glee_s3.png]] |
| 5 | [[caption-width-right:300: ''[[Music/JourneyBand Don't Stop Believin'...]]'']] |
| 6 | |
| 7 | ->''"Being part of something special does not make you special; something is special because you are a part of it."'' |
| 8 | -->-- '''Rachel Berry''', ''Dreams Come True'' |
| 9 | |
| 10 | What happens when you take the melodrama of ''[[Series/DegrassiTheNextGeneration Degrassi]]'' and [[JustForFun/XMeetsY mix it]] with the musical setting of ''Film/HighSchoolMusical''? You get ''Glee'', where ''every'' episode is a [[VerySpecialEpisode Very Special]] MusicalEpisode! |
| 11 | |
| 12 | ''Glee'' is a musical [[TeenDrama teen]] {{dramedy}} series created by Creator/RyanMurphy that aired on Creator/{{FOX}} from September 21, 2009 to March 20, 2015. |
| 13 | |
| 14 | It begins with Ohio high school teacher Will Schuester (Creator/MatthewMorrison) attempting to organize his small public school's show choir while dealing with both his personal issues and the torrid personal lives of his students. Said kids include [[ThePrimaDonna prima donna]] Rachel Berry (Creator/LeaMichele), LovableJock Finn Hudson (Creator/CoryMonteith), gay romantic Kurt Hummel (Creator/ChrisColfer), and cheer captain AlphaBitch Quinn Fabray (Creator/DiannaAgron). As time goes on and more kids join, they face all manner of struggles like bullying, homophobia, teen pregnancy, and [[ArsonMurderAndJaywalking losing]] [[SeriousBusiness show choir competitions]]. They're also constantly pursued by Sue Sylvester (Creator/JaneLynch), the vindictive cheerleading coach who has arbitrarily declared the Glee Club her nemesis. Tons of character stereotypes showed up, to the point of reviving a few {{Dead Horse Trope}}s. |
| 15 | |
| 16 | And all the while, they're singing. The first episode alone featured music from such disparate sources as ''Theatre/GuysAndDolls'' and Music/{{Journey|Band}}, and the show went on to showcase everything from Creator/CharlieChaplin to Music/LadyGaga. The musical numbers were frequently given an in-universe justification with the activities of the Glee club, but just as often sprang fully-formed from the minds of characters in normal situations, as with most musicals. ThatRemindsMeOfASong was the order of the day, and in the event that somebody broke into a full-on song and dance sequence with back-up dancers and props and so forth, it was generally assumed that these moments appeared to be taking place at least partially in the individual's thoughts. |
| 17 | |
| 18 | The first episode of the series aired in spring 2009 as a special preview before the actual premiere that fall. The show had a full-season order by the time the other episodes started airing, and was renewed for both a second and third season before the first was halfway finished. The series led to a touring cast concert, a 3D movie of said concert, and the reality show spin-off ''Series/TheGleeProject'', where hopefuls competed to land a recurring role on the series. |
| 19 | |
| 20 | The show was renewed for a fourth season in 2012, and received another double-renewal in 2013. It might have lasted longer as well were it not for the untimely death of Creator/CoryMonteith, Finn Hudson's actor, in the summer of 2013, a few weeks before the fifth season was due to begin filming. It was later confirmed by Ryan Murphy that the sixth season would be the final season, and it ended on March 20, 2015 after six seasons and 121 episodes. |
| 21 | |
| 22 | The series had a FakeCrossover [[http://www.cbc.ca/news/arts/archie-glee-crossover-sees-clash-between-riverdale-and-mckinley-1.1374719 with the Archie universe]] in ''"Archie Meets Glee"''. It also spawned a British singing contest called ''"Don't Stop Believing"'' (yes, with the 'g') that [[BritishBrevity lasted six episodes]] in summer 2010, was won by the only team who sang Creator/BarbraStreisand, and has never been mentioned since. |
| 23 | |
| 24 | Please add the related tropes to following Sub Pages: |
| 25 | * [[Characters/{{Glee}} Character Sheet]] |
| 26 | * [[HoYay/{{Glee}} Ho Yay]] |
| 27 | * [[WMG/{{Glee}} Wild Mass Guessing]] |
| 28 | * [[Recap/{{Glee}} Recap]] |
| 29 | * [[Headscratchers/{{Glee}} Headscratchers]], which is divided into |
| 30 | ** [[Headscratchers/GleeSeasonGeneric Generic (Non Season-Specific)]] |
| 31 | ** [[Headscratchers/GleeCharacters Character-Specific]] |
| 32 | ** [[Headscratchers/GleeSeason1 Season 1]] |
| 33 | ** [[Headscratchers/GleeSeason2 Season 2]] |
| 34 | ** [[Headscratchers/GleeSeason3 Season 3]] |
| 35 | ** [[Headscratchers/GleeSeason4 Season 4]] |
| 36 | ** [[Headscratchers/GleeSeason5 Season 5]] |
| 37 | * [[AwesomeMusic/{{Glee}} Music]] |
| 38 | |
| 39 | ---- |
| 40 | !!Tropes Include: |
| 41 | |
| 42 | [[foldercontrol]] |
| 43 | |
| 44 | [[folder: A-B]] |
| 45 | * AbortedArc: Repeatedly. Most notably was any Finn story lines occurring past season 4, since between season 4 and 5 Creator/CoryMonteith passed away. |
| 46 | * ACappella: The Dalton Academy Warblers was an all-male ''A Cappella'' group (played by the RealLife Tufts University Beelzebubs). |
| 47 | * AccidentalMisnaming: |
| 48 | ** The only time Sue calls Emma by her correct name is in the pilot. All other times, she has "mistakenly" called her names like Irma, Alma, Ellen, Arlene, You, or the Redhead. |
| 49 | ** Sue appears to not do this purely out of malice. In ''Furt'' she claims that her repeated references to Kurt as "Lady" were because she thought it was his name - though she has referred to him by name on-screen in previous episodes. When Kurt points out that he takes offense to it, she allows him to choose a different nickname for her to call him. He chooses the name Porcelain, which she uses exclusively afterwards. The implication is that the nicknames are a way for Sue to express contempt, respect or possibly even affection without losing her DrillSergeantNasty persona. Of course, only Sue knows which she's expressing at any given time. |
| 50 | * AdamWesting: |
| 51 | ** Josh Groban plays himself as silly and Olivia Newton-John is a big enough bitch that even Sue doesn't like her. |
| 52 | ** Creator/LindsayLohan is obsessed with making her comeback and Perez Hilton is obsessed with finding something scandalous about her. |
| 53 | * AdaptationDisplacement: An in-universe example. The lines Finn and Rachel run are from the film version of ''Film/{{Cabaret}},'' suggesting they are putting on an adaptation of that rather than the original stageplay. The songs from the film often do find their way into stage productions of the play in real life, however. |
| 54 | ** Similarly, the versions of ''[[Film/TheRockyHorrorPictureShow Rocky Horror]]'' and ''Film/{{Grease}}'' that the club puts on are movie based rather than the actual stage productions. |
| 55 | * AdultsAreUseless: To an extent. |
| 56 | ** The adults do nothing about bullying at [=McKinley=] (although this is TruthInTelevision), and even Will passively permits this. The school board dismisses the claim of Karofsky's death threat and only give him a verbal warning. Averted by Sue, who genuinely wants to help Kurt, but is held back by protocol, and even resigns the position of principal so that she can help him better. Not that it helps. |
| 57 | ** Twice within the first three episodes of Season 1, everything is going to pot until the kids stop listening to the adults and take charge themselves. In fact if you include the Disco/Push it dilemma, they're three for three. |
| 58 | ** Will is an [[AvertedTrope aversion]], at least if you ask the members of New Directions. They even sing "My Life Would Suck Without You" in his honor. (Many viewers, however, consider that an InformedAttribute because he actually has been pretty useless when the kids needed him [Kurt being bullied, Santana's public outing, etc]). |
| 59 | ** This trope is brought up in the episode ''On My Way''. When Karofsky tries to kill himself the faculty of [=McKinley=] conference in the principal's office. Among the things said, Sue says that she should've seen it coming, because she was principal when he was bullying Kurt and she knew something was up. Will says that they were all hard on Dave because they thought he'd hurt Kurt, they just didn't imagine that he'd hurt himself. |
| 60 | -->'''Principal Figgins''': It wasn't our job to know.\ |
| 61 | '''Emma''': Then whose job was it? |
| 62 | ** A minor example in "Dynamic Duets". The Glee Club's Nationals Trophy is stolen by the Warblers, who refuse to give it back unless Blaine rejoins them. Eventually, Blaine and Sam break into the school and take it back. Principal Figgins doesn't seem to care much that a major piece of school property was stolen and is being held for ransom - in fact, his reaction is never mentioned, nor is that of the Dalton administration. |
| 63 | * AesopAmnesia: All the freaking time. If someone learns a lesson, don't expect it to stick. |
| 64 | ** A particularly stinging example is Rachel's audition for NYADA (the fictional New York Academy of the Dramatic Arts). Back when she auditioned for ''Theatre/WestSideStory,'' Shelby suggested she perform a more vocally-trying song than originally intended, and that she'd never get anywhere without taking risks. But when it's time for her big NYADA audition, she sticks to a "safe" song and even tells Kurt to do the same. This being Glee, three guesses as to the outcome of said audition... |
| 65 | * AgeInappropriateArt: Every so often, New Directions performs musical numbers that are '''really''' not appropriate to be taught at schools; examples include "Push It," "Toxic," the entirety of "The Rocky Horror Glee Show," "Do You Wanna Touch Me", and any number involving twerking. |
| 66 | * AGoodNameForARockband: Several are suggested in "A Katy or a Gaga" for Kurt's new band, including: The Apocalipsticks, The Nip-Slips, and Areola 51, before they settle on [[Creator/PamelaAnderson Pamela]] [[Creator/AngelaLansbury Lansbury]]. |
| 67 | * AllGaysArePromiscuous: Inverted in Kurt's case; he was actually quite nervous about what sex with a guy will be like, preferring chaste romances where "the touch of the fingertips is as sexy as it gets." Played with in Santana's case; her promiscuity with ''boys'' is a way of hiding from her feelings for the girl she's in love with, Brittany (who, on the other hand, will do anyone). Played straight in Sebastian's case, whose promiscuity is implied at through his first meeting with Blaine being intercut with a rendition of "A Boy Like That". |
| 68 | * AllGuysWantCheerleaders: Quinn, as head cheerleader was the most popular girl in school; when Santana took over as cheer captain, she claimed that title. |
| 69 | * AllPartOfTheShow: In a totally natural sense, Figgins believes that the Glee Club's vomit attack during their performance of "Tik Tok" was all special effects. In reality, New Directions were drunk off their asses. |
| 70 | * AllThereInTheScript: |
| 71 | ** Will was an ''economics major'' in college. Even with a teaching degree afterwards, he'd have to specialize in math or economics, or be a substitute. Also explains his canon lack of talent in Spanish. |
| 72 | ** Artie is actually spelled "Arty". Brittany is also referred to by the writers as "Brit". |
| 73 | ** The name of the glee club when Sandy was in charge was "Rhythm Explosion", and the Nationals competition in 2010 that New Directions didn't make it to was going to be in Orlando. |
| 74 | * AlphaBitch: It seems to be a constantly rotating spot on the show, with each example eventually vacating the spot after becoming a LovableAlphaBitch. It was Quinn at the beginning of the show, followed soon after by Santana for the next two seasons. Kitty was introduced to take over role in season 4 after Santana moved to New York. After Kitty came Bree in season 5, who even the former title holder thinks is a "stone cold bitch". |
| 75 | * AltarTheSpeed: |
| 76 | ** Emma and Ken, almost, in the first season... and then Emma and Carl for real in the second season. |
| 77 | ** In "On My Way" Rachel and Finn attempt this. |
| 78 | ** Will tries to push Emma into doing this because he's afraid the Glee kids won't come back for the wedding after they graduate and move away from Lima. |
| 79 | * AManIsAlwaysEager: |
| 80 | ** {{Subverted|Trope}} with Finn. In many ways, he ''is'' quite the HormoneAddledTeenager, having joined the Celibacy Club only because he saw it as a decent opportunity to sleep with its president, his girlfriend Quinn. However, when Santana offers to take his virginity, he's actually reluctant to take her up on it at first since he's more interested in working things out with Rachel romantically (he and Quinn had broken up at this time), and when he ''does'' decide to have sex with Santana, he is ashamed and regretful afterwards as "it didn't mean anything". |
| 81 | ** {{Inverted|Trope}} with Kurt, who explicitly defines himself as a romantic who is uncomfortable with both the physical act and the emotional implications of sex and who knew that he ''really'' wasn't ready to have sex. He put his fingers in his ears and started singing when his dad sat down to have TheTalk with him. |
| 82 | * AmbiguouslyBi: Rod Remington, WOHN news anchor. |
| 83 | -->'''Remington:''' I partied with [[Music/FreddieMercury Mercury]] back in the seventies, and I partied... [[{{double entendre}} hard]]... and back then, we didn't care about labels. |
| 84 | ** Quinn in the season 4 episode "I Do". |
| 85 | * AnachronismStew: The first part of season 5 is taking place where season 4 left off in the Spring of 2013 to finish off the school year. The fourth episode features the songs "Applause" by Lady Gaga and "Roar" by Katy Perry. Two songs that came out in AUGUST 2013. |
| 86 | * ArmorPiercingQuestion: |
| 87 | ** After she pushes him too far, Finn asks Santana one in "Mash Off." |
| 88 | -->'''Finn''': Hey Santana! Why don't you just come out of the closet? |
| 89 | ** After Karofsky's suicide attempt, Figgins, Will, Emma, Sue, and Beiste are all processing it and discussing how to handle breaking the news to the students. Sue blames herself for not doing enough when she was principal. |
| 90 | --->'''Will''': Guys, we were all hard on Dave. We thought he was going to hurt Kurt. I just never thought he'd hurt himself.\ |
| 91 | '''Figgins''': It wasn't our job to know.\ |
| 92 | '''Emma''': Then whose job was it? ''[no one answers]'' |
| 93 | * ArsonMurderAndJaywalking: In "Bad Reputation," after the premiere of Rachel's "Run Joey Run" video, Jesse and Finn are upset that Rachel manipulated them for the sake of changing her reputation, while Puck seems more concerned with the fact that the [[StylisticSuck video sucks]]. |
| 94 | * ArtisticLicenseEducation: |
| 95 | ** Let's see here: A teacher who not only bullies students but encourages them to do it to others, a student with a 0.0 GPA being permitted to do athletic competitions, a club that seems to meet at all hours of the day, a Spanish teacher who never actually qualified on the subject (and has to go to night school to learn the subject he's supposed to be teaching), a female student being punished by the glee club coach for refusing to wear a clamshell bikini during a performance (it's important to note that she is 15 years old and has an eating disorder that the coach already knew about when he set the assignment), a student in a wheelchair being allowed to play football by invoking [[LoopholeAbuse Ain't No Rule]], a teacher becoming so close to his students that one of them is ''the best man at his wedding'', not to mention the whole deal with [[AxesAtSchool the student who brought a gun to school...]] |
| 96 | ** Tenure in public schools does not work like it was portrayed on ''Glee''. Most teachers receive automatic tenure after 3 years working in the same school as insurance against wrongful firing and budget cuts; a tenured position doesn't open up just because a long-time teacher resigns. Likewise, teacher specialties--in this case, Spanish and History--are misrepresented: Teachers study from 4-6 years to be qualified to work in their schools, and even then only in their specialty. Scheuster would not have just wandered into the high school and asked for a Spanish position, nor could he have switched to the History department on such short notice; he needed qualifications |
| 97 | * ArtisticLicenseGeography: While the writers have clearly done ''some'' research on Ohio locales (such as Rachel mentioning EJ Thomas Hall in Akron), there are smaller details they get wrong that an Ohio native can point out. Some are the result of HollywoodProvincialism, while others are just plain wrong: |
| 98 | ** Outside the larger cities and their suburbs, the smaller cities like Lima don't have particularly large Asian or Jewish populations. Lima does, however, have a significant Black population, at least more so than we've seen on the show. |
| 99 | ** Westerville, the location of Dalton Academy, is a suburb of Columbus and almost 2 hours from Lima. Kurt commuting when he attended Dalton and dating Blaine at leisure must take a hell of a lot of gas. |
| 100 | ** Ohio's age of consent law is 16. It technically wasn't illegal for Jeremiah, Blaine's previous crush, to date him and be intimate. It's not unreasonable for an adult to be uncomfortable having that sort of relationship with a teenager, but saying he'd go to jail over it is not actually true. |
| 101 | *** Since Blaine was retconned to being a sophomore in season 2, he very well could have still been 15 by Valentine's day. |
| 102 | ** Blaine would have to move to Chicago for the summer if he wants to perform at Six Flags, since Six Flags Great America is the only Six Flags park in that part of the Midwest, as the one in Ohio was sold to Cedar Fair, Inc. in 2004, and then closed in 2007. His better bets would be Cedar Point in Sandusky, or going back to King's Island in Cincinnati. |
| 103 | ** The students at [=McKinley=] are often seen lounging outside before class during times of the year when it would be way too cold to do so (from late October to mid-April, if you're lucky). In fact, most Ohio high schools don't have much in the way of outdoor accommodations at all for that reason. |
| 104 | ** Akron, Vocal Adrenaline's home base, is 3 hours from Lima, making it extremely unlikely that the kids from one town can travel to the other at leisure. And since Akron is basically a slightly-smaller Cleveland, it's also unlikely for Carmel High to have such an outrageous budget for its glee club. Since it hasn't been established who Unique is living with in Lima, it's clear she drives 155 miles every day to go to school. |
| 105 | ** Allen County does not have a community college, though this is forgivable since NYADA is equally fictional. |
| 106 | * ArtisticLicenseSports: The episode "Preggers" gives us the notorious "All the Single Ladies" football play. In real life, a play like that would get flagged for false start, offside, delay of game, illegal formation, playing music over the sound system while the play clock was running and illegal motion (more than one person moving before the snap). |
| 107 | * AscendedExtra: |
| 108 | ** Becky, rather than being a one off character for the particular episode she was in continued to show up and got more screen time and lines as Sue's [[TheDragon assistant]], culminating in her becoming the head of the Secret Service for Sue's VP run. |
| 109 | ** Creator/HeatherMorris. She was originally brought in to teach the actors the "Single Ladies" dance before becoming a guest star and eventually a main character in season 2. |
| 110 | ** Harry Shum Jr., as Mike Chang was only known as "Other Asian" for the majority of the first season, he had about 4 lines throughout the entire first season, and was only a dancer/background for the show choir. However, in the second season, he's dating Tina, and his role is greatly expanded. He also got to sing twice in season 2. Season 3 took this to the next level and gives him his only solo. |
| 111 | ** Lauren Zizes, the plus-size homely girl who appeared in one-off scenes throughout the series, becomes a much more important character in season two, eventually becoming Puck's girlfriend. |
| 112 | * AscendedMeme: |
| 113 | ** In "Britney/Brittany", the gang goes to Emma's new dentist boyfriend for a various procedures. All needing gas. What does Rachel say right after coming out of her drug-fueled dream? [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=txqiwrbYGrs "Is this real life?"]] |
| 114 | ** "Britney/Brittany" also gets Stoner Brett's "Leave Brittany Alone!" and Brittany's "It's Brittany... bitch." |
| 115 | ** Mike being referred to as [[Series/JerseyShore "The Situasian"]]. He was originally named that out-of-show - soon he was referred to that in-show. |
| 116 | ** Quinn, Santana, and Brittany were collectively referred to by fans as the "Unholy Trinity." Many fans were excited to hear Santana use the term herself in the third season premiere. |
| 117 | ** A number of the couple nicknames (Puckleberry, Finchel, etc.) came from fans. |
| 118 | ** In "Furt", Finn makes a speech about Portmanteau Couple Names in the school. |
| 119 | ** In "End Of Twerk", Sue pointed out the unfortunate implications of Will singing "Blurred Lines" to a bunch of twerking teenagers - either intentionally or unintentionally acknowledging the Pedo!Will meme. |
| 120 | * AttackOfThePoliticalAd: All of the congressional campaign ads in "Mash Off." |
| 121 | * AuthorAppeal: As with [[Series/AmericanHorrorStory any]] [[Series/TheNewNormal Ryan Murphy]] show, there are a number of gay characters. Also, in fanfiction, the songs featured will usually be ones that the author likes. |
| 122 | * AutoTune: Every song to varying degrees, most prevalent in the first season. Including successful Broadway actresses like Lea freaking Michele. Also mentioned [[LeaningOnTheFourthWall in-series]]. |
| 123 | ** Almost every time we hear the entire New Directions sing at once, the vocals are layered to sound like there's more of them. There were only two exceptions, both in the first season. The first was "Gold Digger", in which the background singing was left alone, presumably for [[NoBudget budget reasons]]. The second was the entire number "Ride With Me", which was [[ThrowItIn completely unplanned, and therefore not recorded in a studio]]. |
| 124 | * AwLookTheyReallyDoLoveEachOther: Cassandra finally lets up on Rachel in "Wonder-Ful." |
| 125 | * AxesAtSchool: "Shooting Star". |
| 126 | * BRoll: In [[Recap/GleeS6E10TheRiseAndFallOfSueSylvester "The Rise and Fall of Sue Sylvester"]], Becky records and sends B-Roll footage of how she's better without Sue. |
| 127 | * BabiesEverAfter: In the final episode it's revealed that Will and Emma have had three more children beyond the boy they had in season 5, and Kurt and Blaine are expecting a baby with Rachel as their surrogate. |
| 128 | * TheBabyTrap: After thinking she's pregnant and finding out it was just a hysterical pregnancy, Terri continues to claim to be pregnant to continue her failing marriage with Will. Quinn also tells Finn he's the father of her baby when in actuality Puck is really the father. And in testament to the utter ridiculousness of the show, the two manage to overlap. BewareTheNiceOnes came into play in both instances. |
| 129 | * BackForTheFinale: Carol Burnett reprised her role as Mrs. Sylvester in the tail end of the final season. Max Adler also returned as Karofsky in a recurring role, and Jonathan Groff as Jesse for two guest spots. In the final number, almost every major cast member returned to perform [[labelnote:note]] the only missing members were Marley, due to Melissa Benoist being busy with ''Series/{{Supergirl 2015}}'', and Rory, due to a scheduling conflict with Damian [=McGinty=][[/labelnote]]. |
| 130 | * BackhandedApology: Santana delivers a ''nasty'' one to Finn in "Mash Off": |
| 131 | -->'''Santana''': Hey Tubs! Can I talk to you for a second?\ |
| 132 | '''Rory''': Hey, listen here. You can't make fun of Finn anymore.\ |
| 133 | '''Santana''': Shut your potato hole, I'm here to apologize. ''[to Finn]'' Rachel's right, I haven't been fair to you. You're not fat. I should know, I slept with you. I mean, at some point I must have liked that you look like a taco addict who's had one too many back alley liposuctions.\ |
| 134 | '''Rory''': Whoa.\ |
| 135 | '''Santana''': Please stick a sock in it or ship yourself back to Scotland. I'm trying to apologize to Lumps The Clown. ''[back to Finn]'' I am sorry, Finn. I mean, really, I'm sorry that the New Directions are gonna get crushed by the Troubletones. And also sorry that you have no talent. Sorry that you sing like you're getting your prostate checked, and you dance like you've been asleep for years and someone just woke you up. Have fun riding on Rachel's coattails for the rest of your life, although, you know what, I would just watch out for her come holiday time if I were him, because if I were her, I'd stick a stent in one of those boobs and let the Finn blubber light the Hanukkah lamp for eight magical nights. |
| 136 | ** Unfortunately, this lead to Finn asking the [[ArmorPiercingQuestion one question]] designed to hurt Santana where she lived: [[{{Gayngst}} Hey Santana, why don't you just come out of the closet?]] |
| 137 | * TheBear [[LampshadeHanging Lampshaded]] and discussed by Kurt and David Karofsky, who we find out in season three has taken to hanging out at a local gay bar and has been dubbed a bear cub because of his youth and rather burly stature. Kurt, apparently not knowing anything about the term, jokingly asks if he's a cub because he "looks like Yogi." |
| 138 | ** This trope is apparently the type of guy Karofsky usually is attracted to, and knowing this fact, Sue, who plans to get Blaine (who was dating Karofsky at the time) back together with Kurt, puts ''[[LiteralMinded an actual bear]]'' in his and Karofsky's apartment. |
| 139 | * BeautyIsBad: The three initial bitchy cheerleaders are also referred to at the same time as the prettiest in school. |
| 140 | * BeautyIsBest: |
| 141 | ** Quinn is shown as very intelligent and athletic, as well as having great emotional depth and talent in gymnastics, dance, acting, and singing. But she just wants to be the [[WorldsMostBeautifulWoman prettiest girl there could ever be]], and defines her worth this way (before CharacterDevelopment hit, and it's {{justified}} in Season 2 when it's shown that she used to be fat as a child and was bullied for it). |
| 142 | ** When given the opportunity, Rachel considers having a nose job because she is embarrassed by her Jewish nose (for a short while) but quickly learns that her talent outshines her schnoz. |
| 143 | * BeautyIsNeverTarnished: An averted male example: After Kurt gets gay bashed, his face, neck, and hands are very bruised and cut and remain that way for the rest of the episode. Lampshaded when his dad laments his "beautiful face" and Kurt says he doesn't mind and actually wants it to leave a scar. |
| 144 | * BelligerentSexualTension: Puck and pretty much [[AllGirlsWantBadBoys every girl he flirts with]]. |
| 145 | * BerserkButton: |
| 146 | ** Don't say the word 'fag' around Burt. Don't let him find out you have been harassing his kid, either. |
| 147 | ** Will's BerserkButton is supposedly messing with any of the students in New Directions, but he's rather inconsistent about it. |
| 148 | * BetaCouple: Artie/Tina were this in Season 1. Mike/Tina and Sam/Quinn (until the latter couple broke up) were this for Season 2, later joined by Puck/Lauren. Season 3 had Kurt/Blaine firmly in the beta position, until Season 4 broke all the couples up. |
| 149 | * BettyAndVeronica: Quinn and Rachel to Finn, Artie and Santana to Brittany, Beiste and Sue to Cooter the Recruiter. |
| 150 | * BetterThanABareBulb: The writers will take ''any'' chance they get to poke fun at some of the show's stranger aspects. The longer it ran, the more frequent the lampshades. |
| 151 | * BewareTheNiceOnes: |
| 152 | ** Will when he found out Terri wasn't pregnant. [[UnstoppableRage It wasn't pretty.]] |
| 153 | ** Finn when Rachel tells him who the father of 'his' child really is. Pretty much everyone predicted this outcome, but it was still immensely satisfying to watch. |
| 154 | ** We can see more of Will's rage with the Trophy incident in "Funk." |
| 155 | ** Finn's explosion directed at Kurt in 'Theatricality.' |
| 156 | ** Near the end of "Journey", Emma ''flips out'' and gets into a screaming match with Principal Figgins. |
| 157 | ** Emma yells at Will for being a slut and doesn't beat around the bush about it. |
| 158 | * BigApplesauce: The season 2 finale takes place here. |
| 159 | ** Due to Kurt and Rachel attending the fictional school of NYADA, some episodes of season 4 also take place here, with Santana joining them in later episodes. |
| 160 | ** It's even taken up to eleven in Season 5, due to the cancellation of the glee club, after "New Directions", the last seven episodes of season 5 took place here, with Blaine, Sam, Artie, and Mercedes joining. (Season 6, of course, returned to Lima.) |
| 161 | * BigDamnHeroes: |
| 162 | ** Rachel happens to quit the musical and rejoin the glee club right at the moment when Will kicks April out - in the middle of a performance, no less. |
| 163 | ** Finn, after Will convinces him to re-join the club despite his ill will toward Puck and Quinn, and Finn arrives right before their big Sectionals performance with a new number that helps them to win Sectionals despite the other clubs stealing their set list. |
| 164 | ** SUE, of all people, in "Journey", getting Principal Figgins to give the club another year after they failed to place at Regionals. This is also a VillainousRescue, as she clearly wanted to keep playing with them for her amusement, rather than any altruistic reason. |
| 165 | ** Puck in "Special Education", when he convinces Lauren to join the Glee Club, and again in "The Sue Sylvester Shuffle", when he convinces the Football team to play the game. |
| 166 | * BigGame: In "Preggers," the football game is the climax of the episode. There is also the show choir competitions, though the build up usually varies in effectiveness as well as the championship football game in the episode following the Superbowl. |
| 167 | * BisexualLoveTriangle: There is a brief love triangle between Kurt, Blaine, and Rachel. Blaine, who had previously thought he was gay, drunkenly kisses Rachel and thinks he might be bi. This love triangle is obviously important in Blaine working out his sexuality (still 100% gay). Kurt, who really likes Blaine, gives him a negative speech about how he can't like Rachel because [[NoBisexuals bisexuality isn't real]], sparking an argument between them. |
| 168 | * BlackComedy: Fairly common, depending on the writer. As in the third episode when the shop teacher loses both his thumbs and they get him a cake with hands on it and the legend "Two Thumbs Up!" |
| 169 | -->'''Will:''' How do you guys answer the phone?\ |
| 170 | '''Mercedes:''' What up?\ |
| 171 | '''Artie:''' Who dis be?\ |
| 172 | '''Kurt:''' No, she's dead; this is her son. |
| 173 | * BlackComedyRape: Brittany lost her virginity at summer camp when an "alien" came into her tent. This being Brit-Brit though, it might not have happened *exactly* like that. |
| 174 | ** How Sue blackmailed Figgins, by slipping him a roofie and then taking a picture of two of them in bed together. As Sue was in her tracksuit at this point, we don't know if anything happened or she just made Figgins ''think'' it did. |
| 175 | * {{Blackmail}}: |
| 176 | ** Santana blackmails Karofsky into not only being her [[TheBeard beard]], but also reforming in order to get Kurt back in [=McKinley=]. |
| 177 | ** Sue is the master at this. She pulls it twice on Figgins in the first season alone. |
| 178 | * BlahBlahBlah: Mercedes is third wheel to Blaine and Kurt. Mercedes is going into tots-withdrawal. The result: "Gay Gay Gay" (and a tiny pink purse). |
| 179 | * BlendedFamilyDrama: Season two had a subplot about Finn's mom Carole finding her SecondLove in Kurt's dad Burt. Both boys had their issues with the relationship and feared the new family (Finn worried that Burt would replace his deceased father, Kurt worried that Burt preferred Finn), but eventually became close stepbrothers. Not bad for two guys who started out with a GayGuySeeksPopularJock dynamic! |
| 180 | * BlessedWithSuck: One of the more interesting subtexts of the show -- Musical talent is treated as a heady mix of this and CursedWithAwesome, depending on the situation. This becomes even more thought-provoking once you think of all the times the characters [[IJustWantToBeNormal Just Want To Be Normal]]. |
| 181 | * BookEnds: |
| 182 | ** In the "Loser Like Me"[=/=]"Homecoming" two-part season 6 premiere. Near the beginning of the first episode Rachel hops into a golf-cart and is driven out of her studio. At the end of the second she hops in another one and rides it to the homecoming dance. |
| 183 | ** In the first episode Rachel says "being a part of something special makes you special". Years later, in the final episode, she amends this to "something is special because you're a part of it". |
| 184 | ** The first episode closes with the hand-raise of all the kids of the glee club (at that time a measly six) in their red outfits in the auditorium, the final episode does the same but this time there are all the dozens of cast members. |
| 185 | ** The first filmed shot for the show was Creator/CoryMonteith's face, so was the last via the "Finn Hudson Memorial Auditorium" sign. |
| 186 | ** In Season Five, when the glee club (temporarily) ends, all of the glee kids appear in the auditorium to sing to Will in the (approximate) order they joined the club in, making this part a literal book-ended mirror for the original glee club. |
| 187 | * {{Bowdlerize}}: The Rocky Horror Picture Show is butchered both in-universe and out. |
| 188 | * BreadEggsMilkSquick: In "Hell-o": |
| 189 | --> '''Will:''' What do you say when you answer the phone?\ |
| 190 | '''Mercedes:''' Whadda?\ |
| 191 | '''Artie:''' [[PrettyFlyForAWhiteGuy Who dis be?]]\ |
| 192 | '''Kurt:''' No, [[MissingMom she's dead]], this is her son. |
| 193 | * BreakingTheFourthWall: Done a couple of times. |
| 194 | ** Episode 1.07: |
| 195 | --> '''Will:''' Shut up, Sue! Look at us. We're even fighting in our voiceovers. |
| 196 | ** A truly hilarious one in the start of 4.02: first, we hear Brittany's voiceover and see her walking on the corridor, shot from behind... then the camera cuts so that we see her face and see her reciting the voiceover out loud. Cue Blaine: |
| 197 | --> '''Blaine:''' Brittany, who are you talking to?\ |
| 198 | '''Brittany:''' I thought I was doing a voiceover.\ |
| 199 | '''Blaine:''' ... okay. |
| 200 | ** Brittany sorta does this too in 4.09 when she talks to Sam about "all the lesbians of the nation" about to go all Lima Heights on Sam; though she does not address the Brittana fandom directly, no one was fooled. For the record, she was right. |
| 201 | * BreakTheCutie: |
| 202 | ** Rachel has too many to count, she seems to be the writers' favorite punching bag, the end of Season 5 and the first episode of Season 6 being the UrExample of this trope. Quinn has a few of these moments too. |
| 203 | ** In "Original Song," we have one cutie breaking the other. What are their names? |
| 204 | ** Kurt gets hit with this a lot as well. |
| 205 | ** Blaine too - after 5x16, it seems something has been wrong for a while... |
| 206 | * BreakTheHaughty: If you consider Santana this, then her getting called to the office in "Mash-Off" to find that she's going to be outed to all of Ohio before she even has a chance to come out to her parents definitely counts. "I haven't even told my parents yet." |
| 207 | * BreatherEpisode: |
| 208 | ** The (mostly) lighthearted and almost farcical "Theatricality," after the rather dark and depressing "Dream On." Then again, any episode would be LighterAndSofter following [[Creator/JossWhedon the guy who's famous for his dark and depressing shows.]] |
| 209 | ** "Choke", a very heavy episode which had a DownerEnding for all of the plots contained in it, was followed immediately by "Prom-asaurus", which contained such elements as cheerios wearing dinosaur masks and a subplot focused around [[RunningGag Blaine's abundance of hair gel]]. |
| 210 | ** "Dynamic Duets", a very goofy episode, sandwiched between "Glease" and "Thanksgiving", which deal with Kitty's attempts to make Marley bulimic, the aftermath of Kurt and Blaine's painful breakup, and Marley collapsing in the end of "Thanksgiving"", causing New Directions to lose Sectionals. |
| 211 | ** At first, many fans believed "Shooting Star" would be one given the previews involving Brittany singing to her ''cat'' and the entire plot of the first half. Subverted in the second half the moment [[WhamEpisode the gunshots go off]]. |
| 212 | * BrickJoke: Rachel's gold stars came back in "Funeral." |
| 213 | ** In the pilot, Emma shows Will a video of him in show choir to convince him to stay at the school. In the season 3 episode, "Saturday Night Glee-ver", we get to see that clip for ourselves. |
| 214 | ** In one of the first episodes of the first season, Puck says: "I'm a stud, dude. I could wear a dress to school and everyone would think it's cool." In 3.20, he finally does... and he's wrong as hell. |
| 215 | ** A subtle one in "Wheels": Burt asks Kurt if gender roles aren't changing. He mentions guys wearing dress shoes without socks. Cue Blaine's somewhat questionable fashion choices once he ditches the Warblers uniform in Season 3. In the same conversation, Burt notes that he's not comfortable talking to Kurt about sex. They have "the talk" in Season 2's "Sexy" episode. |
| 216 | ** The wigs the boys wear in "Hairography" return when they perform as Kiss in "Theatricality." |
| 217 | ** As of "Glease", the glee club has finally gotten all the way through "You're the One That I Want" after two [[MusicalisInterruptus aborted attempts]] in Season 1. |
| 218 | *** A single-episode example: In "Night of Neglect," Holly gives a presentation about [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wallis_Simpson Wallis Simpson]]. Simpson was, according to Holly's presentation, a Nazi sympathizer. At the end of the episode, concluding a subplot about Brittany and Artie competing on a quiz bowl, one of the questions was about...Nazi sympathizers. |
| 219 | * BrokenAesop: |
| 220 | ** While the Aesop in "Blame it on the Alcohol" was good, the kids most likely threw up onstage not because they were drunk but because what they drank contained [[GargleBlaster various remnants of Rachel's dads' liquor cabinet, kool-aid]], [[{{Squick}} cough syrup, and crumbled up oreos]]. Many believe the episode to be a SpoofAesop that's been thinly disguised to appease the network. |
| 221 | ** Another one in "Blame it on the Alcohol": Kurt says that bisexuality is a myth used by people who are afraid of being "totally gay," and Blaine calls him out on it. In the end, Blaine realizes that he isn't actually bi because he has no chemistry with Rachel. So bisexuality isn't a shield to hide your gayness, it's just brought on by drunkenness! Granted, Blaine's realization doesn't invalidate his point that bisexuality is very much a thing, but it seems like the writers just backed off. |
| 222 | ** There seems to even be one in-story in "Born This Way." The word Will writes on the board is acceptance and then tells the kids to make t-shirts about things that make them different and special that they should embrace because they can't change, and most of the kids do that but Will tells Emma that her shirt should have been about her OCD, and while she does need to admit that she's got OCD, it's not something that she should just accept because it can be changed and in Emma's case it really needs to change because her OCD is having severe effects on her ability to live her life. |
| 223 | ** In general, a lot of the Aesops concerning bullying, especially when the show seems to take every instance of anti-gay bullying seriously but alternates in whether other forms of bullying are equally serious or something to be PlayedForLaughs. |
| 224 | * BrutalHonesty: In "Unicorn," Kurt is feeling insecure about his masculinity, after learning he may not be a shoo-in for the lead in ''Theatre/WestSideStory'' as he previously thought, and goes to his dad for advice. Burt, on the other hand, tells his son he's probably one of the least masculine boys ever. |
| 225 | * BurnBabyBurn: After being fired as principal at [=McKinley=], Sue burns everything inside her hurt locker, including her Cheerio trophies. |
| 226 | * BuryYourDisabled: Averted with Artie, who, being paraplegic, is perfectly fine otherwise. Played straight with Jean Sylvester - Sue's sister - who has Down's Syndrome, although she dies at a fairly late age. |
| 227 | * TheBusCameBack: For Jesse, Sunshine, and April at different points in Season 2, as well as Shelby in Season Three. The bus was also nice enough to stop and bring back Sam Evans in Season 3 - just in time for Sectionals no less! |
| 228 | ** Santana returns in "Diva", having quit her cheerleading scholarship at Louisville (apparently her BrutalHonesty was interpreted as bitchiness, [[SarcasmMode surprisingly]]). She then moves to New York and moves in with Kurt and Rachel. |
| 229 | ** After disappearing at the start of Season 4, Roz Washington finally returns as the new cheerleading coach. |
| 230 | ** The bus dropped off April Rhoades and Holly Holiday for the 100th episode. |
| 231 | ** The bus made three more stops in the final season, dropping off Karofsky, Unique, and Jesse. |
| 232 | * ButNotTooBi: While it took over twelve episodes for Brittany and Santana to kiss on screen, by comparison, Season Four had Sam and Brittany make out pretty much every episode. |
| 233 | * ButNotTooGay: |
| 234 | ** More prominent in earlier seasons, mostly due to network restrictions. In season two, Kurt and Blaine have their first kiss and it's full, on the mouth. In season three however, both Kurt and Blaine and Santana and Brittany barely show any affection on screen. As mentioned above, Santana and Brittany took over a dozen episodes from becoming an official couple and sharing their first on-screen kiss. The whole thing was {{Lampshaded}} in "Heart" when they got in trouble for sharing a peck in the hallway, while straight couple Finn and Rachel could make out all over the place with no consequence. |
| 235 | ** Season Four was pretty much the same, but there was at least an excuse considering all the show's couples were broken up. There were still a couple aversions of this trope however, most prominently in the episode "I Do", which had Kurt and Blaine having a full-on makeout session in the car. In general, in seasons three and four, gay couples would only kiss if it was a VerySpecialEpisode. |
| 236 | ** Season Five finally started to avert the trope for real. In the first two episodes of the season, Kurt and Blaine share duets, get engaged in the most over the top proposal ever, share ''two'' passionate kisses, and Santana also gets a new girlfriend that she flirts with and kisses on screen. Once Blaine moves in with Kurt mid-season, the trope is practically non-existent. They cuddle in bed, duet, dance, share steamy and casual kisses, have realistic arguments, and their very active sex life becomes somewhat of a running joke. And when Brittany comes back later in the season, she and Santana get back together with a passionate kiss. |
| 237 | ** Season Six also averted the trope. Brittany and Santana share sweet moments cuddling in bed, kissing, sharing loving duets, and getting engaged in a simple, but adorable, proposal. Kurt and Blaine, while not even dating, share a ''very'' steamy kiss and their break up is a main plot point. Later in the season, both couples got married in a double wedding, which of course included kisses, dances, duets, and declarations of love. |
| 238 | * ButtMonkey: The whole Glee club. Rachel, however, is probably the biggest one for frequently being insulted and picked on ''within the Glee club''. And yes, it's PlayedForLaughs. |
| 239 | [[/folder]] |
| 240 | |
| 241 | [[folder: C-E]] |
| 242 | * CallBack: |
| 243 | ** The final musical number in "Sectionals," "My Life Would Suck Without You," features the kids doing dance moves from past performances. |
| 244 | ** Finn finds Sam singing in the showers, just like Will found him. |
| 245 | *** Rachel meets Brody in this same manner in "The New Rachel". |
| 246 | ** The entire sequence of Rachel signing up to the be the lead vocalist in "Funeral" is a callback to her first audition in the Pilot. |
| 247 | ** In "Asian F," Figgins once again mentions Tina's supposed vampirism. Apparently she's been using it to get special privileges from him. |
| 248 | ** In "Extraordinary Merry Christmas", Sue refers to Blaine as Other Gay. This might be a reference to her referring to Tina and Mike as Asian and Other Asian in a Season 1 episode. |
| 249 | ** In the season 3 premiere, Quinn looks at the club longingly from elsewhere in the auditorium, just like she did in the pilot. In the season 4 premiere, Jake does the same thing from where his brother Puck was standing (also in the pilot). |
| 250 | ** In "Glease", Finn and Rachel fantasize about performing opposite each other in a group version of "You're the One That I Want." That was their first duet after Finn joined the New Directions in the pilot, though not their first full duet, as Mercedes interrupted the performance. |
| 251 | ** In "Sweet Dreams", Puck makes Finn some Grilled Cheesus for breakfast. |
| 252 | *** In "100", there are plenty, but a cute one is Holly Holiday's entrance: she glides into the room on a buttered floor. |
| 253 | ** Santana's performance of "Don't Rain on My Parade" in "Frenemies" is a CallBack to Rachel's performance of the song in the Season 1 episode "Sectionals," including entering from the back of the auditorium and sitting on a chair singing to an audience member. |
| 254 | ** The Season 6 episode "The Rise and Fall of Sue Sylvester" is made of Call Backs to most of the outlandish claims Sue has made over the years. |
| 255 | ---> '''Geraldo Rivera:''' You've never been [[ColdBloodedTorture water-boarded!]]\ |
| 256 | '''Sue:''' I [[BlatantLies water-boarded myself!]] |
| 257 | ** In season 2's "The Rocky Horror Glee Show," Sam mentions the Men of [=McKinley=] calendar. In Season 4's "Naked", we see the calendar shoot. |
| 258 | *** In "Mattress," Sue mentioned that she has a storage locker full of trophies. We see the locker in Season 6's "The Hurt Locker" [[MultiPartEpisode two-parter]]. |
| 259 | * TheCameo: [[Franchise/StarWars Chewbacca]] appears briefly in Artie's dream sequence in "Extraordinary Merry Christmas." |
| 260 | * CampGay: Kurt seems very much at peace with his "feminine" side. He loves clothes, day spas, and fancy costumes. He wears a dress in "Theatricality," performs numbers from ''Victor/Victoria'', and tries to join the girls' group in boys vs. girls competitions. However, in "Furt" he resents being referred to as a lady unless it is from a friend, similar to NWordPrivileges. In one episode when he's watching movies with Mercedes and Rachel, one of the girls says she's feeling emotional and Kurt replies "But our periods don't come until the end of the month." |
| 261 | ** He's been much less camp later. While still into fashion, he's much less flamboyant as he grows older. |
| 262 | ** Burt gives Kurt this [[BrutalHonesty blunt assessment]] as to his leading-man qualities: |
| 263 | --->'''Burt:''' You're gay, Kurt. And not [[StraightGay Rock Hudson gay]], either. You sing like Diana Ross and dress like [[Film/WillyWonkaAndTheChocolateFactory you own a magic candy factory]]. |
| 264 | * CampStraight: Jesse, Bryan and even Will. It's worth noting that the actors who play the [[Creator/JonathanGroff first]] [[Creator/NeilPatrickHarris two]] are in fact gay. |
| 265 | ** Sue and Beiste are female/trans versions. They both look like butch lesbians (at first in Beiste's case), and are played by them, but are straight/trans. |
| 266 | ** The Warblers apparently all have girlfriends. At least, according to them. |
| 267 | * CanonDiscontinuity: This seems to be the case with the season 5 episode, "Previously Unaired Christmas." The premise behind the entire episode is that it's an episode that was made last year only to be rejected and replaced with the canonical season 4 Christmas episode "Glee, Actually." |
| 268 | * CantGetInTroubleForNuthin: In "Bad Reputation," the less popular Glee kids pull stunts to try and raise their Badass cred. It doesn't work. |
| 269 | * CaptainErsatz: A majority of the alter egos of the Superhero Club in "Dynamic Duets" are based off of actual comic book heroes. Blaine lampshades it when Artie dresses as a [[ComicBook/XMen certain telepathic member of a certain band of mutants]], and informs him that members of the club can't dress as existing superheroes or else risk copyright violation. |
| 270 | ** Artie's Dr. Y is Professor X as noted above, and his name might be a homage to ''Series/DoctorWho''. |
| 271 | ** Marley's Wall Flower (later Woman Fierce) is Franchise/WonderWoman. (Interestingly, Melissa Benoist later became [[{{Series/Supergirl 2015}} Supergirl]]. |
| 272 | ** Kitty's Femme Fatale is ComicBook/{{Catwoman}}. |
| 273 | ** Jake and Ryder's Mega Studs are Franchise/{{Superman}}. |
| 274 | ** And Blaine's Nightbird is ComicBook/{{Nightwing}}, a nice callback to his brief moment as Robin in "Makeover". |
| 275 | * TheCasanova: Puck. Also, Emma tries to tell Will that he is this in her "you're a slut" speech, and he doesn't object, although it doesn't seem to be quite true: he kissed Shelby and Emma, but he married his high school sweetheart (Terri), so chances are she's the only woman he's ever slept with. |
| 276 | * CastFullOfCrazy: Most of the characters could easily be classified as non-neurotypical. Additionally, one of the most prominent fan theories is that it all takes place in one of the characters' heads whilst they are committed to a mental institute - this character usually Quinn, Finn or Rachel. Out of all the characters, only Quinn and Emma are canonically called and stated to be "crazy" (Quinn: depression and bipolar, according to Sue, Emma: OCD), but the others display many signs of craziness. Sandy could be argued to have clinical delusion and be a stalker, Shelby had postpartum - as did Quinn, as a matter of fact - and Brittany definitely has... something. Santana and Dave both rush through mental illnesses related to {{gayngst}} in the first half of season 3. Marley has bulimia, Kitty has a pathological lying disorder, Ryder (and to an extent, Sam) has the disappointment syndrome - plus they're both dyslexic, and Jake and Puck are irrational. The list could go on. |
| 277 | * CastFullOfGay: Despite many characters being cis-hetero, the list of LGBT characters is rather long. By the end of the series there have been three regular characters (Kurt, Blaine, Santana) and ten major recurring characters (Sandy, Dave, Sebastian, Rachel's dads, Adam, Dani, Elliott, Spencer, and Alistair) that are homosexual, a ''ton'' of one-shot characters that are queer, plus two transgender characters (Coach Beiste and Unique) and one bisexual character (Brittany) in the main cast. |
| 278 | ** Fanfic writers believe Dalton is a SCHOOL full of gay. So do many of the characters, whose reaction upon encountering Dalton or the Warblers for the first time usually has something like 'is this a gay school or just a school that appears gay?' between the lines. |
| 279 | ** Plus, there are a LOT of out actors on the show. Creator/ChrisColfer, Creator/DotMarieJones, Creator/JaneLynch, Creator/NayaRivera (implied to be bisexual) and Alex Newell all play main characters, but there have been a ton of out guest stars including Music/AdamLambert, Music/DemiLovato, Creator/MattBomer, Creator/NeilPatrickHarris, Creator/CheyenneJackson, Creator/MeredithBaxter, Creator/JonathanGroff, Creator/VictorGarber, Ali Stroker and Music/RickyMartin. In addition, there was one guest star who subsequently came out as trans (Jake Zyrus, formerly known as Charice), and one main cast member who also came out as trans (Creator/JosieTotah, formerly known as JJ Totah). |
| 280 | * CastFullOfPrettyBoys: All of the male cast members can be grouped as either {{Bishounen}} or {{Hunk}}. Some of them both. |
| 281 | * CastingGag: [[invoked]] |
| 282 | ** Casting Lea Michele (Rachel) and Jonathan Groff (Jesse) as love interests, considering their past in ''Theatre/SpringAwakening''. |
| 283 | ** Will had major ShipTease going on with both Shelby and April, implying a LoveTriangle. The two are played by Idina Menzel and Kristin Chenoweth who famously were part of a LoveTriangle over Fiyero in ''Theatre/{{Wicked}}''. |
| 284 | ** Creator/BarryBostwick and Music/MeatLoaf both appear in "The Rocky Horror Glee Show," though as conservative strawmen who want Sue to fight the show. |
| 285 | ** Matt Bomer, known for playing a [[Series/WhiteCollar con man]] plays a guy who stars in credit report commercials, which are known scams. |
| 286 | ** Idina Menzel as Rachel's mother. Everyone tried to deny it at first, but the Gleeks were not fooled. |
| 287 | ** A huge part of Puck's character is that he LikesOlderWomen. Let's just say that was the exact opposite of Mark Salling's type in real life. |
| 288 | ** Dianna Agron is Jewish, but playing a devout Christian whose faith is often a plot point. Compare this to Lea Michele, who was raised Catholic but plays the ''very'' Jewish Rachel. |
| 289 | ** Later on, Matt Bomer is cast as Blaine's older brother. Their real-life sexualities are a direct switch of the characters'; [[StraightGay Matt Bomer]] plays the straight brother and [[CampStraight Darren Criss]] the gay one. |
| 290 | * CatFight: |
| 291 | ** "Audition" had one between Quinn and Santana shortly after Quinn got her position as head cheerleader back and Santana (due to getting a boob job) was demoted to the bottom of the pyramid. |
| 292 | ** Lauren averts this. She doesn't bother with slapping and scratching, and goes straight for the body slams, giving Santana a much-deserved assbeating. |
| 293 | * CasualSportsJersey: The members of the William [=McKinley=] High School football team are almost never seen outside of their practice and matches without the preppy varsity jackets of the team, if not just wearing their game shirt or anything else team-branded. This is probably to avoid being the targets of their own group's bullying antics, which involves throwing drinks at nerds, shoving people into lockers, or any other methods of abuse. It's notable that even though Finn and Puck are star players on the team, after joining the glee club, they slowly start to shed from the jerseys, until they never wear them again after senior year (third season). The cheerleaders are also permanently in their uniforms or varsity sweaters, like the football (and hockey) team. This does seem like coach Sue enforces it, though. |
| 294 | * CatchPhrase: |
| 295 | ** Will: "From the top". |
| 296 | ** Sue: "Do you think this is hard? Try [RefugeInAudacity]. ''That's'' hard!" |
| 297 | *** "I'm gonna break it down for ya." |
| 298 | *** "And that's how Sue c's it!" |
| 299 | ** Figgins: "Schue, my hands are tied!" |
| 300 | ** Kurt: "Mr. Schue, if I may..." |
| 301 | ** Holly: "I thought you'd never ask." |
| 302 | * CatholicSchoolGirlsRule: Rachel, though not actually a Catholic schoolgirl, once dressed like one as an Homage to Music/BritneySpears. |
| 303 | ** Inverted/Deconstructed with the Warblers, who always wear private school uniforms. |
| 304 | * CaughtWithYourPantsDown: In "Britney/Brittany", Sue, unfortunately, catches Jacob Ben Israel ''naked in the school library'' pleasuring himself to a video of Rachel in her Britney Spears schoolgirl outfit. |
| 305 | * CelebrityParadox: |
| 306 | ** Just who starred in ''Theatre/{{Wicked}}'' in the Glee universe? Idina Menzel and Kristin Chenoweth, obviously. Likewise, Lea Michele and Jonathan Groff presumably still starred in ''Theatre/SpringAwakening''. There are just a couple people in Lima, Ohio who look like them. |
| 307 | ** In "Grilled Cheesus," Burt mentions that Kurt has a copy of ''Series/GreysAnatomy'' season 6. April Kepner appears in that season, who is played by Sarah Drew, who [[RetroactiveRecognition plays Suzy Pepper]]. In season 14, Matthew Morrison (Will) and Stefania Spampinato (a model and dancer on Glee, most notably in the season 5 “Brave” performance) joined the ''Grey's Anatomy'' cast (as Paul and Carina). |
| 308 | ** Early on in the series, Emma says that there are people out there who get famous without any talent -- like Creator/JohnStamos. Her new boyfriend Carl is played by him, and she thinks he's very talented. |
| 309 | ** Will had a storyline when he considered trying to make it on Broadway. His actor originated Link Larkin in ''Theatre/{{Hairspray}}'', which must exist in universe, because the kids sang "You Can't Stop the Beat." |
| 310 | ** Within the first couple of episodes, there's a scene where Finn shows Quinn his name for their baby (Drizzle) and says he got inspiration from Creator/GwynethPaltrow's baby name, Apple. Fast forward one whole season, and a substitute teacher named Holly Holliday shows up, played by Paltrow. |
| 311 | ** In "Asian F", Kurt laments the fact that he is not the "leading male" type, with a comment that no-one is looking to cast him opposite Creator/KateHudson. 20 episodes later, Hudson shows up as Rachel's new dance teacher, Cassandra July. |
| 312 | ** In a Sue's Corner web episode, Sue does a piece on 'sneaky gays', in which she laments gays no longer being obvious. Among the sneaky gays are Creator/NeilPatrickHarris, who later plays Bryan Ryan, and Music/AdamLambert, who later plays Elliott Gilbert, AKA Starchild. |
| 313 | ** The deaf club choir director defends the stealing of "Don't Stop Believin'" by saying that it's the number one downloaded song on iTunes. Which is correct (or was at the time), ''if you include the Glee cast version with the Journey version''. And the original experienced a major resurgence in popularity after it was Glee, and so the song probably wouldn't be very downloaded - or popular among high-schoolers - if it weren't for the show, which apparently has to exist inside itself. Ouch. |
| 314 | ** Pretty much all of the main cast seems to exist in the ''Glee'' universe, if Blaine and Sam apparently watching "Frenemies" during "Tested" is anything to go by. [[MindScrew Yeah, have fun figuring that one out.]] |
| 315 | * CerebusSyndrome: Starting with the second half of Season 1. |
| 316 | * ChampionsOnTheInside: They lost the regionals at the end of the first season, but they still get determined to do better next time, especially since the Glee club will still be supported]. |
| 317 | * TheCharacterDiedWithHim: Sadly invoked in between seasons four and five, with the death of Cory Monteith. Finn was put to rest as well, with no cause of death listed, as his life was what was emphasized. |
| 318 | * CharacterShilling: For Will and Finn. Particularly, other characters stand around gushing about how talented, good-hearted and attractive they both are. The characters also seem to unable to shut up about how awesome Finn was especially after he dies. Apparently he was 'the coolest kid at school', charismatic leader (for some a severe case of an InformedAttribute), always stood up for love and justice and deserves all the credit for changing the lives of the glee club members and shape of the school. |
| 319 | ** We get it, Rachel can sing, there's no need to have every character say that she's the greatest singer ever. |
| 320 | * ChekhovsGag: |
| 321 | ** When Sam first introduces himself to New Directions, Artie makes a crack at his "[[Music/JustinBieber Bieber]] cut." Guess whose songs Sam is singing in "Comeback"? |
| 322 | ** Sam says that he was going for Creator/PatrickSwayze's look in ''Film/PointBreak'' with his hair in "Duets." He later sings "Time of My Life" at Sectionals in "Special Education", a song from ''Film/DirtyDancing'', one of Swayze's most famous films. |
| 323 | * ChekhovsGun: Cannons, in this case. Sue's budget for two glitter cannons is cut in "Audition". Later in the season, the glitter cannons are too boring for her and she gets an actual cannon which leads to Brittany, Santana and Quinn leaving the Cheerios. |
| 324 | ** The cannons make a reappearance in season 6 as the grand finale of Vocal Adrenaline's (who are being coached by Sue) performance. |
| 325 | * ChekhovsClassroom: Early in "A Night of Neglect," Holly is teaching Brittany and Artie's history class about Hermaphrodite Nazi Sympathizers. Guess what the final category is in the [[BrickJoke Academic Decathlon?]] |
| 326 | * ChekhovsGunman: Lauren Zizes appears in several minor parts in the first season but it's not until "Special Education" that she joins the glee club. |
| 327 | * ChewingTheScenery: Darren Criss in "Love Shack" at the end of "Heart." In fact, the whole cast was [[LargeHam hamming it]] up to eleven in that number. |
| 328 | * ChristmasEpisode: "A Very Glee Christmas", "Extraordinary Merry Christmas" and "Glee, Actually". |
| 329 | * CircleOfShame: {{Lampshaded}} by Sue. "This is not happening. The cruel slow-motion laughter is just your imagination." |
| 330 | * CirclingMonologue: Rachel and Sunshine have a choreographed one during their duet of "Telephone." |
| 331 | * CleanPrettyChildbirth: Played straight, where Quinn gets a ScreamingBirth scene set to "[[Music/{{Queen}} Bohemian Rhapsody]]". |
| 332 | * ColorCodedForYourConvenience: |
| 333 | ** During the "Like a Virgin" sequence, all three women are wearing lilac nightgowns and all three men are wearing dark gray/black shirts. (Lilac, apparently, symbolizes first love.) |
| 334 | ** In addition, Dustin Goolsby wears dark colors in every scene he's in, so he probably isn't on ND's side. Jesse, too, but he's got the HeelFaceRevolvingDoor thing going. |
| 335 | ** Averted with Blaine, who wears dark gray/black/maroon in every scene where he's not in uniform, but has shown himself to be firmly on ND's side now that Regionals is over. In fact, when he transfers to [=McKinley=], Blaine shows up wearing their colors - black shirt, red pants, and a black, red and white bow tie - to tell Kurt about his transfer and perform his introductory number. |
| 336 | ** Rory Flanagan, the Irish exchange student, wears green shirts throughout most of his first episode. Though this might be [[JustifiedTrope Justified]] in that he's trying to keep up the ruse that [[ItMakesSenseInContext he's a leprechaun]]. |
| 337 | * ColourfulThemeNaming: Emma's parents Rusty and Rose, both considered shades of red, are [[CrossesTheLineTwice ginger supremacists]]. |
| 338 | * ComingOutStory: |
| 339 | ** Everyone (with the exception of Mercedes) already knows Kurt is gay before he actually comes out. He even pretends to be straight in "Laryngitis" in hopes that his dad will like him more, and fools pretty much no one except, of course, [[TheDitz Brittany]]. |
| 340 | ** Santana's got one, too. A couple seasons worth, after a half season spent for her to realize she's a lesbian, before abruptly being forced out and even then there's another season of her coming to terms with this and confirming her sexuality. According to Finn, though, "everybody" knew. Conversely to Kurt, Brittany seems to be the only one who knew all along. |
| 341 | * ContinuityNod: In "Hold on to Sixteen," when Harmony is singing "Buenos Aires" from ''Music/{{Evita}}'', Rachel tells Kurt, "This it torture, ''I'' should be singing that song!" - a nod to "Dream On," in which she tells Jesse that starring in ''Evita'' is one of her dreams. |
| 342 | ** Remember Becky Jackson, the cheerleader with Down's Syndrome in "Wheels"? She's still on the squad in "The Power of Madonna". In "Audition", she's helping Sue with Cheerios auditions, giving her own snarky commentary. Eventually became an AscendedExtra. |
| 343 | ** Sue's sister, also from "Wheels", returns for the back nine, but would sadly pass a season later. |
| 344 | ** The entire "My Life Would Suck Without You" routine in "Sectionals" is a continuity nod to the choreography of many past numbers. |
| 345 | ** The waitress at Breadstix who Brittany and Santana were rude to in "Hell-O" was the same one who spelled it out to Sue that Will had stood her up in "Funk". Breadstix would become the default hangout in the series. |
| 346 | ** The female Vocal Adrenaline singer, Andrea Cohen, who sang the "With Ray!" solo during their performance of "[[Music/AmyWinehouse Rehab]]" all the way back in the Pilot and was identified by Rachel in "Acafellas" (1x3) when the Glee kids visit Carmel High, reappears toward the end of the season in "Funk." She's also there when they perform at Regionals. |
| 347 | ** Finn discovers Sam's awesome voice while he's in the shower singing 80's power ballads... the same way Will discovered Finn's voice in the pilot. |
| 348 | ** "Britney/Brittany" had a subtle (and hilarious) one - Kurt's facial expression upon discovering that Brittany doesn't brush her teeth, harking back to "Laryngitis". |
| 349 | ** Rachel compares her Britney Spears inspired wardrobe change to her ''Grease''-inspired one in "Britney/Brittany". |
| 350 | ** Promos for "The Sue Sylvester Bowl Shuffle" had Sue wearing the fur-lined tracksuit that Kurt recommended Will buy for her in "A Very Glee Christmas". |
| 351 | ** In "A Very Glee Christmas," Blaine mentions performing in the show at King's Island theme park. In "Silly Love Songs," he says "That was the most embarrassing thing I've ever done--and I've performed at theme parks." In the final scene of "New York," he says that he's trying out for the summer gig at Six Flags. |
| 352 | ** When the priest at Burt and Carole's wedding skips the customary prayer, a reference to Brittany's line from "Grilled Cheesus": 'Whenever I pray, I fall asleep.' |
| 353 | ** When Will suggests a solution for Beiste's problem with disunity on the football team Beiste says "You're going to kiss me again?", a nod to "Never Been Kissed". |
| 354 | ** In "Showmance", Sue tells Will 'I don't think you will find anyone else to swim over to your Isle of Misfit Toys.' Guess what song is sung in "A Very Glee Christmas"? |
| 355 | ** In "Britney/Brittany", Brittany mentions singing a Music/{{Kesha}} song. She finally does in "Blame It on the Alcohol". |
| 356 | ** When Blaine is trying to cheer up Kurt after losing Regionals, he tells them there are "plenty of [=GAPs=] in Ohio." |
| 357 | ** At the end of "The Rhodes Not Taken", April plans on making an all-white production of ''Theatre/TheWiz''. In "Rumours", she mentions that it ended up being a disaster. |
| 358 | ** The pompoms that Kurt and Finn come across in "Funeral" made their first appearance way back in "Wheels". |
| 359 | ** Puck and math class: |
| 360 | --->''Season 1, episode 6:''\ |
| 361 | '''Puck:''' Dude, what's wrong with you? Go see the nurse. Every day, I say I have a headache, I sleep for three hours. I haven't attended a math class in two years.\ |
| 362 | ''Season 3, episode 1:''\ |
| 363 | '''Rachel:''' The point of the assignment was to find people who couldn't help but join. The more people that we sing in front of, the more chances we have of getting one, okay? It's simple mathematics!\ |
| 364 | '''Puck:''' Which I stopped attending years ago. |
| 365 | ** In "Asian F", we find out that Figgins still thinks that Tina is a vampire (which she first convinced him of in "Theatricality"). |
| 366 | ** "100" and "New Directions" border on constituting a ContinuityCavalcade, but special mention goes to "Don't Stop Believin'". The choreography is an homage to the original staging from "Pilot" and "Journey", while the members of New Directions (past and present) enter the stage in the order of their joining the Glee club. Add to that a heavy dose of symbolism in who sings which line. The whole sequence was designed as a temporary sendoff to the glee club, as the rest of Season 5 was set entirely in New York. |
| 367 | * ComicallyMissingThePoint: |
| 368 | ** Figgins believes that vampires actually exist and forces Tina to lose her PerkyGoth style because Jacob Ben '' was attacked by rabid ''Literature/{{Twilight}}'' fans and he doesn't want any more incidents. Tina points out that she doesn't even read ''Twilight'' or watch the movies because her parents don't allow her to, but she has to do it anyway. |
| 369 | ** Both Rachel and Emma completely miss the point of Will's "Don't Stand So Close to Me/Young Girl" mashup. |
| 370 | ** Artie thinking that joining the football team and getting abs is what he needs to do to win Tina back. |
| 371 | ** In "A Very Glee Christmas", Finn entirely misses the point of Rachel's speech about the Christmas Tree being the foundation of Christmas and the hearth of the Christmas home. He fails to realize that she is actually alluding to their relationship. In the same episode, the entire glee club fails to grasp the meaning of ''The Gift of the Magi''. |
| 372 | ** In the third season Christmas episode, Artie's been pushed to direct a local Christmas show. |
| 373 | ---> '''Station Manager:''' I am absolutely delighted that our channel's Christmas special is being directed by a teenage disabled boy. You're like a modern day Tiny Tim.\ |
| 374 | '''Artie:''' ''[[[{{beat}} Long stare]]]''\ |
| 375 | '''Station Manager:''' Oh, I am sorry. Tiny Tim could walk. |
| 376 | * ConcertKiss: Finn and Rachel at the end of "Pretending," complete with HeldGaze. Subverted in that the audience didn't seem too pleased, and neither were the other New Directions members, as it gave them 12th place at Nationals. |
| 377 | * ConfettiDrop: Nearly every show choir competition has one when they announce the winners, but the two most notable ones in the series are when the New Directions throw confetti over the audience from slushy cups when performing "Loser Like Me' and when a similar thing happens but is followed by masses of confetti raining down when the glee club return to [=McKinley=] after winning Nationals in season 3. |
| 378 | * CoolShades: |
| 379 | ** Emma suggests Finn and Quinn wear these to re-establish their coolness. To the shock of no one, they promptly get slushied. |
| 380 | ** Everyone wears them in "Blame It On the Alcohol." |
| 381 | * CoolAndUnusualPunishment: Sue removing Quinn and Santana's tanning privileges causes Santana (who's Latina) to cry. |
| 382 | * CountingToPotato: |
| 383 | ** Kurt says that Brittany believes that [[http://fc08.deviantart.net/fs70/i/2010/285/0/1/glee___sq_root_of_4_is_rainbow_by_agent_ayu-d30mlgq.jpg the square root of four is rainbows]]. |
| 384 | ** She also stopped learning the alphabet because she'd mix up 'm' and 'n' and didn't want to continue until she didn't replace them with each other. |
| 385 | ** "[[http://26.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_lg8glvy9Xp1qdiwudo1_500.jpg How many 'm's are in the letter 'r'?]]" |
| 386 | ** She turned, in all the season 4 countdown posters, [[http://fc01.deviantart.net/fs71/f/2012/252/f/a/glee__season_4_brittany_and_kitty_promotional_by_abcdgleek-d5e4gv0.jpg the Glee 'l' into a '7']]. |
| 387 | * CounterpointDuet: "Happy Days Are Here Again/Come On Get Happy," "For Good." |
| 388 | * TheCoverChangesTheGender: |
| 389 | ** "Rose's Turn," "Stronger," and "Forget You." |
| 390 | ** "4 Minutes," too. It was originally sung by a guy and a girl, and still is, but Kurt takes the female role and the line "Come on, boy," becomes "Come on, girl." |
| 391 | ** "Sing!" from "A Chorus Line" gender-swaps, as well. Mike takes the girl's part and Tina takes the guy's part. As Tina says, it's perfect for them because Mike is insecure about his lack of singing skill. |
| 392 | ** "Never Been Kissed" invokes this by having New Directions sing gender flipped mash ups of popular songs. And they sound totally awesome. |
| 393 | ** Averted with "Just The Way You Are." "She" and "her" remain in the song even though it's being sung to Kurt. The lyrics also remain unchanged ("Baby girl, where you at...") when the Warblers and Blaine sing "When I Get You Alone" to Jeremiah. |
| 394 | ** When Brittany sings "I Wanna Dance With Somebody (Who Loves Me)," she swaps the line about needing a man to needing a woman. |
| 395 | ** Deliberately invoked by Will when he requires the male students to sing "[[Music/{{Madonna}} What it Feels Like for a Girl]]": He's trying to teach them a feminist lesson about how they have been acting toward the girls of the group. |
| 396 | * TheCoverChangesTheMeaning: A specialty of Glee's. |
| 397 | ** A mash-up which only uses the chorus "Young Girl" changed the meaning from a man struggling with attraction towards a woman who ends up being an underage girl[[note]]"Young girl get out of my mind/My love for you is way out of line"[[/note]] to a man reprimanding an underage girl for trying to seduce him.[[note]]"Young girl, you're out of your mind/Your love for me is way out of line"[[/note]]. The verses were from [[Music/ThePolice "Don't Stand So Close to Me"]], which is also changed from a teacher being accused of a relationship with his student to a teacher stressing to said student that such a relationship would be inappropriate. |
| 398 | ** They managed to turn [[Music/LadyGaga "Poker Face"]] into a bittersweet duet between [[TheIngenue ingenue]] Rachel and her biological mother about how it's best that they keep their distance from each other. |
| 399 | ** They also managed to turn "[[Music/TheBeatles I Want to Hold Your Hand]]" into a solo about a son's love to his father. [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rhGWC4yq_Yg&feature=related It is heartbreaking.]] (The ''Glee'' version of this song is based on the cover from ''Film/AcrossTheUniverse2007'', where it's about one girl's inability to tell another that she's in love with her.) |
| 400 | ** They also turned "[[Music/FleetwoodMac Landslide]]" from a song about a woman questioning whether she would break up with her childhood sweetheart into a song about a young woman realizing that she is in love with her (female) best friend. It is utterly insane how the lyrics fit both these scenarios. |
| 401 | --> ''Well, I have been afraid of changes, / because I've built my life around you / But time makes you bolder, and children grow older / And I'm getting older too!'' |
| 402 | ** "[[Music/BillyJoel Only The Good Die Young]]" goes from a song about wanting to get into a Catholic girl's pants to a song about ignoring religious restrictions and enjoying life. |
| 403 | ** [[Music/{{REM}} "Losing My Religion"]] is an ObsessionSong in the vein of "[[Music/ThePolice Every Breath You Take]]", as [[WordOfGod lead singer Michael Stipe]] has often explained. The title is a Southern expression (R.E.M. are from Georgia) for losing one's temper and behaving violently. ''Glee'', on the other hand, seem to have taken the title literally since they made it into a song about Finn questioning his faith in God. |
| 404 | ** Their cover of "Isn't She Lovely?" changes it from being about the singer's newborn daughter to Artie serenading Brittany in order to apologize for accidentally calling her stupid the previous episode. [[LampshadeHanging They whack a giant lampshade on it]] by having Mercedes point out "I thought this song was about a baby." to Kurt. |
| 405 | ** [[Music/KatyPerry "I Kissed A Girl"]] is originally a song about a girl simply fooling around and kissing other girls because she thinks it's fun. The second time it was used on Glee (the first being as Tina's audition song), it was a TakeThat against the entire concept: all girls in the show, gay and straight, get together to sing it in public to support a lesbian student who was being bullied. [[note]]"Screw you. I kissed a girl, and I liked it."[[/note]] |
| 406 | ** The Warblers' performance of "Glad You Came" by Music/TheWanted. The original song is just about how the singer is glad they ran into a beautiful girl. However, Sebastian and the Warblers' performance comes after Dave Karofsky is the victim of homophobic bullying [[spoiler: that leads to him attempting suicide]], and Sebastian himself feels responsible since he himself had been mean to Dave when they first met at the gay bar. With that context it's clear that the song is now about being glad somebody is still around, and that the world is better with them in it. |
| 407 | ** Their cover of Music/{{Gotye}}'s "Somebody That I Used To Know" tried to change the meaning from a BreakupSong to a song about an unfulfilling platonic relationship between two brothers. Of course, it still sounded a lot like a BreakupSong, and the fact that it was sung by Blaine (a gay character) and his brother (played by Matt Bomer, who is gay) really didn't help things. |
| 408 | ** The acoustic cover of Music/KatyPerry's "Teenage Dream" manages to do this for both the original ''and'' the first cover ''Glee'' did. Back on season 2, it was as happy a song as the original, only between two gay guys. The second version is also sung by Blaine to Kurt, but here [[spoiler:he breaks down crying because he's cheated on him and they'll soon break up.]] |
| 409 | *** This version is also an example outside the show: it was a piano arrangement made by Creator/DarrenCriss, which he often sang at his own shows. There it changed from a song about teenage sex to a thank you to his fans for letting him live his teenage dream. |
| 410 | ** "If I Were A Boy", sung by Unique Adams, who is a transgender character about the harassment and bullying she faces from the jocks. Her version reflects the incomprehension of others and how they treat badly people who are different. Overall, a very heartbreaking cover. |
| 411 | ** Music/{{ABBA}}'s "The Winner Takes it All" was originally a bittersweet ballad about the singer accepting that their previous love has moved on. The version performed by Will and Sue in the GrandFinale is about Sue finally ceding defeat and telling Will that after five hard years, he finally beat her. |
| 412 | * CoveredInGunge: The trademark slushie facials that glee members and other unpopular kids received. |
| 413 | * CrazyHomelessPeople: |
| 414 | ** A previous, unseen Glee Club member known only as Patches was driven insane by his peers and now lives outside the library. |
| 415 | ** Rachel encounters one in "New York." He sells her expired tickets to ''Theatre/{{Cats}}'' and makes her swipe her credit card through his butt crack, the trauma apparently making Rachel forget ''Cats'' closed in 2000. |
| 416 | * CrazyPrepared: Despite Kurt being certain that performing "[[Theatre/ThePhantomOfTheOpera Music of the Night]]" is the best audition number he can do, when he decides to switch to "Not the Boy Next Door" immediately before his audition its revealed that he already had backup singers prepared ''and'' had the proper outfit underneath his costume. |
| 417 | ** When Sam returns in "Hold On to Sixteen", Santana reveals that she's been keeping a notebook full of jokes regarding his lips just in case they ever met again. |
| 418 | * CreatorCameo: Producer Ian Brennan voices the PreviouslyOn segment, and also appeared as Late-Night [=TV=] Host and Regionals Judge Svenboolie the vampire. Choreographer Zach Woodlee also appears briefly in "Props" (he's holding the boom box). |
| 419 | * CrossOver: With [[http://www.cbc.ca/news/arts/story/2013/03/04/archie-glee-crossover-comic.html Archie Comics.]] |
| 420 | * CulturalCringe: A localized version of the trope: several characters utterly despise Lima, OH, and small towns in general, and fantasize about moving to New York (and seem to have a very rose-tinted, idealized view of NYC, which Seasons 4 & 5 confirmed). |
| 421 | ** In season four, apparently Bushwick = Williamsburg. Anyone who's ever been to Bushwick knows this is ''really'' not the case. |
| 422 | * CurbStompBattle: Lauren and Santana. Lauren's the one doing the stomping. |
| 423 | * DancePartyEnding: "Prom Queen," while not the big season-ender, definitely falls under this. |
| 424 | * DatingDoSiDo: At this point is easier to list the couples who didn't get together at some point. |
| 425 | * ADayInTheLimelight: |
| 426 | ** "Wheels" shelves a few dominant plot arcs in order to give screentime to secondary characters Kurt, Tina, and Artie. This was the episode in which former background dancer Brittany was elevated to secondary character, as well. |
| 427 | ** Brittany gets her big moment in the "Britney/Brittany," starring in two songs and basking in the comedy spotlight. |
| 428 | ** Dave Karofsky and Coach Beiste do not get an episode entirely dedicated to themselves, even though they are both characters with arcs that heavily impact the season. However, they are often featured just as prominently as the main cast in several episodes in which they do appear. |
| 429 | ** "Asian F" for Mike Chang. We meet his family, find out about their expectations for him and his own dreams, and we get to hear him sing (for real this time). |
| 430 | * DeadpanSnarker: Everyone at some time or another - see WorldOfSnark. However, for round-about snarkiness, Kurt, Sue and Artie take the gold medal and snark it into... [[BuffySpeak Something more goldy]]. |
| 431 | * DeliberatelyMonochrome: The Holiday Spectacular from "Extraordinary Merry Christmas" (on purpose, since it was meant to evoke the Judy Garland Christmas special), and the respective performances of "Vogue" in "The Power of Madonna" and "Scream" in "Michael". |
| 432 | * DemotedToExtra: |
| 433 | ** Terri. When the show started, it looked like she was going to be a regularly appearing character, and for the first half of Season 1, she was. After her fake pregnancy was exposed, however, she started appearing more and more sporadically in the second half. In Season 2 she only appeared a couple times at most and was eventually PutOnABus. |
| 434 | ** Emma starting in season 3. |
| 435 | ** Tina virtually didn't exist anymore except to further Mike's storyline. All the character development she had since Season 1 has happened off screen, and then finally she disappeared for an entire episode without any mention as to why. The focus came back in "Props", however, were she finally got her own plot and was also set up to be the female lead in season 4, where she was able to come back into the center of things. |
| 436 | ** Ken Tanaka began as a major character, to the point he could even be seen as a DistaffCounterpart to Sue and/or Terri. After the first half of season 1 he only made a couple of appearances and then was PutOnABus over the summer and replaced by Beiste. |
| 437 | ** Puck, Quinn, Mike, and Mercedes were demoted to recurring in Season 4, followed by Brittany in Season 5 (as Heather Morris had a baby) and Artie, Tina, and Santana in Season 6; by the end of the series, only Rachel, Will, Sue, and Kurt were left from the original cast. |
| 438 | * DenserAndWackier: Many have noticed a general trend in this direction. The first half of the first season was a lot darker and, except for explicit fantasy sequences, seemed committed to making sure their stage numbers were possible in a school undergoing a budget crisis. Since the second half of Season 1, it's increasingly moved away from realistic musical numbers, with brand-new, out-of-this-world costumes for every number and extras ranging from harpists to gospel choirs. |
| 439 | * DepartmentOfRedundancyDepartment: |
| 440 | --> '''Dustin Goolsby:''' Admit it. I'm handsome, I'm good looking and I'm easy on the eyes. Also, I'm gorgeous. |
| 441 | ** Don't forget that Jesse St. James has a full ride to the University of California, Los Angeles. Maybe you've heard of it. It's in Los Angeles. |
| 442 | * DependingOnTheWriter: The show had three different writers for the first two seasons, which is why it almost seems like three different shows in one. Season 3 hired 6 new writers and it went as well as expected. |
| 443 | -->'''[[Website/AVClub Todd VanDerWerff]]''': ''Glee'' [...] seems to be written entirely by its three creators – Ryan Murphy, Brad Falchuk and Ian Brennan – but all three of those creators also seem to have wildly different ideas of what the show is. Murphy [...] is most interested in making the show a funhouse mirror version of an afterschool special. Brennan [...] is most interested in the sadness buried down at the core of the show’s concept. And Falchuk [...] is most interested in pulling the two approaches together in a hybridized fashion while deepening the teenage characters on the show. |
| 444 | * DesignatedHero[=/=]DesignatedVillain: An InUniverse example. When Mercedes demands that Sue returns the tots to the cafeteria, she is treated as the hero, despite Sue pointing out that the nutrition in the school really ''is'' terrible and Mercedes' reaction to seeing broccoli was to think it was a ''toilet brush''. |
| 445 | * DespairEventHorizon: In "On My Way," Dave Karofsky hits one of these and is DrivenToSuicide. He gets better, though. |
| 446 | * DeusExMachina: In Season 4, the discovery that the Warblers used steroids during their Sectionals performance functions as one of these, reversing the loss that the New Directions suffered. It's especially bad in this case because there's no reason at all that the first event should result in the second. The New Directions were disqualified for breaking a show choir rule, something that should remain the same regardless of whether or not the Warblers cheated. |
| 447 | ** However, it is left ambiguous as to whether the judges invoked the disqualification rule, and thus whether New Directions were disqualified or simply voted in last place. |
| 448 | * DidIJustSayThatOutLoud: |
| 449 | ** Emma, to Will: "If we did a survey of the most crushworthy teachers in school, you'd be number one with a bullet." |
| 450 | ** In "Auditions," Finn agrees with Rachel when she says she's controlling. |
| 451 | ** When Sam (making out with Quinn) and Tina (making out with Mike) both imagine Coach Beiste in compromising positions to 'cool down', they both accidentally moan out "Beiste." |
| 452 | ** And, of course, "Marry me, Will!" |
| 453 | * DietEpisode: Mercedes is told to lose weight to stay on the Cheerios. |
| 454 | * DiggingYourselfDeeper: After Santana confronts Karofsky about checking out Sam's ass. |
| 455 | -->'''Santana''': You really need to be more careful with your leering.\ |
| 456 | '''Karofsky''': I was just checking out what kind of jeans he was wearing.\ |
| 457 | '''Santana''': Like that's any less gay. |
| 458 | * DisproportionateRetribution: |
| 459 | ** [[SarcasmMode Shockingly]], Sue: "I sold my house to a nice young couple and salted the earth in the backyard so that nothing could grow there for 100 years. Know why I did that? Because they tried to get me to pay their closing costs." |
| 460 | ** For that matter, half of everything Sue does is completely insane considering the "slights"; when Will leaves a straw behind on the lunch table, Sue takes it as a personal insult and launches a plan involving brainwashing Sam and ruining the club. |
| 461 | ** In the episode 'Special Education'. Finn lies to Rachel about sleeping with Santana the previous year before he and Rachel became a couple. In response to the revelation Rachel decides to hurt Finn in the best way she can think of by hooking up with his best friend who happens to be the same dude that knocked up his OTHER ex. This was supposed to make them even. Finn didn't see it that way, and dumped her. |
| 462 | ** Vocal Adrenaline [[ToiletPaperPrank TP]]'s the choir room. Puck and Finn ''slash their tires''. |
| 463 | ** Santana bullies Finn calling him fat and talentless. He responds by outing her in a crowded hallway. |
| 464 | * DisqualificationInducedVictory: In the season 4 episode "Thanksgiving", Marley passes out during the performance at Sectionals because of her eating disorder. Because the rest of the glee club left the stage to check on her when she fainted, they are disqualified, allowing the Warblers to win. However, in the season 4 episode "Sadie Hawkins", members of the New Directions discover that the Warblers (the team that had won at Sectionals) were using steroids, leading to their disqualification. This allows the New Directions to take their place at Regionals. |
| 465 | * {{Dissimile}} |
| 466 | --> '''Coach Beiste''': Do NOT get up in the Panthers' business lady. You're all coffee and no omelet.\ |
| 467 | '''Sue''': [[HypocriticalHumor That doesn't make any sense.]] |
| 468 | * DistantFinale: We find out what most of the glee club is up to five years into the future in the second half of the finale [[note]]By most of the glee club, we mean Rachel, Kurt, Blaine, Tina, Artie, Mercedes, and Jesse. No one else.[[/note]]. |
| 469 | * DoesThisRemindYouOfAnything: |
| 470 | ** During the ScreamingBirth/"Bohemian Rhapsody" montage, a nurse says, "The baby's crowning!" after which it cuts to Jesse emerging from a circle of Vocal Adrenaline dancers. |
| 471 | ** Bryan Ryan bemoans "I've been living a lie!" and admits he's been telling his wife that he's going on [[RippedFromTheHeadlines "business trips"]] when he's actually visiting New York to see Broadway plays. He has a secret stash of playbills in the basement, which is [[LampshadeHanging lampshaded]] immediately afterwards. "Like porn, Will!" (Ryan is played be Neil Patrick Harris, who came out of the closet several years earlier). |
| 472 | ** In "Rocky Horror Glee Show," Will objects to Figgins punishing Finn for walking around the school in his Rocky Horror costume (Underwear and glasses) saying that when Santana "pantsed" Brittany, she was showing a lot less than her underwear. Figgins said that that was in a moment of celebration. |
| 473 | * DorkInASweater: Cute and nerdy Artie. Sweater ''vests'', even. |
| 474 | * DoubleMeaningTitle: The Season 4 premiere, The New Rachel: It's both about New Directions' quest for the next big star of the club, who they refer to as "the new Rachel," as well as (the old) Rachel learning to adapt in New York and become a "new and improved" version of herself. |
| 475 | * DoubleStandard: |
| 476 | ** Figgins comes down on Santana and Brittany for making out, but Rachel and Finn are allowed to kiss for several minutes with no complaints. Santana is understandably pissed off by this. |
| 477 | ** There were several instances of gay couples' kisses being cut from montages by Fox. |
| 478 | ** [[InvokedTrope Invoked]] in-universe by Jake. He thinks it's unfair that he gets called out for wanting to sing a Chris Brown song because of Brown's alleged abuse of Rihanna, but no one has a problem singing Britney Spears or Whitney Houston songs despite their own less-than-perfect behavior. |
| 479 | *** Some reviewers out-of-universe took it further, noting that nobody had an issue singing a song by convicted sex offender Gary Glitter two seasons prior. |
| 480 | ** By the Glee Club examples, hetero high school relationships are chiefly just flings not remembered a year later, and {{Last Minute Hook Up}}s at best, and gay high school relationships are epic OneTrueLove for life, leading to HappilyMarried. The trend even rings in the last generation, when Spencer is the only one given of the group [[SatelliteLoveInterest a boyfriend]]. Of course, had Finn not died, the ratio would've been less overwhelming, but still. |
| 481 | * DoubleStandardAbuseFemaleOnMale: Subverted. In the first season, Quinn is constantly verbally abusive towards Finn, repeatedly tells him he's stupid, attempts to control his hobbies and activities, and pretty massively affects his life by letting him raise and pay for a child that isn't even his. However, Quinn [[WhatTheHellHero gets a lot of crap from Finn once he finds out the kid isn't his]], and he even dumps her. |
| 482 | * DoubleStandardRapeFemaleOnMale: |
| 483 | ** In Season 2, Brittany takes Artie's virginity to combat his feelings for Tina. She just picks him up out of his chair, places him on the bed, and the show fades to the next scene. There is no mention of consent. Afterward, Artie is clearly upset about it, but the whole thing is treated like it's no big deal. |
| 484 | ** Discussed in 4.20. Ryder tells the glee club he was molested at 11 by his female teenage babysitter. Several of the glee club guys start congratulating him for it. [[WhatTheHellHero Tina and Mr. Schuester try to point out what a bunch of idiots they're being]], but they don't get it. |
| 485 | ** Averted in the case of Tina [[DudeShesLikeInAComa rubbing a vapor medicine into Blaine's chest when he was unconscious]], though it may be because Blaine's gay (thus nobody would congratulate him for being molested by some girl). It's treated as creepy and she never really lives it down. |
| 486 | ** In the fifth season finale, "The Untitled Rachel Berry Project", Sam, working as a male model, is at a photo shoot and the photographer, Charlie, clears everyone out of the room. While they're alone, Charlie begins making overtly sexual overtures towards Sam, and as she's slowly approaching him and he's slowly backing away from her, she presses Sam on the fact that he thinks she's hot but is also remaining celibate for Mercedes. Sam outright confesses to Charlie that his modeling career is really important to him, and he's scared that he'll lose it if he doesn't give her what she wants. Charlie ignores his obvious discomfort, however, and kisses him. Try to imagine a story where a man repeatedly pressures a female model who's already seeing someone into getting intimate with him, and the woman admits that she doesn't really want to but feels like she has to in order to keep her job, without there being a tidal wave of backlash. Sam mainly worries that this kiss means he cheated on Mercedes when he later brings it up to her, and although Mercedes ''does'' acknowledge that what happened between Sam and Charlie wasn't really cheating after he gives her the full story, Charlie's behavior is still never explicitly condemned as sexual harassment. |
| 487 | ** 'The Hurt Locker'. Sue gets called out (though doesn't suffer any suitable consequences) for kidnapping, but no comment is made about how she forced two young boys to perform a semi-sexual act on each other and actually threatened to release on them a substance which would cause a sexual stimulation to their genitalia, and possibly make them, in her words 'hump, hump, hump' (or, if we take it to it's illogical conclusion, even possibly cause the less resilient one of them to try to rape the other). [[SarcasmMode Very]] [[BlackComedyRape funny]]. Now try to imagine, say, Figgins doing this to Santana and Brittany. The backlash would be large and plentiful. |
| 488 | * DownerEnding: |
| 489 | ** When New Directions loses Nationals at the end of Season 2. It gets even worse in Season 5, which causes the glee club to end, albeit temporarily. |
| 490 | ** When Quinn gets hit by a car in the Season 3 episode ''On My Way''. |
| 491 | ** The end of the Season 3 episode ''Choke''. Coach Beiste goes back to her abusive husband, Rachel has ruined her chances of getting into NYADA and Puck has failed a test he needed to pass for graduation. |
| 492 | *** Subverted in all cases as it turned out. |
| 493 | ** A combination of RealLifeWritesThePlot and TheCharacterDiedWithHim, the death of [[Creator/CoryMonteith Finn Hudson]] in Season 5. |
| 494 | ** Also in Season 5, the Glee club loses at Nationals and Glee club is forced to disband forever, or so we thought. And that was it. No saving it last minute this time. There are two episodes of emotional goodbyes and then it actually does end, as the last seven episodes were set entirely in New York. Most of the characters were graduating, but until Season 6 we had no idea what happened to Marley, Unique, Jake, Ryder, or Kitty until it was revealed that except for Kitty, all the other ex-members were forced to transfer out. Unique returned for a cameo, and all of them returned for the final number of the series, except for Marley as Melissa Benoist was not able to return to the set due to her filming the pilot for Supergirl. |
| 495 | * DownToTheLastPlay: The football game in "Preggers." |
| 496 | * DramaticDrop: Sue's overreaction to the Glee students using the photocopier. |
| 497 | * DramaticIrony: Many of the scenes involving Will and Finn's reactions to Terri and Quinn's pregnancies respectively - after the audience is made aware that Terri isn't really pregnant, and Puck is the real father of Quinn's baby. One of the best examples is in "Mash-Up" when the other football players are teasing Finn about joining glee, and one of them offers this (not knowing just how close to the truth he is): |
| 498 | -->'''Azimio''': "Can't believe you was man enough to knock up Quinn Fabray. You sure a real man didn't sneak in there and do it for you?" |
| 499 | * TheDreaded: According to Tina and Blaine, "Throat Explosion" in season 5. They're essentially a better-funded, constantly practicing version of New Directions, right down to being a RagtagBunchOfMisfits. |
| 500 | * DrFeelgood: Whoever supplied Sandy with medicinal marijuana. |
| 501 | * DrivenToSuicide: Karofsky. He gets better. |
| 502 | ** There have also been a few brief but very clear references to the fact that this might have been Kurt's fate if the glee club never existed, including this one from Kurt himself: |
| 503 | ---> '''Kurt''': I can say, without a doubt, that your dad saved my life. Little Tracy and Hepburn wouldn't have a daddy if it wasn't for your dad. |
| 504 | ** In the penultimate episode "2009" (a flashback episode of scenes we didn't see from the Pilot), Kurt actually takes a moment to look at a pamphlet on this subject, which Emma observes and tells Burt (Kurt's father), whose intervention leads Kurt to befriending Rachel and audition for the Glee club. |
| 505 | * DrunkenSong: Most of the songs in "Blame It On The Alcohol." Will and Beiste sing "One Bourbon, One Scotch, One Beer," and the kids sing "Tik Tok" and "Blame It (On the Alcohol)" |
| 506 | ** Seen again in "Previously Unaired Christmas" with Kurt, Santana and Rachel singing "Christmas Don't Be Late" drunk on spiked eggnog. |
| 507 | * DuetBonding: It's a show about kids singing. Of course they use this trope. |
| 508 | * DullSurprise: Fans were puzzled on Kurt's line "Is this about Finn?" in "End of Twerk." |
| 509 | * EarlyBirdCameo: |
| 510 | ** "Last Christmas" was a standalone single released in 2009 and didn't appear in the show...until the 2010 Christmas episode. |
| 511 | ** Samuel Larson and Alex Newell; they sang on the 2011 Christmas Album, but their characters were not introduced until after the Christmas album was released. |
| 512 | * EarlyInstallmentWeirdness: The opening episodes feature less music and a lot more focus on Will than the later ones, not to mention Artie played the guitar. |
| 513 | * {{Egging}}: Happens and is mentioned a few times, when Rachel is pelted by the members of Vocal Adrenaline in the first season. One of which is her ex-boyfriend, Jesse, who knows she's vegan. Ouch. |
| 514 | * EmptyPilesOfClothing: Parodied in when Kitty punishes Dottie Kazatori. She has her Left Behind Club leave piles of clothing all over the meeting room right after Dottie leaves, and when she returns she thinks the rapture has occurred. |
| 515 | * EnemyMine: |
| 516 | ** Will and Sue team up to get rid of Coach Beiste after he gets both of their budget cuts, but Will backs out after Sue goes too far. |
| 517 | ** Sue and Roz Washington team up to give the New Direction girls[[note]]Santana, Tina, Mercedes, Brittany and Sugar[[/note]] a proper lesson about why domestic abuse is not a joking matter after hearing them make fun of Beiste's black eye and which turned out to be true. |
| 518 | ** Jake and Puck get their mothers to bond by reminding them that Mr. Puckerman had seduced and left both women, as well as both his sons. |
| 519 | * EstrangedSoapFamily: Very few of the parents on ''Series/{{Glee}}'' show up to watch their kids, and even some of the ones who have been established to support the club are absent during important performances. |
| 520 | * EvenEvilHasStandards: |
| 521 | ** In "Journey," Sue defends New Directions against the other judges, seeing them as not having the right to mock the group due to not being personally involved with them like she is. |
| 522 | ** The football bullies will throw slushies at people they deem 'uncool,' beat up gay kids, harass anyone in Glee, particularly their fellow jocks, but their moral code won't let them punch Artie because he's in a wheelchair. This is a RetCon, actually, because earlier in the series, they had no problem with the idea of locking him in a porta potty and tipping it over, and in a later episode, they slushie him. |
| 523 | ** Coach Roz is basically Sue with much less JerkWithAHeartOfGold moments[[note]]Sue even calls her “Black Sue”[[/note]], but she is furious when she overhears Santana and the other girls joke about domestic violence (to which Sue agrees with her). So much that she and Sue team up to give the girls a proper discussion and lesson about it. |
| 524 | ** Santana and Sebastian might be conniving and vicious as all get out, but even they will admit that things have gone too far when someone attempts suicide. |
| 525 | ** In "Thanksgiving", Santana says that [[AlphaBitch Kitty]] is pure evil. ''[[{{Jerkass}} Santana]]'' said that. Granted, this is long after she stopped being "evil" per se, but she has clearly lost none of her capacity for BrutalHonesty. |
| 526 | ** Jean-Baptiste in "City of Angels," who stops gloating over Throat Explosion's superiority to chew out a teammate who's mocking Finn's death. Later on, after discovering one of his teammates stole New Directions' Finn plaque, he kicks the offender off the team and mails it back with an apology. |
| 527 | ** In "Loser Like Me", we learn that Rachel's TV show was so offensive, it apparently managed to piss off every special interest group with initials, including NAMBLA, an organization of ''pedophiles.'' |
| 528 | * EverybodyKnewAlready: Pre-"Preggers," Kurt's homosexuality to his dad. After coming out of the closet, Burt reveals that he knew Kurt was gay ever since he asked for a pair of "sensible heels" for his third birthday. |
| 529 | * EveryoneCanSeeIt: Finn points this out about Santana and Brittany's relationship in "Mash Off." |
| 530 | * EvilLaugh: Sue gives a pretty good one when she tells Will that Beiste is quitting. |
| 531 | * EvilVersusEvil: The rivalry between the football team and the hockey team sometimes comes across like this, especially with the more jerk-ish members of the teams. Both teams have members that like to bully the less "popular" students. |
| 532 | * ExperimentedInCollege: Quinn sleeps with Santana while both of them are tipsy, though they don't go to college together. Santana implies she sleeps with experimental college girls on a regular basis. |
| 533 | --> '''Quinn''': So that's why college girls experiment. |
| 534 | --> '''Santana''': And thank God they do. |
| 535 | * {{Expy}}: |
| 536 | ** One of the judges for the second season regionals, Sister Mary Constance, is the next best thing to a ''Film/SisterAct'' crossover. |
| 537 | ** Kathy Griffin's UsefulNotes/SarahPalin[=/=]Christine O'Donell {{Expy}} in the same episode. |
| 538 | ** All of the NYADA Hopefuls are clones of either Kurt or Rachel, and they all seem to be wearing bits and pieces of the characters' previous outfits. |
| 539 | ** Kitty and Jake are expys of Quinn and Puck from early in the show, Jake being Puck's half-brother. It seems that most of season 4's new characters are expys of previous characters: Marley = Rachel, Marley's mom = Beiste, Blaine (although not new) = Kurt, Unique = Mercedes, Jake = Puck, Ryder = Finn, and Kitty = a cross between Quinn and Santana. |
| 540 | * EyeScream: Blaine's ''eye getting pierced'' after being slushied by Sebastian (the slushie contained rock salt). |
| 541 | [[/folder]] |
| 542 | |
| 543 | [[folder: F-H]] |
| 544 | * FaceHeelTurn: Mercedes, Santana, and Brittany when they quit Glee Club to join Troubletones. Of course they later rejoin New Directions. |
| 545 | * FagHag: Kurt accuses Rachel of being this when she develops a crush on Blaine in one episode. Also assumed by Emma when Rachel and Kurt ask her for guidance about their school applications. She shows them her Me and My Hag pamphlet. |
| 546 | ** Kurt calls Tina a hag that is all hagged out when her crush on Blaine has gotten to the point where she truly believes she has a chance with him. She later laments that all she'll ever be is a hag. Her never ending crushes on gay guys that continues once she goes off to college becomes a running joke. |
| 547 | * FailedAttemptAtDrama: Rachel attempting to storm out in a wheelchair, and bumping into the doorframe. |
| 548 | * FakePregnancy: Terri tries this. She thought she was really pregnant and told Will. But when she found out she wasn't, she feared he would leave her, since their marriage was rocky anyways. She lied about being pregnant for months with the intent of eventually adopting his ''student'''s baby.. |
| 549 | * FallenPrincess: The AlphaBitch Quinn becomes pregnant despite being president of the celibacy club. She is then embarrassed in front of the school, kicked off the cheerleading squad, and forced to move in with her boyfriend after her parents kick her out of the house. And it only got worse when it was revealed that the baby's father was actually her boyfriend's best friend. |
| 550 | ** She later subverts the CharacterDevelopment that you usually get from this trope - after she gives the baby up for adoption, she does her damndest to get her status back, and her goal of season two is to become prom queen, no matter what the cost - even if it means cheating on her boyfriend and, when she doesn't become Prom Queen, conspiring to get the Glee club disqualified from Nationals out of spite and jealousy. Strangely, she could still count as a FallenPrincess - while she has some of her popularity back, her desire to be popular again stems from the idea that there's no real future for her, and that the best she can do is be the popular girl, get an average job and marry someone like Finn. It should be noted that a lot of emotional and mental issues are at play here. |
| 551 | ** Rachel Berry in Season 6. She finally got her dream to be a Broadway star and her "Funny Girl" show was a hit, but after a failed attempt to be a TV star from "That's so Rachel" (which gets hate from various groups and is also the lowest rated TV show), she is forced to come back home in Lima, and when she gets home, her dads get divorced and they put their house on the market. |
| 552 | * FamilyThemeNaming: Burt and his son Kurt. |
| 553 | * FindingJudas: After all of Sue's evil doings and lies have been revealed, she accuses Will of revealing them, and screams "Judas!", only to find out it was Becky. |
| 554 | * FirstKiss: It turns out that neither Kurt nor Beiste have ever been kissed, and lose theirs by the end of ..."Never Been Kissed". Except that in Kurt's case, he kissed Brittany in "Laryngitis" when he pretended to be straight. This was simply his first kiss with another ''boy'', hence his line to Blaine that it was the first one that [[SacredFirstKiss "counted."]] |
| 555 | * FirstNameBasis: Rachel, who continues to be the only person to call Noah Puckerman solely by his first name. The rest of the cast refers to him as Puck or Puckerman. |
| 556 | * FiveTokenBand: The original 5; Kurt (gay), Mercedes (African American), Artie (paraplegic), Tina (Asian) and Rachel (Jewish and the daughter of mixed-race, same-sex parents). The writers originally planned to have another character in the glee club named Rajish. Kurt replaced him. |
| 557 | * {{Flashmob}}: |
| 558 | ** Artie does one in an ImagineSpot in "Dream On" to "Safety Dance." |
| 559 | ** The Glee Club holds one for Rachel in "Born This Way" to "Barbra Streisand." This time it was real. |
| 560 | ** Another in season 3 with Brittany performing "Run the World (Girls)" |
| 561 | * FMinusMinus: Only Brittany could receive such a grade. |
| 562 | -->'''Sue:''' Now, your performance, very same exam, unearthed the hitherto undiscovered grade, F Minus. You answered every question with "see other side", where you composed an elaborate crayon-scape entitled "Happyville: The Town Where Math Was Never Invented".\ |
| 563 | '''Brittany:''' Yeah, that's me, and that's Santana, and that's Kurt and Rachel in Heaven, and look, that's you. |
| 564 | * ForcedOutOfTheCloset: Both Santana and Karofsky are outed against their will. |
| 565 | ** When Finn and Santana are having an argument in "Mash Off", he tells her to come out in the middle of the hallway. When everyone stares at them, he continues attacking her for loving Brittany. It's later revealed in "I Kissed A Girl" that a student went and told her uncle, who is running a TV commercial outing her to the whole state in order to discredit the school. She is then threatened with rape around school. In her wedding vows she includes "I've been outed and bullied". |
| 566 | ** Karofsky moves school in season 3 but still meets up with Kurt to try and woo him — when a footballer from his new, more homophobic school, sees them talking he assumes the worst and texts the team, resulting in his locker being spray painted "FAG" and everyone finding out before cyberbullying him and causing him to attempt suicide but not succeed in "On My Way". |
| 567 | * ForcefulKiss: Kurt and Karofsky in "Never Been Kissed." |
| 568 | * ForegoneConclusion: While subverted in some cases, certain "do or die" scenarios mostly lead to positive conclusions. The two major exceptions are ''Journey to Regionals'' & ''City of Angels''. |
| 569 | * {{Foreshadowing}}: |
| 570 | ** In Episode 1.14, "Hell-O", Rachel says of Jesse, "maybe he's not the one, but what if he is?" [[spoiler:As the finale proved, he was]]. |
| 571 | ** At the end of "Original Song," during the judging scene, there is a poster for the stage show, ''Wicked''. Easily passed off as 'just a stage musical reference' at the time, but come "New York," Kurt and Rachel take a visit to the Broadway set of Wicked. |
| 572 | ** This is very subtle and possibly unintentional, but Sebastian called Blaine to ask how to remove a wine stain from his Dalton jacket. Guess what the first aid for a fresh (red) wine stain is? Rub salt into it. Later in the episode, Sebastian threw a rock salt laced slushie at Blaine (although it was meant for Kurt), lacerating his eye. |
| 573 | ** Karofsky's apology speech for the New Directions in "Born This Way". "[Santana] showed me all these stories online about kids who had jumped off roofs or hanged themselves because of bullying". Come "On My Way", where Karofsky is outed in his new school, gets bullied, and tries to hang himself. |
| 574 | ** In seasons 2 and 3, during the prom story arcs, there was occasional talk of whoever was crowned Prom Queen getting the Literature/{{Carrie}} treatment. It finally happens in season 5 with Tina, though of course with slushie mix instead of pigs blood. |
| 575 | * ForTheEvulz: Sue tends to operate on this. |
| 576 | * FormallyNamedPet: Brittany's cats Lord & Lady Tubbington. |
| 577 | * FreakyIsCool: The show in general. It especially takes this idea starting around season 2 and runs with it. The plots behind "Theatricality" and "Born This Way" especially stand out. |
| 578 | * FrenchJerk: The lead singer of Throat Explosion in season 5, Jean-Baptiste, who may or may not be French but who frequently use french words and invokes this trope, is this in spades. However, it's partially {{subverted}}: while he makes it very clear to New Directions that they aren't going to cut them some slack and ''crush'' them, [[EvenEvilHasStandards he is also angered when one member of their team acts disrespectful towards the memory of Finn, and became furious when he discovered that one guy of their team stole Finn's portrait, prompting him to kick him out of the team and mail back the portrait to the New Directions, while apologizing for what happened]]. Blaine sums it up nicely: |
| 579 | -->'''Blaine''': ''(mildly surprised)'' A bully with a moral code. |
| 580 | * FreudianExcuse: Both Finn and Puck had no father figures due to Finn's dying and Puck's being a deadbeat. So naturally both want to be there for Quinn when she announces her pregnancy. |
| 581 | * FreudianSlip: Santana has one after realizing the perfect plan to use Karofsky to get Kurt back at [=McKinley=] ''and'' become Prom Queen. |
| 582 | -->'''Santana''': I've gotta gay. Go! I've gotta go. |
| 583 | * FriendsRentControl : As of the fourth season, Rachel and Kurt live in a huge loft in Brooklyn for $1800 a month. While that's cheap for NY real estate, it's not explained how they're paying for it, since Rachel is a student and Kurt an intern. Handwaved by being located 45 minutes from NYADA. |
| 584 | ** Justified for Kurt, since his father is a congressman. |
| 585 | *** It's also mentioned that Rachel's dads pay for everything for her. |
| 586 | * FriendsWithBenefits: Santana with Puck and also Brittany, though with the latter it does eventually become a real relationship. |
| 587 | * Front13Back9[=/=]SeriesFauxnale: The writers weren't sure the show was going to be picked up for a full first season. The 13th episode (which was as many as they had confirmed at first) was specifically written to be decent enough series finale if they got cancelled. (Glee club won their competition and the major plots of the first 13 were adequately wrapped up) However, the show ended up being a hit and got picked up for at least three seasons before the first season was finished. |
| 588 | ** "100/New Directions", while not a true finale, was written as one due to a temporary retool that moved the series to New York, as the Glee club went on a supposedly permanent hiatus. |
| 589 | * FunnyBackgroundEvent: Glee loves this. Viewers would do well to pay attention to the background. |
| 590 | * FunWithSubtitles: Half of "The Spanish Teacher" is spent lambasting Will's poor Spanish, including literal translations of what he's saying. |
| 591 | -->'''Will (subtitled)''': Who's more macho of/from Will Schuester? |
| 592 | * GayAesop: Often. |
| 593 | * GayRomanticPhase: Brittany and Santana could be the poster girls for this trope, though Brittany is actually bisexual. It's also a {{deconstruction}}; although it's ostensibly presented as titillation and harmless compared to the gay aspect of the cast as presented by Kurt, as of "Sexy," Santana started to acknowledge her feelings for Brittany and that part of her 'bitchiness' comes from anger and ''fear'' should people find out that she's not just having sex with Brittany but harboring said feelings. In effect, while the sexual aspect of female-female relationships is perhaps more openly acceptable, the emotional aspect tends to get drowned out in that as much if not more so than for gay men. |
| 594 | * GayGuySeeksPopularJock: Kurt crushes on Finn, freaking the latter out. Later, they become friends and stepbrothers after Kurt's dad marries Finn's mom. |
| 595 | * GayTheaterGeek: Kurt is a great example, mostly through some of his musical number choices being from actual musicals and just mostly general stage musical trivia. He is arguably up against Rachel, even though she is heterosexual, but there is a heavy implication that she was probably influenced throughout her childhood by her theater-geek fathers. |
| 596 | * {{Gayngst}}: The show is so full of it, examples should have its own page. |
| 597 | * GayngstInducedSuicide: Discussed at several points, and shown with Karofsky's season 3 storyline. |
| 598 | * GeographicFlexibility: It takes almost two hours to drive from Lima to Westerville, yet the New Directions/Dalton Warblers interact an awful lot (well, Kurt, Mercedes and Blaine, anyway) and even hang out at the same restaurant. It's never been said where Blaine lives, however, and he could commute to Westerville to go to Dalton Academy like Kurt had to when he transferred there. |
| 599 | * GildedCage: Dalton Academy for Kurt, per a [[{{Anvilicious}} rather unsubtle]] metaphor at the end of "Special Education." |
| 600 | * GirlOnGirlIsHot: |
| 601 | ** Santana and Brittany's plan for seducing Finn in "Hell-O" is to have him buy them dinner and then allow him to watch the two of them making out. |
| 602 | ** Subverted by Artie in "Rumours"; he sees Brittany's cheating with Santana as no different from any other cheating and his reaction to it ends their relationship. |
| 603 | ** After Santana's outing, she gets harassed by a jock who calls her homosexuality "smokin'" along with him telling her how she just needs "the right guy." |
| 604 | ** The only logical explanation for Santana and Quinn's one-night-stand. |
| 605 | * GirlPosse: Early season 1 had the TerribleTrio version, with Quinn as the AlphaBitch, Santana as the BetaBitch and Brittany as the BrainlessBeauty. However their characters no longer fit this after CharacterizationMarchesOn. |
| 606 | * GirlsVsBoysPlot: OnceASeason the Glee club is divided between girls and boys, with the groups then having to perform a musical medley. This is supposed to be a friendly competition, but often the groups take it too seriously. For instance, in the first season both groups take drugs in order to keep their energy up. |
| 607 | * GonnaNeedMoreX: When Kurt rehearses "[[Theatre/ThePhantomOfTheOpera The Music of the Night]]" for his NYADA audition, the stage is littered with candles and candelabras. When reconsidering his song choice, he says he needs something fresh, something new, something exciting... or maybe he just needs more candles. |
| 608 | -->'''Blaine''': No more candles. Oh God, no more candles. |
| 609 | * GoodNeedsEvil: Sue states in season five that the New Directions are at their best when they have a villain going after them. And since she is the principal and needs glee club to win in order to make herself look good, she appoints Bree to be just such a villain. |
| 610 | * GraduateFromTheStory: Technically eight members graduated from Lima at the end of season 3. However, Rachel, Kurt and Santana receive a decent chunk of screen time due to the New York narrative, and Finn spent a majority of season 4 hanging around Lima. The other four (Puck, Quinn, Mercedes and Mike) made a [[DemotedToExtra few cameo appearances]] after graduation but were ultimately unimportant to the plot. |
| 611 | * GrandRomanticGesture: Several, usually in the form of a song. Blaine is especially fond of these, like his [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EBwno6pszXo marriage proposal]] to Kurt. He convinced three rival show choirs to do an elaborately choreographed (and costumed) dance to "All You Need Is Love" by the Beatles throughout the entirety of the large Dalton Academy, where they met and fell in love. Blaine is singing, all of Kurt's friends and family are there, and the proposal concludes on the stairs where they fell in love with an equally elaborate speech. Kurt very emotionally says yes. |
| 612 | * GrayAndGreyMorality: ''Everyone'' on the show, no matter how "good," seems to have very human moral failings. And Sue, who's admittedly a scary dark shade of gray, has her moments of decency (every scene with her sister or Becky, for example). |
| 613 | * GreekChorus: It varies, but any of the minor characters can fall under this. |
| 614 | * HairContrastDuo: Brittany and Santana. |
| 615 | * HappilyMarried: Burt and Carole Hudson-Hummel and Hiram and Leroy Berry. The latter get divorced in Season 6. |
| 616 | * HappyEnding: In "Sectionals": the Glee club winning despite Sue's machinations, Figgins taking Sue off the Cheerios ''and'' suspending her, Will leaving Terri and running down the hallway in slow motion after Emma and finally kissing her after half a season of [[UnresolvedSexualTension UST]]. This is likely due to the fact that the episode was planned as a series finale if FOX dropped the show. |
| 617 | ** Brittany and Santana, as well as Kurt and Blaine, not only getting back together after bad breakups, but winding up married as well. |
| 618 | ** The Grand Finale had this in spades: New Directions won Nationals, Will becomes principal, [=McKinley=] High becomes a performing arts school, Sam becomes the new glee club director, Mercedes's singing career gets better by becoming opening act for Beyoncé's world tour and in a DistantFinale, Rachel wins a Tony Award and is married to Jesse, Sue becomes the Vice President of the USA, Will and Emma have had a few more kids after Daniel, and Kurt and Blaine are also successful in Broadway and expecting a baby via Rachel. |
| 619 | * HardWorkHardlyWorks: |
| 620 | ** Averted in the first two seasons. While New Directions is good and certainly has a lot of heart, they neither beat Vocal Adrenaline in Regionals in season 1, nor Nationals in season 2. |
| 621 | ** Rachel and Kurt's respective NYADA Auditions. Rachel picks a song she already knows forward and backward, and messes it up on top of that. That's not to mention the mark on Rachel's disciplinary record from having stuffed the ballot box earlier in the year. Meanwhile, Kurt goes with a more difficult, risky song (complete with elaborate routine, backup dancers and costumes) and performs it very well, according to the judge. Guess who ultimately makes the cut. |
| 622 | * HarsherInHindsight: An unusual in-universe example in "Mattress." When the club is discussing Glee yearbook pictures, one past member has a doodle of a knife stuck in her head. Kurt points out how awful this is, given what happened to the girl. |
| 623 | * HeelFaceTurn: |
| 624 | ** Quinn, Puck and Karofsky have all done this. Santana, as well. |
| 625 | ** Plus Judy Fabray and Mike Chang Sr. |
| 626 | ** In "On My Way," Sebastian Smythe. |
| 627 | * HeelFaceRevolvingDoor: |
| 628 | ** Quinn. |
| 629 | ** Jesse St. James. He dates Rachel and ostensibly transfers schools for her, turns out to be TheMole for Shelby, comes back as the evil, mean-spirited "helper" for the New Directions in Season 2, and then as Vocal Adrenaline's mean-spirited coach for Season 3. Settled on the face side of the door by Season 6, as he winds up marrying Rachel. |
| 630 | * HerBoyfriendsJacket: |
| 631 | ** Discussed and subverted in the second season. Finn and Rachel think that Sam is dating Kurt after they see him wearing Kurt's jacket, specifically citing the common practice among girls of wearing their boyfriend's jackets. It later turns out that Sam's dad lost his job, with the result of the Evans family becoming so poor that they're staying in a hotel room. The jacket in question was part of a handout package consisting of Kurt's old clothes given specifically with the intent of helping out Sam's family. |
| 632 | ** In the fourth season, a BettyAndVeronica LoveTriangle is established between Marley, Kitty, and Jake when Marley spends a few days wearing Jake's coat (from a YouMustBeCold moment) and Kitty demands it as this trope when she and Jake start dating (though he doesn't like labels). |
| 633 | * HeteronormativeCrusader: Alma, Santana's grandmother, who believes that girls marry boys. She later attends her granddaughter and Brittany's wedding, though, saying that despite her beliefs, she believes family is the most important thing. |
| 634 | * HideYourLesbians: It is safe to say that the gay couples were not given anywhere near as much representation on-screen for a good portion of the series -- subverted in the final season mostly because there wasn't a heterosexual OfficialCouple (and instead two gay weddings with another three same-sex relationships compared to Sam and Rachel sharing a kiss so he could complete the set.) |
| 635 | * HighSchool: The entire setting of the show. |
| 636 | ** Sue; in most of season one, she tries to have the Glee Club disbanded, but when Principal Figgins threatens to disband it at the end of the first season, Sue goes out of her way to save it, only to go back into "I hate the Glee Club" mode at the start of Season 2. |
| 637 | ** Pretty much the entire school - the Glee Club switch from Slushie targets to heroes when they win Nationals in Season 3, but at the start of Season 4, "order is restored" and they're back to being last-class citizens at the school. |
| 638 | * HighSchoolSweethearts: Will and Terri. Not a happy example of this one. Quinn tried to invoke this with her and Finn. Also, Kurt and Blaine, and Santana and Brittany. Finn and Rachel were supposed to be this. |
| 639 | * [[HoistByHisOwnPetard Hoist By Her Own Petard]]: What really ruined Sue's plot to destroy the glee club is that the setlists she leaked to the other choir directors were on Cheerios letterhead ("Circumstantial evidence"), in her own handwriting ("I didn't do it") and personally signed by Sue herself ("FORGERIES!"). Once New Directions won the other judges sent the evidence to Principal Figgins. The list of progressive excuses is lifted from Sherlock Holmes's own list in ''[[Literature/SherlockHolmes Scandal in Bohemia]]'': Maybe she thought she had good precedent. |
| 640 | * HoldMyGlasses: Lauren hands off her glasses to Puck before [[CurbStompBattle kicking Santana's ass]]. |
| 641 | * HollywoodAtheist: In "Grilled Cheesus", Sue takes offense at the glee club singing religious songs in a public school setting, and has Kurt make a formal complaint. When confronted by Emma, Sue revealed that she lost her faith in God because every time she prayed for her sister Jean to be cured of her Down's Syndrome, she didn't get an answer. Also, Kurt also tried to knock down everyone's attempts at trying to pray for Burt, though later more-or-less accepted their beliefs by the end of the episode. |
| 642 | * HollywoodAutism: Subverted and parodied with [[JerkWithAHeartOfJerk Sugar]], the girl with self-diagnosed Asperger's, who's clearly just using the false diagnosis as an excuse to be a jerk. The writers were forced to drop that trait after they got angry fan responses over it. |
| 643 | * HollywoodPudgy: One subplot of "The Rocky Horror Glee Show" involves Finn intimidated by the idea of walking around in his underwear, partially because he's afraid of measuring up to [[{{Bishonen}} toned, yet fashionably skinny]] Sam, even though even Finn would have a body most high school boys in real life would kill for. People who saw him apparently had to get counseling, in-universe. [[MrFanservice The audience wasn't similarly traumatized.]] |
| 644 | * HolidayVolunteering: Sue attempts to recruit homeless shelter volunteers for Christmas hoping to get the Glee Club. |
| 645 | * {{Homage}}: |
| 646 | ** "Extraordinary Merry Christmas" is one to classic Christmas specials, specifically, ''Film/TheStarWarsHolidaySpecial'', ''The Creator/JudyGarland Holiday Special'', and ''WesternAnimation/ACharlieBrownChristmas''. |
| 647 | ** Likewise, the next year's episode "Glee, Actually" is a tribute to ''Film/LoveActually''. |
| 648 | * HoodOrnamentHottie: The Cheerios in "Acafellas." |
| 649 | * HopelessAuditionees: With the New Directions becoming popular by the start of season 4, everybody wants to join. The seem to have forgotten they need ''talent'', however, leading to one of these. |
| 650 | * HopeSpot: In-Universe. Sue was told Jean probably wouldn't live past 30. But then she turned 35, then 40, then 50, and Sue finally believed that they could grow old together. Unfortunately, Jean passed away in "Funeral." |
| 651 | * HotterAndSexier: |
| 652 | ** The Glee Club's performance of "Push It" at the assembly is much more... exciting than the disco routine that was originally planned. |
| 653 | ** Sue and Olivia Newton-John remake her "Physical" music video with much hotter guys. |
| 654 | ** Compare Kurt's adorable [[http://gleeperformances.tumblr.com/post/8723441924/single-ladies performance]] of "Single Ladies" (which is silly and adorable) in "Preggers" with his performance at [[http://theredandwhitequeen.tumblr.com/post/91136870103/alluponeachother-daretostopme-single-ladies Glee Live 2011]], where he ''really'' thrusts his hips and flirts with the audience. Yowza. |
| 655 | ** Compare Tina's audition number in the pilot to the group rendition of "I Kissed a Girl" in the season three episode of the same name. |
| 656 | ** The Season 5 performance of "Toxic" (on "100") vs. the first performance in Season 2. |
| 657 | * HowTheCharacterStoleChristmas: One of the subplots of [[ChristmasEpisode "A Very Glee Christmas,"]] with--you guessed it--Sue as the Grinch who tries to steal Christmas from the Glee club (and it's even [[InvokedTrope invoked]], with Sue dressing up in a Santa suit and green facepaint and Becky dressing up as Max). There's even a scene with Sue and Brittany that parallels the one with the Grinch and Cindy Lou Who (complete with them quoting the dialog from the book), and towards the end of the episode the Glee Club performs "Welcome Christmas." |
| 658 | * HowTheMightyHaveFallen: Sue is finally fired from being principal at [=McKinley=] after the Superintendent saw her hurt locker, she lost her position, financial security and legacy, then also gets humiliated on a Fox News interview, and eventually becomes the new coach of Vocal Adrenaline. |
| 659 | ** Subverted in the DistantFinale; we find out she becomes Vice President. |
| 660 | * HufflepuffHouse: Any of the third teams competing at Regionals. |
| 661 | * HugeGuyTinyGirl: |
| 662 | ** 6'3" Cory "Frankenteen" Monteith with 5'2" Lea Michele. |
| 663 | ** Mercedes and Shane. |
| 664 | * HumanCannonball: Sue attempts to use this as part of the cheerleading routine at Nationals, willfully ignoring that this type of stunt is very dangerous outside a cartoon. She is called out on this by Quinn, Santana and Brittany who quit the team in protest right before the competition. |
| 665 | * {{Hypocrite}}: Although he was cheated on by his last two girlfriends and pretty broken up about it, Finn's more than eager to help Quinn cheat on Sam with him. |
| 666 | ** And when she points that out he explains that when they cheated on him, it meant that they didn't love him. |
| 667 | ** In "Sexy", Blaine is completely okay with using sex appeal during a performance [[note]]Or at least how much sex appeal they can given that the Warblers ''have'' to perform in their school uniforms[[/note]]. Then, during season's 3 "Hold on to Sixteen", he describes it as "selling themselves", and tears down Sam for suggesting to do so. |
| 668 | ** Also all the Glee Club members who join in 'It's Not Right But It's OK'. Almost ''all'' of them have cheated or helped cheating on someone. |
| 669 | ** Sue is this for many people since she preached against bullying even though she's one of the most vicious ones herself. |
| 670 | ** The football team. They love to pick on the Glee club for being "losers", despite the fact that they themselves ''never'' win any football matches! In fact, they only began to win games ''after'' the "losers" from Glee club joined ''them''. |
| 671 | ** In the season four episode ''Swan Song'', Finn, as the new Glee club coach, acts as if the club members have committed some sort of mortal sin by joining other clubs after the club loses Sectionals and Sue takes over their choir room, conveniently forgetting that when he was in high school, he was in Glee club while simultaneously playing football and no one complained about ''that''. |
| 672 | ** Rachel Berry, since season 5. At first, she didn't want Santana to be her understudy for "Funny Girl", yet later she asks her to do so, due to being stuck in L.A. traffic after having an audition that didn't go well. Also, in season 3 Finn once asked Rachel to go to L.A. with him to pursue his future career (at that time) there and told her that she could be a Hollywood actress, but Rachel said no because Broadway is her destiny and she's not a Hollywood actress, and later in season 5, she is offered to do a TV show about her in L.A., and she says yes. [[HumiliationConga This sets off a chain of events that winds up humbling her like never before]]. |
| 673 | |
| 674 | [[/folder]] |
| 675 | |
| 676 | [[folder: I-L]] |
| 677 | * IBangedYourMom: Puck uses this to rattle an opposing football player: |
| 678 | -->"I had sex with your mom. No, seriously - I cleaned your pool, and then we had sex. In your bed. Nice Star Wars sheets." |
| 679 | * ICantBelieveAGuyLikeYouWouldNoticeMe: Rachel's reaction to Jesse, and to a lesser extent, Finn. Also, gender-swapped with Artie and Brittany. |
| 680 | * InterchangeableAsianCultures: PlayedForLaughs -- "homogenous Asian culture" seems to be a running gag with Mike and Tina. They got together at Asian Camp and in "Duets," after they started arguing, Mike says they "should go to Asian couples therapy." [[LampshadeHanging Tina wonders why it has to be Asian.]] Furthermore, they are able to find out that Rachel gave Sunshine directions to a crackhouse for auditions because the "Asian community is very tight-knit." Sunshine is Filipino while Mike is Chinese and Tina is Korean, three communities that generally have little in common. |
| 681 | * IdiotBall: Seasons 2 and 3 of Glee seemed to run on this. |
| 682 | * IGaveMyWord: Sam gave one to Finn during "Duets." When Finn tells him that he shouldn't sing a duet with Kurt because that will make him a target for bullies and "we live in their world." Sam replies that he gave Kurt his word and in his world, that's that. |
| 683 | * [[IHaveNoSon I Have No Grandaughter]]: When Santana's being disowned by her grandmother |
| 684 | * IllNeverTellYouWhatImTellingYou: When Brittany is asking Will embarrassing questions. |
| 685 | -->'''Will''': Brittany, who told you to ask these?!\ |
| 686 | '''Brittany''': Miss Sylvester says I'm not at liberty to say. |
| 687 | * IllPretendIDidntHearThat: In "Extraordinary Merry Christmas," the guy hiring Artie as a director calls Artie "a modern day Tiny Tim." When he draws an offended look from Artie, he says "I'm sorry. Tiny Tim could walk." Artie's response is "In the spirit of Christmas, I'll pretend you never said that." |
| 688 | * ImagineSpot: Many, throughout the show's run. Among the more noteworthy ones is "[[Music/MenWithoutHats The Safety Dance]]", in which Artie stands up and leads a FlashMob. |
| 689 | * ImAManICantHelpIt!: |
| 690 | ** According to Puck. Quinn isn't pleased. |
| 691 | ** Rod says something similar to Sue after she catches him with Andrea. |
| 692 | * ImplausibleDeniability: Sue in "Sectionals." Being Sue, she takes it to RefugeInAudacity levels. |
| 693 | * ImportantHaircut: Quinn. Initially played straight in "New York" where cutting her hair is enough to help stop her from trying to sabotage their chances at Nationals, but later subverted when it turns out cutting her hair didn't really fix her problems enough to set her off on a path of positive character growth. |
| 694 | * IncompatibleOrientation: |
| 695 | ** Kurt's crushes on Finn and Sam, and Mercedes and Brittany's interest in Kurt. As you can see, this involves Kurt a lot. |
| 696 | ** Rachel's interest in Blaine in "Blame it on the Alcohol." |
| 697 | ** Puck acknowledges this with Santana in "I Kissed a Girl," joking that "I know I was just a phase." She also deals with this from a rugby player who hits on her in the hallway, saying she just needs to "find the right guy." |
| 698 | ** Tina's crush on Blaine. |
| 699 | ** Blaine's crush on Sam. |
| 700 | * IndecisiveParody: Because the show has three runners who take turns writing episodes, it can really oscillate in its tone and message. Is this show a quirky high school drama with comedic elements (and awesome music) or is it a comedic parody of a high school drama (with awesome music)? No one seems to be sure, as the show [[MoodWhiplash veers wildly back and forth]], sometimes not taking itself seriously enough for the former, and sometimes taking itself ''way'' too seriously for the latter. |
| 701 | * IndyPloy: Used ''a lot'' by Quinn, Santana and occasionally by Sue Sylvester, ''a la'' ''Series/DoctorWho''. |
| 702 | * InformedFlaw: |
| 703 | ** Pretty much any "bad" song is still better than most people would be able to do in real life. This was especially obvious in "Sectionals," when a judge comments the [=McKinley=] kids looked "under-rehearsed" in a performance that's still better than many school/amateur groups could manage with several weeks' practice. |
| 704 | ** Their fictional version of Lima is made out to be a bad place to live and the school is almost constantly undergoing budget cuts yet almost everyone seems to have an Upper Middle Class lifestyle and [=McKinley=] is a pretty rich-looking high school. They can even afford fog machines and costumes, apparently. |
| 705 | ** Quinn's official Facebook page makes her out to be ditzy and lacking in knowledge about some really basic things, but that's seemingly contradicted by who she is in-story: a straight-A student who kept up her average even during an unwanted pregnancy and gets into Yale early-admission; even outside of the classroom, her intelligence shows through her role as a DeadpanSnarker. |
| 706 | ** Will's drinking problem comes out of nowhere, and somehow Sue knows all about it. He goes from having a beer with dinner to grading drunk to deciding he has a problem and is going to quit drinking. |
| 707 | ** Finn's weight. While clearly lacking the six pack abs of Sam and Mike, he's not remotely overweight by any standard and yet any insult sent his way that isn't about his truly terrible dancing is usually about him being fat. |
| 708 | * InSpiteOfANail: During Artie's ItsAWonderfulPlot DreamSequence in "Glee, Actually", Rory comments that Quinn texts and drives, and consequently paralyzed in all possible timelines. |
| 709 | * InnocentInnuendo: Listen to the first few lyrics of "My Cup." Yeah. |
| 710 | * InspirationallyDisadvantaged: Ooh boy. |
| 711 | ** Artie is this occasionally, though it's not his entire character. |
| 712 | ** This also applies to the two characters with Down's Syndrome, Sue's sister Jean and Becky the cheerleader, although the latter seems to be breaking away from it. |
| 713 | ** Then there's Shawn the quadriplegic from "Laryngitis," an unabashedly heavy-handed use of this trope, not helped by the fact that the character was never seen again now that he's taught us all his lesson. |
| 714 | *** Made all the more ridiculous by the fact that Finn and Rachel see a paraplegic every day at school. Apparently, he's not sad enough to serve this purpose. |
| 715 | ** The deaf choir that competed in "Sectionals" was also like this. The DumbBlonde judge then pointed out they were [[StrawmanHasAPoint terrible singers.]] |
| 716 | * InstantBirthJustAddLabor: In "Journey," Quinn seems to give birth within a five or six minute time frame. |
| 717 | * InstantWebHit: |
| 718 | ** Averted with an embarrassing video of Principal Figgins, which only got two hits. |
| 719 | ** In RealLife, many of the musical numbers, though FOX has made it difficult by raiding Website/YouTube. |
| 720 | ** Sue's "Physical" music video in "Bad Reputation." |
| 721 | ** Santana and Brittany's sex tape in "Saturday Night Glee-ver." |
| 722 | ** Also in "Saturday Night Glee-ver", Mercedes lands a recording contract within days of Sam uploading a video to Website/YouTube of her performing "Disco Inferno" in the choir room. |
| 723 | *** Strictly speaking the contract comes in "Goodbye" weeks later and it's as a back-up singer, so it's not ''quite'' as ridiculous. |
| 724 | * IntraScholasticRivalry: |
| 725 | ** New Directions is often pitted against the Cheerios and the football jocks for school funds and notoriety. While a number of students are members of more than one group, [[ConflictingLoyalties their loyalties to each group are often pitted against each other]]. |
| 726 | ** In Season 3, Sugar Motta's father started the all-female Troubletones choir at [=McKinley=] after the tone-deaf Sugar was rejected from New Directions. Mercedes, Santana, and Brittany later defected to the Troubletones since they were tired of Rachel hogging all the solos. While the choir directors tried to make peace between the groups, Santana in particular decides to wage war in "Mash Off", [[spoiler:leading to Finn accidentally outing her and Santana slapping him in return]]. [[spoiler:The club essentially merged with New Directions again after they placed second behind New Directions at Sectionals, though Mr. Schuster promised them they could perform a solo number at Regionals and Nationals.]] |
| 727 | * InvisibleBackupBand: |
| 728 | ** Usually averted, with backing vocals coming from the rest of the cast and a lot of instrumentals done ''a cappella''. However, does crop up occasionally, especially in the more spontaneous ThatRemindsMeOfASong numbers. |
| 729 | ** Used more and more these days. In "The Power of Madonna," during "Like A Prayer," Mercedes sings the line "let the choir sing!": cue a curtain being raised to reveal that their high school auditorium suddenly has a stained glass window and contains a full gospel choir. |
| 730 | ** Lampshaded in "Theatricality" |
| 731 | ---> '''Rachel'''(on the subject of the pianist): He's always around. |
| 732 | * ItsAllAboutMe: Rachel interprets any attempt Will makes to give another glee member some of the spotlight as personal sabotage. She seemed to be getting better, only to revert back in the season two opener when a wonderfully talented exchange student wanted to audition. |
| 733 | ** The last seven episodes of Season 5 immersed her in this trope, to the point where as Season 6 confirmed, you knew it was all gonna bite her in the end. |
| 734 | * ItsAWonderfulPlot: Artie's DreamSequence in "Glee, Actually", where he visits a parallel universe in which he was never paralyzed and Rory acts as his Clarence. Artie never provided the spirit to keep the glee club together, Will is still married to Terri and became an alcoholic, Kurt wasn't able to graduate and never met Blaine, Rachel is stuck as the school librarian, the jocks are still jerks, with Finn being the biggest homophobic jerk of all of them, Becky didn't develop any self-respect and thus became the school slut (and she is pregnant) and Quinn lost the will to live after her accident, her body and her mind broken. |
| 735 | * IvyLeagueForEveryone: Quinn's acceptance to Yale. |
| 736 | ** Somewhat justified in that Quinn is often shown to be an excellent student and her parents are implied to be very rich. |
| 737 | ** In "Sadie Hawkins", Lauren Zizes tells the "Too Young to Be Bitter" club that the dance empowered her to apply for a wrestling scholarship at Harvard. Ivy League schools don't offer athletic scholarships. |
| 738 | ** Brittany gets accepted to MIT after doodling the numbers on the back of her notepad to get them out of her head that appears to be of great scientific significance when viewed in various sequences. |
| 739 | ** Tina gets accepted to Brown after being waitlisted. |
| 740 | ** Blaine is accepted to NYU. |
| 741 | * IWantMyBelovedToBeHappy |
| 742 | * IWantYouToMeetAnOldFriendOfMine: Subverted in "Acafellas" when it turns out Sandy's "friendship" with Music/JoshGroban was just him being a StalkerWithACrush, and Groban just came to the concert to give Sandy a restraining order. Played straight with Jonathan Groff appearing as Rachel's future husband Jesse St. James, with him and Creator/LeaMichele being pretty much the poster children for PlatonicLifePartners. |
| 743 | * JerkAss: Olivia Newton-John in "Journey." Dear God... damn far cry from how she is in real life. Let's put it this way: Fictional!Olivia Newton-John is so utterly callous and self-absorbed that ''[[EvenEvilHasStandards Sue Sylvester]]'' is disgusted. |
| 744 | * JerkassHasAPoint: Sue and Bryan Ryan have a duelling JerkAss session in which they drop a number of necessary anvils about the utility of athletics/phys-ed and drama/music. Then they anger-bang. |
| 745 | ** Sue rightfully pointing out that by denying Unique the chance to go onstage and do Grease, she's protecting...[[DudeNotFunny it...]]from a lot of hate. Then again, she also states that most of the hate would be spurred on by her as well. |
| 746 | ** Sue, in yet another TheReasonYouSuckSpeech given to Will, points out that he has a habit of utilizing one student's talents at an opportune moment and dropping his adoration of them like a bad habit when they're no longer necessary. She also points out that the most talented members in Glee Club ''are the band,'' who can and have performed any background music at the drop of a hat but Will doesn't pay a lick of attention to. Will's open-jaw reaction is all he can muster in response. |
| 747 | ** Santana, being a {{Jerkass}} on par with Sue occasionally, gets some very good points in about the other students while she's [[TheReasonYouSuckSpeech raking them over the coals]]. She makes a devastating speech to Rachel once in regards to how [[ItsAllAboutMe Rachel really doesn't care about any of the other students in Glee at the time]] and that she has personally sold multiple previous students [[ChronicBackstabbingDisorder down the river]] to get parts in plays or solos. Santana even hits her with an ArmorPiercingQuestion - namely, asking Rachel the name of another random student in Glee, whose moniker Rachel doesn't even get close to naming correctly. |
| 748 | ** Cassandra July teaches her NYADA students through negative reinforcement and the show focuses on her particularly going after Rachel. However, much of her critiques and harsh words are relevant feedback and commonly heard amongst the industry and from critic reviews. She explains her methods are to prepare her students for the harsh world of show business and points out if Rachel can't grasp mere pressure and criticism than she will never survive on Broadway. She's also correct in pointing out that Rachel being the star in her small-town high school and her big ego aren't enough keep her afloat anymore now that she's amongst the best of the best in both NYADA and New York. |
| 749 | * JerkJock: Puck was this originally, Finn was by peer pressure. Once they joined Glee, Karofsky and Azimio stepped up as the lead bullies. Once Beiste forced the football team to be nice to the glee kids, the hockey players took up the bullying torch in season 3. The boys who out Karofsky at his new school also count. |
| 750 | * JerkWithAHeartOfGold: Sue. |
| 751 | * JitterCam: And a lot of it. |
| 752 | * KangarooCourt: Played for laughs. The Warblers, being extremely set in their ways, are scandalized every time someone suggests that something be done differently: |
| 753 | -->'''Blaine:''' I am merely suggesting that instead of wearing blue ties with red piping, we wear jackets with red ties and blue piping for the competition.\ |
| 754 | ''(outraged mumbling among the other Warblers, Wes bangs his gavel to try to silence them)''\ |
| 755 | '''Trent:''' This is a kangaroo court! |
| 756 | * KarmaHoudini: |
| 757 | ** Lauren in "Born This Way" receives no real punishment for bullying Quinn, despite the anti-bullying theme of the episode. Made worse is the fact that she shouldn't have even been able to run for prom queen in the first place since she was retconned into a sophomore. |
| 758 | ** In the season two episode "Prom Queen", it isn't revealed who was responsible for crowning Kurt Hummel as Prom Queen. |
| 759 | * KickTheDog: |
| 760 | ** Sue does it over and over and over. |
| 761 | ** Sue cracking wise about Burt's near death from heart attack. Even for her that was a low blow. |
| 762 | ** Sue cracking weight jokes to a distraught Beiste in 'Choke' comes off as a KickTheDog moment in a supposed PetTheDog moment. |
| 763 | ** Terri tearing Emma to shreds might also qualify. |
| 764 | ** Jesse and Vocal Adrenaline luring Rachel out into the parking lot and ''egging'' her. No matter how much you may dislike Rachel, she didn't deserve that. Hell, even putting aside the horribleness of the act itself, ''Rachel's vegan.'' |
| 765 | ** This is the general reaction to the rare instances of people being mean to Brittany. |
| 766 | * KidsPlayMatchmaker: Kurt gets his father and the mother of his [[AllLoveIsUnrequited Unrequited Crush]] to hook up. This ZanyScheme is an EpicFail on that side due to IncompatibleOrientation, but the parents do end up falling in love and getting married. |
| 767 | * KindlyHousekeeper: Sue seems to have one in the form of Imelda. |
| 768 | * KillItWithFire: One of the Purple Pianos from the season 3 premiere. |
| 769 | * LadyDrunk: April (although she still does have her beauty and talent) and Will's mom. |
| 770 | ** As of Season Four, Cassandra July. |
| 771 | * LadyKillerInLove: Puck with Lauren. |
| 772 | ** And more seriously, Puck with Quinn. It's been implied he loved her back in Season 1, was one of the only people who was able to bring her back from the brink in Season 3, and in ''Season 5'' they [[RelationshipUpgrade finally]] get together for real. |
| 773 | * LameComeback: Rory attempting to trash talk Santana. It comes with being a FishOutOfWater. |
| 774 | -->'''Rory''': You're skinny like all the crops failed on your family's farm.\ |
| 775 | '''Santana''': That is the lamest thing I didn't understand a word of. |
| 776 | ** Remember the potato famine and WWI. That was one evil comeback, being something the Irish wouldn't wish on anyone. |
| 777 | * LampshadeHanging: A favorite of Glee. |
| 778 | * LastMinuteHookup: Sam and Mercedes at the end of Season Two. |
| 779 | ** Quinn and Puck in "Goodbye". It came out of nowhere. |
| 780 | * LastSecondWordSwap: Mr. Schue's reaction to Sugar's (horrible) audition: |
| 781 | -->'''Mr. Schue:''' Holy sh.... Sugar! |
| 782 | * LawOfInverseFertility: Terri is desperate to get pregnant yet can't. [[CantGetAwayWithNuthin Quinn breaks her celibacy vow once (while cheating) and ends up with a baby]]. Shelby had Rachel and gave Rachel's dads full custody, but now that she's older and wants children, is unable to have any. |
| 783 | * LecherousLicking: In "Blame It on the Alcohol," Santana pours salt on Brittany's stomach and licks it off. |
| 784 | * LeftTheBackgroundMusicOn: A subtle example in "Silly Love Songs": when Blaine reveals that the guy he's going to serenade at Valentine's isn't Kurt, Kurt makes an OhCrap face and dramatic music starts playing. The scene immediately cuts to a gramophone playing the same music in Rachel's room, where Kurt is having a sleepover with Mercedes and Rachel and lamenting said inconvenient plot twist. |
| 785 | * [[LegionOfDoom LeagueOfDoom]]: In her irrational quest to destroy Will and to a lesser extent the Glee club, Sue put together one of these. Hilariously, it fails. |
| 786 | * LethalChef: More literally than usual. |
| 787 | -->'''Principal Figgins:''' And to anyone who ate the ravioli at lunch and are not up to date with your tetanus shots, please see the school nurse immediately. |
| 788 | * LikesOlderWomen: Josh Groban, of all people, seems to be this way. And, more blatantly, Puck. |
| 789 | * LingerieScene: to overcome her performance anxiety Lauren uses the traditional technique of picturing her Glee Club audience in their underwear. She imagines Santana wearing some appropriately predatory leopard skin lingerie whilst Sue's undies have a notable S&M bent. |
| 790 | * LittleKnownFact: "[[Quotes/GleeBrittany Dolphins are just gay sharks]]" |
| 791 | * LittlestCancerPatient: In the episode "Comeback" a significant plot point involves a pediatric oncology ward, including a sing-along with a large group of pre-adolescent cancer patients. |
| 792 | * LivingProp: The backup musicians. One has to wonder if the members of the Jazz Band [[FridgeLogic get slushied with as much regularity as the Glee kids do]]. |
| 793 | * LonersWillStayAlone: Glee has sort of a theme about freaks and geeks and outcasts drawing strength from their situations and overcoming them. |
| 794 | ** Kurt is the only openly homosexual kid in his entire high-school. He appears to only have ''one'' friend, Mercedes, but he doesn't have much in common with her, and their friendship is true, but definitely not deep. Even his step-brother basically ignores him most of the time. At least until [[EvenTheGuysWantHim Wild]] [[MemeticMutation Dapper]] {{Love Interest}} [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E46BhMIRujI appears]][[note]]It's SUPER EFFECTIVE on both [[LoveAtFirstSight Kurt]] ''and'' [[EnsembleDarkhorse the Public]][[/note]], but as the boy in question is ObliviousToLove, the battle is not won. Or is it? (DAMN THAT [[MemeticMutation COCKBLOCKING PIANO]]) But this is just the beginning... |
| 795 | ** Rachel is by far the best singer and performer at her school, but thinks that ''entitles'' her to be liked by everyone, when, in fact, everyone constantly and insistently reminds her of how much they dislike her, even the ''nicest'' people on the show can't stand her. A remarkable case of this trope since the problem isn't her comrades' prejudice or anything, but her own attitude. Couple this with AesopAmnesia and you can see why it'll take her a while before leaving the trope behind, if she ever does. |
| 796 | ** [[AlphaBitch Santana]] alienates herself from everyone else by being a complete JerkAss. Even with her many, many male lovers, she never shares any meaningful interaction with them, and doesn't even look them in the eye while having sex. Her one female lover, Brittany, is also her one friend. Turns out Santana's a ArmouredClosetGay and is head-over-heels in love with Brittany. |
| 797 | ** Artie had this trope, among many other disadvantages, inflicted to him by his wheelchair, which tends to scare people away on one hand and make them push him around in a literal as well as figurative sense on the other. |
| 798 | ** Tina inflicted this trope on herself [[note]], by faking a stutter[[/note]], out of sheer shyness and sociophobia. Falling in love with Artie makes her grow out of it[[note]], but when Artie finds out, he is not amused.[[/note]] |
| 799 | ** [[VisualPun Mercedes]] suffers [[SarcasmMode a little]] for being one of the very few blacks in her school. She overcompensates for it by playing to the SassyBlackWoman stereotype, in her own words "pouring tasty chocolate" into all songs she writes. |
| 800 | ** Quinn suffers a temporary version of this for getting pregnant. Her isolation is further intensified because she rejects the biological father of the kid and wants to have the kid be raised by her actual boyfriend, whom she thinks will make a much better father. |
| 801 | ** [[NiceGuy Will Schuester]], their teacher and coach, is heavily implied to have been sort of a geeky, lonely kid at school, and is emotionally stunted at that stage because he married his high-school sweetheart... who does her best to bring him down. He appears to have very few friends outside of the teacher staff and the students. |
| 802 | ** Sue Sylvester, complete and utterly self-inflicted due to being a universe-grade JerkAss on par with the Prince from ''Manga/LevelE''. Once she thought she could escape this, but she was just being led on in {{revenge}} for her constant, over-the-top evilness. |
| 803 | ** Coach Tanaka: The Ugly, Boring and Overweight sort. |
| 804 | ** Emma: suffers from obsessive–compulsive disorder and many phobias. She's basically a neurotic freak, as well as TheIngenue. But she's genuinely nice and rather cute, so maybe there's still some hope for her. |
| 805 | ** [[note]]Before his transition[[/note]] Coach Beiste: In his case it's due to his manly frame, deep voice, and talent at sports. At age forty, he has ''still'' [[TitleDrop never been kissed.]] By a romantic partner at any rate. |
| 806 | * LookBehindYou: Becky pulls one when helping Puck spike the punch bowl at prom. |
| 807 | -->'''Becky (to Sue)''': Hey coach, is that a sniper in the rafters? |
| 808 | * LoopholeAbuse: Ain't no rule that says a wheelchair can't be used as a battering ram in football! |
| 809 | * LoveDodecahedron: |
| 810 | ** Lord, where does one even begin? In season one there's the Rachel/Finn/Quinn/Puck/Kurt relationship with Rachel and Puck dating briefly and Santana and Brittany trying to seduce Finn into a ''menage a trois'', then there's the Terri/Will/Emma/Ken grouping. There's even a conjunction between the two groupings when Rachel gets a short-lived crush on Will. |
| 811 | ** For season two, "Blame It On the Alcohol" takes the cake with the Kurt-Blaine-Rachel-Finn-Quinn-Sam-Santana-Brittany-Artie-Tina-Mike thing. Plus Puck tying in via Santana and Quinn, Lauren tying in via Puck, and Mercedes tying in via Sam. |
| 812 | ** Season four becomes the most extravagant of all and a visual can be found [[http://blackbirdklaine.tumblr.com/post/44072199499/wow-in-dying here]]. No one has less than five spokes! |
| 813 | ** Season 5 becomes even more convoluted, and a chart can be found [[http://classsprotector.tumblr.com/post/85762971952/aka-what-i-did-instead-of-my-work-if-theres here.]] Everyone's spokes have increased! And the final chart at the end of the series can be found [[http://classsprotector.tumblr.com/post/114225748517/well-here-we-have-it-every-single-relationship here]] |
| 814 | ** Emma even {{lampshades}}, saying that the "glee kids have dated so incestuously". When Kurt and Rachel come to ask her about colleges, she assumes that like everyone else they're there with relationship problems and says that Rachel/Kurt is the only configuration they haven't tried. |
| 815 | ** By the time Glee ended, Brittany could be linked to every single other character (that she's not related to, but probably some that she is, too) by five lines or less (the furthest away being Principal Figgins (either Brittany → Finn → Emma → Will → Sue → Figgins, or Brittany → Puck → Shelby → Will → Sue → Figgins) and Ryder (Brittany → Artie → Kitty → Jake → Marley → Ryder). Santana, Quinn, and Puck have also got a lot of connections. |
| 816 | * LoveEpiphany: Blaine for Kurt when he sees Kurt performing "Blackbird." Santana for Brittany while singing "Landslide" together with Holly. |
| 817 | * LoveMakesYouCrazy[=/=]LoveMakesYouDumb[=/=]LoveMakesYouEvil: Oh sooo much. But then, they are in high school. |
| 818 | * LoveTriangle: Too many to the point where it gets ridiculous. |
| 819 | ** Some of the more significant ones include (with the "central" person in the middle: Terri/Will/Emma, Will/Emma/Carl, Quinn/Finn/Rachel, Finn/Quinn/Sam, Finn/Quinn/Puck, Santana/Brittany/Artie, Santana/Brittany/Sam, Kurt/Blaine/Sebastian, Artie/Tina/Mike, Artie/Sugar/Rory, Finn/Rachel/Brody, Finn/Rachel/Jesse, Jake/Marley/Ryder, Marley/Jake/Kitty. |
| 820 | * LukeIAmYourFather: Shelby Corcoran is Rachel's birth mother. |
| 821 | * LyricalDissonance: Frequently with Glee. |
| 822 | |
| 823 | [[/folder]] |
| 824 | |
| 825 | [[folder: M-Q]] |
| 826 | * MagicFeather: The "magic comb" Artie gives to Brittany. You comb your hair with it and you can't lose. |
| 827 | * MamaBear: Sue, surprisingly enough, for Becky and to a lesser extent Kurt. |
| 828 | * ManlyTears: |
| 829 | ** In "Rumours" when Rachel and Finn bring Sam back the guitar bought back for him by the glee club after he sold it with all his other possessions. |
| 830 | ** Will occasionally has episodes of these. Particular examples are when he finds out the sex of his baby and sees her on the sonogram for the first time, discovers Terri isn't pregnant and at the end of Season One when the class performs "To Sir, With Love." |
| 831 | ** This also occurs when Will is seen crying while holding Finn's jacket, shortly after he learns about Finn's death. |
| 832 | %%*** Pretty much every guy in that episode including Puck, Artie, Sam, Kurt, Blaine, and Burt. |
| 833 | * MeaningfulBackgroundEvent: At the beginning of "The Substitute," several Cheerios are seen carrying a large trophy down the hallway. Shortly later we realize that Sue is the new principal, and it's being moved to her new office. When Sue resigns at the end of "Furt," the cheerios carry the same trophy down the hallway in the opposite direction. |
| 834 | * MeaningfulEcho: Rachel's quote at the beginning of the page about being in something special gets a callback in the series finale. |
| 835 | -->'''Rachel''': Being in something special doesn't make you special. Something is special because ''you'' are part of it. |
| 836 | * MeatOVision: Mercedes, forced to diet by Sue, starts seeing the rest of the glee club as desserts (and a burger), before passing out. Quinn tells her that she went through the same thing. |
| 837 | * MissConception: Finn believes Quinn when she claims he got her pregnant from premature ejaculation in the hot tub. |
| 838 | ** Finn also thinks that cucumbers can cause AIDS. |
| 839 | * MistakenForCheating: |
| 840 | ** Brittany and Mike by Artie and Tina. |
| 841 | ** Sam, Quinn, and Kurt in "Rumours," by everyone. |
| 842 | * MistreatmentInducedBetrayal: Becky dislikes the idea of Sue not agreeing to the uniting of Warblers and New Directions as a show choir supergroup after Dalton Academy was destroyed by fire, so she reveals Sue's secrets on TV. |
| 843 | * MoodWhiplash: |
| 844 | ** In "Shooting Star", the episode goes from the Glee choir singing "More Than Words" to Brittany's cat Lord Tubbington to gun shots going off in the school with students and teachers fearing for their lives. |
| 845 | ** The Prom Queen voting scene in "Tina In The Sky With Diamonds" is loaded with this. One minute, Tina is smiling and celebrating having been voted Queen, the next minute, Bree pulls a Literature/{{Carrie}} (with slushie mix of course) and everything just goes ''completely quiet.'' |
| 846 | * MoralGuardians: |
| 847 | ** When "Showmance" aired, some groups were angry because the show was showing kids act "sexy." |
| 848 | ** An in-universe example: After the sexy "Push It" number, Will explained to Rachel that the inappropriate performance, while popular with the student body, would discourage parents from letting their kids join glee club. Also, in response to the performance Principal Figgins composed a list of "approved" songs that the club could sing, with help from his pastor. Rachel looks at the list and asks what a luftballon is, referencing the song "99 Luftballons," a song about an accidentally triggered apocalypse - possibly a TakeThat at the cluelessness and/or mixed-up priorities of MoralGuardians. |
| 849 | ** Conservative parents were once more angered by Blaine and Kurt's kiss scene, though one has to wonder why any of them were surprised in a show that is so upfront about its [[GayAesop pro-gay message]]. |
| 850 | ** Also a common reaction to certain photo shoots where the ''Glee'' actors (particularly Creator/LeaMichele and Creator/DiannaAgron) have dressed in provocative clothing, often coupled with a strange expectation that adult actors are required to act like they are minors if they happen to play them on TV. |
| 851 | ** "The First Time" is the most controversial episode so far--even airing with a content warning--for dealing with Kurt and Blaine losing their virginity to each other. This is despite the fact that their love scene was no more risqué than Brittany's and Santana's a season prior. |
| 852 | * MoralityPet: |
| 853 | ** Sue's sister has Down's Syndrome and lives in a nursing home. Sue goes to visit after work frequently and reads fairy-tales to her. This continues later, as while talking about her sister, Sue reveals that her relentless mocking of Will's hair is due to her feeling insecure about her own hair, which was badly damaged in a childhood incident and can't do much more than the "Florence Henderson look." (Given the absurdity of that anecdote, it seems likely that it was a lie.) |
| 854 | ** Brittany for Santana a lot. |
| 855 | ** Beth is one for Quinn and Puck. |
| 856 | *** Puck reveals he also always thought of Finn as one after his death. |
| 857 | ** Rachel for Jesse, and ''only'' Rachel. He's a dick to absolutely everyone else, but he really, truly loves her. |
| 858 | * MoralMyopia: Many of the characters suffer from this but none worse than Finn Christopher Hudson. He cheats on Quinn in "Showmance" and he's just confused about his feelings. Rachel cheats on him and he treats it like a crime against humanity. He entices Quinn to cheat on Sam with him (just weeks after breaking up with Rachel for the exact same thing) and he just has unresolved feelings for her. Screaming at the Glee club for joining other activities is fine, despite that he was on the football team for three years. |
| 859 | * MotiveDecay: After Principal Figgins reveals in "Wheels" that the Cheerios boosters "write fat checks" to pay for most of their expenses, it becomes unclear why Sue needs to bring down New Directions in order to finance even her more lavish Cheerios demands. If her donors can finance plane tickets to Albuquerque, they can certainly afford a fog machine. So what is Sue's motive - [[ForTheEvulz if she has one to begin with]]? |
| 860 | * MultiGenderedOutfit: |
| 861 | ** Discussed with [[DudeLooksLikeALady Kurt Hummel]], TheFashionista who once stated that "fashion has no gender" when someone commented that he was wearing what looked like a women's sweater. His style shifts between more CampGay masculine (i.e. bowties and suspenders) and more feminine throughout the series, and a couple of times, like in the Music/LadyGaga tribute "Theatricality", he wore a dress. However, in Season 3, he draws a line at wearing a dress onstage at Nationals. |
| 862 | ** Trans woman Unique Adams first appears as a closeted boy whose feminine side is only for performing, so her style slowly shifts from more nerdy masculine to fully feminine across her appearances as she figures out her identity. |
| 863 | * MrFanservice: The majority of main male characters. |
| 864 | ** Special mention must go to Chord Overstreet (Sam) showing up shirtless in nearly every episode. |
| 865 | ** A Season Four subplot involving Blaine and Tina revolves mostly around appreciation of Blaine's body, with fan-service camera-shots to match. |
| 866 | * MsFanservice: The ladies aren't that bad to look at either. |
| 867 | * MushroomSamba: The kids' performances in "Vitamin D" along with a good chunk of Finn's performance after Terri gets him started on the stuff. |
| 868 | ** Also in "The Substitute," Will hallucinates the entire Glee Club as toddlers when he first catches a cold of the semester. Later, he has an over-the-top dream sequence of him and Mike dancing to [[Film/SinginInTheRain "Make 'em Laugh"]]. |
| 869 | * MusicalEpisode: All of them. |
| 870 | * TheMusicalMusical: It's about a high school glee club, and most of the musical numbers relate to that. |
| 871 | * MusicalisInterruptus: |
| 872 | ** They get through about thirty seconds of [[Film/{{Grease}} "You're the One That I Want"]] in ''Pilot'' before Mercedes divas out about being in the background. Season 4's ''Glease" finally completes the song. |
| 873 | ** In Season 2's ''Auditions'', Sunshine and Rachel start a duet of [[Music/LadyGaga "Telephone"]] before Sue barges into the bathroom and tells them to SHUT UP. |
| 874 | ** Tina gets hit by this a lot. She starts performances of both "My Funny Valentine" (in "Silly Love Songs") and "I Follow Rivers" (in "A Night of Neglect") before breaking down into tears, and is also interrupted during her performances of "Revolution" (in "Tina in the Sky with Diamonds") "So Far Away ("Jagged Little Tapestry"). |
| 875 | ** And then there's the moment in "Ballad" from Season 1, with Rachel and Will riding his car. Rachel's got a crush on Will, and she asks him to put a tape in the stereo so that she can sing "Crush" to him, but she doesn't get more than 10 seconds into the song before Will ejects the tape out of embarrassment. |
| 876 | * MusicalWorldHypotheses: Ryan Murphy has three rules for the musical numbers: "It will be done where they’re on stage rehearsing or performing or whether they’re in the rehearsal room, or it will sort of be in that sort of fantasy that has been routed on the stage, and you realize that they were performing it in their head or performing out to the auditorium the entire time." In troper terms, all the musical numbers have to either be diegetic or all in the character's heads. In other words, it has to [[ItMakesSenseInContext make sense in narrative context.]] |
| 877 | ** Some musical numbers have been ''very'' close to breaking these rules, but it still remains. |
| 878 | * MyFriendsAndZoidberg: "All right, ladies and gentlemen. And Sue." |
| 879 | ** In the episode "Never Been Kissed", in which the guys... and Tina uses Beiste as a "cool down"... |
| 880 | --->'''Will''': I am actually ashamed of you. You really hurt someone who was a great addition to this school.\ |
| 881 | '''Rachel''': I'm sorry. What exactly did we do?\ |
| 882 | '''Finn''': No, it's us. The boys.\ |
| 883 | '''Mike''': And Tina.\ |
| 884 | '''Finn''': We sort of... figured out that picturing Beiste while making out was even better than a cold shower. I mean I don't, ever. |
| 885 | * NamedAfterSomebodyFamous: |
| 886 | ** Rachel Barbra Berry is named after Rachel of ''Series/{{Friends}}'' and Creator/BarbraStreisand. |
| 887 | ** Lucille/Lucy Quinn Fabray may be named after Creator/LucilleBall of ''Series/ILoveLucy'' coincidentally, but probably unknown to the writers when they came up with it, the star who is to actress Creator/DiannaAgron what Creator/BarbraStreisand is to Creator/LeaMichele (or Rachel Berry). |
| 888 | * NatureAbhorsAVirgin: Will finds out that Emma is still a virgin, and - along with other reasons (like her OCD and Will's recent divorce) - this is grounds for them to "take a break" from each other. |
| 889 | * NaughtyNun: Loretta Devine guest stars as a stripper-turned-nun who judges Regionals in "Original Song." |
| 890 | * NiceJobBreakingItHero: |
| 891 | ** Will cooperating with Sue in order to help her make Coach Beiste her new nemesis. This results in Beiste getting ''very'' mad when Finn tries to get Artie onto the team. He kicks him off the team, and before that tells Will that he had heard that Will was really cool and that Sue was the school bully. [[SarcasmMode Nice job, William.]] |
| 892 | ** Rachel causes Sunshine to join Vocal Adrenaline because, in order to keep the girl from stealing her spotlight, she sent her to a ''crack house''. Sue, of course, is the cause of getting Vocal Adrenaline to take Sunshine on. |
| 893 | ** Rachel's dads' plan to stop Rachel getting married by encouraging Rachel and Finn to go for it. |
| 894 | * NiceJobFixingItVillain: Sue lands an Award Bait expose on New Directions putting on a production of ''Film/TheRockyHorrorPictureShow'' due entirely to Will's jealousy over Emma, but makes her case so well that Will cancels the show. |
| 895 | * NiceMeanAndInBetween: The cheerleaders and the footballers have this going on initially. Brittany is nice, Santana is mean and Quinn is in between. Mike is nice, Puck is mean, and Finn is in between. These are also the pairs they'll often end up in. |
| 896 | ** The trio in season five is also this: Blaine is nice, Tina is mean, and Sam is in-between. |
| 897 | %%* NoAccountingForTaste: Will and Terri. |
| 898 | * NoBisexuals: |
| 899 | ** Possibly averted with Brittany, though the show often seems to not take bisexuality seriously. Brittany has never officially declared herself bisexual; in fact, the show seems to be taking pains to avoid the word, instead using more ambiguous words like "bicurious" or "fluid" to describe Brittany's sexuality, words that leave plenty of room for a HandWave that she is straight/lesbian. Add that to the WordOfGay on Santana, and Ryan Murphy's apparent belief that [[http://www.afterelton.com/TV/2011/02/glee-ryan-murphy-blaine-gay-not-bisexual?page=1 bisexual kids don't need TV role models the way gay kids do]], and you can see why many fans predict Brittany's sexuality will wind up being either gay or straight. |
| 900 | ** There's an episode where Blaine thinks he may be bisexual because he enjoyed drunk kissing a girl and Kurt tells him that "Bisexual is a term that gay guys in high school use when they want to hold hands with girls and feel like a normal person for a change." Blaine ''does'' [[WhatTheHellHero call him out on the hypocrisy]], but [[StatusQuoIsGod he ends up still identifying as gay at the end of the episode.]] |
| 901 | ** In the season five episode 'Tina In The Sky With Diamonds', Santana goes on a mini rant against bisexuals, saying that Brittany's bisexuality was the reason her relationship with Brittany didn't work out (BlatantLies, Santana dumped her due to randomly deciding it wouldn't work out) and that by dating a "real" lesbian she's avoiding having her girlfriend "stray for penis", though it's sorta obvious she's using excuses to justify dumping Brittany. |
| 902 | * NoCelebritiesWereHarmed: Tammy Jean Albertson is a blatant {{expy}} of some modern conservative politicians (mainly UsefulNotes/SarahPalin and Christine "I'm not a witch" O'Donnell). Made even funnier as she's played by Kathy Griffin. |
| 903 | * NominatedAsAPrank: After Kurt returns to William [=McKinley=], he starts to feel like the student body is starting to [[HopeSpot tolerate his homosexuality]]. This changes on prom night when he gets elected Prom Queen. To make matters worse, the Prom King is [[ArmoredClosetGay Karofsky]], Kurt's bully turned protector. |
| 904 | * NoThemeTune |
| 905 | * NonSequiturThud: April gives Kurt alcohol to boost his confidence. Suffice to say he can't hold it too well. |
| 906 | -->'''Kurt''': Oh Bambi. I cried so hard when those hunters shot your mommy. |
| 907 | ** That scene is a rather delightful example of "Non Sequitur Puke". |
| 908 | * NoYay: In-universe example with Santana and Karofsky. Tina thinks she might throw-up. Puck nearly does. |
| 909 | * NoodleIncident: In Showmance, when Figgins announces there are broken toilets, he says the last time it happened, someone was caught soiling school grounds. |
| 910 | * NothingIsTheSameAnymore: For seven episodes in season 5, the show abandoned the [=McKinley=] High storyline, and took place completely in New York, following the glee club alumni. Ultimately subverted when Season 6 went back to its original premise. |
| 911 | * OddFriendship: |
| 912 | ** Quinn and Mercedes, especially when Mercedes was dating Quinn's baby daddy. |
| 913 | ** Artie is the Wolverine of the show in that every single one of his friendships is at the very least a little odd (and not just because he's in a wheelchair). The most jarring example of this is when he and Rachel seemingly get over their previous "He can't keep up!" and "You're irritating!" after he's mugged in "New New York". |
| 914 | ** Really, the entire club is held together with one big web of odd friendships. |
| 915 | * OffhandBackhand: Done by Finn to Rachel accidentally in "Born This Way" due to his terrible dancing skills. |
| 916 | * OffscreenBreakup: Puck and Quinn (season 1), Sam and Santana (season 2), Mike and Tina (between season 3 and 4), Kurt and Adam (season 5), Santana and Dani (season 5). |
| 917 | * OffScreenRomance: Mike and Tina most notably between seasons 1 and 2, with a mini-flashback showing the (literal) second they get together and nothing else. |
| 918 | * OhCrap: |
| 919 | ** A song in the cafeteria is met by someone throwing a plateful of spaghetti at the club. Puck barely has time to say "Oh god, no" before a food fight erupts. |
| 920 | ** Kurt's reaction to the massive support Brittany receives for her Senior President campaign. |
| 921 | ** Kurt congratulates Harmony on her Sectionals Performance in "Hold On To Sixteen." Her reply? |
| 922 | -->'''Harmony''': Good thing I'm only a sophomore; next year's going to be a bloodbath!\ |
| 923 | -->'''Kurt''': D: |
| 924 | ** After Karofsky shows up in his gorilla suit to confess his love to Kurt on Valentine's day in the third season and Kurt shoots him down, only for Karofsky to turn around and see someone from his football team. |
| 925 | ** Jesse's reaction when he sees Unique. |
| 926 | ** Kurt and Finn's reaction when they see Rachel completely fail her audition for NYADA. |
| 927 | * OminousLatinChanting: "O Fortuna" is used to hilarious effect during the Will vs. Sue scenes in "Throwdown." |
| 928 | ** Again in Season 2's "The Sue Sylvester Shuffle" as Sue destroys Principal Figgins' waiting room and the football locker room and even abuses a few students. |
| 929 | ** This happens a [[RuleOfThree third time]] early in Season 4, when Figgins makes it clear that he's fine with Finn leading the New Directions. Sue once again terrifies the students outside Figgins' office by knocking books down and pulling glasses off a student's face and throwing them across the hall. Figgins finally reacts quickly enough to throw a verbal response her way while she continues: |
| 930 | --> '''Figgins''': You are a menace to the state of Ohio! |
| 931 | * OnceAnEpisode: In any episode of season two, you have a good chance that Sam'll take his shirt off and Kurt'll cry. Though not at the same time, mind you. |
| 932 | * OnceASeason: The sixth episode of every season is a mash-off competition. In the first two seasons it was boys vs. girls ("Vitamin D" and "Never Been Kissed"), and in the third it was New Directions vs. The Troubletones ("Mash Off"). Season Four broke the pattern. |
| 933 | ** Also, a wedding or almost-wedding. Emma and Ken in season one, Burt and Carole in season two, Finn and Rachel in season three, Will and Emma in season four and properly in season five, then Santana and Brittany and Kurt and Blaine in season six. |
| 934 | * OnceDoneNeverForgotten: People are still making jabs about Tina putting Vapo-Rub on Blaine's chest while he was passed out. |
| 935 | * OneGenderSchool: Dalton Academy and its sister school, Crawford Country Day. |
| 936 | * OneSeasonAthlete: Lauren Zizes joins the New Directions in season 2, then quits at the beginning of the next season after they fail to boost her popularity. |
| 937 | * OneSteveLimit: |
| 938 | ** Averted. JerkJock David Karofsky, Warbler David, and Spanish Teacher David Martinez all share a name. There are also two Andreas - Andrea Cohen from Vocal Adrenaline, and Rod's co-anchor. |
| 939 | ** There's also the point that Mike and Tina share a surname (Chang) although it's hyphenated in Tina's case (Cohen-Chang). On that note, she also shares it with Andrea Cohen. |
| 940 | ** As of season 3 there were two students with the surname Adams - Azimio and Unique. |
| 941 | * TheOnlyOneAllowedToDefeatYou: Sue, in "Journey" has managed to become one of the four judges at regionals, poised to take down New Directions for good. The other three judges turn out to be [[AdamWesting Olivia Newton-John, Josh Grobin,]] and a local newscaster who stood her up on a date. They all turn out to be [[SmugSnake even smugger than Sue]], and mock, not only New Directions but [=McKinley=] High as well. This leads Sue, not only to [[WhatYouAreInTheDark vote for New Directions]], but to [[HeelFaceTurn save the club from being cut]] after they come in last. |
| 942 | * OohMeAccentsSlipping[=/=]WhatTheHellIsThatAccent: Virginia-born Jayma Mays as Emma Pillsbury. She's supposed to be from Ohio, but she sounds more like she had a weird lisp. |
| 943 | * OperationJealousy: Brittany dates Artie to get back at Santana, and Artie plays along to get back at Tina. Neither are aware of the other's ploy, though. To be fair, they do to develop genuine feelings for each other, proven when Santana admits her feelings to Brittany and Brittany rejects her in favor of Artie. |
| 944 | * OpposingSportsTeam: Mostly averted with the two teams Glee faces in "Sectionals" (their teachers cheat, but they feel bad about it and admit to it); played straight with Vocal Adrenaline, the "evil empire" of show choir. |
| 945 | * OrbitalKiss: The ConcertKiss at the end of "Pretending." |
| 946 | * OutOfCharacterMoment: Will's furious reaction to finding out about the faked pregnancy. Some people have argued it resembles domestic abuse, but it's precisely how far that is from his usual personality that make it so chilling. Frequently referred to as "Five minutes of ''Series/MadMen'' in the middle of Glee." |
| 947 | * OverlyLongGag: In "Britney/Brittany," Jacob's now infamous jizz in his pants during the "Toxic" number. |
| 948 | * PaintingTheMedium: |
| 949 | ** Will and Sue, in a voiceover of themselves arguing in slow-mo at the beginning of ''Throwdown'': |
| 950 | --->'''Sue''': "God, it feels good to pop that zit known as Will Schuester."\ |
| 951 | '''Will''': "Shut up, Sue. Look at us; we're even fighting in our voiceovers." |
| 952 | ** Sue's "This is ''not happening''. The cruel slow-motion laughter is just your imagination." |
| 953 | * PairTheSpares: |
| 954 | ** Rachel and Puck try this but it doesn't workout. This doesn't stop the shippers, seeing as Puckleberry and Rachel's ship has some of the most vocal fans in the online community. |
| 955 | ** Possibly Mercedes and Sam, as well. |
| 956 | ** Before it was revealed that she married Jesse, Sam & Rachel had shades of this. |
| 957 | * PanderingToTheBase: In-universe, this is Aural Intensity's MO. In the first season they sing a Josh Groban/Olivia Newton John medley and in the second season they do a mix of Christian songs. It never really works for them since they always become runner ups. The second time, one of the judges was a nun and even ''she'' wasn't impressed by the blatant pandering. |
| 958 | * PapaWolf: |
| 959 | ** Burt Hummel with regards to Kurt. |
| 960 | ** Mr. Schue with regards to his glee club students. |
| 961 | * ParentWithNewParamour: Both for Finn's mom and Kurt's dad. [[HappilyMarried Together.]] |
| 962 | * PetHomosexual: The show seems to thrive on this device. |
| 963 | * PetTheDog: |
| 964 | ** Sue gets one of these with her treatment of the handicapped in "Wheels" (particularly the end of the episode, which reveals her devoted relationship with her disabled sister, and her (rightful) insistence that refraining from harassing one of her cheerleaders because said cheerleader is mentally disabled would be condescending and wrong. |
| 965 | ** Sue does this again in "Journey" when she actually votes for New Directions to be in first place in Regionals and persuades Figgins to let New Directions have one more year. |
| 966 | ** And again in "Comeback" when she goes to the cancer ward with Will and sings to the kids. |
| 967 | ** Possibly her best moment yet: When Will proposes to Emma, she walks down the hallway and several other staff members and friends hand her flowers to form a bouquet; among them is Sue. The expression on her face as she hands Emma the flower is the sweetest, warmest smile you will ever see from her after Jean's death. |
| 968 | * PictureDay: Inverted in "Mattress" - the students don't really seem all that concerned about their individual pictures (minus Rachel), as all the drama is about the group pictures. So the typical conventions of the trope are absent. |
| 969 | * PitbullDatesPuppy: Quinn and Finn's relationship, as Quinn was portrayed (at first) as a total bitch while Finn was a genuine NiceGuy. |
| 970 | * ThePiratesWhoDontDoAnything: Despite being the Spanish Teacher, Will rarely seems to be shown teaching. This comes back to bite him in the ass on "The Spanish Teacher". After this, he teaches history. Again, this is rarely shown. |
| 971 | * PlanetOfHats: Invoked in-universe. Some of the judges apparently wondered, due to it being an all boy school, whether Dalton Academy was actually a school for homosexuals... or if they just happened to have a lot of gay students. |
| 972 | * PlotArmor: Both New Directions and the Warblers advance past Sectionals. |
| 973 | * PlotHole: In Season 4, the New Directions were disqualified at Sectionals due to Marley fainting and the group heading offstage, letting Dalton Academy win against only one other school. However, when Dalton are disqualified for doping, the New Directions end up winning, despite both being disqualified ''and'' there being another school aside from Dalton and [=McKinley=] that wasn't disqualified! |
| 974 | * PokeThePoodle: The Gleeks attempt to do something scandalous, and the best they can come up with is causing a ''disturbance in the library''. And even that fails spectacularly. |
| 975 | * PomPomGirl: There are a lot of cheerleaders on the show and many depictions of their routines. Worryingly, a grand total of two (Mercedes and Kurt) seemed to understand a cheerleader's role is to help people and make things more fun when they joined the pom squad. |
| 976 | * PoorlyTimedConfession: In "I Kissed A Girl" Puck is comforting Quinn when she feels unworthy of love and has depression after giving their child up for adoption. Puck chooses this moment to tell her that he slept with Shelby, the woman who adopted their child and Quinn's best friend's mom. |
| 977 | * PopculturalOsmosisFailure: In "2009", Kurt tried to explain what glee club was, saying it was sort of like a sports team, but with choreography and Music/{{Beyonce}}, but his dad didn't know who she was, thinking she was one of the female club members. |
| 978 | * PopularIsDumb: Played straight with Finn, Puck, Brittany, and Terri (back in her high school days that is). |
| 979 | * PopularIsEvil: The shows loves to play with this. This could go any which way, depending on the character. |
| 980 | ** Finn is subverted. He is a LovableJock and the BigManOnCampus whose EstablishingCharacterMoment is saving Kurt’s designer jacket from getting trashed. Though his status sometimes takes drastic hits, he is always his best self when he’s at his most popular. |
| 981 | ** Quinn, Santana and Brittany, on the other hand, at always at their meanest and most vindictive when they’re the most secure on the Cheerios, and their popularity is at their highest. In contrast, they’re most lovable when they’re not on the cheer squad. |
| 982 | ** The rest of the school is full of {{Jerk Jock}}s who throw slushees at glee club members. |
| 983 | ** Subverted with the jock members of glee. They are cool and likable all throughout their school years. |
| 984 | ** Averted with some dorky characters who became popular for a brief stint. While they did not become mean, they found that popularity didn’t really make them happy or fit who they were, so [[StatusQuoIsGod they went back to how things were before]]. |
| 985 | * PrimpOfContempt: Santana can often be seen filing her nails, which complements her "apathetic mean girl" persona. |
| 986 | * ProductPlacement: |
| 987 | ** In "Hairography," Schuester namedrops Pep Boys. |
| 988 | ** In "Britney/Brittany," Emma's new boyfriend mentions that he shook up his dull life by impulsively buying a convertible at his local Chevy dealership. Not long after, Will "impulsively" buys the exact same model, and in case you can't identify cars by sight, the camera helpfully stays fixed on the Corvette logo for several seconds. Guess what sports car appears during the very next commercial break? |
| 989 | ** All technology is made by Apple. The school uses iMacs, all characters seem to have Macbooks, the phones are all iPhones... (except in Season 4, when the phones seem to be Samsung phones). |
| 990 | * TheProblemWithPenIsland: |
| 991 | ** The glee club is known as the "New Directions" (Nude Erections). Better yet, Will comes up with the name [[FridgeBrilliance while in bed]]. |
| 992 | ** Used again and [[LampshadeHanging lampshaded]] by Sue when she called Aural Intensity "the obviously not stupidly named" ([[DoesThisRemindYouOfAnything Oral Intensity]]). |
| 993 | * PromIsForStraightKids: Discussed, as Blaine is reluctant to go because of a bad incident during a Sadie Hawkins dance at his former school. But it's averted (mostly) as Kurt and Blaine seemingly go without a hitch and Brittany can be seen dancing with a girl at one point. |
| 994 | * PromWrecker: Happens twice in the series. |
| 995 | ** In season two, Kurt is the victim of this when he's voted Prom Queen. |
| 996 | ** In season five, Bree does this to Tina when the latter becomes Prom Queen. This is a specific reference to ''{{Literature/Carrie}}'', as Bree covers Tina in a red goo. |
| 997 | * ProperlyParanoid: Kurt (and Santana) both dislike Rachel's new boyfriend in New York, Brody. Seeing as Brody is secretly a sex worker... |
| 998 | * ProtagonistCenteredMorality: |
| 999 | ** Many critics felt that the story arc about bullying which began in "Never Been Kissed" was inherently flawed, because the show had previously treated bullying in a light-hearted manner... just so long as it came from members of the glee club. In "Sexy", Santana is framed in a sympathetic light after revealing to Brittany that she is a closeted homosexual and that these feelings cause her a lot of difficulty and confusion. Brittany tries to get her to come to terms with it by encouraging her to be true to herself, but when she explains that she still loves Artie and will not break up with him even though Santana tearfully confessed that she wants to be with her, Santana becomes hostile and angry with her for how she "blew [her] off". While Sue expels Dave Karofsky, who went through a very similar arc, for his bullying, Brittany constantly overlooks Santana's bad behavior even when Artie becomes upset with her and how she doesn't recognize that Santana is [[AlphaBitch manipulating her and taking advantage of his insecurities so she can break them up]]. Meanwhile, Brittany's response to Finn telling her that leprechauns are not real and that she is being stupid is [[FelonyMisdemeanor to say such talk "is bullying and [she] won't accept it"]]... as Santana is standing ''right next to her''. |
| 1000 | ** In "Hold onto Sixteen", Quinn is repeatedly told by Rachel that she would be doing the wrong thing by informing people of Shelby's sexual relationship with Puck, which would cause her to lose her job, prove her an unfit mother and allow Quinn to retake her child. Despite Quinn having selfish motives for wanting to reveal the affair, the fact remains that Shelby ''shouldn't'' have gotten involved with Puck, a student at the school she works at and if she had lost the job and the child as a result of this, it would have ultimately been her ''own'' fault. |
| 1001 | * PutOnABus: Multiple characters. |
| 1002 | ** Special note goes to pretty much all of the new New Directioners, with Kitty being the only one retained for the final season, although Unique does make a cameo. It makes sense, mind you, since their plot was intended to be tied to Finn's, with his death making them more or less redundant, but it doesn't make it any less jarring when they essentially disappeared, with only Marley even getting a line in the episode "New Directions." |
| 1003 | * TheQuarterback: |
| 1004 | ** Finn "[[Recap/GleeS5E3TheQuarterback The Quarterback]]" Hudson, and to a lesser extent Sam. Finn is the well-respected QB, who has the loyalty of his team enough to get them to join the glee club, and with the help of Sam, Santana, and Beiste reforms them to not bully people. He was also decent enough in the beginning to not actually partake in the terrorizing of students that his teammates did, and lets them prepare for the standard bullying he approves of. Confident and truthful enough to dump his AlphaBitch cheerleader girlfriend for one of the school "losers", and after a couple of seasons manages to regain his status. Rallies the football team, the glee club, and the school. |
| 1005 | ** {{Discussed}} in [[Recap/GleeS6E05TheHurtLockerPartTwo season 6]] when Spencer wants to be starting QB, and Sam wants him to show he can make a stand before he'll give him the position, so gives him a RousingSpeech: |
| 1006 | --->'''Spencer:''' Well, now that Beiste is gone and you're coach, I assumed I'm gonna be starting QB, so I got to be ready, right? |
| 1007 | --->'''Sam:''' Yeah, um, actually, I kind of changed my mind about that. [...] You got the arm for it, but, uh, quarterbacks are leaders, not cowards. [...] Look, man. Every movement needs a leader, someone to step out in the light and say, "Hey, this is me. This is who I am, and this is what I stand for." Look, I get it, high school is tough, but you can do this, and they will lose their judgment as soon as you lose yours. I got your back here, dude — And that guy right there, Finn, was one of my best friends, and he was the quarterback here, and when he joined the glee club, it changed everything here forever. Pick up where he left off, and it'll be the best thing that's ever happened to you. |
| 1008 | * QueerFlowers: In "New Directions", Brittany surprises Santana with a roomful of calla lilies, which she deems "the lesbian of flowers", and plane tickets to the island of Lesbos. |
| 1009 | * QuirkyGirlQuirkyTux: Brittany is a complete TheDitz, as well as loving unicorns and being all-round kooky, which inspires her white tuxedo with blue tulle skirt and top hat at the dinosaur-themed [[Recap/GleeS3E19Promasaurus Senior Prom]] that she organized. Note that she is also nominated for Prom ''King'', alongside her girlfriend. |
| 1010 | [[/folder]] |
| 1011 | |
| 1012 | [[folder: R-S]] |
| 1013 | * RagtagBunchOfMisfits: The entirety of New Directions. [[LampshadeHanging Lampshaded]] by Olivia Newton-John, who accuses the club of [[InvokedTrope invoking]] this trope for sympathy. |
| 1014 | * ReactionShot: Another favorite of the shows. |
| 1015 | * RealLifeWritesThePlot: Finn disappears from the series before the last three episodes of Season 4 when Cory Monteith checked himself into rehab. When he died in between seasons, Finn died too. |
| 1016 | ** Also Heather Morris's pregnancy necessitated writing Brittany out for Season Five, though she did appear in three episodes. |
| 1017 | * RealMenWearPink: |
| 1018 | ** The football team gains the confidence and cohesion to turn its losing streak around by practicing (and ''performing'') Beyoncé dance routines, partly on the premise that if they can pull it off in public then they can do anything. Puck [[LampshadeHanging lampshades]] it earlier: "I'm a ''stud'', dude. I could wear a dress to school and people would think it was cool." |
| 1019 | ** In "Theatricality," Finn does just that. Since it's not Puck, it doesn't get the desired result. |
| 1020 | ** In season 3, Puck ends up wearing a dress (and wig) to school. And no, people don't think it cool and he ends up getting in a fight about it. |
| 1021 | * TheReasonYouSuckSpeech: Sue and Santana are the masters of this. Though it bites Santana in the ass, when Finn retaliates in one episode and outs her in a hallway, after she goes too far. |
| 1022 | ** Holly gives a minor one to Rachel, asking her if [[LampshadeHanging anyone]] has ever told her how much she ''sucks''? |
| 1023 | ** Rachel herself gives one in "Laryngitis" when she figures out that some of the others in Glee Club have been phoning it in during rehearsals. |
| 1024 | ** Santana lets Sue have it big time in "The Quarterback", giving her hell about her bad attitude towards Finn, but it's immediately clear that she's yelling at herself too. |
| 1025 | ** Rachel lays one on Sue in "Opening Night", telling her exactly what a horrible, awful person she is and how she'll never really know the kind of love in her entire life that Rachel has known in that one night. |
| 1026 | ** In "Jagged Little Tapestry", Santana gives Kurt an EPIC one after he says that she and Brittany are too young to get married by [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_eZtEU64nBQ detailing why she thinks it didn't work out between him and Blaine.]] |
| 1027 | * RecurringExtra: There are a lot of characters that consistently show up in the background for the specific purpose of...showing up in the background. |
| 1028 | ** Season 1 introduced the jazz band, Azimio, Karofsky, and Lauren. The last two [[AscendedExtra ascended]] in season 2. |
| 1029 | ** Season 2 introduced Stoner Brett and the background warblers Jeff, Nick, Thad, and Trent. |
| 1030 | ** Season 4 introduced Dottie Kazatori and Jordan the neck-brace Cheerio. |
| 1031 | * RecycledPremise: |
| 1032 | ** A number of plots, characters and ideas are blatantly lifted from ''Series/{{Popular}}'', also created and written by Murphy. |
| 1033 | ** With Season Four, the show is recycled ''itself'' with all the new characters being only slightly different versions of older characters. Marley is Rachel, Kitty is Quinn, Jake is Puck, Brody is Jesse, and Cassandra is April. Then in season five, Bree is Santana. |
| 1034 | ** They also recycled the Aesops of previous episodes. You could make a drinking game out of every episode that boils down to BeYourself. |
| 1035 | * RefugeInAudacity: Sue lives and breathes this trope. |
| 1036 | * ResetButton: Anytime Sue looks to finally stop going after the club, you can bet the Status Quo will be back to normal next week. |
| 1037 | * {{Retcon}}: When Rachel's dads appear in person on the show, they look nothing like the picture we saw of them three years prior in the pilot. And Hiram has a lighter skin tone than before. |
| 1038 | * {{Retool}}: The first half of season 1 put a lot more focus on Will, and had a more quick paced storytelling and him narrating throughout the episode. But after the second half of the season got on, it began focusing more on the students and slowing down the plot to allow more drama to unfold. |
| 1039 | ** Season 5 had the most dramatic retool of them all; New Directions is temporarily disbanded in Episode 11 (leading to the departures of Melissa Benoist, Jacob Artist, Alex Newell, and Blake Jenner), and the last seven episodes were entirely based in New York. Season 6 returned the action to [=McKinley=]. |
| 1040 | * ReplacementFlatCharacter: The show regularly has to introduce new JerkJock and AlphaBitch characters because the previous owners of the titles inevitably go through character development into nicer people (Karofsky for the jocks, Kitty for the Cheerios). Later it extends to the rest of the archetypes, as the characters evolve or graduate, and the authors are not especially shy about this trope, [[LampshadeHanging often having the new guys dubbed by the other characters as "New (insert previous one)"]]: Unique is called Mercedes by Brittany (even with the real Mercedes present), Kitty is considered "the new Quinn" [[FanGirl even by herself]] (and Brittany once refers to her as "Quinn" [[RunningGag as the real Quinn is present]]), Bree is "New Santana", Roz is "Black Sue" ([[WorthyOpponent according to Sue herself]]), Jake is "Little Puckerman", etc. |
| 1041 | * ReplacementMooks: After the football team joins New Directions in "The Sue Sylvester Shuffle," the hockey team takes over slushie duty. |
| 1042 | * ReverseCerebusSyndrome: A mild example, but the first season (especially before the mid-season break) was a lot darker and more dramatic. In the 2nd season, though, some episodes do nothing ''but'' bounce from gag to gag. |
| 1043 | * RightHandCat: Played for laughs in Dynamic Duets with Hunter Clarington, the Warblers' new captain, who is presented petting a white cat. |
| 1044 | * RippedFromTheHeadlines: |
| 1045 | ** Kurt's "Single Ladies" video mirrors Joe Jonas' inexplicable decision to do so. |
| 1046 | ** Jacob Ben Israel getting attacked by ''Twilight'' fans. |
| 1047 | * RomanceInducingSmudge: In "Wheels," Puck and Quinn have a playful food fight while making cupcakes for a bake sale. Puck goes to wipe flour off of Quinn's cheek and they [[AlmostKiss lean towards each other]]... then [[MomentKiller Finn walks in]]. |
| 1048 | * RomanticFalseLead: Terri for Will. |
| 1049 | ** To a lesser extent, Ken (later Carl) for Emma (but Ken was never taken seriously). |
| 1050 | ** Quinn starts out as one for Finn and Rachel. |
| 1051 | * RousseauWasRight: All but the most unrepentant {{Jerkass}}es have been shown to be basically decent people or at least have some desire to do the right thing. Of course, the more central a character is to the plot of an episode or to the show as a whole, the more likely they are to fall into this trope. |
| 1052 | * Rule34 Yes, there is [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/This_Ain%27t_Glee_XXX a porn parody]] of Glee (warning, NSFW link!). |
| 1053 | * RunningGag: |
| 1054 | ** The Slushie Facials. They were shown a couple of times in Season 1, but it's at the point in Season 2 where it become a symbol of the series. Ad campaigns for the second season feature the actors throwing slushies at the camera and they're the album artwork for iTunes singles. Slowly phased out afterwards; there were only three in Season 3, one in Seasons 4-5, and two in Season 6. |
| 1055 | *** {{Defictionalization}} came into play when promoting the concert tour in between Seasons 2 & 3, as fans could slushie themselves in order to win tickets. |
| 1056 | ** Sam literally has a really big mouth. Will has a butt-chin. Kurt is one of the ladies (though this one is sometimes played for drama). |
| 1057 | ** Whenever a girl member is about to reveal a secret, the response is usually along the lines of "not another teen pregnancy". |
| 1058 | ** Will's Season 1 affinity for rap music is periodically referenced and criticized thereafter, mostly by Sue, though Quinn gets a line in the Season 3 finale. |
| 1059 | *** Will's love of Journey could also count here, with mentions made periodically through Season 1, and a series of "flashbacks" joking about them in a Season Two episode. |
| 1060 | *** Generally, Will's music taste. |
| 1061 | ** Blaine's hairgel, mentioned periodically from the end of Season 3 onwards. |
| 1062 | ** Finn kicking over chairs when he's mad. |
| 1063 | ** Finn replaying the memory of running over a mailman while learning how to drive to avoid ejaculating during make-out sessions. |
| 1064 | ** Sue throwing a huge fit just outside Figgins' office whilst dramatic music plays. |
| 1065 | ** Sue insisting that she's in her twenties, and her declared age seems to decrease slowly. |
| 1066 | ** Becky destroying xylophones. Also Becky acting like a stereotypical AlphaBitch or a miniature Sue. |
| 1067 | ** Beiste eating an entire chicken for every meal. |
| 1068 | ** Lord Tubbington having a drug addiction, joining a gang or something similar. |
| 1069 | * SadistTeacher: Sue is the poster child for this trope, often committing (and getting away with) even acts of physical assault on students in addition to her constant efforts to humiliate and degrade them. In season four, it also seems as if the teaching staff of NYADA is nothing but this trope. |
| 1070 | * SafeDrivingAesop: Quinn gets paralyzed for a short while due to texting when driving and in the next episode has a rant at Finn, who walked into people in the hallway because of looking at his phone. Finn, also, almost killed a mailman when learning to drive which is treated as his turn-off. During Quinn's storyline, she starts being the character mouthpiece to drive the story home, until Artie (who was paralyzed in a car accident as a child) helps her chill out. |
| 1071 | * SaltTheEarth: Sue actually salted the earth in her backyard when she sold her house. |
| 1072 | * SarcasticTitle: Don’t watch Glee if you’re not willing to cry. |
| 1073 | * SaveOurTeam with [[ThePowerOfRock The Power Of DANCE!]] |
| 1074 | * {{Scandalgate}}: In the first season, the Glee Clubbers sometimes referred to their "first scandal" - Quinn getting pregnant - as "Babygate." |
| 1075 | ** The debacle of Chord quitting and/or being fired (the fandom has never received a straight answer) from the show after his option as a series regular was not picked up is commonly referred to as "Chordgate". |
| 1076 | * SchoolForcedUsTogether: When he takes over as head of the Glee club, Mr. Schuester tries to recruit popular kids, thinking it will encourage more people to join. He's initially unsuccessful as they think the Glee club is uncool. He ends up planting weed on Finn, the football team's quarterback. When he confronts Finn, he offers to not turn him in if he joins the Glee club. |
| 1077 | * TheScottishTrope: After Rachel's speech to the Celibacy Club in "Showmance": |
| 1078 | --> '''Rachel:''' That's what contraception is for.\ |
| 1079 | '''Quinn''': Don't you ''dare'' mention the c word! |
| 1080 | * ScrewTheRulesIHaveConnections: Myron, despite being a 13-year-old middle school student, is somehow able to attend [=McKinley=] and join New Directions, thanks to his superintendent uncle pulling some strings. |
| 1081 | * ScrewTheRulesIHaveMoney: How Sugar establishes the second glee club, The Troubletones. |
| 1082 | * SecretSanta: Sue slips her name in as the only one. |
| 1083 | * SeniorYearStruggles: In the third season, the original characters are now in their senior year and most have their own post-graduation subplots. Rachel and Kurt want to get into the prestigious NYADA, Finn tries for a football scholarship, and Mike conflicts with his parents regarding future plans. Also, Brittany is now class president and gets to plan the prom. |
| 1084 | * SerenadeYourLover: It's a musical show about high school. There are a few. |
| 1085 | * SeriesContinuityError: |
| 1086 | ** Rachel is a member of just about every extracurricular group there is at [=McKinley=], so how is she so light on extracurriculars that it's an issue on her NYADA application? |
| 1087 | ** To an even larger extent, Kurt is played as having almost no shot at getting into NYADA unless he becomes class president. However, along with being in the Glee Club, he brought the Cheerios to a national title, started a P-FLAG chapter at [=McKinley=], was in the school play and, most of all, organized his father's successful congressional campaign. And as a performing arts school, NYADA would definitely take notice of that, considering that Burt ran on a pro-arts platform. |
| 1088 | ** In the Season 2 Christmas episode, Rachel doesn't celebrate Christmas because she's Jewish. A year later, she's all about Christmas. |
| 1089 | * SeriesFauxnale: The third season finale "Goodbye" and season five's "100" and "New Directions" all function with a definite GrandFinale vibe, although Glee had been renewed for more seasons way before their respective airings. |
| 1090 | ** The first season established that most of the main characters were sophomores, thus necessitating at the end of season three, the [[GraduateFromTheStory Graduation episode]] in which they leave high school. "Goodbye" acted as a retrospective for the show's first three years, with many {{Call Back}}s and {{Continuity Nod}}s given. |
| 1091 | ** Season Five's "100" and "New Directions" acted (unofficially) as a two-parter goodbye episode to [=McKinley=] High's Glee Club after they lost at Regionals and are forced to (temporarily) disband. The show went into a minor {{Retool}} as the final seven episodes shifted focus to New York, with Will and Sue reduced to cameos. Season 6 returned to [=McKinley=]. |
| 1092 | * SeriousBusiness: High-school show choir. |
| 1093 | ** Among the fandom, shipping is serious business. For example, within ''hours'' of "Never Been Kissed" being aired, there was already FanFiction, Youtube videos, photo collages, and arguments over the PortmanteauCoupleName for Kurt and Karofsky, plus ShipToShipCombat with supporters of Kurt/Blaine. |
| 1094 | * SexyShirtSwitch: April Rhodes is shown coming out of the locker room shower after a couple of football players wearing Puck's jersey. |
| 1095 | * ShaggyDogStory: Finn spends most of "Furt" learning that his family is more important than his popularity, culminating in a vow to protect Kurt and a musical tribute to him. In the very next scene, Kurt transfers to Dalton Academy. |
| 1096 | * ShipTease: |
| 1097 | ** Finn's "Hello, I Love You" number made it seem like he still had feelings for Quinn. |
| 1098 | ** 'A Wedding' is one big shipfest as besides Kurt and Blaine, as well as Brittany and Santana, getting married, we get Mike and Tina, Kitty and Artie, and Sue and Beiste pairing up during a 'couples dancing', a heavy ShipTease between Artie and Tina, and very blatantly addressing the fandom world by having hats with the term OTP written on them and naming fan nicknames for many a ship (Artina/Tartie, Chang-Chang, Puckcedes, Faberry...). |
| 1099 | * ShipperOnDeck: The Warblers go up in arms when Blaine declares he wants to do a duet at Regionals. Then Blaine announces who he wants to do that duet ''with'', and every single face in the room develops a knowing smirk. The confirming vote is unanimous. |
| 1100 | ** Most characters seem to at least support Kurt and Blaine's relationship. Tina urged Blaine to call Kurt during their breakup, Kurt's dad brought Blaine to New York as a Christmas present while they were broken up, everyone looked beyond happy when they got engaged, and Brittany decided that part of her dream wedding involved them getting married along side her and Santana. Sue has a literal shrine devoted to them, though it might have been {{Lampshading}} the more fanatical shippers. |
| 1101 | ** In "New York," Puck, Sam, Artie and Mike were this for Finn and Rachel. |
| 1102 | ** As for "The Wedding", Puck and Blaine claim their support for Chang-Chang. [[ShipTease Artie does not]], and as the finale proved, he was right not to, as he would up with Tina. |
| 1103 | * SharedDream: This happens to Brittany and Santana when they are put under anesthesia at the dentist together. They both dream of dancing to "Me Against the Music". They note how odd this is when discussing the dream with their friends. This seems to foreshadow their eventual relationship. |
| 1104 | * ShippingTorpedo: The ShipToShipCombat within the show rivals that of the fandom. A small sampling: |
| 1105 | ** [[ClingyJealousGirl Rachel]] tends to do this whenever Finn has a relationship with anyone else, but particularly when she tells Finn about who Quinn's baby daddy really is. |
| 1106 | ** [[BewareTheNiceOnes Finn]], for his part, has an ''extremely'' jealous streak and has punched out both of Rachel's other boyfriends. |
| 1107 | ** At least in earlier seasons, Sue takes [[ForTheEvulz pleasure]] in torpedoing Will/Emma at every opportunity. |
| 1108 | ** In a particularly emotional variation, most of the main cast takes this stance when it is revealed that Cooter has become abusive to Beiste. |
| 1109 | ** Sebastian isn't a fan of Blaine and Kurt together. Although he seems to get over it by the time he helps with Blaine's proposal. |
| 1110 | * ShirtlessScene: Puck, Sam, and Will have all had multiple shirtless scenes. Finn has had at least one. Mike took a while to get one, though his abs made a few appearances beforehand. Blaine gets a shirtless in the shower scene in season 3. |
| 1111 | ** Jake and Ryder both get gratuitous amounts of them too. |
| 1112 | ** Kurt doesn't get his shirtless scene until halfway through season 5 and in that episode he goes shirtless ''twice''. A few episodes later he's shirtless ''again'' twice. |
| 1113 | ** Artie is the only main male character who hasn't been seen shirtless because he's insecure about his body. When the Glee guys decide to do a shirtless calendar, he does his poses fully clothed. |
| 1114 | * ShoutOut: |
| 1115 | ** In "Glease", Becky plays the xylophone over the announcements in the same manner as it's played in ''Film/{{Grease}}''. |
| 1116 | ** In "Thanksgiving", Santana discovers laxatives in Marley's bag and immediately knows that she got them from Kitty. When she tries to tell Quinn, Quinn doesn't believe her, prompting Santana to insist that "the [[Series/PrettyLittleLiars pretty little liar]] gave them to her!" |
| 1117 | ** While performing "It's Not Unusual", Blaine does [[Series/TheFreshPrinceOfBelAir the Carlton Dance]]. |
| 1118 | ** [[UsefulNotes/DanQuayle "I knew Rachel Berry. I was friends with Rachel Berry. You are no Rachel Berry"]]. |
| 1119 | ** In "The Breakup," the couples (Rachel/Finn and Kurt/Blaine) are framed mirroring the grandparents in Film/WillyWonkaAndTheChocolateFactory |
| 1120 | * ShownTheirWork: Blaine dresses as a CaptainErsatz-version of ComicBook/{{Nightwing}} in "Dynamic Duets". In the comics, Nightwing was formerly Robin, who Blaine had dressed as prior to this episode in "Makeover". |
| 1121 | * SickeninglySweethearts: Kurt and Blaine show shades of this in "The Substitute". |
| 1122 | ---> "[[BlahBlahBlah Gay, gay, gay, gay...]]" |
| 1123 | * SignatureStyle: Many of the kids have genres and artists that they stick to for solos. Kurt does mostly showtunes with some occasional love for Music/TheBeatles; Sam and Puck like to perform acoustically (Puck also likes performing songs by Jewish artists, including Neil Diamond, Sammy Davis Jr., and Billy Joel, as well as classic rock); Rachel does Broadway; and Mercedes, Quinn, and Santana mostly do soul/R&B. Much of this corresponds to the actors' preferences. |
| 1124 | ** Artie also tends to do a lot of R&B (and he seems to be the club's rapper-in-residence), but the genres he's sung are actually really varied. Finn tends to do well with some classic rock; Will seems to do more adult contemporary or showtunes (when he's not rapping); Rory is shaping up to be the club's crooner. |
| 1125 | ** Blaine likes current pop music, especially songs by female artists (i.e. Music/KatyPerry). |
| 1126 | * SilentCredits: "Shooting Star" - the episode where [=McKinley=] High seems to have had a school shooting - has these. Even though the "shooting" was due to Becky accidentally discharging her father's gun in Sue's office, and no one got hurt. |
| 1127 | * SingingInTheShower: In the pilot, Mr. Shuester is passing by the locker rooms when he overhears Finn singing [[Music/REOSpeedwagon "Can't Fight This Feeling"]] by himself in the shower. Will recognizes his talent immediately and decides that Finn needs to be in the Glee club - ultimately resorting to planting marijuana in his locker to blackmail him into joining. |
| 1128 | ** In the second season premiere, "Audition", Finn discovers Sam's singing talent in the exact same way. He passes by the locker room and overhears Sam singing [[Music/{{Poison}} "Every Rose Has Its Thorn"]] in the shower. Finn then decides to convince Sam to join the club (though he doesn't resort to planting drugs in order to do it). |
| 1129 | ** Happens [[RuleOfThree a third time]] in the fourth season premiere, "The New Rachel", when Rachel meets Brody after she overhears him singing [[Music/NightRanger "Sister Christian"]] in... you guessed it, the shower. |
| 1130 | * SingleWomanSeeksGoodMan: Both Quinn and Rachel choose Finn over TroubledButCute Puck. At the end of season 1, Quinn seemed to have backed off a bit and Rachel/Finn were firmly together. Later seasons would disprove that. |
| 1131 | ** Kurt fits this trope as well--[[SpearCounterpart sort of]]. All three guys he's shown interest in have been "good men": Finn, who told Puck not to shove Kurt into a locker once; Sam, who always keeps his word; and Blaine, who is just an overall dapper gentleman. |
| 1132 | * SingleTargetSexuality: Emma was worried that Will was this to Terri due to them being HighSchoolSweethearts. She was then relieved to hear that he has had crushes on other girls, like April Rhodes. |
| 1133 | * SixthRanger: Quinn, Santana and Brittany join the glee club in the 2nd episode. Puck, Mike and Matt join a couple of episodes later. Season 2 has Sam and later Lauren. Season 3 has Blaine, Rory, Sugar, and Joe. |
| 1134 | * SkipToTheEnd: Burt and Carole cut the priest off while he says the vows and say their "I Do"s, but it's out of excitement as opposed to just rushing. |
| 1135 | * SleepMask: Terri is seen wearing one to bed in "Ballads." |
| 1136 | * SlidingScaleOfContinuity: Level 4 (Arc-Based Episodic). |
| 1137 | * SlidingScaleOfIdealismVersusCynicism: Exactly where Glee falls on the scale remains up for debate. Watching the halfway point of Season 1 (see HappyEnding), one is hard-pressed to think the show isn't awfully idealistic. But characters like April Rhodes, and the end of "Mattress" give rise to an [[AlternativeCharacterInterpretation alternative series interpretation]]. There are [[http://www.avclub.com/tvclub/tvshow/glee,85/ those]] who believe the apparent idealism of the show masks a deep sadness. The first season finale seemed to confirm the idea that the show falls in the middle of the scale: New Directions doesn't place at Regionals and is almost shut down by Figgins, but ends up getting another year because of Sue. |
| 1138 | * SlidingScaleOfSillinessVersusSeriousness: Glee has jumped around on this scale, though increasingly it came to terms with its innately goofy nature. |
| 1139 | * SlutShaming: |
| 1140 | ** Emma yells at Will for being a slut (see TheCasanova) A lot of people in the show get blasted, as when Quinn deals with her pregnancy or when Sue kicks Santana off the Cheerios for getting a boob job. The second episode of the fourth season involves a musical attack on Jake for his womanizing. |
| 1141 | ** Quinn and Santana's efforts to talk Rachel out of doing a nude scene really comes off as this, as well. |
| 1142 | ** Sam tries to slut shame Artie (he even uses the phrase "slut shame") when Artie confesses he contracted an STD. Though, since it's Sam and he doesn't really know how to slut shame, he didn't really do it right. Blaine talks him down anyway. |
| 1143 | * SmokingIsEdgy: At the beginning of Season 3, Quinn is revealed to have gone punk and joined a girl gang over the summer and, as a result, is now smoking under the bleachers. She even uses one to light one of her former club's pianos on fire. This seems to stop when she cleans up her act in order to be around her daughter more. |
| 1144 | * SofterAndSlowerCover: |
| 1145 | ** Rachel and Shelby's rendition of Music/LadyGaga's "Poker Face" was an...interesting take on it, if not strictly speaking unique. [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7CUYvWTd6oA Gaga herself does it that way a lot.]] |
| 1146 | ** Artie's rendition of "Dancing with Myself," which is closer to the much lesser-known Nouvelle Vague version than Billy Idol's original. |
| 1147 | ** Kurt's cover of "I Want to Hold Your Hand" in "Grilled Cheesus," which was lifted directly from the version done in ''Film/AcrossTheUniverse2007''. |
| 1148 | ** And Finn's cover of "Girls Just Wanna Have Fun" which was taken from Greg Laswell's cover. |
| 1149 | ** The Adam's Apples cover of "Baby Got Back", which was near spot on to Jonathan Coulton's version of the song. So spot on in fact, that Coulton called them out on it and demanded credit for the arrangement. |
| 1150 | ** Blaine performs "Teenage Dream" full-Warbler when we first meet him, then later solo at a piano in S4. |
| 1151 | * SpeakNowOrForeverHoldYourPeace: Burt, Carole, Hiram, and Leroy plan on doing this at Finn and Rachel's wedding. |
| 1152 | * {{Spinoff}}: One was planned for three "graduating" students, [[WhatCouldHaveBeen but it was never approved by the network.]] |
| 1153 | * SpoiledBrat: Rachel acts like one in "Extraordinary Merry Christmas," but she gets over it. |
| 1154 | ** Myron, the superintendent's nephew. |
| 1155 | * SpottingTheThread: It's relatively easy to realize that Artie's dance sequence is a DreamSequence in "Dream On" His dance moves provide a major clue. |
| 1156 | * SpringtimeForHitler: The "U Can't Touch This" performance in the library. |
| 1157 | * StalkerShrine: Sue's "Hurt Locker", where she keeps everything related to New Directions, which even also has another one inside for Kurt and Blaine (Klaine), and as for Klaine, she even has the tapes of their musical ''dream sequence''. |
| 1158 | * StalkerWithACrush: |
| 1159 | ** Suzie Pepper and Rachel in "Ballad." |
| 1160 | ** Jacob Ben Israel, stalker with a knickers fetish. |
| 1161 | ** Sandy Ryerson for Josh Groban. |
| 1162 | ** Kurt for Finn, especially evident after Finn is first shown to his new bedroom. |
| 1163 | * StatusQuoIsGod: All the time. |
| 1164 | * StealthPun: Dave Karofksy dresses as a gorilla in "Heart". [[VideoGame/DonkeyKong What other gorilla has the initials D.K.?]] |
| 1165 | * StraightGay: Karofsky, Sebastian, and Spencer. |
| 1166 | * StrawmanPolitical: |
| 1167 | ** Sue is a subversion of this trope -- while her opinions are indeed extreme, they don't skewer any one group or party but are rather a grab-bag of crazy. Although [[http://twitter.com/S_SylvesterGLEE/status/4744498617 one post on Sue's Twitter]] seems to show she leans towards Republicans. Even more evident in Season 6, in "The Hurt Locker, Part 2", which shows that she voted for [=McCain=] and later Mitt Romney, and then she got upset when Obama was elected as President for both terms. |
| 1168 | ** Both the Celibacy Club and Quinn's parents (''"Honey, Glenn Beck is on!"'') are particularly anvilicious examples of this, as they reproduce, in more extreme, parodic ways, various arguments and strategies of the abstinence movement. Even a lot of abstinence supporters are squicked out by purity balls, and both Quinn's pregnancy and the fact that her parents throw her out over it seem to be deliberate criticisms of the abstinence movement and just fundamentalist Christianity in general. |
| 1169 | ** In season two's Regionals, Kathy Griffin plays a wildly over-the-top Tea Party member (and blatant Sarah Palin/Christine O'Donnell {{Expy}}) who dealt with losing her nomination by tweeting that Obama is a terrorist. |
| 1170 | ** In general, if a character espouses views that are different than those of the creators, the chances of their being portrayed as a regular person is absolutely zero; they will inevitably be a frothing-at-the-mouth nutcase who is completely made of sociopolitical stereotypes. Kitty in Season 4 is becoming a major case, and she doesn't read newspapers because she thinks they were wrong about Watergate. |
| 1171 | ** The Tea Party club from Season 6. |
| 1172 | * {{Stripperific}}: The Cheerios uniforms. Instead of the usual pleated skirts worn by cheerleaders, they wear flyaway skirts, where each pleat is it's own unconnected strip of fabric. |
| 1173 | * StrollingThroughTheChaos: Blaine walks through the practicing football team during "Hopelessly Devoted to You" as an homage to ''Film/AcrossTheUniverse2007''. |
| 1174 | * StuffedIntoATrashcan: Too many to count. |
| 1175 | * StylisticSuck: Rachel's ''Run Joey Run'' video, especially highlighted by her, Puck, and [[TheCameo Sandy's]] BadBadActing. |
| 1176 | ** Rachel's first attempts at songwriting ("My Headband" and "Only Child"). And, of course, Brittany's "My Cup." |
| 1177 | ** All of ''That's so Rachel'', but particularly paralyzed wheelchair-user Blartie crossing his legs in the title card. |
| 1178 | * SuddenNameChange: The name of the Glee Club changes between "New Directions" and "The New Directions" quite often. |
| 1179 | * SummonBackupDancers: How the Glee Club functions whenever it doesn't need to actively fill up the 12 spaces, and it is most notably with the Troubletones' cheerleaders who all just appear when needed. |
| 1180 | * SureLetsGoWithThat: After the club's performance of "Tik Tok" ends in disaster since they were all hungover from a night of partying, they expect to be suspended, only for Figgins to congratulate them on "staging" such a performance to get the student body off alcohol. They all uncomfortably nod along to his praise. |
| 1181 | ** In "The First Time," Finn cooks a romantic dinner for Rachel, and she praises it saying she's never had a meat substitute taste that much like real meat. In reality, he forgot she was vegan and quickly changed the subject. |
| 1182 | * SuspiciouslySpecificDenial: While holding her Valentine's Day part in "Heart", Sugar thanks her daddy for booking the entire restaurant and reminds the guests that "he is ''not'' in the mafia!" |
| 1183 | * SustainedMisunderstanding: Brittany spends the first half of season 4 thinking Unique is actually Mercedes. Learning that she's trans doesn't change this. |
| 1184 | * SympathyForTheDevil: |
| 1185 | ** Rachel appears surprisingly sympathetic and supportive toward Quinn, at least in "Vitamin D." (Her intentions are less genuine in "Throwdown," when she appears to be using her "support" for Quinn to get closer to Finn.) |
| 1186 | ** Quinn doesn't seem to get too mad at Rachel after she admits that it was her who told Finn that he wasn't the real father of Quinn's baby, in order to get Finn for herself. She later explained, saying Rachel was just doing what she should have done in the first place. Quinn was owning up to her mistake and realized that while what Rachel did was bad, it wasn't evil - Rachel was just protecting a friend. |
| 1187 | ** Quinn going along with Rachel's ploy for Quinn to ask Finn out, to test if Finn really loves Rachel. |
| 1188 | ** Rachel comforts Quinn (notice a pattern here?) when she didn't win Prom Queen, even when Quinn had slapped her across the face moments before. |
| 1189 | [[/folder]] |
| 1190 | |
| 1191 | [[folder: T-Z]] |
| 1192 | * TakeThat[=/=]StealthParody: Glee likes to do this. |
| 1193 | ** An unequivocal TakeThat was directed at Chris Brown and Rihanna's relationship during the episode ''Guilty Pleasures''. |
| 1194 | ** After ''Film/PitchPerfect'' took all sorts of shots at the show, it hit back in "The Untitled Rachel Berry Project" when Mary says "the ACappella thing" is so overrated and "yawn!" done, boring. |
| 1195 | * TakeThatAudience: In "Swan Song" Brittany mentions that lesbians have been emailing her about Santana and says that she doesn't want to put Sam in danger. This is a reference to Brittany/Santana shippers going crazy about Brittany and Sam hooking up. |
| 1196 | * TakeThatCritics: Season 2 began by lampshading various fan complaints (song selections, Will's rapping, Auto-Tune), to which Kurt told the anonymous commenters of Jacob's blog to say it to his face next time. He promptly got slushied. |
| 1197 | * TakeThatUs: The show did start throwing some shade at itself the longer it ran. The StylisticSuck ShowWithinAShow "That's So Rachel" seems to combine some of the stupider plot elements into one big strange un-funny sitcom. |
| 1198 | * TalkShow: Brittany's web show, "Fondue For Two." |
| 1199 | * TangledFamilyTree: Because Shelby adopted Beth, Quinn and Puck are the parents of Rachel's sister, the latter of whom she dated. Rachel was dating her sister's mother's ex-boyfriend Finn, whose mother is married to Kurt's father. |
| 1200 | ** In "Pot o' Gold," this becomes even more complicated after Puck hooks up with Shelby. Meaning he is dating his ex-girlfriend's biological mother, who is also the adoptive mother of his biological daughter. |
| 1201 | ** And more, after adding Puck's half-brother Jake to the mix! |
| 1202 | ** Beth's family tree is basically just "Glee". |
| 1203 | * TantrumThrowing: Sue has done this twice when she gets especially annoyed. |
| 1204 | * TastesLikePurple: While drunk, Rachel yells out that wine coolers [[SugarWiki/FunnyMoments "taste like PINK!"]] |
| 1205 | * TeacherStudentRomance: A brief, one-sided one occurs in "Ballad," when Rachel begins to crush on Will. Puck and Shelby begin a genuine one in "Pot O' Gold". |
| 1206 | ** In "Choke," Puck tries to invoke this trope in with his European Geography teacher, so she doesn't fail him. It doesn't work. |
| 1207 | * TechnicianVersusPerformer: |
| 1208 | ** Within New Directions, this is the basis of Rachel and Mercedes' diva rivalry. Rachel has a trained voice with performance technique down pat, while Mercedes has a strong voice and follows her instincts. |
| 1209 | ** It's also the basis in the New Directions vs Vocal Adrenaline rivalry. Vocal Adrenaline are technicians whose performances include spot-on choreography and amazing vocals, but lack human warmth (at one point they describe themselves as souless robots). On the other hand, the New Directions are performers who, while packing less technical proficiency, tend to really get into their songs and transmit a genuine sense of caring for what they're performing. [[SubvertedTrope In a subversion]] of what normally would be expected (the victory of the genuine performers), the New Directions lost to Vocal Adrenaline in both Season 1 and Season 2. |
| 1210 | * TemptingFate: Marley tells Jake that she won't be the one to let the New Directions down at Sectionals. She collapses while performing onstage as a result of starving herself for the past few weeks, which leads to the New Directions being disqualified. |
| 1211 | * TerrifiedOfGerms: Emma, to the point of individually handwashing grapes. |
| 1212 | * TheEighties: Several of the performance / fantasy sequences play with the fashions and accessories of the time period (evoking the music videos), particularly "Hot for Teacher," "Wake Me Up Before You Go-Go,", "Party All The Time", and "Take On Me." |
| 1213 | * TheirFirstTime: An entire episode is dedicated to the first times of Rachel, Blaine, and Kurt. |
| 1214 | * ThemeNaming: |
| 1215 | ** Every girl after Will in "Ballad" has a food related name (Emma '''Pillsbury''', Rachel '''Berry''', Suzie '''Pepper''', and Terri '''Delmonico'''--a type of steak). |
| 1216 | ** Rhyming theme naming with star on again off again couple Finn and Quinn, and father and son Burt and Kurt. |
| 1217 | ** Sam's younger siblings are named Stacey and Stevie. |
| 1218 | ** Kurt's and Finn's (living) parents' names are shoutouts to Burt Bacharach and Carole King. |
| 1219 | * ThirdOptionLoveInterest: Played straight in "Bad Reputation." Puck is the ThirdOptionLoveInterest in the Finn/Rachel/Jesse triangle. |
| 1220 | * ThisCannotBe: Finn and Kurt's reaction to Rachel failing her audition during the episode "Choke". Complete with OhCrap faces: |
| 1221 | -->'''Finn''': Oh God.\ |
| 1222 | '''Kurt''': This isn't happening. |
| 1223 | * ThisIsYourSong: Many, especially in the episode "Ballad." |
| 1224 | ** They perform Elton John's "Your Song" in Season Four. |
| 1225 | * ThisLoserIsYou: Jacob Ben Israel seems to be a caricature of Internet reviewers. |
| 1226 | * ThoseTwoGuys: |
| 1227 | ** Mike and Matt. They're really just there to fulfill the club's needed minimum of 12 students in Season 1. In Season 2, Mike gets some character development and more lines. By Season 3, he gets ADayInTheLimelight and even sings. Matt, however, is put on a bus, having transferred to another school. Matt left after getting lines in a grand total of two episodes: "Theatricality" and "Journey." |
| 1228 | ** Brittany and Santana started off like this but they [[CharacterDevelopment were developed]] and wound up married. In fact, their storylines were more prominent than those of some of the ''original'' main cast, like Tina. |
| 1229 | ** Wes and David are simply Warblers, and possibly Blaine's friends. They've only spoken once or twice, and always about the Warblers, such as when Blaine enlisted their help to address Kurt's spying. |
| 1230 | * TheyPlottedAPerfectlyGoodWaste: |
| 1231 | ** An in-universe example. Finn and Rachel's rendition of "Born Again" from "Duets." To be fair, they were actually trying to throw the competition. One can only imagine if it had [[SpringtimeForHitler gone over well]]. |
| 1232 | ** Much of the fandom feels this way about Santana's coming out. |
| 1233 | * ThinkUnsexyThoughts: Finn has a problem with "arriving" too soon, but can easily cool off when he thinks about the mailman he almost killed when learning how to drive. The other boys ([[MyFriendsAndZoidberg and Tina]]) think of Coach Beiste to cool off themselves. Thoroughly deconstructed, however, [[WhatTheHellHero when Beiste finds out.]] |
| 1234 | * TimeshiftedActor: Eight year-old Kurt appears in flashback scenes in "Grilled Cheesus," played by young actor Adam Kolkin who bears [[http://blogs.ocweekly.com/navelgazing/Adam-Kolkin_Chris-Colfer_Kolkin-Family.jpg an astonishing resemblance to Chris Colfer.]] |
| 1235 | * TitleDrop: |
| 1236 | ** Done by Kurt and Beiste in "Never Been Kissed". |
| 1237 | ** Finn in "Furt" and "Grilled Cheesus". |
| 1238 | ** Mike and his dad in "Asian F". |
| 1239 | * TokenMinorityCouple: Puck invokes this with him and Rachel (Jews), and later Mercedes (Jewish and African American). Then there is Mike and Tina (Asian). Also, Mercedes' Season 3 boyfriend. |
| 1240 | * TookALevelInJerkass: |
| 1241 | ** Sebastian was always a jerk, but adding rock salt to a slushie and throwing it in Blaine's face was a new low. |
| 1242 | ** Gradually inverted with Sue over time; as much as she still takes RefugeInAudacity, she has begun to develop more caring aspects of her character. |
| 1243 | ** Becky, of all people, through Season 3. She goes into full-on {{Jerkass}} mode when she [[BerserkButton doesn't get nominated for Prom Queen]] in "Prom-asaurus". |
| 1244 | * TrailersAlwaysSpoil: For anyone who saw the preview for "Born This Way." Kurt returns to [=McKinley=]. |
| 1245 | * TrainStationGoodbye: Happens at the end of "Goodbye" between Finn and Rachel. |
| 1246 | * TransEqualsGay: |
| 1247 | ** Averted. Unique makes it quite clear that she wants to dress as a woman because she identifies as one, not just as an extension of her campness. Sue, however, doesn't get it and tries to get Kurt to perform in drag in order to compete with her. |
| 1248 | ** Also averted by Coach Beiste who's transitioning to male after previously identifying as a straight woman. |
| 1249 | --->'''Sam:''' So you want to be a gay man? |
| 1250 | * TrivialTragedy: Sue punishes the cheerleaders by revoking their tanning privileges. Santana is heartbroken, and runs screaming and crying from the room. She's ''hispanic''. |
| 1251 | * TrueCompanions: The Glee Club. |
| 1252 | * TrueMeaningOfChristmas: Played with in "Extraordinary Merry Christmas." Rory reads Linus' speech from ''WesternAnimation/ACharlieBrownChristmas'', which is about the birth of Christ, to the rest of club. However, the speech is more of a reminder for them to stop being so selfish and materialistic. |
| 1253 | * TruthInTelevision: Exaggerated, of course, but the school's money troubles mirrors a lot of Ohio's schools' problems. |
| 1254 | * {{Tsundere}}: Terri's behavior towards Will. It's later [[HandWave explained]] that after the fake pregnancy stunt, she was diagnosed as Bipolar. |
| 1255 | * TwoDecadesBehind: When we get a {{flashback}} to Will and Bryan in high school, everyone has mullets and 80's-style clothing. But the pilot states that Will's glee club won nationals in 1993, placing the flashback in the very early 90's. People were dressing a ''little'' differently then. Possibly because small rural towns are notoriously time-lagged, especially when it comes to fashion. In some parts of the country, the 80's didn't end until about 1998. Also, Bryan Ryan is stated to be two years older than Will. If Will graduated in 1993, Bryan had already graduated, so the clip featuring Bryan would be no later than the 1990-1991 school year. The costume department was bang-on in that scene. |
| 1256 | ** Will's music taste, which is ''heavily'' lampshaded. |
| 1257 | * TwoferTokenMinority: |
| 1258 | ** Santana is a triple shot minority, being Hispanic, a lesbian, and left-handed. |
| 1259 | ** Also Leroy Berry, one of Rachel's dads, is gay and black. Her other dad, Hiram, is gay and Jewish. |
| 1260 | ** The Cohen part of Tina's last name suggests that she's possibly both Asian and Jewish. |
| 1261 | ** Jake Puckerman is half black and Jewish. |
| 1262 | ** Unique is black and transgender. |
| 1263 | ** Blaine is gay and biracial (At least his actor Creator/DarrenCriss is biracial. There's been a few comments on the show that imply Blaine is as well but his race has never been explicitly stated). |
| 1264 | * TwoFirstNames: Bryan Ryan, played by the [[Creator/NeilPatrickHarris king of three first names himself]]. |
| 1265 | * TwoPersonPoolParty: Where Finn thought he got Quinn pregnant, despite them not actually having sex. Cut to MissConception. |
| 1266 | ** Still, despite common rumors, hot tub water is actually good for sperm and can lead to quite easy conception without active sex. |
| 1267 | * TyrantTakesTheHelm: "Throwdown," where Sue becomes co-captain of Glee. She ends up being the impetus for everyone leaving the Glee club and [[StatusQuoIsGod then coming back]]. She leaves at the end, but not before revealing to the entire group that Quinn's pregnancy is now public knowledge. |
| 1268 | ** But semi-subverted when Sue becomes Principal. In her brief time in charge, she actually does something about Kurt's bullying and introduces healthier food in the cafeteria. The latter is regarded as unforgivable by Mercedes, however. |
| 1269 | ** When Sue became principal again in season 5, she managed to get rid of Figgins, New Directions, and also, its director, Will, who becomes the new director for its rival, Vocal Adrenaline (after losing Regionals), and it gets even worse in Season 6, with much more strict policies, and Sue also transferred everybody except Kitty to other schools. |
| 1270 | * UnderdogsNeverLose: Subverted. |
| 1271 | * UnexpectedlyDarkEpisode: A couple of episodes do this, like "[[Recap/GleeS3E14OnMyWay On My Way]]", which opens with attempted suicide and closes with a violent car crash, and "[[Recap/GleeS4E18ShootingStar Shooting Star]]", with the second half being practically silent as the school faces a shooting. What's even especially jarring about them is the fact that they were set up to be more like {{Breather Episode}}s between story-heavy episodes: "On My Way" to have a singing competition and then the OfficialCouple's aborted wedding to wrap up the first half of the season, "Shooting Star" to be the return from season break focusing on TheDitz' wild song themes. |
| 1272 | * TheUnfairSex: |
| 1273 | ** Quinn tells Finn that she is pregnant but does not tell him that the father is in fact his best friend Puck, instead calling him a "Lima loser" who could never support her and the baby like Finn could, despite Puck expressing a strong desire to be a father due to not wanting to be a deadbeat like his own dad. He also receives full blame from Mercedes when she says it's Quinn's right to choose who acts as the child's father and that he has "no business messing up that girl's life any more than [he] already [has]", not caring that the guy whose sperm actually ''made'' her pregnant most definitely has rights to the child and that Finn doesn't know he's not the father. Once the lie gets out, she chooses to put the child up for adoption, and in the second season, she resumes her past relationship with Finn even though she had betrayed him so blatantly before. [[SubvertedTrope However]], it is at least acknowledged in "100" that Quinn hasn't had the greatest track record with relationships that involve any level of honesty, and she tells Rachel in "Sectionals" that all she did was what Quinn didn't have the balls to do -- that being, tell Finn that Puck impregnated her. |
| 1274 | ** Even though Brittany cheated on Artie with Santana for months, the show presents their breakup as ''Artie's'' fault for losing his cool and calling her stupid because Santana had persuaded her that it wasn't cheating 'if the plumbing is different', and Brittany wouldn't listen to Artie when he pointed out that it ''was'' cheating and kept defending Santana. Additionally, Santana has called Brittany stupid plenty of times, and got away with it; and neither of them ever apologised for hurting Artie. |
| 1275 | ** Likewise Artie's first relationship with Tina ended because he was a "bad boyfriend". Never mind that she cheated on him with Mike. |
| 1276 | ** Santana stalks Finn through the halls of the school and loudly humiliates him as part of a plan to crush his self-esteem and eliminate him as a musical rival. When he loses his temper and blurts out that she is in love with Brittany (note that he does ''not'' call her a lesbian), it is treated as the most horrible offence imaginable because it appears that he outed her. Santana's campaign to emotionally destroy him is completely forgotten and ''she'' is regarded as the victim. |
| 1277 | * UnresolvedSexualTension: Tends to get resolved later on. |
| 1278 | * VerySpecialEpisode: Multiple ones. |
| 1279 | * VFormationTeamShot: In "Theatricality" when the gang comes to Kurt's defense, in full Music/LadyGaga and KISS costumes, no less. |
| 1280 | * VillainBall: Sue holds it for the first season until the end. Starting in season two, she basically just dribbles it. |
| 1281 | * VillainSong: Sue's version of "Vogue." "Laura, Katheryn, Lana too / Will Schuester, I hate you." |
| 1282 | * VisualInnuendo: Emma singing about how she could have [[Theatre/MyFairLady "done a thousand things I've never done before"]] combined with a close-up of a '''pearl necklace'''? |
| 1283 | * VomitIndiscretionShot: When Santana and Brittany throw up during their performance of "Tik Tok." |
| 1284 | * WackyMarriageProposal: A synchronized swimming performance, the glee club singing "We Found Love," and Will jumping in the pool in a white tux (complete with top hat and tails) definitely counts. Averted later in the episode with Finn and Rachel. |
| 1285 | ** Not really wacky but extremely extravagant, Blaine's proposal to Kurt includes four rival showchoirs dancing in elaborately choreographed routine that takes place all throughout Dalton Academy while Blaine sings The Beatles' "All You Need Is Love". All of Kurt's family and friends are there and it concludes with an equally elaborate speech on the stairs where they first met. |
| 1286 | * WardrobeWound: Unpopular students often have slushies thrown at them as a form of bullying. |
| 1287 | * WellIntentionedExtremist: Sue freely admits she's one. |
| 1288 | * WhamEpisode: |
| 1289 | ** "On My Way". Karofsky attempts suicide, and the episode ends with Quinn having a car accident. |
| 1290 | ** "The Break-Up". A heartbreaking case of ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin. And when they say "break-up", it's not one couple. It's every main couple on the show. |
| 1291 | ** "Thanksgiving", At the end of "Gangnam Style", Marley collapses on stage from food deprivation. In the next episode we find out it caused New Directions to lose Sectionals. |
| 1292 | ** "Shooting Star", Becky brings a gun to school because she's scared for her safety, and when Sue tries to take it from her it goes off. Then Sue covers for Becky, and it gets her fired. |
| 1293 | * WhatCouldHaveBeen: An in-universe example. After Rachel and Santana perform "So Emotional", Rachel expresses regret that the two girls never performed together before due to mutual dislike, despite their vocal chemistry. |
| 1294 | ** Kurt would never have existed if Chris Colfer didn't audition since the role was created specifically for him. And what a different show that would have been.... |
| 1295 | ** A spinoff was considered after Season 3 featuring some of the graduates. It never happened so the graduates were integrated into Season 4. |
| 1296 | * WhatTheHellHero: |
| 1297 | ** Burt gives one to Finn after overhearing him call Kurt "faggy". |
| 1298 | ** Rachel gets one from the entire Glee club after her cruelty scares away Sunshine, the foreign exchange student with the pipes to rival Rachel's own. |
| 1299 | ** Will gives one to the boys (and Tina) for their treatment of Coach Beiste (see ThinkUnsexyThoughts above). |
| 1300 | ** Will gets TWO more in "The Rocky Horror Glee Show," with Carl calling him out using the glee club to make a move on Emma, and Sue calling him out on pushing boundaries just for the sake of pushing boundaries. |
| 1301 | ** Shelby really lets Quinn have it when she finds out Quinn tried to make her look like an unfit mother, especially with the last thing she says before kicking Quinn out of her house: |
| 1302 | -->'''Shelby:''' Just because you took out your nose ring and dyed your hair blonde doesn't make you any less lost. |
| 1303 | ** In "The Spanish Teacher," Santana cuts Will's ''cojones'' off for making a mockery of her culture with his crappy Spanish lessons, actually causing him to rethink the direction of his teaching career. |
| 1304 | ** Marley gives one to the Glee club when they join in on joking about the lunch lady's weight. Besides being a horrible thing to do in general, she reveals that that's ''her mother''. |
| 1305 | * WheelchairAntics: After some coaching from Artie, New Directions performs a wheelchair dance to "Proud Mary" in ''Wheels''. |
| 1306 | * WholeCostumeReference: |
| 1307 | ** In "Theatricality," the girls ([[MyFriendsAndZoidberg and Kurt]]) and guys dress up in costumes from Music/LadyGaga and Music/{{KISS}} respectively. |
| 1308 | ** During the black and white holiday special portion of "Extraordinary Merry Christmas," Finn and Puck appear to be dressed as Luke Skywalker and Han Solo respectively. |
| 1309 | *** When asked by Blaine if they are in fact dressed as Luke and Han, Finn claims that [[YouWannaGetSued any resemblance to Star Wars characters is purely coincidental]]. |
| 1310 | * WholeEpisodeFlashback: The penultimate episode, "2009", took place over the course of the pilot episode...[[ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin from 2009]]. |
| 1311 | * WholePlotReference: In "A Very Glee Christmas," Sue's plot is ''Literature/HowTheGrinchStoleChristmas'', from the moment Will addresses her as a [[TheGrinch Grinch]]. Becky fills in for Max the dog, and the Glee club for the residents of Whoville (with Brittany as [[ChildrenAreInnocent Cindy-Lou Who]]). |
| 1312 | * WillTheyOrWontThey: |
| 1313 | ** Emma and Will, and Finn and Rachel in season 1. Both are resolved by the end of season 2. They do. |
| 1314 | ** Finn and Rachel do, then they don't. Then they do, then they don't. |
| 1315 | ** Kurt and Blaine. They do, then they don't. Then they do, then they don't. Then they do, then they say I Do. |
| 1316 | ** Santana and Brittany. They do, then they don't. Then they do, then they say I Do. |
| 1317 | ** Puck and Quinn in season 1. Pretty much dropped since then, aside from an instance of Quinn trying to seduce Puck into making another baby with her in season 3. As of New Directions - halfway through ''Season FIVE'' - They do. |
| 1318 | * WorldOfSnark: Most of the characters get a swing at this. |
| 1319 | * WorstWhateverEver: Sue describes The League of Doom as the worst henchmen ever. |
| 1320 | * WritersCannotDoMath: |
| 1321 | ** Just have a look at Will's equation in "A Night of Neglect." 5000*0.25=20000 is NOT correct! According to [[http://twitter.com/#!/MsAmberPRiley/status/60755940902842368 Amber Riley's Twitter]], this was indeed done on purpose, and was [[http://twitter.com/#!/MsAmberPRiley/status/60757531852673024 an inside joke of sorts with the cast]]. |
| 1322 | ** Finn was apparently born right before the Gulf War... which started and ended in January 1991, meaning Finn should have graduated a year before the show even started, though this may be explained by the fact that his dad didn't ''actually'' die in the war. |
| 1323 | * YourApprovalFillsMeWithShame: Will and Sue team up to get Beiste fired, for "stealing" their budgets. When Beiste quit after he was humiliated in "Never Been Kissed", Sue calls Will to the auditorium and showers him with confetti. Will is not pleased at what happened. |
| 1324 | * YourMom: Puck uses this to try and throw an opposing football player off his game. Then he explains that this is NotHyperbole. |
| 1325 | * ZanyScheme: Hiram plans one to stop Finn and Rachel from getting married. |
| 1326 | -->'''Hiram''': When the justice of the peace says "Does anybody here object?"\ |
| 1327 | '''Burt''': Yeah, hell yeah! I do!\ |
| 1328 | '''Hiram''': We all say "We do!" with feeeeeeeling. Burt, you will run interference with Finn. Carole, you will distract the Justice of the Peace with your feminine wiles. I will hustle Rachel out the side door and into our waiting car where you, Leroy, will drive (I don't drive) straight to Broadway. And if that doesn't start to get our baby girl back on her career track, I don't know what will. Are we agreed? |
| 1329 | [[/folder]] |
| 1330 | |
| 1331 | ---- |
| 1332 | -> ''[[Music/OneRepublic ...with every broken bone, I swear, I lived.]]'' |
| 1333 |
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