Recap / Glee S 2 E 14 Blame It On The Alcohol

"Girl-who-turns-into-a-stripper Drunk"

Summary

Break out the good stuff, gleeks, it's a Very Special Episode!

We start our cautionary tale in Figgins' office, where it seems there's been cases of students showing up tanked. Considering the pecking order, can you blame them? He asks Will to have New Directions perform at an assembly about alcohol awareness as we hit the Title Card. Move onto obligatory Wemma, in the teachers' lounge where Will approaches Emma and, without any preamble, says he's aware that she and Carl are house hunting and he gives her a toaster. As he sits down, Emma saying he should try dating again, this summons the Adidas Annoyance over to assert her usual craziness, saying Will should check into AA now to save himself the trouble. We find out that not only is Sue Aural Intensity's new coach, but also see just how she got the gig: namely some "accidental" destruction towards the previous coach.

Cut to the kids, finally, with Rachel in the choir room trying original songs as Puck approaches; seems Hiram and LeRoy (he knows this through his mom) are on a cruise and thus Rachel is home alone. However, as he's with Zizes, there will be no third makeout session, instead he wants a party. Rachel naturally says no way, however we all know where this is going. Title, duh. Puck leaves as Finn arrives. Rachel embraces him, thanking him for his help and trying to defuse any awkwardness they may still have. Yeah, that's kinda impossible on account of it being really freaking obvious you're still in love with each other. Besides, if Carole King could do it... Anyway, Rachel postures a bit, before presenting her music thus far, a song called "My Headband". Finn tells her it's bad because it lacks emotion ^note It's also bad because it's a really stupid song., and he suggests that Rachel should live her life more in order to have more experiences to draw on. Rachel decides then to accept Puck's proposal and hold a party at her house — a conference call between the other gleeks unveils the title of Rachel Berry House Party Train Wreck Extravaganza — while her dads are gone, and also asks the Mohawked Menace to supply wine coolers.

Cut to seriously? A painting of Rachel. Well, if we ever needed proof this was her house. It's definitely apropos. Rachel greets everyone dressed in her finest curtains (seriously, this girl be in a dress that has never — and should never — be seen since that awkward photoshoot you did as a five year old in The '90s) as we cut to the Berry basement and everyone looking so eager to be there. Kurt has Blaine as his +1, while Finn has been strongarmed into showing as a result of the step-brother finding some incriminating internet history. Everyone is getting ready to get wasted — except Finn, serving as designated driver and thus not partaking, and Kurt^note and though it's acting, this is kind-of funny: Chris wasn't old enough to drink, and Cory was sober at the time, so had actual drinking been required, their actors would have elected to take these roles any way as we know that leads to a Non Sequitur, *Thud* and not holding down-ness, and he's trying to impress Blaine. Blaine himself is out of the uniform and off the clock, now where's the booze?

Now with lameness established (and you must drink to forget that it sucks), Rachel tries to offer drink tickets for wine coolers, but everyone sees said suckiness and prepares to bolt. Rachel finally realizes how wild she must be in order to be in the right frame of mind for songwriting, so she has Noah pull out the heavy stuff. And thus, we get New Directions completely and utterly tanked, complete with Rachel remarking "IT TASTES LIKE PINK!" and Santana doing body shots off of Brittany's abs, something I'm sure she's done many times before. In the midst of all this, Finn, for once the sane one in the pack, gently pries a clingy Rachel off and explains to her the various kinds of drunks out there: Weepy Hysterical (Santana), Angry (Zizes and Quinn), Stripper (Brittany), Happy (Tina and Mercedes), and Needy (Rachel). And, this being needy, is not cute. Rachel, perhaps drunk, perhaps unimpressed, perhaps something completely different, decides to start a game of spin the bottle.

We return from break to see said bottle in action, with Sam and Brittany having their turn — Santana, disgusted, trying to split them up. It's now Rachel's turn, and the bottle lands on... Blaine, and they both really like it, much to Kurt's dismay. He'll become even less amused as the episode progresses. It's his turn to be almost negatively hysterical in breaking them up, but Rachel is not done. Seems this has given her the bug for a song and in a case of What Could Have Been had Darren Criss got the role of Finn, we see Blainechel get their Human League on while Kurt sits perturbed. The next morning, we cut to Papa Burt asking Kurt for help with breakfast, entering his apparent new bedroom (that returns to the basement as soon as it moved) to find a figure swaddled in his bed. We are of course led to believe it's Kurt, when he pokes his head out of his bathroom. It thus surprises no one to find out Blaine's in there nursing the hangover, Papa Burt putting 2 and 2 together, and coming up with 22, as well as Foreshadowing certain events next season.

Monday hits, and the Glee gang arrive at school looking like death warmed over. Artie brings Bloody Marys to help cure their hangovers, "hair of the dog that dun bit yo ass", and soon they all start drinking regularly. And of course, this leads to a number appropriate for the occasion, ND in the auditorium trying their damnedest not to look like they're sozzled out of their beans. Of course, Will points that out, applauding them for "acting" like they're D-runk. He then says that, as you've might've guessed, their heart's in the right place, but the song? Not so much, since it seems to defeat the purpose. He then mentions that alcohol poisoning kills 400 people a year and that sets Santana's tear ducts off. Quinn claims hypocrisy, Puck agreeing, citing the various booze ads out there, and that all the songs only champion getting plastered. And of course they knows about the dangers. Right, current states prove otherwise. Will tells the kids to try again.

Lounge. Will is lamenting to Beiste about how to get ND to understand the dangers when he himself drank a lot more at that age. The ever empathetic coach suspects more than that, and Will lets it out about his divorce, Sue being Aural Intensity's coach, and Emma finding a house. When asked what he does for stress relief, Will says he exercises. Beiste tells him to do something silly, and then takes him to her stress relief, a honky-tonk cowboy bar.

After the break we see Rachel, glass of bubbly in hand, making a phone call. Blaine picks up said call: turns out Rachel is still thinking about the kiss and asks Blaine out (if you have to be drunk to do it, do you really want to do it?). Blaine says yes, which Kurt is also not happy about, and then Blaine tells Kurt he might be confused about his sexuality, which Kurt is very much not happy about. Did we mention that Kurt has major problems with the whole Rachel/Blaine thing? Blaine offers up a point; having never actually dated anyone, he can't honestly say what his preferences are. Sort-of a point. Maybe. Not helping the anti-"you just haven't found the right guy/girl" case, there. Kurt doesn't care, and he REALLY doesn't care when Blaine suggest he's bi. And this leads to a line of dialog that is just (even more) utterly stupid:

"'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."

In every sense of the word: Hummel, You're. An. Idiot. An afraid idiot, but an IDIOT none the less.

Blaine then points out more hypocrisy, saying that Karofsky drove Kurt out because he didn't like Kurt for who he was... which is what Kurt's doing to him. He says that sexuality aside, he's trying to find himself, and for Kurt to rag on him on that, Blaine didn't think that's who Kurt was. He bails as we cut to adult world, and that honky-tonk bar where we see Will and Beiste having all manner of fun:

Beer. Mechanical bull. Oh yes, this place has the works. Eventually, this leads to the two of them up on the stage for some more appropriate music. Say what you like, Beiste is a great friend and a good singer.

Kurt is helping Rachel clear up the Berry's basement (Brittany's bra just sort of hanging from ...something... there in the back) but gets kind of suspicious when Rachel mentions that she had a date with Blaine, they saw Love Story and didn't kiss at all. Kurt is as unamused as he's been this whole episode, and it gets worse when Rachel opens the mouth and inserts the loafer. Kurt responds accordingly, saying Blaine's the first of many closeted men Rachel will date. Rachel seems decided to prove to Kurt that it wasn't just the beer goggles that made Blaine into her.

We return from break to find Beiste pouring Will into his place. A drunken Will thanks Shannon for the night, Beiste saying that whilst they can't stop them, they can at least tell kids about the dangers of drinking. We see some of those dangers as Will tries to grade papers, but can only give out smiley faces and A+'s across the board (you tried!). Then, because booze lifts inhibitions, Will, because of course, drunk dials who he thinks and we are supposed to believe is Emma. It's not. Cut to a wonderfully hungover Will arriving at school and coming across Figgins and then Emma, whom he tries to apologize to before she says he never called her. Therefore, process of elimination leads us to ol' Tracksuit. Seriously, Will, are your contacts organized alphabetically by surname? Even so, no Sandy Ryerson separating the two?

We'll deal with this revelation later, as we cut to Kurt trying to teach Burt how to make a soufflé. This goes as well as you'd expect, Kurt lamenting about Blaine and in the process inadvertently revealing the drunken reveling that went on. This leads to Burt being unhappy about Blaine in Kurt's bed, and again onto Burt still not getting Kurt. Kurt responds by asking Burt to educate himself so Kurt could come to him like a "straight" son could. Ooh.

The New Directions are getting ready to perform backstage at the assembly: this is where the d plot the main plot of the episode comes into play. Figgins had asked the glee club to perform at the anti alcohol assembly, and they decide to perform some Key-Dollarsign-ha Kesha. They're nervous due to not getting enough rehearsal. As in, none at all. Rachel arrives with something to calm them down: Brandy, Vermouth, Port Wine, Scotch, Kool-Aid, crumbled Oreos, cough syrup. Can you guess the inevitable outcome? We're ogling HeMo in her daisy dukes, and it's going pretty well until Brit-Brit pukes all over Rachel towards the end of the song. Then everyone starts throwing up. Schue's head drops and the thought of oh, the trouble you'll get into. Speaking of, we start the home stretch with Sue playing the tape of Will drunk dialing her, the cameras activate and cut to the intended recipient's face turning as red as her hair, looking like she wishes he actually did drunk dial her. Then we get the priceless faces of New Directions in Figgins' office ready to face the music. However, Figgins thought they planned it — some acting, SFX to scare the kids straight — seeing the performance as a warning about the less glamorous side of alcohol, and hands around some half off Froyo coupons (that are already expired). Will gets handed a meeting with Figgins' pastor. Fair trade. After both the club's squicktastic performance and Schue's public embarrassment, Will decides to make the club sign a pledge saying that they won't drink until after Nationals, giving them his number in case they slip up. We end at the Lima Bean, where Rachel kisses Blaine when Kurt gets coffee with him, only for him to find that he was hired to be Kurt's love interest and a self-discovery tangent would be counterproductive and thus is "100% gay". Rachel, however, is surprisingly happy because this is "songwriting gold". Hurray.

Next Time: Holly Holliday returns, and one member of ND makes a long-overdo Anguished Declaration of Love. Three guesses who and the first two don't count.

Songs from this episode

• "My Headband", an original song performed by Rachel
• "Don't You Want Me" by The Human League, performed by Rachel and Blaine
• "Blame it (on the Alcohol)" by Jamie Foxx, performed by Artie and the New Directions
• "One Bourbon, One Scotch, One Beer" by George Thorogood, performed by Will and Coach Beiste
• "Tik Tok" by Kesha, performed by Brittany and the New Directions

Tropes in this episode

• Artistic License: No one who drank as little as they did would be drunk three days later.
• Bisexual Love Triangle: A brief one between Rachel/Blaine/Kurt, following the drunk kiss between Blaine and Rachel.
• Bread, Eggs, Milk, Squick: The unfortunate ingredients of Rachel's gargle blaster to calm everyone down consists of the following: Brandy, Vermouth, Port Wine, Scotch, Kool-Aid, crumbled Oreos, and cough syrup.
• Broken Aesop: Where do we even begin? Well, how about THEY ARE TEENAGERS! IT IS ILLEGAL! THERE ARE TONS OF OTHER PROBLEMS WITH TEENAGE DRINKING BESIDES CAR ACCIDENTS AND ALCOHOL POISONING!
• Call-Back: In "Britney/Brittany", Brittany mentioned that she wanted to do a Ke$ha song. She sings "TiK ToK" in this episode.
• Cool Shades: Nearly all of New Directions after Rachel's party.
• Drunken Song: Nearly all the songs in the episode (since the characters were intoxicated a good amount of the time), but most prominently "Don't You Want Me" and "One Bourbon, One Scotch, One Beer."
• Early-Bird Cameo: The music (and discussion) of Carole King, who will be featured in Season 6.
• Everybody Must Get Stoned: And how!
• Foreshadowing: During a game of "Spin The Bottle", Brittany and Sam make out before Santana breaks them up saying "no me gusta". Flash forward a season and half later and the two will become a couple for the fourth season only.
• Gargle Blaster: Rachel's concoction: the last dregs of her dads' liquor cabinet, some Kool-Aid, cough syrup, and crumbled up Oreos.
• Hysterical Woman: Santana (the weepy kind) and Tina and Mercedes (the happy kind).
• Incompatible Orientation: Rachel who is straight, and Blaine who is "100% gay".
• Kissing Under the Influence: Brittany with both Sam and Artie; as well as Rachel and Blaine.
• No Bisexuals: Kurt believes that bisexuality doesn't exist when talking to his love interest Blaine who is questioning his sexuality after drunk kissing Rachel. (Though Kurt may just be jealous). They aren't a thing. Thanks, Ryan Murphy.
• Ode to Intoxication: The last three songs, "Blame it (on the Alcohol)", "One Bourbon, One Scotch, One Beer", and "Tik Tok".
• Ode to Sobriety: Discussed — the kids don't think it's an easy task to perform a cool song that's explicitly about not getting drunk, since they're not sure there's one that exists.
• Oh, Crap!: Will's face when his drunk dial plays over the PA.
• Pun: Blaine would say "bi"^note  "Bye'' , but doesn't want to offend Kurt.
• Tastes Like Purple: When Rachel drinks wine coolers for the first time:
  Rachel: IT TASTES LIKE PINK! IT TASTES LIKE PINK!!!
• Vomit Indiscretion Shot: Brittany pukes. All over Rachel.

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