Yeah, but Tina admitted in an earlier episode with Artie that she was faking it.

Huh. Don't remember.

That was when Artie went off to sing "Dancing with Myself."

"I had a stutter"?

"I used to stutter." Which could actually be read both ways.

I don't expect any show to hit everybody's xylophone chart of necessary statements. I just expect a show to be self-aware about its own contradictions. Anything that doesn't have contradictions, or thematic dissonance is going to be kind of flat and rote.

The very nature of the tropes of backstage musicals and melodrama (the two flavors Glee favors) tend to be historically very sexist.

Hmmm, now I'm trying to imagine a Douglas Sirk directed Glee episode. Way more interesting than the Vincent Minelli version.

Tina definitely said in a previous episode that she'd been faking her stutter. It was something like that she was shy and didn't want attention, so if she stuttered, then people would think she was weird and would ignore her. (Which doesn't at all make coincide with the experience of jr. high and high school of any actual stutterer I know -- stuttering doesn't make people ignore you, it makes people mock you -- but, well, it's Glee.)

I liked it ok. Def agree that I would have liked to see something else from the Vocal Adrenaline performance, and while the chore was great it was way too much of a Jesse showpiece. And I don`t think he played.
 
As opposed to Puck, whose actor clearly can play and I loved that piece. Well, I love Israel anyway, so I was going to. But it was an uke and guitar duet with Will and Puck!

I'm not sure how I feel about that assesment of Glee (and Tiger Beatdown in general. i want to like it. but . . . I digress), but it did bring one thing to mind -- somebody needs to bring back Cop Rock in reruns - Lifetime, Bravo, Retro Network, I'M LOOKING AT YOU!

I'm a little reluctant to say this, because one of my favorite elements of Glee is the way it treats popular music as a great big grab-bag that can't be contained by narrow-casting. Like in the first episode we saw, bouncing from "Jesse's Girl" to "The Lady Is a Tramp" to "One."

But I'm not sure "Over the Rainbow" was the right song for the moment. (Well done, just not the best choice.) Maybe "Getting to Know You" from The King and I ("By your pupils you'll be taught"). Or be a little more playful with "See You in September." Stretch that grab-bag even further.

Wasn't Cop Rock awful?

Wasn't Cop Rock awful?

yes, but deliciously so. Plus, a bunch of people who are now/were famous, like James McDaniel (Fancy from NYPD Blue) and CCH Pounder.