He is such an asshat. Can they really not be doing this on purpose?

Man, I hope they are because I'm hating Will more and more. It's like Terry's behavior last season was just a mirror to his and we didn't see it because Terry was really horible. I don't know but he's a giant douche right now. He seemed to be a lot nicer and a more insightful person last season.

I'm pretty much where everyone else is -- loved Kurt's storyline so very, very much. And, yep, the zero-bullying-tolerance QUILTBAG paradise private school and the serenely gorgeous young mentor running through the perfect parlours hand-in-hand with Kurt and singing an unbelievably charming pop confection just to him is sheer ridiculous fantasy, but T-Lo on Project Rungay pointed out that it's exactly the sort of gooey romantic fantasy that is fed to straight teens all the frickin' time, and from which gay teens are always totally excluded. And it's utterly splendid that the show served up just such a confection for the previously excluded, a perfectly lovely frivolous little bonbon of giddy fantasy.

But, oh, shit, the Coach Bieste storyline. Badly written, Schue made me want to kill him (yay for reaming out the guys, but then why the fuck TELL HER? You couldn't come up with one semi-plausible lie or evasion or just say, "It was teenage boy crap that went way over the line, and I reamed them for it and now it's settled"? Oh, that's right, because if you did that, then she wouldn't have gone on to quit and you couldn't have had that dumbass redemptive pity kiss that magically fixed everything), and it made me incredibly uncomfortable on a meta level. I can't even -- well, I can, but only just barely -- imagine what it cost Dot Jones to do those fantasy scenes.

Hollywood is savagely shitty enough already to actresses who come much closer to meeting its Acceptable Femininity Standards. And I assume that Jones wouldn't be steadily working and sane if she weren't pretty well at peace with how she's perceived by the industry and what opportunities are going to be offered to her (I looked at her resume on IMDB, and she's got a lot of really cool, interesting projects on there but she also has a depressing string of totally predictable Cop, Prison Guard, Cop, Cop, Dyke, Dyke, Bulldyke, Bulldyke Basketball Player, Cop, Cop, Guard roles). But, still, damn, it's got to suck to read that script and see your character (a character written specifically for you, no less) used as a comically awful plot device that plays on every shitty thing your industry has ever said about anyone who looks remotely like you. And then to have to put on the goddamn lingerie and stand there in front of cast and crew and say it all and be glad of the chance to say it, because something like 80-90% of the people in your profession make a couple thousand a year in between crappy office drone jobs if they're lucky.

And then I think about having read something like six different intent, solicitous interviews with Matthew Weiner and the actress who plays Megan on Mad Men and all the fuss that was made over the fact that there was one single line in one episode hinting that she's aware that she has slightly prominent teeth. Was that tough for her to take? Did he consult her or give her a trigger warning or anything before giving her the script? Did he feel like he might have crossed a line bringing such a potentially painful meta issue into the world of the show? And then I just want to punch the whole world in the neck.

JZ, your post was breathtaking. Wow. I loved it.

JZ, thank you for being in my head but much more elegant that I could ever achieve... IOW what JZ said!

Aw, thanks.

Apparently, once I get started, I have Opinions.

And yet, not going to stop watching the show. Not least because Jones is really a very, very good actor--Bieste has been generally better written than in last night's crap story, but even last night she was compelling and moving and so much better than the (well-intentioned but insulting as fuck) material.

I just watched, and fastforwarded through all the Coach Bieste stuff. Just couldn't do it.

JZ, I'm just going to steal your opinions even though I didn't watch the aforementioned bits. Your opinions are awesome.

Somewhere in the back of my mind, I harbor a tiny little hope that it's going to be April Rhodes who provides Schue's mirror/redemption/what the fuck ever, because when I think about it, last year, April was sort of the mirror through which Schue looked at himself. She had been the bright star and then completely burned out and what he feared he was headed towards. And when we first see her, she's kind of outrageously horrible.

She never left her adolescent behavior behind while Schue is going through a horribly delayed adolescence.

But here's the thing about April-- she owns her horribleness. She recognizes that the only person she really tends to harm is herself. And I think she's honest and blunt enough that she'll point out that Schue's not only being horrible, but he's being horrible in ways that hurt others.

The pity kiss..... I actually got up and walked away from the TV and to the back of the room. It was completely a "watch from the hall" moment, except that I couldn't even watch from there.

I am also so angry that no one, not one faculty member or student, is stopping any of the football players (because prior to this we've seen more than one guy be abusive) from their campaign of harrassment. From the slushie throwing, to the dumpster tossing, to the locker pushing, why haven't any parents been contacting the school board? I know there are high school kids who would rather have broken bones than admit a weakness in public, but these guys are so blatant about what they're doing that they have to have been observed by now. Figgins is usually so twitchy about every other regulation. I know that's the point of the storyline - to emphasize Kurt's isolation and how no one is reaching out to help him, but it really makes me want to go in there with a flamethrower on his behalf. Also, logically, it makes me think that Kurt is about a third to half the size of the jock, so repeated body checks like that would leave Kurt covered in bruises.

My last takeaway from the episode - please, please, please, no one ever let Rachel sing Bon Jovi ever, ever again. Thank you. She has many talents but arena rock isn't one of them.

I am also so angry that no one, not one faculty member or student, is stopping any of the football players (because prior to this we've seen more than one guy be abusive) from their campaign of harrassment. From the slushie throwing, to the dumpster tossing, to the locker pushing, why haven't any parents been contacting the school board?

In my experience, this would be pretty typical. Or if the school board was contacted, they would recommend that the bullied kid get counseling to learn how to be more normal. Or, in the post-Columbine world, they'd get worried that the bullied kid would shoot up the school, and so isolate that kid from everyone else. (Things may have changed in the 10 years or so since I graduated high school, but these are the same sort of stories that I heard from the middle school kids I worked with a few summers ago.)

The Coach Bieste storyline was just horrifying all the way around.

I really enjoyed the Artie and Puck storyline. We haven't seen them interact much, but almost every moment together was hilarious and I loved their rendition of "One Love."

The Warblers' musical performance was great, but I join the crowd in rolling my eyes at the paradisical prep school with its professional quality "impromptu" singing stopping the entire student body in its tracks, ultra-progressive social policies, and wise, benevolent modelesque teen BMOC that becomes Kurt's mentor seconds after meeting him. I assume they have a quidditch team, too?

I did like the reveal of the bullying jock's real motivation (wait, wasn't he one of the hockey players pushing Finn around with homophobic taunts in the Lady Gaga episode last season? Good continuity there!) and the fact that he didn't miraculously become all sensitive and nice to Kurt after the kiss.