Being GLEEful

GLEE was a little bit of a downer on Tuesday, but acceptably so. If you want to look at the show realistically, it'd be pretty tough for New Directions to defeat a highly funded machine like Vocal Adrenaline. After all, how many 26-member high school show choirs provide their members with matching Range Rovers? Of course, that statement shows that it is completely impossible to look at GLEE realistically, which may be why it's so wonderful.

I watch GLEE first for the fabulous musical numbers, and second for the quirky characters. Now that Rachael has found her mother, Quinn has had her baby, Puck has revealed his sensitive side, Artie has come to terms with his wheelchair, Kurt has learned a lesson about bedroom decoration, and Finn has decided that Mr. Schuster is his father figure, I think some of the secondary or tertiary characters need to be featured. (Can a character be called "tertiary," or is that word only used in reference to things like sewage treatment plants?)

My vote for character who deserves her own plot line goes to Brittany. I love Brittany. I sit every show waiting for her classic dumb lines. When the series finally comes to an end, the producers need to put together a collection of her stupidities. My two favorites are "I think my cat has been reading my diary," and, in response to Kurt's father's admonition that they use protection when he catches them in bed, "Does he mean like burglar alarms?" And she's grossly underappreciated, which is shown by the fact that there were hardly any pictures of her online to download for this post.

Here's my idea for Brittany's back story: She's really a genius, who has created the whole Brittany persona because she so wants to be popular. In fact, she has already graduated from high school and is working on advanced degrees online. More difficult, though, than her late night online studies, is her need to be constantly coming up with stupid things to say. Her search for new idiocies would fuel this special "Brittany" episode. I'm not quite sure where her search would lead, but perhaps to a relationship with a politician who's had open mike problems. I do know that the episode would culminate with her singing, "99 Bottles of Beer on the Wall" because she finally got it memorized. This plot, of course, will not deal with the problem that, along with being totally clueless, Brittany also has the morals of an alley cat. She has enjoyed intimate congress with every straight and able male member of her senior class. (The euphemism and double entendre exhibited in that line are smokin'.) That moral/psychological issue could be dealt with in a later show, and end with her singing "What's Love Got to Do With It."

Planning GLEE back stories could become a really fun thing to do. Imagine if Santana were actually the love child of Sue Sylvester and Mexican rock guitarist and legend Carlos Santana. . .