'Do-its' and Don’ts in “Duets”

The first news of this episode are that Puck is in juvie - as I find, the best “excuse” to give Mark Salling time to promote his new album Pipe Dreams - but no glee club member cared! They asked for the reason but weren’t really compassionate when they found out… I’m sure there are some Puckerman fans among you but you must admit, you weren’t even missing him in this episode (were you?) because the Glee producers made it exciting enough even without him.

The source for this excitement is the admission of a new character into the glee club: Sam Evans. Known from the episode Auditions as a new football player and student at WMHS, he now gets a shot at hitting on Quinn and the notes. Since the assignment is a competition of duets, everyone tries to pair up with the best singer to win the dinner at Breadstix. Kurt immediately goes to Sam who’s a little freaked out by his advances and constantly denies dying his hair. When Kurt (rather involuntarily) moves on after conversations with concerned Finn and father Burt, Sam sees his chance to ask Quinn who seems to be the only one without a (duet) partner. One slushie, some confusion in astrology and an Avatar compliment later, he teaches her how to play guitar tabs while he strums. They come closer and more might have happened but just like we know and love the Glee producers, they don’t like it simple and make Quinn back off: There she is again, the hurt cheerleader that wants to have time to focus on herself and not on some relationship this year so she exists the room way before we wanted her to…

But this relationship is not the only complicated one: In one scene, we see Brittany and Santana make out and in the next it’s Brittany and Artie. What’s going on there? First of all, Brittany and Santana were just making out because Santana has withdrawal symptoms from Puck and apparently a bad digestion system. Brittany and Artie have a “deeper” but all the same short relationship: She asks him if he would duet with her, but before that she wants to “do it” with the previously believed robot that gets super-choice parking. Done that, they move on. Wait, do they? When you take “moving on” in the meaning of “separating”, well, then they do: They throw the competition as Artie feels misused and breaks up with her.

Also Tina and Mike are fighting about what song to perform and the deliciousness of Dim Sum’s chicken feet… The only ones that (at least in this episode) are well-matched are Finn and Rachel: Their plan is to make Sam win the competition by singing an offensive song themselves, so they’ll have a chance to win Nationals with him.

Eventually, the following (duet) partners team up in song: Kurt and himself sing Le Jazz Hot!, Santana pairs up with Mercedes for Tina Turner’s action packed River Deep - Mountain High, Tina and Mike (who’d have thought?!) perform a very energetic Broadway-originated Sing! that should better be called Scream!, Finn and Rachel embarrass themselves and the entire glee club with their offensive rendition of With You I'm Born Again - dressed as school girl and priest for Sam’s sake - after deciding against a much better Don't Go Breaking My Heart, Artie and Brittany don’t participate and finally Sam and Quinn perform Jason Mraz’s Lucky, win - after successful convincing and two extra votes by Finn and Rachel - and have their first date later at Breadstix when Quinn decides that Sam as a gentleman should pay instead of using Will’s voucher while Brittany sits alone at the next table still rehearsing her meatball shot put performance just like in Disney’s “The Lady and the Tramp”. This episode (as so often) was a well-done duet between music and plot. What do you think?