Dream A Little Dream Of Glee

As the title suggests, dreams are the main part of this episode. In order to emphasize the importance of dreams, they take Neil Patrick Harris, who plays Barney Stinson on How I Met Your Mother, and convert him into a school board member, who is so miserable since he stopped singing, that he has come to McKinley High to deliver the bad news of budget cuts in the art program and that no dream will ever come true. This character is Mr. Bryan Ryan (what an invention of a name!) and is pretty familiar to Mr. Schue as a ladies’ man of his own high school times. But Schue soon finds out Ryan’s weakness and can convince him to audition for the local production of Les Mis, where they eventually duet Aerosmith’s Dream On.

In the meantime, Artie seems to get closer to fulfilling his dream of becoming a dancer: When Tina tells him about her research about new medication and therapy possibilities, he REGAINS hope and literally gets closer to her. One day at the mall, he bursts out into dance and I first thought, please, no more unrealistic situations! But it soon becomes clear, that the flash mob-like performance of the Safety Dance is nothing more than a dream and when the song is over, Artie sinks back into his wheelchair.

The third plotline further developing in this episode is Rachel’s: As Jesse finds out, her dream is to find her mother. So she and Jesse look for hints in several boxes they find in Rachel’s basement. But she doesn’t know that Jesse is sent by her mother - Shelby Corcoran, the leader of Vocal Adrenaline - and is to return to New Directions’ rival club after accomplishing the task of helping Rachel find her. However, when he pulls out a tape labeled “From mother to daughter” from one of the boxes (that he just put in there seconds before), Rachel isn’t ready to listen to it yet, so Jesse leaves without success.

Since the confession night at the bar with Schue, Bryan Ryan is now keen to support the Glee club instead of disbanding it. But since they need to save at least some costs at the school, he cuts half of the cheerios’ budget to pay for new clothes and sheet music for the Glee club. As so often, Sue ruins the moment by announcing that Mr. Schue landed the lead role in Les Mis, so Ryan, who is to play a townsperson, takes all the presents back and leaves in a rage. Only Schue’s offer to trade the lead role for the preservation of the Glee club eventually stops Ryan from disbanding the latter.

With the help of a kiss, Jesse finally forces Rachel to listen to the tape, so she and her mom imaginarily perform I Dreamed A Dream together. Thanks to Emma, Artie realizes that his dream of becoming a dancer won’t come true in the near future and kindly refuses to tap-dance with Tina. His only wish is to sing for the final performance of this episode, Dream A Little Dream, while Tina tap-dances with Mike.

I love all the songs of this episode and they fit so well to the topic. Neil Patrick Harris was an enrichment of the cast, so let’s hope, he will come back in a future episode. And don’t you agree, that Idina Menzel (Shelby) and Lea Michele (Rachel) look so much alike?!