Nothing Silly About These Love Songs!

As I said in my epic quotes edition for this episode, "Silly Love Songs" was one of my favorite episodes of the season. This episode was cute, although sometimes a little cliche (if you couldn't guess that Blaine's crush was not on Kurt you may have been hiding under a rock for a few too many years), and the performances were solid.

With Valentine's Day as the backdrop and love as the theme the prominent portion of this episode was devoted to the different relationships within the Glee Club and those burgeoning. I like that this episode with Puck's infatuation with Lauren and his sudden obsession with her. It's nice to see him actually pursuing a girl instead of just going after a piece of ass for some fun (of course he would still like that). It is also nice to see a girl resist him and make him work a little harder for her affections instead of just giving it all away (*cough*Santana!*cough*) or using him (*cough*Rachel!!*cough*). Pursuing Lauren brings out Puck's playful, persistent, and determined sides, all good things, and this also humanizes Lauren more, making her more relatable.

My vote for most disappointing Glee Clubber of the episode is Finn. He knows what it's like to have a girlfriend stolen away from him and yet is willing to inflict that pain on another, on his friend. While it is nice to see Finn walking tall and exuding confidence, he uses it in a shameful way. Normally Finn acts out of the good of others and in this episode he is completely selfish. Setting up the kissing booth under the guise of raising money for the Glee Club with the sole goal of kissing Quinn and stealing her away from Sam is shameful. Finn once called Rachel out on this kind of behavior--setting up a rouse to look like she was acting for the common good when she was instead advancing her own goals. Looks like he has fallen by the wayside as well.

However, my vote for best moment of the episode is during the kissing booth when Finn gives Rachel the Christmas gift he had bought for her. This is honest, heartfelt, compassionate Finn that we know and love, the boy next door, the heartthrob, the heartbreaker, but forever the good guy. Just as Rachel is a real star that needs to shine, this Finn needs to shine also.

Kurt and Blaine. What to say about Kurt and Blaine. It is obvious to EVERYONE except Blaine that Kurt is smitten with him. Blaine, in this episode, comes off extremely oblivious especially considering his elaborate rouse to woo the Gap guy without taking into consideration how that might affect his crush's employment and that he is not of age while his crush is. Blaine admits that he has no idea what he is doing, that he is just as lost and confused as every other teenager on the planet (so take heart!). Kurt remains calm and composed and is brave! He admits his crush on Blaine to him and handles the non-rejection, non-acceptance like a champ. If there is one thing Kurt continuously displays and that I think we can count on seeing more of, it is courage.

I was so disappointed with Quinn in "The Sue Sylvester Shuffle" for kissing Finn, I was so disappointed that I'm still reeling from it. With this in mind it is no surprise that Sam is so on edge about Quinn and their relationship, especially when he can tell something is up at least on Finn's end. Quinn, for most of the episode, did try so hard to pull back from Finn and resist his advances, but those are the symptoms of something deeper that she doesn't deal with and in the end, it gets to her and she kisses Finn again. What Quinn does not deal with are her emotions. This is an ongoing theme as she barely dealt with her emotions last season and instead bottles everything inside. What she really needs to do is take a step back and sort out her feelings for both Sam and Finn and act appropriately (in the next episode I was extremely disappointed with Sam for how he dealt with things and for going to Santana, but you should read guest writer Chelsea's glee-cap of "Comeback" for the scoop). Lesson: it is more than okay to feel things but you must take the time to sort out your feelings and act appropriately instead of stringing people along and hurting them and yourself (this is for everyone who says you can't learn anything from television and especially not from "Glee").

My vote for worst moment of the episode: when Tina started crying so hard during her rendition of "My Funny Valentine" while serenading Mike that it got weird and uncomfortable.





As for this episode's songs, I thought they were all very strong (with the exception of "My Funny Valentine" which was the only song from this episode not released as a single). My favorites were Puck's "Fat-Bottomed Girls" and The Warblers' "Silly Love Songs". I admit that my choices here are quite biased as "Fat-Bottomed Girls" is my favorite Queen song and one that I always blast through my car stereo (this dates back to a lip sync competition at my high school. If you're interested and ask politely, I will tell you all about it :-) ) and Paul McCartney/The Beatles is my favorite artist of all time (even with Wings, as "Silly Love Songs" is from his career in Wings). But beyond this, both of these performances were strong either with plot (as "Girls" advanced Puck's plot and character) or with musicality (as "Silly Love Songs" showed The Warblers' vocal and entertaining strengths). "P.Y.T." and "When I Get You Alone" were both fun performances that showed the vocal strength of their singers but were not as strong as these other two. Finally, Rachel's performance of "Firework" surprised me. This season Rachel has been very much out of the zone of her strength--not doing as many broadway numbers and looming more into the modern pop genre--and I thought for sure "Firework" would be out of her strong zone. I was wrong. Rachel nailed this song and I am not remiss to say that I believe it's the best vocal performance she has given all season. It tied into her plot, she nailed it, and the strong, focused Rachel re-emerges. She is going to shine again.