Review: Episode 2.13, “Comeback”

The following was written by friend of the site (and potential new writer!), Chelsea. Remember her, the girl that interviewed Chris Colfer on MTV a few weeks ago? Here's what she had to say about the latest episode...

Overall, I was pleased with this episode. I’m going to talk about the few things that stuck out to me about the episode, even though there are many more things I could share.

The episode started out kind of dull. When Emma worriedly called on Will for help, it felt like an old relationship was being forced. Sorry, I’m just not a Wemma fan, especially when Wemma comes to be under the wrong conditions. The whole “Sue-icide” plot line felt forced because it put Will and Emma back together, and because it put Sue Sylvester back into the show, because she was absent from Silly Love Songs. 

Moving forward, let me share, I am not a Belieber. Bieber has always annoyed me and therefore I’ve pretty much ignored him for his entire career. I even had to look up whether it was spelled Bieber or Beiber. Shows for how much I care.

Fortunately, when Glee did Bieber, I was pleased. The performance made the song accessible to a more generic audience, and I think it was because Sam gave the song a real purpose in singing it to Quinn. Also enjoyable about the performance was all the other girls’ reactions, they were all really cute singing along with Sam. Before I leave “Baby,” may I just give Chord props for his dance moves? I think it was a great breakout performance for him.  (ed. note: Totally agree. I love when that kid gets up on his tip toes like that!) Yes, he has done things like “Billionaire,” “Lucky,” and “The Time of My Life,” but this was Chord’s first real performance by himself, and with dancing. I was pleased, and really hope he gets promoted to a series regular.

When the Justin Bieber Experience expanded, I also liked it. I love that this season Artie/Kevin McHale is getting so much solo time, and I loved that he was front and center for a lot of this number. Also again, the girls’ reactions were priceless.

Backtracking a bit, my favorite part of the episode was seeing Rachel go back to her old ways. During season one, I loved how she was very career focused, and put all her energy into perfect performances, with the occasional moment where she was sidetracked by a potential boyfriend. I loved her fire and dedication, and the fact that during season one, she was, well, more of a loser. Her clothes were more patterned and mismatched and she actually did a lot of things that made her socially unacceptable. I feel like in season two there is still just as much talk of how Rachel is too much of a control freak, yet she hasn’t really done anything like that. By her trying to start a new trend and “only focusing on her career now,” it brought us back to her old ways. I’m really excited to see if this arc continues as the season continues now that Finchel is over, which had a big effect on how normal Rachel was. (Nope, not a fan of Finchel either, like Wemma.)

Two final notes. I am a huge Rent fan, and when I heard that Lea and Amber were doing “Take Me or Leave Me,” I was concerned as to how it would fit, especially considering the context of the song within Rent’s story. I think Glee did an excellent job of keeping the power of the song while appropriately changing the meaning of the song to match the story. This was one of my favorite Glee Broadway covers, since it made the most sense transferring from the musical’s story to Glee’s story.

Finally, the performance of “Sing” had a “Dog Days Are Over” feel to it, since it was the entire group singing an upbeat song with loose choreography. I really loved this. Granted, I could have lived without Sue singing along, but I understand it was necessary to her story line, and her track suit was awesome. Also, I loved this performance because the point of this song was to be an anthem, and I definitely felt the fire and passion of an anthem in this song. This performance got me really excited for what the Glee Club will bring to us at Regionals, and now I’m really looking forward to the future performances.