The TV Chick

Okay, Glee, seriously, you are making me love you all over again. We’ve had our ups and downs but any episode that has Gwyneth Paltrow is almost guaranteed to be fantastic. Haters can hate but Gwyneth can sing. And dance. And just all around be amazing. “Sexy” tackled some important issues — celibacy, sexually active (and undereducated) teenagers, gay sex, and coming out. I realize that some television shows can feel like “on a very special episode of…” but Glee manages to intertwine important issues with amazing music and hilarious dialogue so it doesn’t feel super preachy. And the amazing music was nothing short of amazing in this episode. Gwyneth sang a bunch of times, there was a Darren Criss number and no songs that I was really not keen on.

The episode starts with a Celibacy Club meeting with Emma, Quinn and Rachel. This sort of implies Emma is not having sex with Carl (Stamos) but more on that later. She wants them to wear celibacy charms, which apparently catch on but not exactly the way Emma intended them too. Will wants Emma to keep fighting the good fight. How about Emma being back on the show?! I wish she was given more to do than head up the celibacy club but I was glad to see her quirky amazing self back. While in the teacher’s lounge, Holly Holliday comes in! Which means that Gwyneth is back!! (Or as I like to call her, Gwynnie, because I love her that much) YAYYYY! Holly doesn’t think celibacy is a viable thing to teach to high schoolers. I don’t really stand anywhere on this issue, I just feel like education is important. Although most of the time, that “education” features laugh out loud videos and uncomfortable giggles in a class called “Health.” But I digress.

Another big story is the Brittany/Santana relationship. Santana wants to cuddle with Brittany. Awww! Brittany thinks she’s preggers. News spreads like wildfire. Artie is freaked out. Brittany saw a stork outside her garage, but she hasn’t gone to a doctor. So essentially she does not know how people get pregnant. Would we expect anything more from her?

Holly leads a health and wellness jazzercise class. Schue realizes she’s right about the kids needing to be educated. She wants to educate them. Schue awkwardly tries to explain sex/intricacies to the Glee club. He invites Holly to come in to sing about it. Holly says every encounter will start with a touch. She sings “Do You Want To Touch Me,” a Joan Jett song. I’m not super familiar with this song but I could listen to Gwyneth sing anything any day of the week. Naturally, Emma is mad (read: jealous) that Will let Holly come in to educate the Glee kids. He tells her in the spirit of fairness, she and the celibacy club can come in and do a song number. SO MUCH EMMA. SO MUCH YAY.

Next is some much needed Blaine and Kurt time! Sue shows up to their coffee date and tells them the key to beating New Directions is to out sex them. So Blaine invites Dalton’s sister school over to perform for them. Blaine and The Warblers sing “What Are You Waiting For/Here We Go Again.” Criss, you are such a gift. It’s a fun song performed with Kurt and Blaine on crazy risers. Bubbles! Crazy time! Sing it Criss! Blaine asks why Kurt was making weird faces…apparently they were his sexy faces. Ha!

And going along with the sexy theme, Lauren Zises wants to make a sex tape with Puck to become famous. Oh boy. Holly sees Puck and Lauren watching a sex tape and they tell her they want to make one. Holly says they could be found guilty of child porn. There goes that ridiculous idea.

More Brittany/Santana time! Let me just say that in season one, I was not a big Santana fan. I feel like the writers didn’t give her much to do — she was just kind of this sassy girl who said some funny stuff sometimes but mostly had a ton of attitude. This season, I have done a complete 180. I love Santana. She has some great material to work with and Naya Rivera is absolutely knocking it out of the park. And the girl can really sing too. It’s so nice to see Santana fleshed out and developed. She has a voice, and it’s nice to see that there is so much more to her than just one-liners. Anyway, Brittany and Santana talk to Holly to get advice about their “relationship.” They both don’t know if they are lesbians. Holly says it’s not about who they are attracted to, it’s about who you fall in love with. Santana doesn’t want to talk about it, so Holly suggests a song. They need Holly’s help to sing it.

Later, Blaine tries to coach Kurt on sexy faces. Hilarious!! He says he doesn’t know much about sex. Blaine offers to tell him what he knows but Kurt doesn’t want to hear it. After their conversation, Blaine shows up to talk to Burt Hummel. Blaine wants Burt to talk to Kurt about sex. Can I just tell you how incredibly sweet this moment was? And so necessary. Blaine can see that Kurt needs help and is envious of Kurt’s relationship with his father. I hope the two of them have some more scenes together. I like that Blaine cares enough for Kurt to reach out to his dad.

After school, Holly comes to help Schue rehearse a “sexy” song. Schue wants to do Prince’s “Kiss” as a tango. Schue and Holly sing it. I enjoy their tango. I’ve heard this song 8 million times but never heard such a unique take on it. As I said before, I could watch Gwynnie sing anything. They end up kissing. He’s into her. She says she’s damaged goods and walks out. Aw.

At school the next day, Holly sings “Landslide” with Britt and Santana. LOVE LOVE LOVE THIS SONG. I seriously got very emotional and there might have been some teary eyes during this song. In addition to my teary eyes, Santana gets quite emotional herself and there are so many meaningful Britt/Santana looks. They hug at the end. Sam comments to Artie about how cool it is that their girlfriends are such good friends and he wishes they were close. I saw people speculating about this comment but I really don’t think this was any sort of gay comment.

Later, Puck joins celibacy club. Stamos joins them to sing “Afternoon Delight.” Emma, Quinn, Rachel, Carl and Puck put on a a super cute and ridiculous number. Emma didn’t understand the real meaning of the song. But honestly, the writers should know Emma is a bit smarter than that. I completely think not wanting to do the deed with Carl is within the realm of possibility for her character but honestly, not knowing what a blatantly obvious song is about? Come on.

Anyway, Burt wants to have the sex talk with Kurt. He wants to get through it together. He picked up pamphlets. This talk is actually really sweet. Burt tells him all about sex without being unnecessarily gross or getting into the nitty gritty. He explains it in terms of how one might feel about it. I honestly wish every dad could be as good as Burt Hummel. Mike O’Malley, who plays Burt, landed a role in a new pilot, but I hope that whatever happens with that show, he is able to stay on Glee, because he is honestly just so so amazing. Who knew the guy from GUTS would come this far?!

In any case, in the spirit of talking to someone who really is just a substitute teacher, Emma and Carl talk to Holly. They haven’t had sex. She laughs when he touches her. Holly asks her if she is still in love with Will. She says she feels very confused about her feelings. He is going to stay at a hotel. Wemma hope, guys. Holly says she won’t tell Will.

After the emotional song, Santana and Brittany have “the talk.” Santana says she’s a bitch all the time because she’s angry. She’s angry because she has all these feelings for her and she’s afraid with dealing with them and the consequences. She wants to be with her. She loves Brittany and tells her through tears. AWWWW! Brittany loves Santana but also loves Artie and doesn’t want to hurt him. Naya Rivera, this was such a shining moment for you. Seriously, you are fantastic.

And in more relationship news, Lauren and Puck finally kiss and she’s going to join celibacy club with him. Rachel takes over because Emma wants to fix her marriage. Hmm, interesting. At the end of the episode, Finn and Quinn are making out on the bed. She tells him he should have been her first. She wants them to be prom king and queen. I love Quinn an incredible amount but what happened to the nice Quinn? The one who wasn’t rude to Rachel all the time? Judging from the preview for next week there is going to be a Quinn/Rachel showdown. Personally, I loved when she was just this assertive semi-feminist who befriended Mercedes. Can we go back to that please? At the very end of the episode, Holly comes to say goodbye to Will. She apparently has decided she open to dating him. He kisses her, Hollywood style.

Overall, “Sexy” was pretty damn good. There was strong music, a good plot, and some super sweet moments. I love that Kurt and Blaine are getting closer (inevitably they are going to hook up I mean come on!) I love that Gwyneth rocked it out. Her version of “Forget You” is a constant on my iPod. I think “Landslide” is definitely going to earn that title as well. I am sure she will be back fairly soon because of her new romance with Will. While a few characters took a turn in a direction I didn’t like, Santana was absolutely fantastic. I am a big fan of any storyline involving questioning one’s sexuality just because I think it’s an important topic to address. I loved it on Pretty Little Liars and I like it here too. I am not sure what will happen with “Brittana.” I know there are a lot of people hoping it happens. I’m just excited to see whatever comes next. Either way, the show needs to hold on to Gwyneth because she is amazing. And Mike O’Malley. And Darren Criss. Next week is Regionals and competition episodes are always some of my favorite so I am excited to see what happens.

Glee airs Tuesday nights at 8 pm on FOX.