- Title: Glee – Feud
- tv.com: link
“Did you confront him at Miata with a Paula Abdul song?”
With the tension between Will (Matthew Morrison) and Finn (Cory Monteith) at an all-time high, Artie (Kevin McHale), Blaine (Darren Criss), and Tina (Jenna Ushkowitz) perform and intervention and give the pair an assignment to perform a song together inspired by a classic musical rivalry. Standing up for Marley (Melissa Benoist) and Jake (Jacob Artist), Unique (Alex Newell) confronts Ryder (Blake Jenner) about coming between them, and Ryder’s unwillingness to accept Wade as a girl, causing the pair to attempt to solve their feud in song as well.
With competition only weeks away Sue (Jane Lynch) first attempts to blackmail and threaten Blaine into rejoining the Cheerios. When that doesn’t work she moves onto destroying his name, credit history, and even flying a demeaning banner over the school in an attempt to shame him into submission. When all else fails she accepts Blaine’s challenge as pair prepare for their own musical feud.
Ryder puts his performance of Elton John‘s “The Bitch Is Back” up against Unique’s performance of Madonna‘s “Dress You Up” in the first feud mashup. In the second mashup Will pits his version of ‘N Sync‘s “Bye Bye Bye” up against Finn’s performance of the Backstreet Boys‘ “I Want It That Way.” And in the third and final feud Blaine puts his performance of Mariah Carey‘s “I Still Believe” against Sue and the Cheerios performance of Nicki Minaj‘s “Super Bass.”
The only performance which solves a feud is Sue’s surprising victory over Blaine, but the Glee Club standout has an agenda of his own once he rejoins the cheerleaders. Ryder’s struggle with accepting Wade for who he is isn’t solved in song, but his conversation with his new Internet girlfriend (Ginny Gardner) does make him consider the situation from Unique’s point of view for the first time.
By the end of the episode the underclassmen put aside their various issues and all forgive Ryder. For the first time they are all united in supporting each other, even Kitty (Becca Tobin). Despite wanting to forgive Finn, Will can’t get over his betrayal causing Finn to pack his bags and prepare to leave. Before he can walk out the door Marley gives him some good advice about not defining himself by how Mr. Shue or anyone else sees him that gives Finn a new outlook on his future for the first time in months and causes him to catch the first plane back to Manhattan.
In New York Rachel (Lea Michele) is relived to discover she’s not pregnant, but Santana (Naya Rivera) continues to be suspicious of Brody’s (Dean Geyer) side job (which is actually male prostitute and not drug dealer as Santana suspects), and urges her friend to take a hard look at her recent choices before returning to business as usual. Discovering Santana snuck into Miata to publicly order Brody to move out, Rachel and Kurt (Chris Colfer) offer their abrasive friend a choice to either lay off Rachel’s new beau or to find somewhere else to stay. After choosing to leave, Santana continues to dig until she discovers Brody’s secret which she shares not with Rachel but with her irate former fiance.
Other musical performances from this week’s episode include Rachel and Brody singing Marina and the Diamonds‘ “How to Be a Heartbreaker,” Santana performing Paula Abdul‘s “Cold Hearted“with the help of Brody’s dance class acting as her back-up dancers (in a pretty well-choreographed recreation of Abdul’s original music video, and one of the show’s highlights), and the show ends with the New Directions’ group performance of Tegan and Sara‘s “Closer.”
