Please, Please Stop With the Believing: 'Glee' Finally Gets Where It's Going

This week’s episode is titled “Journey,” and in case you aren’t sick of “Don’t Stop Believin’,” maybe because you have never been in a bar with a jukebox after 10 p.m. in your entire life, “Glee” is here to fix that. Because they are going to sing that song. Again. And again. Until you want to bash your head into your desk, just to make it stop. Until you listen to every terrible song you can think of, every song that’s ever driven you nuts, just to get the Journey out of your brain.

It won’t work. Believe me, I’ve tried everything. As of this writing, I’m at hour five of being muzaked, and I am ready to drown myself in the bathroom sink.

If you like that song, ignore all this. And it was fun sitting in traffic next to you on the George Washington Bridge for like an hour that one time while you put “Don’t Stop Believin'” on repeat with no regard for social niceties. Or pitch.

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So basically: as we learned before, the glee club has to place at regionals, or their funding gets cut and the club disappears. But Will finds out that Sue Sylvester will be one of the judges, so obviously they’re screwed. We get a weird flashback of Puck convincing Quinn to have sex before we see that Will has gathered all the glee kids in his house, ostensibly so they can pick songs for regionals. But instead they all cry and talk about how the club is not long for this school. Will asks Emma for advice and she tells him some claptrap about doing what you love and drops the bomb that she’s dating her dentist. Man, that girl could use some single time is all I’m saying. Then Will is driving and hears “Don’t Stop Believin'” on the radio. Whereupon he breaks down sobbing, which isn’t an untoward reaction although I’ve found just changing the station works better and is less likely to cause accidents than weeping at the wheel of the car you’ve stopped in the middle of the road.

Back at school, Finn tells Rachel that the two of them are going to lead the club to victory, and she kisses him. For no reason, except that it’s the finale and it’s time to get these two crazy kids back together. Will then informs the kids that life is all about the journey and that they’ll be doing a “Journey” medley at regionals, because I needed MORE proof that the universe hates me.

Regionals! The judges are Olivia Newton-John (who either really loves the show or is seriously bored), Josh Groban, Rod Remington (Sue’s old flame, ooh, drama) and Sue. Who is writing a book called “I’m a Winner and You’re Fat.” Is there someplace I can get periodic Sue Sylvester injections over the summer? Please? I don’t think I can go without her for three months.

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Backstage, the team is freaking out because the first group (“Oral Intensity,” *eyeroll*) is singing a mash-up of Groban and Newton-John hits. Bet that’s a weirdly operatic sexy barnburner. Will tells them they have to focus on their own performance. They get ready to go. Rachel tells Finn to break a leg. He tells her he loves her. WHOA! The L-O-V-E word! Next she’ll be pregnant! I think that’s how it works. Anyway, if anything will get her to sing her best, it’s that. Over their grins, the announcer finally, FINALLY pronounces “New Directions” the way we’ve all been wanting to this entire time. Go ahead, you just elide the ‘D’ into the first word a bit and … yeah. How did they get away with that one?

So the group sings a bunch of Journey songs (“Faithfully” and “Any Way You Want It”) and they’re wearing gold and the girls have big hair and it’s fine, I guess, except why did it have to be JOURNEY? Couldn’t they sing something less, I dunno, karaoke bar at 2 a.m. when everyone has run out of creativity but not out of vodka? Also, it’s kind of sad that Rachel and Finn get pretty much all the solos, except for one Puck interlude. Quinn looks not-pregnant again, or Junior is riding really, really low today. But maybe it’s hiding from all the jumping around she is doing.

So the whole audience liked it, because everyone in the whole TV world just LOVES Journey because secretly their whole lives are a karaoke bar at 2 a.m., and the kids barrel off the stage all excited and Quinn runs into …. her mom. The camera has been flashing to her mom in the audience the whole performance, but now her mom wants to talk — she thought Quinn was really good and by the way, she kicked Quinn’s dad out for having an affair with “some tattooed freak” (PUCK?) She gets all teary and says she wants Quinn to move back in, and Quinn just looks freaked out and explains that her water broke.

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Aaaaaand back to the performances, where Vocal Adrenaline is doing “Bohemian Rhapsody.” Something about Jesse’s intense stare and pink shirt and suspenders is very off-putting, like a gay “Clockwork Orange.” They keep on with the surreal dance numbers and sequins along with a montage of Quinn going to the hospital with her mom and her life-coach Mercedes. Tutus! Acrobatic dancing! Obligatory shot of a sweaty faced Quinn yelling! Sequins! Twirling! More yelling! This is gonna give me nightmares. More obligatory shots of Quinn screaming at Puck and him being grossed out by the whole process. Aw, the whole glee club is in the waiting room. That’s sweet. But now Quinn is yelling “Let me go!” juxtaposed with the “Let me go” chorus of “Bohemian Rhapsody” and it’s just really strange. But they finish the song (Rachel came back to watch the end) and Quinn has the baby, and it’s cute in that weird alien newborn way. At least she seems to like it.

So Rachel goes to her mom and says her glee club is better and Jesse doesn’t have heart (ooh, burn), and Shelby should come teach at McKinley. Clearly Rachel just wants her mom, since she hasn’t thought about how much more having Fluffy and Shelby as co-teachers would cost the school, but Shelby says no anyway because she’s sick of teaching and wants a life of her own, which by this description is a dog and a family and a house. Yeah, Rachel, she wants a family — just not you, the one she’s got. Shelby says some unintentionally hurtful stuff about how she “missed out of her chance” with Rachel. Rachel leaves, saying that Quinn just had a baby girl. Hint hint.

Judging! Sue Sylvester clearly wants the New Directions to lose but otherwise doesn’t care. Rod Remington likes Vocal Adrenaline because he once partied (and probably more) with Freddie Mercury, Olivia Newton-John likes the group that honored her musical oeuvre and Josh Groban AWESOMELY hits on Sue and then reveals that he’s into the New Directions. He talks about “heart” and Olivia Newton-John makes fun of him and makes fun of them for being brunettes and being poor. Sue’s back gets up and she ends up defending the New Directions and the three judges gang up on Sue for not being actually famous the way the three of them are. Ooh. Don’t make her angry.

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Aaaaand Vocal Adrenaline comes in first. The New Directions kids don’t place, which is WHAT YOU GET FOR SINGING JOURNEY SO MUCH.

Back at the hospital, Quinn and Puck are staring at their baby. He says it looks like her. It looks like a prop doll baby. Cause it is. They briefly discuss keeping it (“No”) and Puck says he loves her and it’d be kind of adorable if not for the fact that he probably has a trillion diseases from all the OTHER people he says he loves. Shelby shows up and asks if the baby has a name. Quinn says no, Puck says “Beth.” Dude, step off.

At school the next day, Will catches Emma having a screaming fight with the principal about the unfairness of disbanding the glee club. He, of course, tries to make it all about him and how much she loves him and says he loves her, which is really weird considering they’ve been on like one date ever, and they make out a little bit until Rachel forces him to come to the choir room so the kids can do that soppy “let’s sit on stools and tell Mr. Shue how much our lives sucked before he came and then sing a song” blather that happens in season finales. They all cry, big time, but we don’t. It’s like a season finale of a show that’s been canceled, where all the actors are crying, except “Glee” will probably get like 10 seasons because people love Journey so freaking much apparently.

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They sing “To Sir, With Love” and even Brittany and Santana are crying. Even Mike Chang is crying. Even Sue Sylvester, standing in the back is … nope. No, she’s not. But she does come see Will later when he’s packing up and we find out, though Will does not, that she voted for New Directions to win. And she tells Will she wants to keep making fun of him and beating him, so she made Figgins give the glee club another year of life at least — and she quotes “Othello!” God, I love Sue Sylvester. Will tells her she’s a good person and her won’t forget it and she tells him she’s going to puke in his mouth if he doesn’t stop talking.

He tells the kids and they’re incredibly stoked, of course. So Will rewards them by playing “Over the Rainbow” on the ukulele! The UKULELE! It’s like the anti-Journey. Oh, I like this show again. Just in time. While he’s playing we see Shelby adopting Quinn’s baby and naming her Beth.

Photos courtesy Fox

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