Black GLISTing

In last night's episode of Glee, Sweet Polly Purebread meets Simon Bar Sinister. Sort of.

Kurt finds/steals a secret video of Sue Sylvester busting a hilarious dance move to Olivia Newton John's hit "Let's get Physical". The kids decide that payback's a bitch and Finn posts it on You Tube. The result makes Sue the laughing stock of McKinley High. Molly Shannon guest stars as a drug addicted, whore teacher who makes it her job to torture Sue in the teacher's lounge. These two make great hate between them and the laughs keep coming with lines like, "Don't start with me Castle or I swear I will kick you square in the taco." Sue takes retribution in Principal Figgins office with Mr. Shue, as she produces a "Glist" that has been circulated throughout the school ranking The Glee Club members "hotness" quotient. Figgins tells Shue to put an end to this "Glist" and find out who the culprit is or he will put an end to the Glee Club. (not like we haven't heard THAT one before)

Shue assigns the kids a rehab assignment. Take a song with a bad rap and rehab it. He hands out sheet music and the kids groan over his song choice of "suck". But hello, Mr. Shue got game people, and he successfully brings sexy back to the Vanilla Ice classic, "Ice Ice Baby". Suck never looked so good and once again the Glee choreographers showcase why this show is the hottest thing on TV.

Meanwhile the Glist is causing a stir. At the top of the Glist are the kids one would expect, Finn, Puck, Quinn... and at the bottom, with a negative ranking, sits Rachel. According to Tina, Mercedes, Artie, Kurt and Brittany,(fast becoming the best comic relief) who either didn't make the list or scored too low on the list, a bad rap is where it's at and they set out to que up thier badass quotient. They decide to cause a commotion in the library, Glee style. "U can't touch this" was by far my favorite of the night, showcasing Artie's (Kevin McHale) golden pipes and some badass dance moves. Props to the kids, this one is going on my ipod as we speak.

Sue's quest to bring down Shue continues as she sets out to counsel Emma, Shue's love interest with the worst intentions possible. She drops the bomb about how she bribed Shue's super to let her put baby monitors under his living room sofa and under his bed, and tells Emma that Shue has been playing tonsil hockey with the director of Vocal Adrenaline and sleeping with April the grifter. She convinces Emma to stop being Will's doormat and coaches her on her revenge strategy. Emma is devastated and delivers up her angst in a loud, embarassing speech declaring, "you are a slut!" loudly, in the teacher's lounge in front of all of his colleagues. Shue later apologizes to Emma with flowers, but she does not accept his apology.

Poor suffering Rachel and her quest to be popular, brings about a "musically promiscuous" side to Rachel and she sets out to cast her assignment, enlisting hunky Puck as her male lead. She asks for the help of Artie and the AV club, with Artie uttering a classic line, "you had me at sex tape. How can I help?" and records the song, "Run, Johnny, run". She, unbeknownst to any of them, casts Puck, Finn and Jesse as her male lead in an "artistic interpretation" of her song. It pisses all of the guys off and results in Jesse breaking up with Rachel, but not before telling her she broke his heart. I'm not quite sure he's not sincere here. But see ya-I'm sure he will run into the loving arms of Vocal Adrenaline, and some serious deception is poised to take place in the future.

Of course, Sue comes out of this smelling like a rose, because after some touching scenes, visiting with her disabled sister in a nursing home, she gets a call from big Olivia herself, asking her to help re-shoot the Physical video. I have to give Glee credit. While it may have been too soon after the legendary Vogue video, to cast Sue in another full length music video, I thought the Physical video was brilliant. Sue's voice being distorted and the full on shots of the beefy man-cakes, all sort of made the fabulous Ms. Newton John's appearance obsolete. But, Olivia added authenticity.(and she looks great)

Now that Emma hates Shue and he feels horrible about it, Shue has some sort of ethereal revelation when he sees Quinn in the hallway(at first I thought they were going to hook up) and realizes that she was the author of the Glist. He gets her to admit to it, but also protects her from Figgins when he inquires about the Glist.

The show ends with a engaging rendition of, "Total Eclipse of the Heart" with Rachel and her three paramours; Puck, Finn and Jesse, singing, and I wonder, is there any song this girl can't cover? Seriously, this version is better than the original and gives me goose bumps. I know Leah Michelle is poised to become the next big voice ala Barbara, Mariah and Celine. I love to be blown away, and that's exactly what happens here.