Some people liked Glee’s Season 3 closer, or at least were able to see the silver lining.
I was at turns bored and gasping in shock at the season finale, Goodbye. And though the shocking bits were very shocking indeed, they were of the “What the fuck?” variety and not the “lightbulb of enlightenment” that stays with you once the credits roll.
I found the story that was told last night truly dismal. Some of McKinley’s graduating seniors were handed their dreams (Rachel gets into NYADA, Mike Chang gets into some stellar program in Chicago, Mercedes gets a recording contract and is off to LA) while others were simply handed their hats (Kurt did not get into NYADA, and with no back-up school, it looks like he’ll be wearing a Lima Bean apron and serving Blaine coffee in no time; Finn didn’t get into the Actor’s Studio (that plot point was all kinds of idiocy to start with); and Santana decided she was too sexy for college and maybe she should just hang around in Lima with Brittany, who didn’t manage to graduate and is excited to be able to relive her Senior Year. But hey, at least Santana was also handed a massive check and urged by her mother to give her dreams a shot in NYC (which dreams those were, we weren’t told).).
No one was surprised when Finn didn’t get into what was apparently the only school he’d applied to, but it was genuinely shocking to discover Kurt was also rejected. I gasped. But it wasn’t like when Karofsky kissed Kurt in the locker room, and it wasn’t like finding out that Quinn hadn’t always been the golden child, and it wasn’t even like finding out Terri was faking her pregnancy: these things were actually relevant to the stories being told.
It was more like when we saw Quinn’s car get struck by a speeding pickup: it came out of nowhere, but that’s also exactly where it was headed. Finding out Kurt didn’t get accepted to NYADA was a moment of surprise, but it was hardly a revelation: does anyone doubt that Kurt will find his way to NYC? The horror of Kurt’s rejection letter should be the same horror that we feel for Finn: this was his chance to escape Lima, and it slipped away. But no one believes for a moment that Kurt will be stuck in Lima (or enlist in the military, though it’s fun to think about THAT Season Four, following Kurt and Finn through basic training, laugh track in effect – he was dressed in military chic when they were waiting for Puck’s test results). We can’t — it’s ridiculous. Kurt is more likely to end up waiting tables in Manhattan, bitter and heartbroken but at least having reached for the brass ring, than taking over Hummel Tire & Lube: Kurt takes risks — that was reaffirmed in Choke, right? With The Boy Next Door? Kurt doesn’t play it safe. He doesn’t always play it smart, but he doesn’t play it safe.
So Kurt will at some point — either offscreen during the hiatus or during the first few episodes of Season 4 — make the decision to go to New York. Maybe he gets an 11th hour offer from NYADA. Maybe Sarah Jessica Parker, in her turn as guest star, is a NYC fashion exec who discovers Kurt working some mundane job in Lima and takes him to the Big City under her couture-covered wing. Whatever: Kurt will be there because what else can he do? And what else can the showrunners do with him?
(If the answer to that is let him steam milk and make mochas for a year while he waits for Blaine to graduate so they can ride off into the sunset together, don’t tell me. I don’t want to know.)
Just as there was no real drama (only contrived moments in which to interject pop songs) in whether or not Rachel would get into NYADA, there is no real drama in Kurt’s failure to do so. This is all just more of Quinn’s wheelchair: a device that serves to move things along but which is ultimately meaningless to the characters or the story. Quinn was dancing without so much as a limp by Nationals — I’m pretty sure Kurt will be up and running by Halloween.
Wouldn’t it have been nice to see Burt’s reaction to the NYADA letter? Or Carol’s reaction to Finn’s renewed interest in joining the Army? Wouldn’t it have been nice to see Kurt’s reaction, for that matter, to his disintegrating dreams? I would have watched the hell out of that “what next” conversation between Kurt and Blaine if we’d seen one. But we didn’t, and those moments weren’t given any weight as the episode drew to a close because they don’t matter. They are emotional and narrative dead-ends. And being fed a bucket of red herrings in the finale bothers me because so many other, worthier things were displaced because of them.
The only time I was close to tears during an episode that promised to be hanky-worthy was in the final scene, and it was a total accident. I was watching the show on a grainy, blurry, intermittent livestream, and after Finn and Rachel had their discussion about “surrendering” to fate or whatever, when they joined the rest of New Directions on the train platform, I thought for a moment that Mercedes and Quinn were showering Rachel with rice, as a sort of celebration of her commitment to herself and her dreams. My heart leapt into my throat and I thought, “That’s beautiful.”
But no, Glee wasn’t embracing gorgeous metaphor: it was just really poor quality video.
The Sue/Quinn moment would have been really touching if Sue hadn’t given that exact same speech to Quinn at the end of On My Way, when she gave Quinn back her Cheerios uniform.
Ultimately, this whole season has felt like the long, indrawn breath before you dive into the deep end, but I feel like Glee forgot to fill the pool.






