GLEE: 'The Rocky Horror Glee Show' - Give Me My Remote : Give Me My Remote

GLEE: ‘The Rocky Horror Glee Show’

October 27, 2010 by  

Hey, fellow Gleeks! Kath is out of town, so I’ll be handling the GLEE recap this week.

Before we start, I want to say that I was familiar with THE ROCKY HORROR PICTURE SHOW before last night’s episode, but I’m not an uber die-hard fan. If I missed any winks to the die-hards during the hour, I apologize, and please feel free to let me know in the comments section.

So, with that disclaimer out of the way, let’s get to it…

The episode opens up much like the original feature film version of THE ROCKY HORROR PICTURE SHOW does, with red lips singing “Science Fiction Double Feature.” I know it’s Naya Rivera (Santana) belting out the song, but damn if she doesn’t sound exactly like Dianna Agron (Quinn) in portions of the tune.

We see Rachel and Finn singing “There’s A Light (Over at the Frankenstein Place)” on a stage, all dressed up as the characters Janet and Brad. Carl interrupts their performance when he comes storming in, yelling at Will for messing with his woman. A Will voice-over informs us that he has really stepped in it this time.

Cut to a week earlier in the teachers’ lounge when Will notes that Emma is eating a sandwich with the crusts on it — something the normally OCD/set-in-her-ways Ms. Pillsbury wouldn’t do. Emma happily shares that Carl took her to see a midnight showing of THE ROCKY HORROR PICTURE SHOW and the two of them have come to love it — she’s been having so much fun, she must have forgotten to take the crust off her bread. Will is jealous and starts babbling about how much he too loves TRHPS — so much so that he’s having New Directions perform it as the school musical, he blurts out. Emma is confused about how they’re going to pull off the risque material, but Will says he’ll do some script editing.

Will tells the kids they’ll be doing TRHPS and they assign themselves roles. Rachel immediately volunteers herself and Finn for the parts of Brad and Janet, which is fine with him until he realizes they have to appear in front of the whole student body in their underwear. It seems Finn has some body image issues. The poor guy won’t even take off his shirt to go to the pool. Rachel sweetly informs him that he’s the hottest guy in the school.

After the latest segment of “Sue’s Corner” on the local news show, the new station managers (played by original TRHPS stars Meat Loaf and Barry Bostwick) give Ms. Sylvester a lesson on scaring people into paying attention. Peep this amazing exchange:

Barry Jeffries: Good news is about information, but great news is about fear. For example, Tim, did you hear about that swarm of Africanized killer bees?

Tim Stanwick: No, wouldn’t it be awful to see an entire town overrun by killer bees?

Barry Jeffries: I’m sorry, Tim, did you just say “an entire town overrun by killer bees?”

Tim Stanwick: Well, I–

Barry Jeffries: There’s your quote.

Tim Stanwick: And you can replace killer bees with whatever you want. Terrorists!

Barry Jeffries: Mexicans!

Tim Stanwick: Mexican terrorists!

Barry Jeffries: Ants!

Tim Stanwick: Mexican terrorist ants!

They then tell her that someone at her school is trying to get the stage rights to TRHPS. As it turns out, Sue is familiar with the movie, because she took her sister to a screening of it and mistakenly thought that the audience threw toast at them because they were enraged by seeing a disabled person. (Fans actually throw toast at the screen at the point in the film when Frank-N-Furter proposes a toast… Imagine the NBC “The More You Know” music playing here.)

The new station managers talk Sue into letting New Directions put on TRHPS so they can film an expose — one which could make her a shoo-in for a local Emmy. And you know Sue Sylvester wants her some Emmy-bling.

Sue pulls Will out of the club’s rehearsal of “Dammit Janet” to tell him she knows about the production and she isn’t going to try and stop him. Was anyone else a little disappointed that they didn’t wait until after the song was finished to leave the room? I found myself straining my ears to hear the remainder of it.

We then see Finn, Sam and Artie working out and the boys inform Finn that his appearance on the stage will be judged. After all, if he takes off his shirt and is flabby, how can he remain cool? They seemingly undo all the progress Rachel made with her kind words and Finn is back to freaking out.

Will asks Emma to design the costumes for the play and she’s delighted — until Mike, who was set to play Frank-N-Furter, tells them that his parents won’t let him be in the production. Can’t have the performance without your male lead, so Will tells Sue the play is off. Sue catches Emma and Carl together and realizes that he could fill in for Mike and keep her dream of winning a local Emmy alive. Sue convinces Will to give Carl a shot at auditioning.

Everyone is charmed by Carl’s version of “Hot Patootie – Bless My Soul.” Will is cranky throughout the number, but there’s no denying Carl is good. And the show does need a Frank-N-Furter. Carl says he isn’t comfortable grinding up against the students — finally, an adult who understands boundaries! — so Mercedes volunteers herself for the role of Frank. Sue says this is perfect, because Mercedes can be Frank and Carl can be Eddie. Looks like Will won’t be able to get rid of Carl that easily.

Finn is still dealing with body image issues and refuses to take his shirt off for the first dress rehearsal, saying he’s saving his shirtless-ness for opening night. Oh boy.

Mercedes rocks “Sweet Transvestite.” Apparently, the lyrics were a little too racy for television because the line “I’m just a sweet transvestite from Transsexual, Transylvania” got changed to “I’m just a sweet transvestite from sensational Transylvania.” Wonder who made that call?

Carl arrives early for the play, much to the delight of Emma and the annoyance of Will. Will later tells Emma that Carl is right, some of these roles are too adult for the kids to play. Truthfully, Will just wants to worm his way into the play and he tells Sam that he’ll be taking over the role of Rocky. Oh, Will. This is why people want to smack you. Heck, I wanted to smack you and I’ve defended you more than I should have in the past. Way to be a horrible, horrible, horrible, HORRIBLE role model to your students.

Emma questions the appropriateness of Will —  their teacher — being in the play, but he talks her into rehearsing “Touch-a, Touch-a, Touch-a, Touch Me.” Emma takes a second to get into it, but when she does, holy mother of all that is pure and evil. Will looked like he was half in shock/half about to spontaneously combust. She’s ripping off his shirt (thank you, Emma), grinding on him, and taking charge of her sexuality in a way we haven’t seen thus far. Emma throws everything off her desk. When the songs ends, Will and Emma are very, very close and she panics.

Can we just linger on this scene for a moment? Emma singing “Touch-a, Touch-a, Touch-a, Touch Me” has been so wildly addictive in my brain that I almost feel the need to be quarantined until I trust myself to not bust out the lyrics in public. It’s a problem. And goodness, what a change to see our Emma so naughty. What did you think, Wemma fans? Was this the hottest scene the duo has done to date?

Meanwhile, Sam isn’t so happy about losing the part of Rocky. He thinks that he lost the role because he’s too fat. Dude, it didn’t look like you have an ounce of fat on you. Seeing him pinch his skin and lamenting about the food he ate is utterly depressing. He does, however, tell Finn that playing Brad is all about confidence.

But New Directions then tries to rehearse without Finn, who is MIA. Sadly, the timing is all off. Principal Figgins interrupts them and informs Will that Finn is suspended. Apparently that newfound confidence he’s got led him to walk down the school hallway in his underwear. But really, why were those kids so traumatized by Finn’s nakedness? Nine kids need therapy?! Really? Thankfully, Will talks Figgins out of the suspension, but he notes that Will is putting a lot on the line for murky reasons.

Now we’re back to where the episode started off — Carl interrupting the rehearsal and calling Will out for using the show to pick up other guys’ chicks. The glee club looks on during the exchange. Awkward, much?

Later, Becky comes to Mr. Schue’s office looking for trick-or-treat candy and tells him that Sue says “TRHPS” is an abomination and shows him a pre-taped “Sue’s Corner” segment bashing the glee club and their musical. Will dukes it out with Sue the next day and, in the process, realizes he was in the wrong and that he can’t put on the show.

Will tells Emma he’s canceling the production because he chose it for the wrong reasons — AKA her. He admits that Carl is making her better “and if I really love you, I need to back off and accept that at least for now, being with him is the best thing for you.”

I’m not going to lie, I had to fight a serious urge to stand up an applaud this speech when I first saw it. IT’S ABOUT TIME, WILL. Ever since he split from Terri, he’s been acting like a teenager, and this is the first sign of maturity we’ve seen from him in a while. He’s right. If he does love Emma, he should be man enough to realize that right now, she’s happy with someone else. Someone else is helping her progress. He should take advantage of his current single status by developing a better understanding of who he is, so when/if the time comes where Emma is free, he won’t frak it up by immediately cheating on her. (Funny how he always seems to forget that little detail.)

Mr. Schue takes his new maturity kick a step further and apologizes to the kids for putting them through this ordeal. He says TRHPS is perfect for their club of misfits, but it wasn’t right for school. However, he still wants them to put on the show for themselves. The episode closes with the gang doing “Time Warp.”

Some highlights/favorite quotes:

  • Sue’s Corner Halloween rant. Click on the video below to relive the entire twisted thing. It is amazing.

  • Finn: “I have no clue what’s going on in this script, and it’s not in a cool, INCEPTION kind of way.”
  • Becky dressing up as Sue Sylvester for Halloween? Amazing.
  • Brittany S. Pierce’s Halloween costume: “I’m going as a peanut allergy.”
  • Sue: “I should have known. People who dress like librarians are all sex addicts.”
  • Sue: “Are you ready for a chilling statistic? 70% of all teeth in this school are wooden.”
  • And my absolute favorite line of the night? Thanks to Becky for this gem, which I promise to use on a regular basis: “Give me some chocolate or I will cut you.”

And that’s about it. But before I turn things over to the comments section, I would like to know what you guys thought about two of the episode’s more obvious tie-ins to real life:

The boys’ self-image problems — I will say, I understand what the show was trying to do with this storyline, but it felt a little hypocritical to me. GLEE co-creator Ryan Murphy allegedly wouldn’t tell the show’s male actors who would be playing Rocky and freaked out them out so much that several went on diets, fearing they’d be the one in the mankini. None of those guys needed to be panicked about their weight, but an undue pressure was put on them and supposedly the-powers-that-be did nothing to calm their own body fears.

The GQ controversy — Obviously, the cast’s controversial GQ cover just hit last week, so the parallels are obvious, even if they were unintentional. THE ROCKY HORROR PICTURE SHOW actually is GLEE in this case. Is either entirely appropriate for children? No. Some of the music is innocent enough, but for the most part, both are for more mature audiences. When Sue told Will, “You can’t yell fire in a theater and you can’t expose kids to material like this. Not on the tax payers’ dime,” he argued that they have the internet and are already exposed. She fired back with, “Don’t lead them to it, don’t make it okay. They’re kids. And now more than ever, high school is a dangerous place and it’s our job to guide them through it safely.” Sure, the GLEE stars aren’t teachers or coaches or guidance counselors, but most of that scene could have very easily applied to the GQ controversy, no?

The next episode won’t air for another two weeks, but the promo made it look good. Puck is back, Artie is cool, there are some big numbers happening. But perhaps even more importantly, “LIVIN’ ON A PRAYER” IS IN THE NEXT HOUR! GLEE has proven in the past that they do Bon Jovi well, so I cannot wait.

Enough of me, I want to hear from you. Did you guys like the episode? Have a favorite moment? Let’s chat!

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Comments

12 Responses to “GLEE: ‘The Rocky Horror Glee Show’”

  1. Nina on October 27th, 2010 10:35 am

    I’m starting to dislike Will’s character more and more. Seriously, it’s not normal that Sue’s becoming the real adult here !
    But this episode was okay, I guess. It’s not as bad as I first thought it would be (they justified a bit their choice, like why Mercedes played Frank-und-Furter, or the whole censorship on the lyrics), but it wasn’t as good as the original (that was mission : impossible actually :P).
    One thing that annoyed me was the fact that they cut two songs in the episode, “there’s a light over at the frankenstein place” and “dammit janet”. I already listened to them on Youtube, sure, but it’s nice to listen to full song in the episode anyway.

  2. Randi on October 27th, 2010 11:56 am

    One note – the song listed as “Whatever Happened to Saturday Night?” above is actually called “Hot Patootie – Bless My Soul”. Whatever Happened to Saturday Night? is a different song entirely.

    I really loved this. I used to go to midnight showings of RHPS when I was younger (you could say I was “on the fringe”). Some of my best memories involve throwing rice and cards and lifting a lighter high in the air during “There’s a Light”. I remember old friends and good times whenever I think about it.

  3. Kath (canakatydid) on October 27th, 2010 12:07 pm

    I thought it was Dianna Agron in the opening “lips” number…doubling of voices?!

    Meatloaf, and especially Barry Bostwick were amazing in the included exchange!

    You are spot on about Will and the best lines of the night. Also, great analysis of the GQ and real-life body issues parallels.

    John Stamos was AMAZING!!! He’s still got it!

    Emma’s shoes in “Touch-a Touch-a” were almost as amazing as Will’s chest.

    I didn’t get the preview of the next episode but since I only thought that this one was “meh” I can’t wait for it!

    Oh, and Chris Colfer was, as always, WOW!!!!

  4. Morgan on October 27th, 2010 12:25 pm

    I’ve never actually seen the Rocky Horror in its entirety. I’ve seen snippets, and heard the songs, so I kind of went into last nights episode off kilter. I found it enjoyable, but I wasn’t impressed. I don’t like their themed episodes. It forces them into a corner, and they have no choice but to play it. The only one that really worked for me was Journey, and lets face it how can you go wrong there?

    I was watching with a friend and when the body image issues started I immediately turned and asked, “Is Finn going to be a manorexic now?” she laughed it off, and so did I. Then they kept going back to it, and when it got to Sam and his insecurity I thought two things: “No, Sam is going to be the manorexic,” and “Did Glee really just go there?” Last night’s Glee felt wrong. On so many different levels.

    I really hope they get back to the Mr. Shue of season one, because this new Will is annoying and lame. I want to believe that his speech to Emma at the end is the first step in that journey. His character and Sue has virtually flipped positions for me. He is no longer the good guy, and she is no longer the bad guy. That’s kind of what made Glee, Glee. If I make it to the end of this season I probably won’t be back for a third (provided a renewal), unless the rest of this season just turns it around and knocks it OUT of the ballpark.

    The upside this season is they are pulling way back on Rachel. I’m actually sick of her. If Mercedes was serious about preserving her I’ll help the woman find the jar. It’s nice to really see the other members of the club get their fair showing. Getting to finally meet Brittany and Mike Chang and not just having them be there for good looks and funny lines.

    I don’t know anything about the GQ controversy so I can’t answer to it.

    Can I also add that having not seen “Duets” until after “Rocky Horror Glee Show” I also felt they did a disservice to both Brittany and Artie but not addressing any further what happened between them in “Duets?” Yes they showed his side of it in “Duets,” but Brittany kind of looked genuinely heartbroken. I felt bad for her, and they didn’t address that at all. Are they setting her up to be that guy?

    /end novel.

  5. Marisa Roffman on October 27th, 2010 12:26 pm

    @Randi: Thanks for the correction! I thought the title was different, but I went off the official GLEE soundtrack for the episode. Can’t believe they put the wrong title! I’ll change it ASAP.

    @Kath: The GLEE soundtrack said it was just Naya…but since they got the song title wrong for John Stamos’ number, maybe they were wrong about who sang the opening number, too.

  6. Marisa Roffman on October 27th, 2010 12:44 pm

    @Morgan: Yeah, the lines have been blurring over which character is “good” and which is “bad.” I think the show needs to make Will likable again and I agree, I hope this is the first steps and they don’t go backwards.

    As for things not being touched on…I was actually surprised we got as much Will progress in this episode as we did. Ryan hasn’t been the most consistent in being able to tell stories while doing these big themed episodes. It’ll be interesting to see if it’s brought up in the next episode.

  7. Randi on October 27th, 2010 12:44 pm

    Oh, 1 other note. How short is John Stamos? He’s been my lifelong crush and it would seriously devastate me if he’s as short as he looked in this episode. Even though I’m a happily married woman, I still have to keep the dream of some Stamos love alive.

  8. Teebee on October 27th, 2010 1:14 pm

    I’ve seen Rocky Horror live and the atmosphere in the audience is amazing. I did wonder how Glee would do with it and if the censorship of the songs would kill it. But I have to say, for me it didn’t.

    Loved the group numbers, loved the outfits, loved John Stamos. Had no idea he could sing! Didn’t love the body issues part. Since they were talking about toning down the racier parts for the show, I don’t see why they didn’t just reassure Finn and Sam that they would work round that somehow.
    Loved beyond belief Emma singing “Touch-a Touch-a”. My jaw dropped when she started going for it with Will and he looked equally shocked! Wasn’t that Jayma Mays audition song?
    At the end when they did “Time Warp” I wanted to get off my couch and dance with them I had gotten that into the episode!!

    Oh and I thought it was Dianna Agron at the start too.

  9. K on October 27th, 2010 2:32 pm

    I’ve loved RHPS since I was in 8th grade when I first saw the movie. I own the DVDs I own two different soundtracks. I loved Glee’s first season, second season is waning.

    However, last nights RHPS episode was absolutely awful. The show was so all over the place, it was simply stupid. The singing was flat, emotionless, boring, and bad. The whole episode made me weep for the original movie. I barely even paid any attention to the tv. Mercedes has an awesome voice, but ugh reworking Sweet Transvestite and making it too vocally aerobic when Tim Curry was simple and to the point. Quinn’s Magenta of Time Warp, heck no. RHPS was a rock type movie, this was pop singing, I was cringing. Even Kurt’s riff raff was so unbelievable. Finn was the only one to really belt out a rockish type sound.

    But I mean the premise, obviously the High School did not give a crap about seeing RHPS what was the whole point of even setting the episode up in such a manner. Then suddenly it is Emma’s fav’s so it must be done? Never suspect Emma to have RHPS as her fav.

    Sue was the only worthy character to even listen to last night. And most of her comments were correct. This one is worth repeating over and over “Just because you’re free to say whatever you want, doesn’t mean you should. Artists are free to push boundaries in order to make art, but when pushing boundaries is their only aim the result is usually bad art.”

    And that is what Rocky Horror Glee Show was, bad art.

  10. Alyssa on October 27th, 2010 5:02 pm

    I thought it was weird that Emma thought it was inappropriate for Mr. Shue to be in the show with the kids but didn’t have a problem with her random boyfriend being in it! Obviously we all love John Stamos and want to see him sing but why would a local dentist being in a high school show not raise some eyebrows? And it’s a school musical that only the Glee Club can be in…

    That being said, it was a fun episode.

  11. Randi on October 28th, 2010 1:39 am

    @Alyssa I think the issue was more with the role that Will Schuester would be playing. Rocky has the rather intimate “Toucha Toucha…” scene with Janet (played by Rachel Berry in the production). Kind of awkward. Eddie was also questionable because he was supposed to have some lovin’ with Columbia, however, they could more easily write that part out.

  12. Jaden on October 28th, 2010 2:31 pm

    I was disappointed that they keep reverting to ethnic humor for jokes. The use of “Mexican” as a derogatory term was offensive. As a human being I don’t want to be subjected to that type of humor.