So, even though Jane Lynch made not one frame in this entire episode, we’ll do a quick GleeCap anyway.  In a contrived piece of plotting, the Gleeks are paired off to practice their ballad skillz. Kurt, who had a mad crush on Finn, happily draws Finn. Rachel draws her crush, Mr. Schuester, and they practice a ballad around the piano. While Rachel is swooning over Schuester, the other members are having all sorts of interior monologue. It’s not as funny as when Alvy Singer and Annie Hall were doing it in Annie Hall, but it’s cute. Kind of.

Schuester is freaked out that Rachel has a big crush on him. He’s more freaked out when she gives him a pretty damn ugly tie, and recalls a prior similarly afflicted teen girl: Susie Pepper (not a Nancy Drew character, but should be). She was so in love with him that when he finally let her down, she was utterly devastated and suicide pilled herself by swallowing an extremely hot pepper special ordered from the free range grasses of Brazil (I guess she was planning on giving it to him?). She ended up needing esophagus surgery. Oh, those crazy teenage girls, their irrational, silly crushes, and their weird reactions to rejection!!

Susie Pepper stalks Rachel until she finally has the ears to listen. “I’m a cautionary tale,” she says. Rachel relents and gives Schuester some flowers with a card: “Sorry I’m being crazy.”  Hey, why can’t my life be literal like this?  Why can’t people walk around with big signs hung around their neck that say, “Cautionary tale,” or “No, you’re right, I am acting crazy,” or “My advice is right,” or “You must apply for that job, because you will get it.”

Since the abortion option continues to be a non-starter, real mom Quinn and fake dad Finn are continuing to deal with the stresses of the impeding baby of doom, again seemingly without any guidance from any school counselors or nurses.  Finn’s mom catches him singing to the sonogram, which is on his computer.  Hey, that’s actually pretty cool.  We hope the all providers start using electronic health records if only for this reason.

Remember Roseanne’s reaction when Darlene told her that she was pregnant? It was somewhere between sheer disbelief and a volcano eruption. The episode was called, “Another Mouth to Shut Up.”  Oh, Roseanne, TV just doesn’t have the voice of the plebians anymore. (Lesbians, though, they have. (<– That was our only way to work Jane Lynch into this Sue Sylvester-less episode)). In any case, this was nothing like that. It’s hugging, supportive, comforting.

In contrast, Quinn’s parents – who are stereotypical Crazy Neoconservatives Who Probably Voted for the McCain-Palin Ticket and Probably Were First in Line at Midnight at Their Local Major Bookstore Chain to Buy Going Rogue – are very, very excited about her upcoming chastity ball. Oh, first Quinn is President of the Celibacy Club, now this? Really, if you’re going to tell someone not to have sex this hard, then they’re going to have sex. And, do you know what chastity balls are?? It’s a date with Dad.  Aw.  And, ew.  From Wikipedia:

A purity ball (also known as a father-daughter purity ball or purity wedding is a formal event attended by fathers and their daughters. Purity balls promote virginity until marriage for teenage girls, and are often closely associated with U.S. Christian churches, particularly fundamentalist churches.  Typically, daughters who attend make a virginity pledge; a pledge to remain sexually abstinent until marriage. Fathers who attend pledge to protect what they view as their young daughters’ purity of mind, body, and soul. Proponents promote a strong father-daughter relationship as a means to affirm what they consider to constitute spiritual and physical purity.

From a website that is organizing such a ball:

The Purity Ball brings fathers and daughters together for an elegant evening of dining, discussion, and decision. Fathers commit to their daughters that they will remain pure, and ask their daughters for the same commitment. The fathers also commit to pursue the hearts of their daughters by working on strengthening their relationships and letting them know how much they love and care for them. [...]

The fathers/mentors are the ones signing the covenants with the girls witnessing the pledge that their fathers make. The pledge represents the dedication he feels to his daughter to protect and shield her. A challenge is issued to the fathers to be pure in their own lives as a man, husband and father, and to be a man of integrity and accountability as he leads, guides and prays for his family and home.

And finally, an article from Time.

Not wanting to cop to the fact that he broke her commitment before he even made his at the Chastity Ball (men!), Quinn’s dad kicks his daughter out. “We thought we raised you right,” he explains. Really, though, he’s just bummed that he won’t be able to have his date with her, and that Finn got to her before he did.  Her mother, in a typical, sickening example of enabling, sits tight and lets it all happen. She’s going to regret this, and she knows it.  Quinn is off to live with Finn and his mom.

Kurt, then, probably will not get the guy, even after sharing his Garnier Fructise face lotion with him to help him with his t-zone. That’s ok, Kurt, there’s a man without a fake baby for you somewhere!

In a totally random, somewhat inexplicable scene that only can attributed to the writers’ wanting to get the plot moving, stat, Puck tells Mercedes that he’s the real babby daddy. She essentially tells him to shove it, let Quinn carry on with Finn, and leave it all alone. Personally, we think that’s bad advice.  If someone is eating our cookie, we snatch it right back. If we don’t get credit where it’s due, we credit ourselves. So, if someone was having our baby and pretending like it wasn’t ours, against our wishes, we totally be all over that. Don’t listen to her, Puck.  She needs to be wearing a sign that says, “I am giving you bad advice.”

The Glee club members note the ongoing friction between Finn and Quinn (why did it take us so long to realize that their names rhyme?). Instead of engaging in an act of understandable schadenfreude (after all, Quinn and Finn did once spearhead all efforts to make the Gleeks’ respective lives miserable) the kids take the high road and put together a performance of “Lean on Me” for them. How … nice.  We guess.

Two final thoughts: first, why do the Glee club Cheerios have to wear their cheerleading getup everywhere? Don’t they just have practice before or after school? And second, can the producers please, please do something about the massively overdubbed lip syncing? Music videos are better than this. Ashlee Simpson’s performance on SNL was better than this (in a total twist of fate, Ashlee Simpson’s purported reason for lip syncing her performance on SNL?  ACID REFLUX DISEASE. We kid you not.). The show should look and sound like the characters are singing, not like we’re synching the Glee soundtrack with the appropriate places in the episode, Wizard of Oz/Pink Floyd style.

That’s it for this week, folks. Next week: Sue Sylvester is back. At least, she better be.  Coffee isn’t the same without the cyanide.