mollyporter | GLEE! Reactions to 1.09: Wheels

Kurt is my favorite. I had honest to god tears in my eyes when he was singing defying gravity. I really want an MP3 of that song, especially if there's a recording of just Kurt singing the song all the way through (and not flubbing the high F!)

I could not be more thrilled with the course the show has taken with Kurt's relationship with his dad! I love his dad a lot. I love how the show is handling his dad. Clearly, he's known the gay thing was coming for a while. And Kurt also knows that the conversation about his sexuality has been a long time coming, but he's scared because he doesn't know how his dad will react. They're only just having to deal with it out in the open and Kurt's dad is trying really hard but he's not doing it perfectly.

One of the best moments of the episode was the conversation after Kurt's dad received the threatening phone call. He was so angry, and he BARELY managed to show that he wasn't angry at Kurt, but of course it's hard for a teenager in that situation to tell that his dad is practically shaking in anger on his behalf and not at him. What I love is that the writers didn't ignore that moment of tension from misunderstanding, but that they let it happen and then had Mr. Hummel fix it as soon as he saw his son was misunderstanding. He insisted that Kurt go be a high soprano and sing a girl's song and show those jerks that Hummels don't back down - but Kurt saw that his dad was still struggling even though he was being supportive and he blows the High F for his dad.

I just - I love that it didn't come from a place of hiding. I love that Kurt made no bones about the fact that this wasn't forever, he was doing this to give his dad time to adjust, and I love that his dad was totally ready to go to the mat for him even though he was having a hard time dealing. I love the reality that the show has managed to bring to the situation - they're both having trouble dealing with the fact that Mr. Hummel just really did not expect to have a gay son. Even though it doesn't affect how much they love each other, they're both struggling with the divide between their own expectations and each others expectations. It makes things awkward, they have trouble communicating, but when push comes to shove they are both absolutely ready, willing, and able to do what they need to do to support each other.

And I really, really, really loved that moment at the end where Kurt's dad is working on the car and asks "wanna help me with this?" and Kurt replies "Lemme go change into my coveralls, this sweater is expensive" Because, yeah. Kurt's flamboyant, and a fashion snob, and a high soprano, but he's still his dad's son and he's totally able to put on a pair of coveralls and help his dad fix a car. Because he's not a flat, 2D character - he's real and complex. No lie, that tiny moment kind of desperately makes me want a scenario later in the series where the glee kids are in a car or a van or something that breaks down, and no one knows how to fix it until finally Kurt just goes "OH FOR-! Mercedes, hold my sweater. I'll deal with it. Heathens." and all of glee is completely shocked.

The disability arc of the episode: Ok, so a lot of you know that I have an aunt who has downs syndrome and a cousin who's a quadriplegic. So I kind of bring baggage to this issue. I'm not actually going to talk about any of that, I just think it affected the way I responded to the episode.

The Sue & Becky arc: Sue was totally right to put Will in his place about treating her differently because she's a "special person" (and oh my god, I hate that term), and that she ought to be treating Becky the same. She's mean to everyone, so she shouldn't be nice to Becky. That said - she is treating Becky differently. The kid gloves are totally on. Becky auditioned and had a good attitude but no skill. Sue was just moved because her sister is mentally disabled, so she starts giving this girl at school special attention. And from what we saw, Becky never got the chance to practice with all of the Cheerios. I would love to see this arc continue, and for Sue to be spending extra time with Becky to get her up to the skill level so that she can be on the Cheerios for real, but I don't think that'll happen. I really want Becky to be a recurring character, though. If nothing else, her friendship with Brittany was cute.

The Artie/Let's Put Everyone In Wheelchairs arc: Um, I loved the wheelchair number? And I thought it was pretty in-character for both Puck and Finn to exploit the wheelchairs to get money for Quinn's baby. I'm not gonna say too much else on the issue except that I was kind of meh on the overall lesson of "Artie has it harder than the rest of you guys!"

Between the two arcs, though, there was kind of an interesting balance proposed about attitude toward disability. On the Becky and Sue side, the lesson was "People with disabilities don't want your pity, you should treat them like everyone else!" On the Artie side it was about how totally ignoring someone's disability sucks, and you should acknowledge that they have to work harder to get through the day and do what you can to make life a little easier on them.

And I'm sorry, but Artie was a jerk to Tina. He equated his wheelchair with her stutter (which I find utterly absurd, by the way), and then, because he held up their disabilities as this grand unifying link between them, he felt betrayed when she revealed that she was faking it. And I get why, and I understand his reaction - his line about how he can't just stop pretending and be normal had a lot of truth to it - but none of that was Tina's fault. She made herself really vulnerable to him by telling him not just that she'd been faking the stutter, but also why she'd been faking it, and I felt really bad for her in that scene.