The two biggest complaints leveled against Glee so far by the folks who either hate it or are generally agnostic about its pleasures are that its storytelling is messy (something I could agree with, especially in last week’s episode) and that it’s too relentlessly chipper, not once earning its weirdly sentimental streak. “Preggers” goes a long way toward addressing both claims – though, to my mind, the second one was never really valid. At the same time, it gives us a better sense of what the show is going to be like from week to week, deepens a handful of the characters, launches some completely improbable story decisions and mostly turns the laughs over to Jane Lynch. It’s the best episode of the show since the pilot, and if you don’t like this one, it’s probably safe to say you can jump off the Glee train.
The most important thing “Preggers” does to help out the series is that it slows everything down considerably. Where last week’s episode seemed to take place over months and months of time, “Preggers” only takes place over 10 days at the most (and more likely over the course of a school week, considering it is roughly structured around the idea of building up to the big game at the end of the week). In the process of doing that, it comes up with a variety of storylines but makes sure that all of them run through either Will or Kurt (this week’s focus character), which makes the structure vaguely similar to Friday Night Lights, of all things, where there are always a lot of stories going on (sometimes as many as six or seven) but all of them have a connection to Coach Taylor. It’s not a bad structure for this show to ape, and it keeps the craziness toned down enough that it’s easier to just roll with it. While there are still a lot of things going on, they all seem to be a part of the same series, for once, instead of occupying a handful of different series of varying quality.
Also, the episode does a better job of making sure that its major storylines are focused on a handful of the characters, as opposed to last week’s messy attempt to deepen Mercedes. This week, the spotlight falls on Kurt and his relationship with his father (played by Mike O’Malley, of all people), which is the sort of stereotypically fractious relationship gay teenagers often have with their fathers. Again, this is something you’ve seen before, but it still rings true because, well, it’s still true. Gay teenagers still struggle to come out to their families, fearing the worst, and stereotypically masculine fathers still fret over the sexual orientations of their effeminate sons. The scene where Kurt’s dad tells him that he knew he was gay from when he was 3 and more or less tells him that he’ll try to be OK with it was more moving than anything involving the words “starring Mike O’Malley” has any right to be.
Glee, I think, lives in an essentially sad world where everyone’s trying to cover up just how little their lives have turned out like they expected they would via forced jollity. To my mind, that makes it the perfect expression of its Midwestern locale. Critics who’ve complained, for example, that the fact that Kurt dances to “Single Ladies” throughout the episode is a dated reference don’t get that he’s a gay kid in Lima, Ohio (or have forgotten that fact) and, well, that’s the sort of song he’d dance to. Would he have better musical taste after he leaves Lima to move to the city? Absolutely. But while he’s in Lima, Beyonce is pretty much it. The fact that these tones all mash up against each other – that we’re not supposed to know whether a scene is meant to be full of sentiment, snark or both – strikes me as a good thing about the show, but before this week, I wasn’t sure if the creators knew what their intentions were either, something that worried me. The Kurt storyline in “Preggers,” with all of its faux bravado covering up a fearful, sad core, convinces me that they have a pretty good idea of where they’re headed with all of this.