Glee: Ballad
November 11th 2010 00:00
“Ballad”. Mr. Schuester (Matthew Morrison) writes the word on the board and asks his students if anyone knows what it means. Brittnay (Heather Morris), confuses it for “a male duck”, and Kurt (Chris Colfer) raises his hand and offers, “It’s a love song.”
“Sometimes,” Mr. Schue agrees. “But they don’t always express love. Ballads are stories set to music, which is why they’re the perfect storm of self-expression. Stories and music are the way we express feelings that we can’t get out any other way.” He tells them that Sectionals are in a few weeks, and there’s a new rule that they have to sing a ballad. Their assignment this week? He’s going to pair them off (their names go in a hat so it’s not so easy), and whoever they pick is their partner. With Matt out sick (they found a spider in his ear), Will puts his own name in the hat and calls Artie (Kevin McHale) up to go first. He picks Quinn (Dianna Agron). Finn (Cory Monteith) is up next, and he picks Kurt. Kurt’s eyes widen, his dream come true! Finn leans over to his teacher. “Mr. Schue, I don’t know if I can do this with another guy.”
“The fates have spoken Finn,” Will tells him, and they get on with the name-drawing. Tina (Jenna Ushkowitz) picks “other Asian” (a.k.a. Mike (Harry Shum Jr.)), and Santana (Naya Rivera) picks Brittnay. Rachel is last and heads towards the hat. “Looks like I get you, Mr. Schue.” Will looks up, suddenly alarmed. “Uh, you know what? Maybe we should just wait until Matt gets back.”
“The fates talked Mr. Schue,” Finn points out, using his own words against him, and Will has no choice but to be Rachel’s partner. When Artie asks if Mr. Schue if he could clarify what kinds of songs he wants them to sing, Rachel offers to demonstrate. She picks “Endless Love”, but Will doesn’t think that’s an appropriate song. “Why? It’s a great song, and it’s a perfect ballad,” she says, confused, and trying not to grin, Finn nods. “Yeah, I really like that song Mr. Schue.” They all know this is a bad idea, but are enjoying watching their teacher squirm. They laugh, and he once again has no choice but to sing along with Rachel.
“My love,” he begins as the music starts, “There’s only you in my life, the only thing that’s right.” As he continues to sing, Kurt thinks about the fact that he could totally sing this song with Finn (“but screw him if he thinks he’s getting the Dianna Ross part”), Puck reminisces about how he loves the days he doesn’t wear underwear, and Finn about Rachel, but quickly averts his eyes when he notices Quinn noticing him staring at her.
“My first love,” Rachel sings, “You’re every breath that I take, you’re every step I make…”
As the song continues and Will sings with her, Rachel suddenly starts to realize something. Singing, she starts around the piano for him, and he quickly puts a chair between them. “Wow,” she thinks as she sings, staring at him, “I’ve never noticed this before because he’s always trying to destroy my career, but Mr. Schue has really pretty eyes…and really nice teeth. He’s obviously invested in good oral hygiene and that’s important to me. It shows wonderful self-esteem.”
Alarmed at the way she’s looking at him, Will backs away from Rachel around the piano as he sings. They continue to sing, and he thinks, “I don’t like the way she’s lookin’ at me. Ahh, I shouldn’t have sung this song to her, crap! She looks crazy right now. I know this look.”
They continue to sing, and Rachel has now fallen and fallen hard. Will’s in trouble. “My, endless love…” Rachel stares doe-eyed and totally wistfully at her teacher. “Okay, this is amazing,” she thinks, “When I’m singing with him, it’s like I’m seeing him for the first time. And what I’m seeing is super, SUPER, cute!”
The song finally ends and everyone claps. “Okay,” Will says, hurrying away with a laugh, “something like that.” Rachel is startled back into the real world and grins to herself.
At her house, Quinn’s mother helps her try on her dress for the chastity ball. It won’t zip up. She tells her mom she had a really big lunch at school today, and her mom’s worried that she doesn’t get enough exercise now that she quit the Cheerios. Quinn’s dad comes in, gushes over the dress, and asks how Finn is. “He’s not uh,” her mom asks, “pressuring you or anything, is he?” Quinn assures them he’s not, that he’s a good guy. Great! That’s why they’re inviting him over for dinner this week.
Back at school, Rachel goes to Will’s classroom to confirm their rehearsal time. “Oh, isn’t Matt back yet?” he asks, and she tells him that he isn’t, that it’s just them this week. Okay then. He goes back to his work, but she hovers, and he looks up again. Is there something else she needed? “I just wanted to give you this.” She hands over a gift. “Open it.” He hesitantly takes it and opens the present. It’s a tie with gold stars on it. “Gold stars are kinda my signature thing,” she says, beaming. “I figured you could wear it and think of me and the star you’re helping me become.” He forces a smile. Yep, he’s in trouble.
“It’s happening,” Will tells Emma later on in her office as he stares woefully down at the tie and she washes her window. “Again. It always starts with a novelty gift.”
“You can’t blame her Will,” Emma says without thinking. “I mean, if we were gonna rank crush-worthy teachers at this school, you’d be number one with a bullet.” She stops, realizing what she just said and he turns a confused look on her. She quickly changes the subject. “Uh, um, when did this start with Rachel?” He tells her about the duet, which she agrees in hindsight was probably a mistake.
“Yeah,” he answers with a sigh. “I can’t handle going through this again!”
She sits down at her desk opposite him and asks, “Going through what again?”
“Have I ever told you about Suzy Pepper?”
Flashback to two years ago before Emma was a teacher there. Will’s teaching his Spanish class and Suzy Pepper (Sarah Drew) sits at her desk in her pepper-themed bandana doodling her love for him. She raises her hand and asks him how to conjugate the verb, “To love.” Will tells Emma that Suzy wasn’t the first schoolgirl crush, but she was certainly the hardest. Suzy showed up with socks with peppers on them (“So you can wear them and think of me, Suzy Pepper.”), and Will assumed the crush would burn out like all the others. “But it only got worse.” Flash to Will and Terri (Jessalyn Gilsig ) asleep in bed. The phone rings, he groggily picks up. There’s heavy breathing. After a confused moment he asks, “Suzy Pepper?” She’s thrilled that he recognized her just from the sound of her breathing. Irritated, Terri grabs the phone and warns, the “little psycho” that if she doesn’t stop calling, she’s going to go crazy and kill her. “Terri!” Will warns, and she hangs up the phone with a, “can’t you handle anything Will?”
“Terri was right,” Will tells Emma. “Or so I thought. I decided to be honest with Suzy.” In the flashback he takes a deep breath and finds her at her locker. “Okay, how’d that go?” Emma asks. In the flashback, listening to sad love songs and crying, Suzy goes to her locker, grabs a pepper out of her locker and swallows the whole thing. Her eyes bulge.
Back in the present, Will explains, “It was the world’s hottest pepper.” She had it shipped from Mexico, and ended up in the hospital with a burned esophagus and a medically induced coma for three days. Emma’s eyes widen in horror. “That’s why I can’t just tell Rachel to back off,” he tells her. “These girls are too fragile.”
Okay, Emma has another idea. Why doesn’t he take his own advice and let her down gently with a song?
Kurt and Finn try to work on their assignment but Finn just can’t sing to a dude. Kurt doesn’t take it personally and realizes that Finn’s under a lot of stress right now. When Finn voices his worry that his baby is his daughter and she’s going to grow up never knowing how he’s going to spend his whole life loving her and she’ll never know he even exists. “You gotta let it out,” Kurt tells him. “By singing. ‘I’ll Stand By You’ by The Pretenders.” He pulls Finn to his feet and tells him to imagine his little girl sitting in the audience. Kurt sits down at the piano and Finn begins to sing. “Oh, why you look so sad? Tears are in your eyes, come on and come to me now…” He continues to sing in his room to the sonogram.
His mom walks with his laundry in at the end of the song and pauses. “Finn? What’s goin’ on? What are you doing?” He shifts nervously. “Uh, nothing.” She looks at the screen and asks, “Where you just singing to a sonogram?” “Uh-huh…” She sits next to her son and asks, “Is Quinn pregnant?” Finn breaks down into sobs, hugging his mom and telling her how sorry he is. She soothes his back, muttering that it’s all going to be okay and trying not to cry herself.
At school, everyone is caught up in the baby drama as Quinn yells at Finn for telling his mom. Kurt volunteers to go figure out what’s going on and what he can do. “I’ll report back later.” He walks over to Finn, who thanks him for the singing advice. Finn walks off and Kurt thinks to himself, “Alright, I’ll admit it, I’m madly in love with Finn.” He has been ever since they first met when Puck knocked him into a locker and Finn chastised, “Impulse control!” before shooting Kurt a sorry crooked smile. Through his classes, Kurt continues to dreamily think about why he loves Finn even though “he’s cheating off a girl who things the square root of four is rainbows”. His master plan is to be the one there after Quinn breaks his heart. Then, “he’ll be crying into my shoulder pads.”
Emma follows Will into the choir room where Rachel is already waiting. “Okay,” he announces, “so I’m really excited.” He’s picked the perfect songs to be a fantastic teaching tool about how to sing a great ballad. He grabs two chairs and sets them up. “Why is Miss Pillsbury here?” Rachel asks, glancing at Emma, and Emma stutters, “W-well, I too am very curious about the power of the ballad.” She says she’s thinking about doing some career counseling in song, ACT prep, that sort of thing.
“Emma?” Will interrupts, saving her, “you wanna just sit down?”
Right. She sits.
“Okay, Rachel,” Will says, telling her that the two songs he’s going to be singing are “Young Girl” and “Don’t Stand So Close to me”. “Now I want you to listen very closely to the lyrics,” he adds, “because I REALLY mean what I’m singing.” This charms her and he reiterates, “Really. Listen.” Smiling, she nods and he starts the music, sitting her down next to Emma.
“Young teacher,” he sings, pointing to himself, “the subject, of schoolgirl fantasy. She wants him, so badly, knows what she wants to be. With all the charms, of a woman,” he continues, “You’ve kept the secret of your youth.” He walks around them, still singing, “Book market, she’s so close now, she’s half his age—“ suddenly he whips around as the song changes, “Don’t stand, don’t stand so close to me! Young girl, you’re out of your mind, your love for me is way out of line, you’re much too young girl.” Both Emma and Rachel are already hooked. “Temptation, frustration, so bad it makes him cry” he sings, looking at Emma than away. Rachel notices and glances sharply at Emma. “Beneath your perfume and makeup,” He continues to sing, going back to Rachel, “You’re just a baby in disguise.” He keeps on singing but it’s no use, they’re both totally lost in love and enthralled by him. When he finishes, both Emma and Rachel burst into great applause.
“So, Rachel,” he asks hesitantly, “do you understand the message I was trying to get across with that ballad?”
“Yes,” she says happily, “it means I’m very young and it’s hard for you to stand close to me.”
He groans, putting his face in his hands. “Uh, Emma, would you mind helping me out here, w-was that the message that you got?” He looks at her for help, but she’s still lost in her love for him and wistfully answers, “You’re a very good performer.” She looks at Rachel. “He’s very good.”
“Well, I for one can’t wait to go home and work on a medley of my own for tomorrow.” Rachel jumps up and hurries out. Will tries to tell her that really wasn’t the message he was trying to get across, but she’s already gone. He turns helplessly to Emma, who just claps again, wide-eyed and telling him, “Bravo.” As Rachel leaves the choir room, Suzy Pepper spots her and glares.
In his basement, Finn goes through his dad’s old stuff, and with Kurt’s help finds a jacket he can wear to Quinn’s for dinner. They both admit that they miss their dead parent. Kurt says that even though he knows it’s stupid, he sometimes just goes into his Dad’s room, opens him Mom’s old drawers and lays there just so he can smell her. Finn doesn’t think that’s stupid at all. He hates that his dad was such brave man and he can’t even go over to the Fabray’s without being terrified. Kurt points out that Finn’s dad didn’t go in unarmed, and Finn stares blankly at the mirror, fiddling with his tie and doubtfully asks, “You think I should bring a gun?” “N-no,” Kurt says, once again trying to overlook Finn’s uh, confusion, and tells him, “I think you should use you’re greatest weapon, your voice.”
“Hey sweetie, I’m home,” Will says entering his apartment and taking off his coat. “Something smells good.” He stretches and sits on the couch after a long day at work. A bottle appears at his shoulder and he takes it. “Thanks.”
“You’re welcome!” Rachel says happily and Will shoots up, eyes wide. What’s she doing here? “Dinner’s almost ready,” she tells him. Hope you like venison.” Grinning, she heads off to the kitchen.
“Why did you even let her in the house?” Will hisses to his wife later on when Rachel’s out of earshot. “Because she said she was one of your Glee kids,” Terri answers, grinning. “It didn’t take me five minutes to realize she’s in love with you.” Putting something away in the fridge, she adds, “She asked if she could see your baby pictures.”
“What, so now you’re making her clean our bathroom?” Will asks, and she tells him that she’s been putting up with schoolgirl crushes for years. “So why shouldn’t I get something out of it?” Rachel appears wearing cleaning gloves and asks if they have anymore Ajax. Terri tells her wear it is and Rachel waves at Mr. Schue, grinning on her way out.
“This is amoral, Terri,” Will tells her as she starts filling their dinner plates, and she argues that she doesn’t like the fact that he spends all day with girls who are “younger and perkier than I am”, and tells him about a fake rash she has. Worried, he tells her if it’s that bad, she’s got to let him see it, but when he reaches for her shirt she jumps out of the way. Like she’s going to show him the bleeding pustules on her skin! Yeah, like that’s not going to make him run off into the arms of “some teenage slut.”
“For the last time,” he says exasperatedly, “I am not having an affair with any of my students! And you are not allowed to turn one of them into your slave just because you have an irrational fear of me leaving you!” Terri thinks it’s win-win for everyone, “she’s a really good cook!” she insists, holding out the plate, and Will just sighs disgustedly, walking out.
“Where are you going?”
“I’m taking Rachel home,” he says, hands in the air.
“Can you ask her to dust the blinds in the craft room first?” Terri calls after him.
Will drives.
“Mr. Schuester?”
“Yes, Rachel?”
“Why do I have to sit in the back seat?”
“Um, it’s the law,” he answers. “Children have to ride in the back.”
“Children under seven,” she mutters, and he tells her he was just worried for her safety. When she takes that the wrong way, happy that he’s thinking about her safety and asks, “Really?”, he quickly changes his mind. “Um, no, not—really.” She decides they need to “take advantage of this golden alone time and practice our ballad.” He doesn’t have any music in the car, but that’s okay because she brought her own. “I made us a CD.” She reaches forward and puts it in.
“Ah, crush, ahh,” the music starts. “I see ya blowin' me a kiss, it doesn't take a scientist, to understand what's going on baby—”
He quickly shuts the music off, and when she disappointedly tells him she wasn’t finished yet, he mutters that the acoustics in the car are horrible, “Put your seatbelt back on.” Sulkily, she obeys, and he asks her about things with Puck. “I broke things off,” she tells him. “He was too immature. As are all the boys in high school. I need a man who can keep up with me both intellectual and creatively.” When he answers that that’s a tough role for most high school boys, she tells him that that’s why she’s set her sights much higher. Will’s eyes get big and he swallows hard.
“Stay away from him,” Suzy Pepper warns Rachel the next day. “You’re gonna get hurt.” Rachel insists that she can’t threaten her and that she’s not afraid. “You should be,” Suzy answers, but Rachel just walks off.
When Mercedes tells Puck that they’re all so caught up in this baby-drama that they’ve decided they’re going to all sing a ballad to Quinn and Finn to show them that they’ve got their back. Angry that Finn gets everything and insisting that he’s not singing to him and Quinn, puck tells Mercedes the truth—HE’S the baby’s daddy, not Finn. Mercedes stares at him a moment, then says, he needs to get something through his Mohawk. “You’re the baby’s daddy. It takes a hell of a lot more to be a father, and that role’s already been cast because Quinn chose Finn. You need to accept that and move on. Because you have no business upsetting that girl’s life anymore than you already have. You need to back off. You owe her at least that much.”
That night at dinner, after Quinn’s dad toasts his family, Finn freaks out and escapes to the bathroom, where he calls Kurt. He can’t go through with it. Kurt talks him down, that’s what they made the CD for, and Finn suddenly interrupts, “I have to go they’ll think I’m pooping.” Psyching himself up in the mirror, Finn rejoins Quinn and her parents, he brings in a CD player with him. He tells them about their ballad assignment and, despite Quinn’s begging him not to, starts to sing, “You’re having my baby, what a lovely way of sayin’ how much you love me…” Quinn’s parents sway to the music, not getting it at first, then as the song continues and they start to listen to the words, their faces fall, growing alarmed. The secret is out. Quinn’s father kicks her out. Her mother does nothing to stop him. Finn takes her to his house, where his mom tells her that she can stay there as long as she wants.
Suzy Pepper corners Rachel in the bathroom. “Let me tell you a few things I learned from two years of intense therapy and an esophagus transplant,” Suzy tells her. “Lesson number one? You and Schue? It won’t work!” She convinces Rachel that they’re not so different. They’re both mildly attractive and love is hard for them. “Mr. Schue is a perfect target for our self-esteem issues,” she continues. “He can never reciprocate our feelings, which only reinforces the conviction that we’re not worthy of being loved. Trust me, I’m a cautionary tale. You need to find some self respect Rachel,” she adds. “Get that mildly attractive groove back.” She leaves
Will enters the choir room and Rachel is already waiting with flowers. “Mr. Schuester, I’m ready when you are.” She sets the flowers on the piano, telling him she’s chosen the perfect song, and he finally interrupts, “Rachel I’m sorry, but I have to stop you,” he says gently. “The way you’ve been acting, is totally inappropriate.” She looks down. “I’m your teacher Rachel, and I’m sorry, but that’s all I’m ever going to be.”
She looks up, softly answering, “I know. I brought these for you as an apology.” She pulls over the flowers. Her song was going to be an apology as well, one by Elton John because she knows how much he loves him. “I’m such an idiot, mooning over you and cleaning your apartment,” she mutters, sitting down.
“Hey, it’s okay,” he says softly, walking over to her. She turns away, trying to hide her tears. He pulls up a chair. “I know it’s not always easy for you Rachel. I know that there are some things about yourself that you think you’d like to change,” he says gently. “You should know that there’s some boy out there who’s gonna like you for everything you are. Including those parts of you that even you don’t like.” She looks at him. “Those are gonna be the things he likes the best,” he tells her with a smile.
Rachel looks down, softly answering, “Thanks Mr. Schue.” She’s stopped crying.
“What do you say we ditch rehearsal today?” he asks, trying to cheer her up, and she smiles, wiping away her tears. “I’ve got to be honest with you Rachel,” he says getting up to get his bag and her flowers. “You’ve never really needed help with your ballads. You’ve been knockin’ them out of the park since day one.”
She gets up and follows him, hands in her pockets. “Do you like them?” she asks about the flowers, and he smells them on the way out. “They’re great.” Things are back to normal.
“So they just kicked her out?” Kurt asks Finn about Quinn. Yep, gave her five minutes. “Her father set the timer on the microwave.” Kurt apologizes for his bad plan, but Finn’s glad it’s finally all out in the open. Okay, onto Kurt’s ballad. “What is it?” Kurt pauses a moment, then says, “I Honestly Love You.”
“Awesome,” Finn answers, completely missing the confession of love in the song title. “I don’t know the song, but it sounds positive and nice and stuff.” Mercedes comes to get them. There’s something they all want to give Finn and Quinn.
“Your fellow Glee Club members want to sing a song for you guys,” Mr. Schue tells them. “To let you know how they feel about you.” What song? “Lean on Me”
Sometimes in our lives
We all have pain
We all have sorrow
But if we are wise
We know that there’s always tomorrow
Lean on me, when you’re not strong,
And I’ll be your friend
I’ll help you carry on
For it won’t be long
‘Til I’m gonna need
Somebody to lean on…
Quinn and Finn end the day feeling a little bit better knowing they have friends that have their back.
1. Bill Withers - Lean on Me
2. Lionel Ritchie & Diana Ross - Endless Love
3. The Pretenders - I'll Stand By You
4. Gary Puckett...Union Gap - Young Girl
5. The Police - Don't Stand So Close to Me
6. Jennifer Paige - Crush
7. Paul Anka - [You're] Having My Baby
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