Glee: The Rhodes Not Taken

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Glee: The Rhodes Not Taken

November 9th 2010 21:49

With Rachael (Lea Michele) off doing the school play, Will struggles to replace her part and ensure the kids that “we’ll be fine”. To start off with, he has Quinn (Dianna Agron) sing Rachel’s part in “Don’t Stop Believing” with Finn (Cory Monteith), but just as everyone’s getting into it, she suddenly stops and rushes off to throw up. Will asks her if she’s okay, and Finn nervously assures, “I think she just had a bad breakfast burrito.” When Mr. Shue calls for a break, Finn confides in him that with all the dancing around Quinn’s doing, he’s a little worried about the baby. Will understands and offers to give Tina (Jenna Ushkowitz) some of her lines. He asks Finn if he’s thought about telling his mom about the baby, but Finn wants to handle this on his own for now.

With all the baby drama at school, Will realizes something and asks his wife about it later on when they go out to eat: “How come you haven’t had any morning sickness?” Terri (Jessalyn Gilsig) looks up sharply from her grasshopper pie and tells him that Quinn throwing up every five minutes is a good thing. “It means the baby’s not a mongoloid.” Will gives her a funny look and voices his concern about their baby, but Terri tells him she’s sick all the time at work. He should ask Howard about it.

As the waiter comes over to ask if they’d like anything else and Terri orders another piece of pie, Will changes the subject. He’s really worried about this Rachel thing. Suddenly he recognizes their waiter, he had him in his Spanish class a few years ago. Yep, the kid remembers him, and tells Will that he now goes to Carmel High. How is that possible, he’s 24? He tells them that they fail him on purpose so that he can stay in Vocal Adrenaline. Interesting…

“So…” Finn asks Emma (Jayma Mays )later on in her office, “have I done something wrong, or…?” No, no, she assures, she just wants to help him. Finn is confused. Did someone tell her something about his personal life? “Nope, hm-mmm.” (Flashback to Will asking Emma if she could keep a secret.) Emma tells Finn that there are very few kids who actually get a sports scholarship to college, but there are a lot of schools who give full rides to students who are good at music. Finn perks up. “You think if I stuck with Glee I could get a scholarship?” She does. But can they win without Rachel? “Sure!” she answers enthusiastically (cue flashback to Will asking the same question, and Emma’s answer: “Well remember the Jamaican bobsled team? Biiiig longshot.”) She tells Fin maybe he should talk to Rachel and try to convince her to come back.

For the school newspaper, Jacob (Josh Sussman) interviews Rachael about her lead role in the school musical, and insists that if she wants a good review, she needs to take her top off for him. Disgusted, Rachel refuses, Sandy (Stephen Tobolowsky) arrives for his interview, and Jacob quickly leaves. Finn arrives finding Rachel studying her shirt, and offers to help her run lines for her if she wants. Yes, she does.

With Emma’s help, Will finds an old classmate of his online, April Rhodes (Kristin Chenoweth), his first crush (insert Emma’s peeked interest—Will has had feelings for someone other than his wife before? Hmm…) and an amazing singer who never graduated high school. He finds April’s Myspace page, which links to April’s personal website, where he finds her online and asks if she remembers him. She invites him to her house (which actually turns out to be someone else’s, she’s just squatting there), and when the real estate agent finds her in there again, April, grabs her box of wine and heads out. Out on the curb, she admits to Will that her life hasn’t exactly gone the way she was expecting it too. Will offers to help her get back on her feet. His idea? Come back to school, take his Spanish class for the credit she needs to get her GED, and join the Glee Club. He knows how much she enjoys singing, maybe this will cheer her up. And help the club out of course.

When April arrives at Glee Club, however, the kids aren’t so sure this is a good idea. “Wait, so old people can join?” Scoffing at being called “old”, April ushers the piano player up and busts out a rendition of “Maybe This Time” that’s so good Kurt (Chris Colfer) actually cries. Ok fine, she can sing. But they still aren’t convinced this is a good idea.

In an effort to get the kids to accept April, Will suggests she spends more time with them. Unfortunately for him, and the kids, the time she spends with them involves teaching Tina and Mercedes (Amber Riley) how to shoplift, showering with the football team, and getting Kurt drunk. When he arrives at school looking horrible, Emma senses something is up. That is, right before Kurt throws up all over her shoes. After four decontamination showers, Emma goes back to school and tells Will that she thinks April is a very bad influence on these kids. Will’s shocked and horrified and assures her he’ll talk to April. Emma tells him she’s concerned about the club. With April in Glee, she’s afraid he’s taking away a kid’s chance and giving it to her. Will doesn’t think April’s done—she’s good, she just needs a second chance. “I think you need to think about why you’re doing this,” Emma tells him softly. “And what you’re willing to sacrifice to get it.”

Meanwhile, Rachel runs her lines with Finn, and gets yelled at by Sandy later on in slow-motion, “YOU SUCK!” Running off to the bathroom to cry, Rachel finds April there and warns her not to go around screwing up everyone else’s life. April warns her that she was the biggest star around here when she was here. And now she’s back.

Finn takes Rachel bowling, and as he teaches her how to throw the ball, April and Will bowl a few lanes over. April’s pretty good and Will encourages, “See what you can do when you’re sober?” “Sober?” she laughs, “I’m rollin’ on a fistful of horse tranquilizers, I can’t feel my lips!” Will’s smile fades. This isn’t going as he planned. Growing serious, he tells her he’s concerned that she’s a bad influence on the kids and that he can’t keep her around if she’s going to encourage them to make bad choices. She understands and tells him she’ll stop. Glad, Will suddenly gets a little shy and admits to April that she was the reason he joined Glee Club in high school. His dream was always to sing with her. Really? “Come on!” She grabs his hand and pulls him up on the stage to sing “Alone”. They’re fantastic together, and the bingo crowd cheers. They hug.

Over pizza, Rachel asks Finn about Glee, and he tells her they miss her. Yeah sure, she grumbles, “they miss my talent.” He assures her that’s not the case and when she says no one appreciates her, he answers, “I appreciate her.” They get up to throw her last ball. It’s a strike. Exited, Rachel leaps into his arms and kisses him. Finn pulls away. “Come back to Glee.” Rachel asks about Quinn, and when Finn tells her he doesn’t know what’s going to happen between him and Quinn but that he wants to spend time with Rachel, she quickly tells him she’ll quit the play for him and come back to Glee.

As Kurt, Tina, Mercedes, and Artie (Kevin McHale) stand around the piano trying to come up with reasons for Quinn’s strange behavior lately, Puck lets out a long sigh. “Are you all really that stupid?” He suggests the obvious, maybe Quinn’s got one in the oven. “But who’s the baby’s daddy?” Mercedes asks, to which Puck answers, “Who do you think?” Uh-oh.

Rachel walks in announcing that she’s back and can’t understand why they aren’t more excited. They tell her about Quinn, “And the baby daddy?” Kurt says. “Finn.”

Finn hands in his music scholarship application to Emma, and Rachel finds him in the hallway accusing him of using her. He admits he needed her to come back to the club so that they can win at Regionals and he can get a scholarship, and then a job to take care of his kid. Furious, Rachel finds Sue and demands that changes need to be made to the musical if she’s going to come back. Sue totally agrees. “I hereby grant you complete artistic control.” She smiles. “Congratulations kiddo, you now have everything you can possibly want!”

Later on, dressed in cowboy hats and matching black cowboy costumes, the kids warm up. Will’s so proud of them and tells them they’ll do great in their first performance in front of a real audience. He looks around suddenly . “Where’s April?” Dressed in a hot pink cowgirl outfit, April comes streaming in. “There’s my boy!” She falls against Will, who can’t believe it. “Are you drunk? You promised me you’d sober up for this.” She laughs, saying that she was drunk when she said it, he shouldn’t have taken her serious.

Outside, Emma tells Will that April can’t go on. He understands, but there’s a whole crowd of people out there, and if April doesn’t go on, none of the kids can. “It’s really great how committed you are to these kids,” Emma says sadly, then leaves. Will regretfully watches her go.

Their first performance is a hit, but during the break, Will confronts April outside the ladies’ room. “I can’t let you go back out there. You broke a promise.”

Sadly, she admits that he’s right. It was a great moment, and she got that standing ovation and spotlight again, and it felt like every bad decision she ever made was suddenly just gone. “But then I look out on the sweet faces of these smiling kids,” she says sadly, “And I think, I’m hoggin’ their sunshine. It’s their turn now, not yours…They’re so lucky to have you Will,” she says tearfully. “Because you won’t let what happen to me EVER happen to them.” He asks where she’s going to go from here, and she gets a hold of herself, saying she always wanted to be on Broadway. She asks if he thinks there’s a part for some old washed-up has been like her, and Will softly tells her, “April, you are not washed up.” He squeezes her shoulder and adds, “And hey, there’s always Branson.” She grins and kisses him on the cheek, hugging him and whispering, “Thank you.”

“Branson, hey?” she mutters to herself on her way out. April leaves.

Joining back up with the kids, Will tells them that April’s no longer in the Glee Club. He admits that he made a mistake brining her here and that they don’t need her to be great. “But we need her for the second act,” Mercedes answers, voicing all their thoughts, and he tells them that they’ll just have to go out there and tell them the show’s been cut short. At their sad looks, he cheers them up by telling them they were great, they’ll be more performances.

Suddenly Rachel appears behind Mr. Schue and tells them that she quit the play. She knows the words to the song…Quinn points out that she doesn’t know the choreography, and Finn answers, “Then we’re all gonna have to give her a lot of help out there.” There’s a long pause as Rachel hesitantly waits to see if they’ll let her back in, and when no one says anything, Will tells her to go get in her costume. Rachel’s back!

Will takes his seat in the auditorium next to Emma. The second half of the show starts, and when Rachel comes out on stage to sing “Somebody to Love” instead of April, Emma looks over at Will. He grins.