Glee: Season 1, Episode 8: ""Mash-Up""

Episode Summary:

Finn gets a Slushee thrown in his face, showing that he and Quinn, now that word is out about her pregnancy, have been demoted to the bottom of the popularity food chain.

Meanwhile, Emma and Ken approach Will about dance lessons and a mash-up for the first dance for their wedding. Emma wants the Broadway classic "I Could Have Danced All Night," but Ken wants "The Thong Song." Will is given the challenge of combining the two songs.

At rehearsal, Will introduces a new song, "Bust a Move," which the glee kids have to combine with another unlikely song for a future mash-up. Puck and Finn both turn down the solo, so Will takes on the solo to get the kids pumped up.

Finn and Quinn go to Emma for advice on how to be popular, and when Will walks past wearing sunglasses, Emma suggests that they could try wearing sunglasses. Ultimately, though, she tells the kids that they should just be themselves. Quinn and Finn are not satisfied with this answer, especially Quinn.

Emma shows up for dance lessons with Will wearing her wedding dress, which looks like a vanilla cupcake. There are bows everywhere and an enormous train, which she explains is because she loved Princess Diana's dress when she was little. Will dances to "The Thong Song," and Emma loses her balance and falls on top of Will. They giggle and take their sweet time getting back up, which Ken can't help noticing.

Finn keeps running into problems at football practice where his teammates are refusing to run the plays he gives them and are making jokes about his sexuality. After Finn gets pushed to the edge and throws a punch at a teammate, Ken tells the team that they need to start acting like a team. He announces that starting next week, there will be mandatory rehearsal at the same time as glee club rehearsal, yelling, "I have had it up to here with Mr. Schuester!"

After a night of Chinese food, "Schindler's List," his mother ranting about why he can't date a nice Jewish girl, and a weird dream involving Rachel, Puck decides that it is God's will for him to date Rachel Berry. Puck and Rachel make out, but she says that she can't imagine it working out in the long run. Puck, to prove that he has guts, performs "Sweet Caroline" at the next glee club rehearsal.

Finn and Quinn try wearing sunglasses, and they get hit with a whole army of football players, carrying giant Slushees. After soaking Finn and Quinn, they warn him that he has to quit glee club or else his popularity will be gone forever.

Sue, who hasn't been around so far in this episode, is filming her "Sue's Corner" segment for the nightly news. Afterwards, the news anchor Rod asks Sue out on a date, and oddly enough, she accepts. The next thing we see is Sue swing dancing with Will and looking happier than she's ever been in the entirety of the show. She admits to Will that after one date night of playing "Battleship" with Rod, she is in love. Rod has even invited her to a swing dance competition. Will is happy that Sue is seemingly a new person, but then Sue drops the news that Ken is making the football players choose between football and glee club. An upset Will storms down to the locker rooms and confronts Ken. Ken, thankfully, cuts through all the crap and gets right to the problem: Emma. Will admits that he didn't encourage Emma but didn't discourage her either. Will says that Ken doesn't have anything to worry about and tries to make peace, but Ken refuses to back down on football rehearsal.

Puck gets a Slushee thrown in his face in the hallway. Rachel helps him wash the sugary stickiness out of his hair. He is touched by her kind gesture, but he tells her that he is going to choose football over glee club which means the end of him and Rachel. Rachel is sad, but she tells him that she understands.

Will takes Emma to shop for a new wedding dress, and she comes out of the dressing room looking adorable in a simple and elegant dress with elbow-length gloves. They try out the dress by dancing to "I Could Have Danced All Night," and Emma sings the solo. At the end of the song, Emma and Will have yet another one of those painfully sweet moments when they should be kissing but they aren't. Will leaves quickly, telling Emma that there's going to be a showdown between glee club and football, and he's not going to miss it. Emma is left in the dress shop, looking beautiful and so, so sad.

At glee club, more of the guys show up than expected, including Puck. There is one surprise, however: Finn is missing. He is at football practice. Now that Finn is back on the football team, the guys send him to throw a Slushee in Kurt's face for quitting the team. Finn doesn't want to do it, and Kurt, getting fed up with Finn's behavior, takes the Slushee from Finn and throws it in his own face.

Sue shows up at the studio and finds Rod making out with the other female news anchor. She wanted to show him the zoot suit that she had made for the swing dance competition they were going to on Saturday. He says that Sue can't expect him to be exclusive, and she walks out.

Rachel finds Puck sitting in the stands watching football practice. She admits her feelings for Finn, and he admits his feelings for Quinn. Puck tells Rachel that Finn is never going to break up with Quinn, not with the baby on the way. Rachel says that she and Puck can still be friends, but Puck replies that they weren't friends before and leaves.

Puck and Rachel aren't the only ones visiting football practice. Will shows up and throws a football back and forth with Finn and tells him that he belongs with glee club. Finn pretends that Will's speech doesn't affect him, but later, he finds Ken and tells him that he's tired of choosing between glee club and football. Ken agrees to cancel the Thursday practice, claiming that he has to do laundry on Thursdays anyways.

Sue comes walking back into the school like a hurricane. She throws orders at Will and kicks Quinn off the Cheerios squad. Will stops by Emma's office and tells her that he can't create a mash-up for "I Could Have Danced All Night" and "The Thong Song." "They're both great songs," he tells Emma, "but they just don't go together." Will leaves and heads over to glee club rehearsal where Finn has bought the entire glee club Slushees to apologize for abandoning them for football. The episode ends with Will admitting that he's never had a Slushee thrown in his face, and the entire glee club throws their Slushees at Will.



Final Thoughts:

This week's episode was like Will's famous song mash-ups. There were so many odd elements in it, but ultimately, all the elements worked together very well. Rachel and Puck's romance seemed laughable at first, but the actors sold it. Sue's romance was also surprising, but instead of feeling like a ploy, her subplot showed Sue's softer side. The songs in this episode ranged from "Bust a Move" to a classic Broadway love song and a summer anthem dedicated to the thong. Emma and Ken's choices for first dance songs were an odd combination, but their selections further showed that Emma and Ken are not right for each other. This episode was a big ol' mash-up, and the final result was more than the sum of its parts.