'Glee' Season 3, Episode 15 Recap & Song List - 'Big Brother'

When we last left the gang, Rachel and Finn were about to get married and Quinn got in a terrible car accident because she was texting and driving. The peppy recap voice-over caught us up on this, but talking about Quinn's horrible car accident in the usuall peppy recap voice comes off as a bit insensitive.

It turns out that Quinn is still alive, but pretty badly injured. In fact, she has lost sensation in her legs and is currently confined to a wheelchair. Nonetheless, she claims she's going to make a full recovery and start walking again in time for Nationals, which seems a bit optimistic considering that she's paralyzed and Nationals are probably less than two months away at this point. In fact, she seems almost completely unfazed by the whole situation.

Artie is less optimistic, but is supportive and encouraging of Quinn as she adjusts to life in a wheelchair. But the two are at odds when Quinn insists that she won't be like this forever: "When are you going to stop pretending that this isn't really happening to you?" asks Artie.

Sue is clearly going through a character shift, as it seems her three-year arc was slowly getting to the point where she can be nice and openly support the Glee club. She offers to coach New Directions to help them win at Nationals, a move that starts out selfishly motivated: Coach Roz (who is still a character, sadly) is co-coaching the Cheerios, unless Sue can get New Directions to win Nationals.

But as things go on, Sue has a change of heart. She goes to the doctor (with Will and Emma in tow, for support) to confirm the sex of her child (it's a girl), but there's an irregularity with her amniotic fluid. As her later conversation with Becky confirms, this indicates that Sue's child will have Down's Syndrome, just like her sister had.

With that, Sue decides that being around the Glee kids will help her learn patience and love and so on, so she's on as dance coach, and she's going to be nice(ish).

Rachel and Finn have some issues of their own, as Puck offers to have Finn join him in his pool cleaning business and move to Los Angeles, where there are a boatload of pools. That would, of course, interfere with Rachel's plans, so it looks like the wedding (which didn't happen yet on account of Quinn's accident, remember) might be off for now.

The main story of the episode, even with all this rather serious stuff going on, surrounds Blaine and his older brother Cooper, played by guest star Matt Bomer. Cooper is a hotshot commercial actor in Hollywood, but his inflated ego would have you think that he's done a lot more than just the Free Credit Report Today commercial.

His brother's overbearing attitude (and awful acting advice, in a pretty funny scene from Bomer) stirs up old feelings of inadequacy in Blaine, who feels that his big brother was never very nice to or accepting of him. Clearly, after Darren Criss' time away to do Broadway, Ryan Murphy et al wanted to give Criss a big chunk of screen time: he has three songs in this episode, two of them duets with Bomer.

There's no doubt that Criss is a--perhaps the--bright spot on this show, and Bomer is a breath of fresh air as well. But compared to Quinn being in a wheelchair, Rachel and Finn questioning their engagement and Sue learning about her unborn child's developmental disorder, a storyline about two brothers who don't get along so well seems the wrong one for focus.

And while the duet of Gotye's "Somebody That I Used To Know" was admittedly pretty good (I hate that they did it, but it was inevitable and at least it was Criss who performed it), the situation between these two doesn't quite support the emotion of the song. There just isn't enough of a problem. The stakes were never very high.

Then again, it's rare that they are on this show. That's kinda their thing. And in a way it works, because at its heart, this show is a satire about high school, arts programs, and the general drama involved. Speaking of which, I sincerely hope the auditorium doesn't really have a wall of TV monitors now, or else Schuester never, ever gets to complain about funding ever again. Ever.

This Week's Numbers:

"I'm Still Standing" - Elton John - Artie and Quinn

"Hungry Like the Wolf"/"Rio" - Duran Duran - Blaine and Cooper

"Fighter" - Christina Aguilera - Blaine

"Up, Up, Up" - Givers - Quinn, Artie, New Directions

"Somebody That I Used To Know" - Gotye - Blaine and Cooper

Sue's Line of the Week: "Ladies and gays..."