'Glee' Season 3, Episode 19 Recap & Song List - 'Prom-asaurus'

There is a lot of talk in this year's prom episode about how far everyone, particularly Rachel, has come during their high school careers. That got me thinking about these characters, and what has changed from last season to this one, and I think I stumbled upon another reason why the first season was better than the following two.

In this episode, Quinn aims to take her spot as prom queen, and for some reason she and Santana are put in charge of tallying up the votes (that doesn't seem fair, does it?). When Quinn realizes that she won, she marvels, "It's everything I've ever wanted, and I don't feel a thing." Yeah. That's because it's prom, and you're in a wheelchair, and prom is a little less important when you're worrying about whether you can walk again.

The point is this: "Glee" used to be a show about high school, and it was loaded with irony, fueled by the idea that everything is incredibly important to these kids, when all of it is pretty inconsequential. Nationals? Not really important, in the long run. Prom? Definitely not. Your high school sweetheart? You're probably not going to marry them (unless you're Rachel and Finn).

But when you start throwing in college, marriage, nearly fatal car accidents, and preaching every other episode about grand themes like gay rights, bullying, and even suicide, those inconsequential matters like who is going to be prom queen actually become inconsequential, as opposed to being the most important thing in the world to our characters. And that's just not as fun. It's more educational, yes, but not as fun.

Anyway. I digress. Here's what happened:

Brittany has done almost nothing as senior class president, so she throws together a prom theme in the eleventh hour, and it's dinosaurs. It turns out surprisingly well, too. She does, however, ban Blaine from wearing hair gel, because she just generally doesn't like how he looks. So, Blaine is now anti-prom.

Rachel follows suit, because Finn and Quinn start campaigning together. This year's nominations have Finn, Rick "The Stick" Nelson and Brittany up for prom king, while Santana, Quinn and Missy Gunderson are up for prom queen, and Quinn and Finn decide to try to get a leg up on the competition by teaming up. Rachel flies off the handle about it, since the jealousy of Quinn is still there. She recovers, eventually.

Quinn, meanwhile, is getting much closer to walking, and I'm not sure how I feel about it. This show's treatment of Artie's paralysis hasn't always been realistic or kind, and for Quinn to be walking already is even less realistic. It's been what, a month? Two?

Anyway, she wants to make a big show out of it and walk up to accept her crown at prom, but Finn discovers her standing up and flips out about it, especially since she was exploiting her paralysis for votes just earlier. He recovers, eventually.

Becky is upset about missing out on being nominated as well, and she ends up having an "anti-prom party" with Rachel, Puck, Blaine and Kurt in a hotel room, which ends up totally sucking. When Finn shows up and herds them back to the dance, Puck and Becky remain behind, play some strip poker, and have a heart-to-heart. Puck ends up being nice guy of the year, giving Becky her own anti-prom queen crown (made out of a beer box) and escorting her to prom. Her inner monologue is happy.

Blaine shows up to prom and Brittany gives him crap, so he returns, reluctantly, with no hair gel in. For those who have never seen Darren Criss outside of this show, that's much closer to what he usually looks like. Kurt semi-approves.

Quinn and Santana tally the votes, as previously mentioned, and Quinn learns that she won. But, having just received a Rachel Berry speech, she decides to cheat and name Rachel a write-in winner. That's nice and all since she gets to dance with Finn and he says nice things to her, but what about Missy Gunderson? She seemed nice. What if she was in second place?

Since there was so much Brittany tonight, we learned a few things: she thinks all brown-haired, vaguely Jewish-looking girls are Rachel, and she thinks Joe is a girl. Sue gets the line of the night, though, referring to Joe as "Jar Jar Binks." Nice.

This Week's Numbers:

"Big Girls Don't Cry" - Fergie - Rachel

"Dinosaur" - Ke$ha - Brittany

"Love You Like a Love Song" - Selena Gomez - Santana

"What Makes You Beautiful - One Direction - Joe, Sam, Artie, Rory, Mike

"Take My Breath Away" - Berlin - Quinn and Santana