Glee 5.02 "Tina in the Sky With Diamonds" Review: Prom is Never Pretty

This week’s episode of Glee, “Tina In The Sky With Diamonds”, continued the two week salute to the Beatles. There were some good, solid numbers, but only one real standout. The episode centered around Rachel (Lea Michele) dealing with not getting – or at least thinking she hadn’t gotten – Funny Girl, and Tina finally getting to be Prom Queen. The episode was written and directed by Ian Brennan.

    First, what I liked about the episode. I really liked the addition of Demi Lovato as Dani, Santana’s (Naya Rivera) new love interest. She did a credible acting job and the duet of “Here Comes the Sun” while they watched the sun rise was easily the best number of the episode for me. I like that they’ve introduced this new and much more mature relationship for Santana.

    Meanwhile, Rachel is angsting over not getting Funny Girl. It was nice to see Kurt (Chris Colfer) return to being the dose of reality that Rachel needed to get over her feelings of rejection. It did feel a little forced to now have Kurt working at the diner, but considering the concept of the diner is singing wait staff at least this gives them lots of reasons to break into song. I am really disappointed that we won’t see any more of his internship and Sarah Jessica Parker though. I really enjoyed Peter Facinelli’s scene and how he told Rachel she had the part by ordering a cake for her.

    The show has done a good job of setting up the storylines in New York to showcase the plight of young actors, and I hope this will be a theme this season. I hope that they will bring some seriousness to the storyline as well. There is a nice – though very under-played – sting in the tail to Santana’s quick success. Her commercial is not for a glamorous product and because she doesn’t have an agent to help her, she gets essentially cheated out of any residuals for her work. It does feel like Rachel’s success has come much too easily, so I wonder how long it will be before it goes very wrong. I wonder too if she will be able to stay enrolled at NYADA? I would think not. And with Rachel and Santana's careers taking off, I worry that Kurt is left to be the unsuccessful one.

    Meanwhile, back at McKinley, it’s the Junior-Senior Prom and this storyline just feels very stale. Tina (Jenna Ushkowitz) is obsessed with being Queen at all costs and then gets punished a la Carrie. This results in her realizing that she needs her friends and Bree (Erinn Westbrook), the cheerio responsible for the prank, being promoted to head cheerio and appointed by Principal Sylvester (Jane Lynch) to become the Glee club’s nemesis to provide them with proper motivation to win. The rendition of “Hey Jude” while the friends all clean Tina up was good, but I was really disappointed that Tina’s “Revolution” only got a few bars. Hopefully, we’ll see some vintage Tina soon – the upbeat Tina who isn’t obsessed over being popular or over the wrong guy. I just wasn't that interested in Sam's (Chord Overstreet) obsession with nurse Penny (Phoebe Strole). The McKinley storyline is also continuing to redeem Kitty (Becca Tobin) as she tries to help Tina win and then gives Tina her prom dress when Tina’s is ruined. I’m anticipating a major conflict between Kitty and Bree in the near future.

    Over all, this was just an ok episode for me. Once again, I didn’t feel like they did a lot to capitalize on the Beatles song catalog. The songs were good, but only “Here Comes the Sun” was a stand out for me and that was more because it was a good rendition and felt right with the story than that there was a significant interpretation of the material. What did you think of this week’s episode? Favorite song? Anybody else starting to be more interested in the New York storyline rather than the Lima one? Next week’s episode is the tribute to Cory Monteith. Just a heads up that my review next week will likely be up a bit later than usual. I’m anticipating that we may all need a few days to regroup...