Now That's What I Call Glee: Volume Two
The second season of Glee wrapped up last night, and it felt like the right time to do what I did at the end of season one — rank the best musical numbers. Because whatever you think of the show's plotting (and I think quite a lot of it, little of it flattering), the music remains the thing that keeps us coming back.
This season gave us 25 outstanding performances worth celebrating. Some were big production numbers, some were intimate character moments, and a few were the kind of thing that made you forget you were watching a show about a high school glee club in Ohio and not a Broadway stage.
What struck me about season two's music is how much more ambitious it got. The mash-ups were more creative, the song choices braver, and the emotional range wider. We went from Fleetwood Mac to Broadway to original songs, and most of it actually worked.
I've been tough on this show — the way it handles race is often cringe-worthy, its treatment of disability is patronizing at best, and Ryan Murphy seems constitutionally incapable of maintaining a coherent character arc for more than three episodes. But when Lea Michele opens her mouth and sings, or when Chris Colfer breaks your heart with a ballad, or when Naya Rivera channels something raw and real through a pop song — that's when Glee earns its existence.
The full ranking runs from 25 down to number 1, with YouTube links so you can relive each moment. Some of these made me laugh, some made me cry, and one or two made me actually stand up and applaud in my living room like a lunatic. Your mileage may vary, but these are the performances that made season two worthwhile despite everything the writers did to test our patience.
Season two proved that Glee works best when it trusts its performers and gets out of their way. The worst episodes were the ones weighed down by contrived plot mechanics. The best moments were the ones where a song said everything a script couldn't.