Did anyone else find the Glee finale faintly disturbing last night? I've been wondering all season what Fox is up to with this show. A sweet gay character with a great coming-out to his dad, a nice and three-dimensional kid in a wheelchair, a JAP who is actually funny, the fabulously diabolical and mannish Sue Sylvester, and the general multi-culti vibe—on Fox? But maybe this was all a set up to lure us to the finale, in which our heroes, the still mostly white, middle-class McKinley High Glee club triumphs over teams of deaf kids and poor black girls ... who cheated and who get their comeuppance. Meanwhile, gay Kurt is sidelined and even Sue seemed merely mean instead of hilarious. Am I being too sensitive, or were we set up?

Tags: Glee

Emily, I love when you get conspiratorial. Here are my couple of problems with your theory. If Fox did screw us in the end, they also turned the joke on themselves. The judges making the decision were parodies of Fox types—a slick, dumb anchorman and an even dumber beauty queen. Also, the ultimate end was no confirmation of heartwarming Fox family values. Neither of the two marriages is saved. Will looks into his wife's eyes and sees ... nothing, and then runs into the arms of Emma. I love watching Glee, but I recognize that most of the time it's completely incoherent, and I think that's true of its politics too. So no conspiracy here, I'd say.

Tags: Glee and Fox, Glee finale, Glee racist

Emily, I'm with Hanna: I don’t think we were set up by the Glee finale. I think the feeling of having the rug pulled out, of discovering weird values accidentally sprinkled through otherwise well-meaning material like so much mouse poop in your Frosted Flakes, of having camp go right and also so, so wrong, is the price of doing business with Glee’s creator, Ryan Murphy. The man who made Nip/Tuck and Popular has a surprising, hilarious, big-hearted, yet scathing, go-there sensibility that is as entertaining as it is inconsistent. No one misses the mark quite like Murphy, but then that’s because most writers wouldn’t try to hit a mark that involved a show choir of deaf kids or a cheerleader with Down syndrome if it was on their foreheads.

In this particular instance, I think the storyline was a little bit lazy but dictated by the necessities of plot. McKinley had to win so they could go on to regionals; Sue has to be angrier than ever to drive the second half of the season; most importantly, the glee club had to perform songs we had never seen them perform before. There was probably a better solution, but this is the sort of outlandish and unnecessary misstep Murphy makes all of the time.

Also, based on your discussion of why you like the show—“A sweet gay character with a great coming-out to his dad, a nice and three-dimensional kid in a wheelchair, a JAP who is actually funny, the fabulously diabolical and mannish Sue Sylvester, and the general multi-culti vibe—on Fox?”—I fear you may have more disappointment in store for you: I think the Glee universe is fundamentally politically incorrect. It has well-developed characters of all colors, but cruelty and a dedication to flouting political correctness (as demonstrated in Sue’s Down syndrome storyline) will always play as much a part as the singing. The show is clear-eyed enough to show us the greatness, sweetness, and humor lurking in the most overachieving, out-of-place, weird, and normal high-schoolers, but that same clear-eyed approach is the same one that won’t shy away from portraying a group of deaf kids and underprivileged black girls as cheaters. Who says they can’t be?

Tags: Glee