It's part two of Glee's Beatles tribute and the New Directions are moving on to the Fab Four's experimental phase - while over in New York, former Disney star and X Factor judge Demi Lovato is doing some experimenting of her own as she makes her debut as Santana's new love interest.
After last week's pleasing, desperately upbeat episode - which, as we speculated, probably kept things light to the deal with the lingering sadness over Cory Monteith's death - 'Tina in the Sky with Diamonds' is a bit more of a mixed bag, both in terms of tone and quality.
As you may have guessed from the title, the episode focuses on Tina, who is nominated alongside Kitty and two random Cheerios for prom queen. Blaine and Artie are also nominated for prom king, but we're gonna tell you now that they don't win, so, don't worry yourself with that for a second longer.
See, there's no room for the boys' storyline to develop because this is one of those 'Tina Takes Charge' episodes that comes around once or twice a season to somehow justify the character's exclusion from the rest of the action until the finale. While we always love to see Tina's feisty side, these episodes are a bit old hat now.
While we're on the topic of nothing new being brought to the table, there's another bitchy cheerleader to get to know. This one's called Bree, and she's pissed that Kitty is campaigning for Tina to win prom queen and prevent a Cheerio from regaining the title.
Based off first impressions, Bree seems like a pretty useless addition to the show. The character is already old and tired before Erinn Westbrook's dispassionate delivery ups the bore factor. The kind of lines she spouts would have felt spunky and new when being hissed out by Quinn or Santana back in the old days, but now all we hear is just white noise with the occasional finger wag. If you've seen one Cheerio-heavy Glee episode, you can pretty much guess the dialogue.
Soon enough it's prom time, and after a few members of New Directions perform the first major miss of Glee's Beatles episode - a terrible pop version of 'Sgt. Peppers Lonley Hearts Club Band' - Tina is announced as prom queen. However, the happy moment is ruined when Bree convinces one of Tina's subordinates to dump a bucket of red slushy on her, Carrie style.
Tina is, of course, devastated beyond belief and Jenna Ushkowitz gives a highly emotional performance her that almost feels like a release of five seasons of frustration. But it all ends happily, with the girls from glee club cleaning her up, Kitty letting her wear her prom dress in a new development in her big redemption storyline and Tina confidently strutting back into the prom to the sound of 'Hey Jude'. As Tina finally gets her moment in the sun it's a real air-punching moment, made all the more significant by the proper gut-punch of her Carrie-ing that's made all the more upsetting thanks to its faithfulness to the film.
Rather than suspend Bree for the prank though, Sue urges her to become the glee club's new nemesis, arguing that they've never been as good as when she was trying to destroy them back in the early seasons. She's kind of hit the nail on the head of the whole show there.
Elsewhere at McKinley, Sam's got a new love interest in the form of a bumbling wannabe nurse named Penny charged with administering shots to the students. Trouty Mouth is pretty much instantly captivated by her and starts injuring herself as an excuse to see her.
4But after wasting too much time singing 'Something' rather than asking her out, Sam discovers that Penny is about to be fired for incompetence and gallantly takes a needle in the behind in order to convince Principal Sylvester to let her stay, which she thanks him for at the prom. Sweet stuff, but we can't help but feel that all Sam can ever really contribute to the show is being a lovesick puppy. It's been his thing for forever.
Santana's also got a new love interest in New York, a fellow waitress at the restaurant by the name of Dani (although really we should go ahead and call her Demi because it's JUST DEMI LOVATO). After fluttering eyelashes at each other across the place, the pair have a chance to do some bonding over ketchup, where Dani/Demi confirms: "I love lady parts". Sonny with a Chance there, kids!
Although this initially freaks Santana as she's never dated a full-on lesbian, only bisexual girls, she's soon won over by Demi's first Glee performance, a very pleasant, if not overly exciting, rendition of 'Here Comes The Sun'. It's a good debut for Demi - she's an accomplished performer with Glee-appropriate vocals and knows how to make the character edgy enough to be a suitable love interest for Santana, who's extremely cute as she's reduced to a giggling, loved-up schoolgirl.
Meanwhile, Rachel's in a funk after convincing herself that she's lost out on a part in Funny Girl and is even jealous of Santana's amazingly cheesy yeast medication commercial, which sees her skipping about in golden fields wearing pastel colours, laughing with fellow housewives from the suburbs and delivering lines like: "I like yeast in my bagel, but not in my muffin".
Worried that she has lost her mojo obsessing over the role, Kurt urges Rachel to 'Get Back' to her old self through a musical number that again we felt failed to capture that Beatles pizazz. It does the trick for Rachel though, because after adopting a PMA she finds herself serving Twilight's Peter Facinelli again, who informs her that she got the role.
Together with Kurt, Santana and Dani, they toast to her success over a rendition of 'Let It Be' matched by the glee club back in Ohio. And with that the curtain falls of an episode of Glee that's particularly comedic (Blaine and Artie's awkward reaction to Sam's overly-long Denzel impression, Rachel's delighted reaction to Santana's freak-out, "Vote for Tina, don't be racist") and self referential (The jokes about the lack of black Cheerios, the glee club's sudden disappearances and reappearances), but also a tad lazy and, given the act that they're channeling, rather dull musically.
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