Glee-Cap: Ep. 10: Hot for Teacher

Mr. Schue has a new assignment for the Glee Club: pair off to sing a ballad while looking into your partner’s eyes. The kids pull names from a hat, but a student is absent, which means Mr. Schue steps in to even out the numbers. Suddenly, he finds himself singing a duet of “Endless Love” with a scarily intense Rachel. Cue the teenage crush in three… two… Uh-oh.

Yeah, Rachel’s got it bad for the Mr. Schue. She even gives him an especially ugly tie as a gift. This road is all too familiar to Will, who confides in the very interested Emma that he had a similar experience with a student named Suzy Pepper (played by Sarah Drew, whom you may recognize from her recent work on Grey’s Anatomy or from playing Sal’s wife on Mad Men). Suzy also fell hard for Will. When she finally realized that her love would not be reciprocated, she downed a super-hot pepper that burned her throat and landed her in the hospital. Ouch. Emma advises Will to explain his feelings to Rachel through song. Um, OK.

Meanwhile, preggers Quinn is still trying to keep her rapidly growing secret from her family. But when the zipper for her Chastity Ball (oh, irony!) gown is unforgiving to her recently expanded midsection, her Stepford-esque mom waves it away as a lack of exercise after leaving the Cheerios. How long can Quinn keep her situation hush-hush?

Finn and Kurt are partners in the ballad exercise and soon become close confidants. Kurt (who secretly wishes Finn would sweep him off his feet) tries to help his partner’s overwhelming emotions about Quinn’s pregnancy. Do you know what might make Finn feel better? That’s right: singing! (Are you sensing a pattern here?) Kurt urges Finn to sing his feelings to his (well, not his but what he thinks is his) unborn child. Hey, whatever works. Finn tries it, and it helps ease his pain… until his mom finds him serenading a video of an ultrasound. Oops. He opens up to her and reveals what’s been going on.

Mr. Schue has created a mash-up of “Don’t Stand So Close to Me” and “Young Girl” to explain to Rachel why her feelings for him are inappropriate. He brings along Emma for support. If you think Rachel gets the message, you are sadly mistaken. The only thing Will accomplishes is to inadvertently encourage swooning from both Emma and Rachel. Rachel’s takeaway? “It means I'm very young, and it's hard for you to stand close to me.'' Yikes.

How crazypants infatuated is she, you ask. After a long day at school, Will comes home to find Rachel in his house cooking dinner, bringing him a beer and cleaning his bathroom. Stalker much, Rach? Luckily, the next day Suzy Pepper, who has had a lot of psychotherapy—not to mention an esophagus transplant—confronts Rachel and tells her to wake up to the reality of the situation. Amazingly, Rachel does just that and ends up apologizing to Mr. Schue.

Things are not so tidy in Finn and Quinn’s lives. Finn is invited to the Fabray house for dinner, but when Quinn’s proud father goes on and on during a toast, Finn kind of loses his mind. He decides to—wait for it—sing his feelings to Quinn. The number of choice? “[You’re] Having My Baby.” Oy vey. The Fabrays get the message loud and clear and kick their daughter out of the house.

By the way, Puck is not happy at all with all the lovey-dovey devotion between Finn and Quinn and opens up to Mercedes that he’s actually the father of Quinn’s baby. She tells him that Quinn has made her choice and he should back off. Backing off is not Puck’s strongest suit, but he does… for now.

The finale of all of this sturm und drang is the Glee Club singing “Lean on Me” to Finn and Quinn. It’s all sunshine and rainbows for now, but then again, we were without Sue Sylvester in this episode.