Merry Glee-mas, everyone! It’s that time of the year again: a time for an episode of Glee that has absolutely no bearing on the overarching plot of the series whatsoever but is crammed to the gills with carols, presents, and messages of love and joy. This year’s Christmas episode featured homages to two classic holiday films and a couple surprise returns (and thankfully no awkward Star Wars references, cringeworthy homeless shelter sequences, or magical robot legs)!
As you can probably tell by the title (‘Glee, Actually’), the episode’s storytelling mode was lifted from the recent Christmas classic ‘Love, Actually.’ Ergo, we received five disparate story lines over the course of the hour that all concluded with a sweet montage spanning several locations. First up is…
Storyline #1: Artie Abrams!
When we first saw Artie, he was having a pretty rough day. The janitor had forgotten to salt the handicap ramp, causing Artie to take quite a tumble. He then had to lie bleeding in the snow until a freshman girl found him. Finn takes him to the nurse’s office, where Artie lies down and, in a sequence inspired by that indelible classic ‘It’s A Wonderful Life,’ imagines what his life would have been like if he had never been in a wheelchair. Not great, as it turns out.
In this alternate universe Artie can walk, Tina still stutters, and Becky’s the school slut. Oh, and Rory is Artie’s Guardian Angel. Yep…RORY’s back! (Despite the fact that I haven’t missed his presence in the club one little bit this season, it was still nice to see his adorable Irish mug again.) Somehow, in this parallel dimension, Finn and Puck are still in school at the same time as Ryder and Jake. It doesn’t make much sense, but it’s Glee, so we’ll just go with it. He comes across the those four dudes in letter jackets pushing Kurt against a locker. Artie rescues Kurt but earns the wrath of the now-mean ex-glee-clubber jocks. Artie asks Kurt where Blaine is and Kurt’s response rocks the Glee world: “Who’s Blaine?” Break out your moustaches, Gleeks. This is truly the darkest timeline.
Next: Death Of A Glee Clubber
