Welcome to the fifth episode of the fifth season of Glee, a dramatic television show about fourteen girls competing viscously and erotically for the title of America’s Next Top Model while stealing granola bars, lighting their heads on fire and looking at their assholes in the mirror. This week, everybody sang songs about darkness and put their butts in each other’s faces.

“The End of Twerk,” like so many Glee episodes, was tonally uneven, emotionally off-kilter and pushed all the wrong envelopes. Also, William Schuster deserves to spend the rest of his life in the rubber room. I’d like to quote Autostraddle Contributing Editor Mey who pointed out on her tumblr, “Tonight’s Glee was so patently offensive I could barely believe it.” Yup.

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We open in Lima, Ohio, at McKinley High School, an institution for children suffering emotional trauma after riding The Beast at King’s Island. Blaine Warbler’s alone in an empty classroom, hopping about like a sugar-high toddler doing lunges with a ferret in his pants.

Tina, Blaine’s #1 Space Invader, is filming her gay with a mobile device, and thus we zoom in to said mobile device and then zoom out to see all of the Glee Club watching Blaine’s bootyliciousness and having a laugh.

Sir William, Worst Teacher In The Entire World, feels inspired by Blaine’s melodious keister and launches into an irrational monologue about how the Glee Clubs’ collective reaction to Blaine’s Booty Ball is evidence that Blaine’s Booty Ball is onto something, and he’s not talking about Kurt’s you-know-what.

Sir William: “That’s the kind of reaction we need from the judges if we’re gonna one-up Throat Explosion at Nationals. We need to edge up our “America’s sweetheart” image a bit. Show the judges that we’re not afraid to rebel.”

Ah yes, and what better way to “rebel” than to follow in the problematic footsteps of Miley Cyrus! Marley-Kate says she’s not confident she can twerk, but Sir William promises, “have no fear, your twerk-torial is here.” At which point I’m absolutely petrified, as well as confident that this twerktorial will never be as good as Kaylah’s Twerkshop (CONFIRMED: Kaylah herself has declared the upcoming twerktorial “terrible.”)

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Cut to the Auditorium, where New Puck and Fake Quinn are delivering aforementioned twerktorial, which opens with New Puck’s assertion that although twerking began in “the Atlanta club scene,” it’s now “global.” Like warming!

Fake Quinn pops her nubile ass to Artie’s delight and Sam declares twerking “White Chocolate’s signature move,” because of course it is. Sir William complements Unique for being a twerking “natural,” to which she declares:

Unique: “I been twerking in my bedroom since I was six to Miss Beyonce.”

You guys, when I was six… Beyonce was also six.

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We then slap on some earmuffs, furl a scratchy striped scarf around our vampire-ravaged necks, build a sled out of an abandoned coffee table and a stop sign, and scooch our way over to New York, New York, land of Carrie Bradshaw’s exes, where Rachel’s getting her haircut, probably at DRAMATICS NYC.

Rachel says she wants something brand-new and different. Like this, probs:

But before we’re gifted with a sneak-peek of her undercut, we cut immediately to Broadway Rehearsal, where Mike Dexter and Paolo Who Won a Tony are hanging out on a chaise lounge.

Rachel removes her snowcap to reveal a brand-new bob, and both men are aghast ’cause haircuts and lipstick and vagazzles et al must be run by Mike Dexter first.

Rachel’s like, look, my boyfriend literally just inexplicably dropped dead and besides everybody knows Broadway shows are the #1 employer of wig professionals so maybe we can all just move the fuck on. Thus Rachel and Paolo Who Won a Tony launch into “I Am Woman, You Are Man,” just in case anybody was confused, re: gender identities of Rachel and Paolo Who Won A Tony.

Mike Dexter is so awestruck by her performance that he declares undying love for her special haircut.

http://youtu.be/cJ5SQcpiXGc

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We then buy our Mom’s old minivan with no middle seat and janky air conditioning, fill ‘er up with overpriced gasoline, and emit fossil fuels into our hearts and souls all the way across Pennsylvania until at last reaching Lima, Ohio, where Unique’s overdosed on Diet Coke and requires a mid-class bathroom pass.

Alas, Unique’s plan to sneak unseen into the little girls’s room is foiled by New Santana, who’s in there taste-testing lip gloss and chatting with the mirror about her plot to kill Snow White.

New Santana: Stop right there, voice of Elmo. Do you honestly expect me to believe you stumbled in here by accident?
Unique: Please don’t tell anyone. I’m afraid to use the boy’s bathroom. I can’t. I just don’t feel comfortable in there. I make sure to only come here during class so nobody finds out or gets upset.

New Santana assures Unique that her secret’s safe with her, which it obviously isn’t, as we’re then transitioned into what Unique’s voiceover describes as the “Great McKinley Bathroom Gender Riot of 2013.” Said gender riot entails the following: New Santana discovers the boys’ room is a hot spot for riding the hobby horse with New Puck undetected.

Stoner Bret discovers the girls’ room smells better and allegedly has heated seats (You know who actually does have heated toilet seats? Google.) (AND THEY’RE AMAZING).

Then, the girls, who must’ve spent their entire lives until this very moment with their heads buried in quicksand, “realize that boys never had to wait in line” and began using the boy’s room for their lady business.

Then ALL HELL BREAKS LOOSE and the bathrooms become crazy rave dance clubs, which is EXACTLY what Bill O’Reilly said would happen if you let trans* kids in the bathroom.

What does any of this have to do with anything? Nothing. What does this have to do with the legal battle ravaging our country at present regarding whether or not trans* folks can use the g*ddamn bathroom? Nothing!

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We then hop into one of those thingamajigs they used to send Moses down the river and float on back to New York, New York, where Rachel arrives home at the Bushwick Barbie Dreamhouse Loft to find Kurt’s shocked out of his soft socks that Rachel chopped her luxurious mane of Jewish hair into a little bob of Jewish hair. Then she whips off the wig and reveals it was all just playtime, so I guess she was just at the hair salon to visit Shane.

Rachel tells Kurt that he’s become super-boring ’cause all he does is drink smoothies, watch television and skype with Blaine, but not even sexy skyping, just the regular kind of skyping.

Rachel: Do you remember in high school how everything felt so urgent? Like if we didn’t just go for it we’d lose our chance forever?
Kurt: Yes it was very stressful.
Rachel: I want to feel that way again.

She’ll feel it again soon enough — the part of your twenties that comes right after college feels like that, too, I think, because you’re all grabbing for something again, like how in high school you were grabbing for the best college or otherwise impressive post-secondary-school plan and it’s the synchronicity – how so many people you know are reaching for the same thing at the same time. It’s a panic, really, which is motivational if you’re confident, and paralyzing if you’re not. Which is when you learn so much in life comes down to confidence. Which is petrifying.

Kurt caves and agrees to do something wild and crazy, like drink a bottle of Limoncello, which btw was once how we identified Rock Bottom, as in, “we are so out of alcohol that I’m just gonna drink this fucking limoncello until I die.”

I could stay here, just to hear them breathing, and never return to Lima. Look I know I’m biased — as I’ve likely mentioned in past recaps, when I was Rachel’s age, I was living in an overpriced two-bedroom in New York City with my gay best friend (an actor) and a girl I was pretty good friends with in high school (a musician) and all of us were reaching hard and fast for something, anything, that would make us feel “worth it” and special and talented as much as high school did, and so in so many ways this is my story and I can’t help but want to see more of it, and always. But COME ON REGARDLESS OF ALL THAT, THIS SHOW IS SO MUCH BETTER THAN THE LIMA SHOW. Next year; Unique, Tina, Artie and Blaine should move to New York and McKinley should vanish into the ether.

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We then pack ourselves a variety of meats and cheeses in a picnic basket, throw on our red hoodies and skip all the way back to Lima, Ohio, home of the Econo Lodge Lima, where Sue’s hosting a riveting segment of Sue’s corner.

Sue Sylvester: This nation faces a far more insidious foe: Miley Cyrus and the genital-flapping dance known as “twerking” that makes men and women alike look like overgrown, constipated toddlers. This vulgar sexually explicit excuse for a dance craze has brought American culture to a new low and that’s why tonight, Western Ohio, I solemnly pledge to end the pandemic of twerking once and for all. Not only will I outlaw twerking at McKinley High, but I have submitted a bill to the Ohio State Legislature  banning twerking in Ohio public schools. And Hannah Montana can go back to naked-straddling the three-ton wrecking ball she was clearly up-sold at Home Depot, as the tiny cinderblock room she’s elected to demolish is only about 12 square feet and already has a wall missing.

Honestly the relief I felt that she wouldn’t be discussing trans* kids going to the bathroom was so overwhelming I was unable to adequately analyze whatever else the fuck was happening here.

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Starsweep to the Glee Room, where the children are up in arms about the twerking ban.

Sir William’s especially incensed and spouts nonsense about lines in the sand and how Sue’s gonna hear them roar/twerk, and honestly he seems to care more about Sue’s ban on twerking than he has ever cared about anything, including Blaine being temporarily blinded by rock salt, Marley’s eating disorder, Ryder’s revelation about being a sexual abuse survivor, the rampant racism and transphobia consistently expressed by Fake Quinn, Finn outing Santana on national television, and Tina never getting a solo.

Sir William: Twerking is about blurring the lines between the past and the present, between men and women, between tradition and envelope-pushing. It’s all in that Alan Thicke song that I love.

Artie points out that the song’s by Robin Thicke, and that Sir William’s analysis is faulty, but Sir William already has a boner for his own idea and cannot control himself.

I know each episode exists in its own special time warp where we must disregard all past exposition, but you’ve got two sexual abuse survivors in your classroom and maybe should proceed with more sensitivity, Sir William. Or, you know, you could just keep on doing you, by which I mean, keep on being…

Sir William insists that if Sue wants to “draw lines in the sand” then they will “blur those lines” by ejaculating their bodies into the hallway in a totally pervy performance of “Blurred Lines” starring a grown man as a date rapist.

How could Blurred Lines get creepier? It could be sung by William Schuster, white straight cis male authority figure, flanked on both sides by nubile teenage maidens, gyrating teenage homosexuals and a simmering Miley Cyrus Sex Riot.

How ELSE could Blurred Lines get creepier? It could focus extensively upon the tension between Marley’s unwillingness to play hide the snake in the bush with New Puck and his aggressiveness in convincing her to change her mind about that and go all the way.

Beyond that, “Blurred Lines” needs no more help ascending Mount Creepyasfuck.

Watch the whole calamity for yourself:

http://youtu.be/QPCa5Kpe6Uk

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Starsweep to Prinicpal Sylvester’s office, where Sue offers some insight into the precise level of Sir William’s Worstness:

Sue: You do realize that Blurred Lines is a song about date rape, don’t you?
Sir William: (laughs) What? No it’s not.

HEY SHOW, having Sue call out problematic shit doesn’t make up for the fact that you still did some problematic shit and are gonna cash in via iTunes for doing so!

Sue: You need to back your ass up to the fact that you, a married 37-year-old, just performed a song about coercive sexual advances as nine minors twerked alongside you down the hallways of a public high school.
Sir William: It’s called the first amendment, Sue. This is about freedom of expression.

UGH THE FIRST AMENDMENT DOES NOT MEAN YOU CAN SAY OR DO WHATEVER YOU WANT WHEREVER YOU WANT WTHOUT GETTING IN TROUBLE. IT MEANS YOU CAN DO/SAY WHATEVER YOU WANT WITHOUT GETTING ARRESTED OR EXECUTED BY THE GOVERNMENT. JESUSFUCKINGCHRIST. ALSO PUBLIC SCHOOLS ARE BASTIONS OF CENSORSHIP, ARGUABLY THERE IS NO INSTITUTION MORE CLOSELY  REGULATED FOR CURTAILED SPEECH/EXPRESSION THAN THE AMERICAN PUBLIC SCHOOLS AND IT’S NOT AGAINST THE LAW, IT’S PART OF THE LAW.

IN OTHER WORDS:

Sue fires Will but Will rejects that news. Why? Because he is…

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We then time travel back to 1998, buy ourselves some killer rollerblades, time travel back to whatever godforsaken year or universe this godawful show takes place in, and speedrace each other all the way to a tattoo parlor in New York, New York, where Rachel and Kurt are chugging Limoncello out of the bottle. FYI, kiddos, before getting a tattoo you’ve gotta sign a thing that says you’re not drunk. But don’t worry they’ll never know the truth, unless you’re drinking LIMONCELLO OUT OF THE BOTTLE.

This exact thing happened to me once, where my Broadway actress best friend decided she wanted to get REAL CRAZY and by that I mean get me really drunk and take me to get a tattoo because you know, actresses aren’t supposed to get permanent body modifications until they’re certified famous.

Before we can see which Blaine fanart Kurt got tattooed on his buttcheek, we cut to the next morning, when Kurt awakens with a killer hangover and a botched tattoo — Kurt had requested “It Gets Better,” but instead got “It’s Get Better.”

Kurt: “It’s both personal and political just like me.”

Kurt talks a tad too enthusiastically about the prospect of running into Dan Savage in the steam room at David Barton and a tad too terrifyingly about the prospect of said radio star noticing Kurt’s typo’ed shoulder blade.

Rachel insists Kurt return to the tattoo parlor and right this wrong. The takeaway from this scene is that all the gayboys and boy-loving-ladies of the world got to see Chris Colfer with his shirt off and he did not disappoint.

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We then remove our clothing, coat our bodies in thick layers of cold cream, olive oil, and vegan lubricant, and rocket ourselves on slip-a-slides all the way back to Lima, Ohio, where Unique is using the boy’s bathroom because the world is terrible and nothing makes sense.

“Well, if it isn’t the “Q” in the LGBTQ-XYZ-who-gives-a-crap,” says Mean Boy #1, who obviously never watched Sesame Street ’cause then he’d know that Unique is a T.

Unique begs to do her “business” and let them go, but they want to know how she “does her business” and so they snatch her wig and flush it down the toilet. It’s awful. She huddles in the corner, devastated, starting to cry, and then she softly starts into “If I Were A Boy,” and it’s actually perfect. We transition into the Glee Room where everybody listens with wet eyes and clutching emotional hands and I cried through the whole fucking thing.

http://youtu.be/UPF6JUsB1r4

Sam and Ryder and New Puck wanna know whose doucheface they can punch in this afternoon, but Unique insists the bullying will just get worse if they retaliate, an assertion patently proved false in Season Two when the boys retaliating against Kurt’s bullies finally got them to cut it the fuck out.

Sir William, of course, says that’s a terrible idea, but Sir William is an idiot, so. Instead they’ll do something else that is also worse, I’m sure.

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Cut to the School Board meeting, headed up by Ted Beneke, where Sir William’s forced to make a case for twerking, because this show is complete nonsense.

Sir William then narrates a Tomorrowland-esque Voyage into the History of American Dance, as demonstrated by his animatronic band of hormonal idiots.

All these demonstrated dances have one thing in common, says Sir William: they seemed scandalous at the time but now seem innocent and quaint. Actually what all those dances have in common is that the white Americans “scandalized” by said dances didn’t even create them in the first place but had no problem taking credit for it: the Twist traces back to West Africa, the Charleston originated in Harlem, Elvis got all his musical influences from gospel and rhythm & blues, Chubby Checker invented The Pony, and the Lambada is from Brazil. AMERICAN! HISTORY! Oh the waltz though. Totally on us.

I want this entire show to catch on fire so I can throw its ashes down our bathroom sink drain. Much like the Drano already taking up space in said sink drain, this show is full of empty promises. “Do you want to be on the right side of musical history?” Sir William asks. If “the right side” is his side, I’m gonna have to go with…

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Unique has requested a gender-neutral bathroom, and Sue’s responded by installing The Riddlers’ personal port-o-potty in the Glee Room, which Tina is really enjoying and everybody else hates. Including me.

Once again I’ll quote Mey’s tumblr: “Seriously, couldn’t the episode have been about the Glee Club fighting for Uniques’ right to use the women’s bathroom instead of having to use a unisex one? And were we not supposed to be ridiculously offended when the “special” bathroom designed for Unique had question marks all over it? It’s pretty obvious that was a joke where the punchline is that they aren’t acknowledging her gender.”

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Back in New York, Kurt charges into the tattoo parlor with his self-righteous indignation and instead of bitch-slapping him on both cheeks with a cheeseburger, the tattoo artist shows Kurt the design Kurt provided him with, proving that it was Kurt’s typo, not that guy’s, that resulted in his grammatically confusing tattoo in this terrible font.

The tattoo artist says Kurt doesn’t seem like the tattooing type, but Kurt explains that his path has been different and exciting but not really and now he wants to take a streetcar towards desire or something.  Tattoo artist says when you go off-road, crazy things happen, like when he got a tattoo of the host of That’s Incredible! on his chest in Hong Kong and turned it into a demon. He volunteers to fix Kurt’s tattoo and throw in a free tongue piercing, which’ll be great for rimming and terrible for acting and singing.

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We then ski all the way to Hunter Mountain in upstate New York, change into our sneakers, and enter a magical wardrobe which ejects us directly into the hallowed hallways of McKinley High, where New Santana’s guffawing over a Vine of Marley being a bad dancer and subsequently offering to gift Marley with a Twerktorial of her own. Oh and also:

New Santana: “After your pathetic night of don’t touch me there I mean it, Jake, he came running to me. And we twerked all night long.”

Marley-Kate is like nah New Puck would totes never do that, not with “trash” like you, and then New Santana is like:

New Santana: That is slut-shaming. You are using the derogatory label “trash” for a female’s natural sensuality. It’s femiphobic, neoretrogenderist and a clear form of sexual bullying.

HAHAHA FEMINISM HAHAHA LOL HAHAHAA LOL and then New Santana says something gross about a mole on New Puck’s hip and how they banged all night long like wild bunny rabbits.

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Marley-Kate confronts New Puck and she’s crying a lot and he’s just like, whoops.

Then “Wrecking Ball” happens and admittedly I’ve never seen the original, but this one manages to be both really sad and sort of like a weird ABC Family promo / commercial for adult diapers.

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Cut to the Glee Room, where Unique’s gotta pee, and I feel really weird that everybody’s gotta talk about Unique’s urinary tract and bowel movements all the time when they should be talking about how that g-dawful piece of fabric ended up becoming a shirt and then becoming a costume on this show.

Sir William The Cisgender Savior Industrial Complex takes Unique through the hallway blabbering about some nonsense I can’t listen to because I hate him, and Sir William says any time Unique needs to pee, she just needs to find him and he’ll let her into the faculty bathroom, because that’s a totally efficient and not a remotely infantilizing solution to a problem with a much more obvious solution: let the woman use the woman’s bathroom and ensure that space remains safe for her.

Unique’s really grateful to Sir William for everything which makes me want to die because he’s awful and he never stands up for her, ever, and the only ally cookie he deserves is a Fig Newton that’s been soaked in hot dog water for five hours.

Sir William: “No one needs to know how you identify yourself, they just need to know you washed your hands after.”

SHE IS A GROWN ASS WOMAN WILLIAM STOP TALKING TO HER LIKE A FUCKING TODDLER.

Sue spies Sir William’s self-serving gesture from her vantage point as the all-knowing all-seeing sorceress of the universe and tells Sir William she’ll give Unique a key to the bathroom if William gives up twerking.

Also, Sue continues using male pronouns for Unique and Sir William never corrects her, not ever, and I used to think “well, being a racist homophobic transphobic dicknail is just her character,” but as a girl who has now played about 75,000 games of Quiz Up Glee Trivia (insomnia is a bitch) and reported at least 75 trivia questions that referred to Unique as “Wade” using male pronouns to The Powers That Be, I can say that in this case Sue’s continuous usage of male pronouns has become a condoned behavior that is really dangerous to promote in a world where kids are never, ever, not ever, taught or told anything about transgender people anywhere besides this show. Especially since aside from her treatment of Unique, Sue’s been the only one calling out sketchy shit this season.

William refuses to take the deal, because he’s a heartless douchebag.

Sue: Oh for God’s sake, William, that’s your red line? Of all the things in the world to be outraged about.

Sir William: This isn’t about twerking. This about standing up to sue sylvester and her inane out of touch meddling. It’s about standing up against your repeated attempts to suppress the glee club and what we’re trying to say. When a law is unjust, it’s your duty as an American to disobey. It’s called civil disobedience.

Then Sir William rages out of the office, Sue-style, which’d be funnier if I didn’t want to smash a xylophone over his head for just picking booty-popping over Unique’s safety and happiness, or that such a choice even exists in the world of this show.

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We then crabwalk backwards in sweatsuits to the Barbie Dreamhouse Bushwick Loft in New York, New York, where Kurt’s returned from a fencing match in Idaho with his tongue pierced!

Also, the tattoo artist “fixed” his tattoo to say “It’s Got Bette Midler,” so now it’s REALLY the worst tattoo ever.

Kurt notes that “ever since Finn died, I’ve been going about my business, but I’ve also kind of been in a trance and I guess I just needed to be shocked back to life.” Kurt departs to have skype-sex with Blaine and Rachel tiptoes into the bathroom to reveal to the camera that she got tatted up, too:

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Back at McKinley, Sir William finally figures out how to get rid of his bad ideas by erasing them from the board. Just kidding, Sir William did some Serious Soul Searching and ultimately decided that Unique’s safety was more important than extras rubbing their asscheeks against his thigh in the hallway.

Unique steps forward to give Sir William a metaphorical pat on the back for doing the absolute minimum required to be a good person, and then everybody admits that twerking wasn’t really their style anyhow. Their style is more like “wearing patterns and stripes” and “caftans.” We then transition into a song Sir William ensures is “more their style.” It’s a recent pop song I’ve never heard before so that description seems accurate.

All these kids are one spin away from a Vomit Party, but Sir William is loving it.

Check it:

http://youtu.be/l-BmA-opyn8

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Next week on Glee, I’ll be watching Catching Fire instead of Glee! But you can look forward to this:

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