‘Glee’ season 5, episode 16 review: Artie, Kurt and Blaine face issues in ‘Tested’

Tuesday night’s “Glee” was all about tests … or, at least being tested. For Artie Abrams, that meant having to deal with the revelation that he may have spread an STD around to some of his partners. Apparently, he had three of them at film school … and somehow, Kitty has completely vanished from the equation. They were actually a good couple!

We’re not going to pretend like this story was really all that interesting, though. Mostly, it was pure fluff, and did very little to push the story ahead to what is the big “Opening Night” for Rachel Berry next week. Artie admitted the truth about what he had, was labeled a “creeper” by the girl he really liked, and had to figure out where to go from there.

Almost all of this episode was about relationship insecurity in some way, in between Artie’s fears and Blaine’s worries that Kurt was moving too fast in life and someday wouldn’t have time for him. Also, Sam had to come to terms with the fact that Mercedes wasn’t ready yet to lose her virginity with him, and this led to the ol’ “throw lots of candles in there” scene that never happens in real life.

The two best moments of the entire hour were watching the very-real moment as Blaine admitted to being insecure, and that small monologue of Rachel’s near the end that explained that weird thing with Sam earlier this season, and that she is not looking to hook up with anyone in the future. Her life has changed, and as much grief as we give “Glee,” they are handling Lea Michele given what she’s been through beautifully.

Overall, this was a silly episode of mostly filler, but better than we thought it would be going into it. Grade: B-.

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Photo: Fox