‘Glee’ season 4, episode 7 review: From Eli C. to Slaine to Jarley

When we first heard about the idea of “Glee” doing some sort of bizarre superhero tribute for their Thanksgiving episode “Dynamic Duets,” we though that it was in a word ridiculous. After watching it play out in its entirely, it is fair to say that we agree with this assertion completely. However, it was the fun sort of ridiculous rather than something that we absolutely wanted to roll our eyes at.

The bad news? There was no New York City in this episode, though the good news is that the Big Apple did continue to play a major role as we saw Blaine struggle to get over what happened with Kurt, and even consider briefly taking off to Dalton Academy to erase all of the memories of his broken relationship. We got a glimpse of the mysterious “Eli C.” that he cheated on Kurt with, but it was only via a blur and a voice; this character ultimately did not matter so much as the action itself, and Blaine was in need of a hero of his own despite him spending most of the episode in the costume he designed for his superhero club.

Thanks to Sam, Blaine has opted to stay at McKinley, and he may also now have a new friend to go along with it. This was not the only surprising duo who shared time this week, as even Jake and Ryder managed to start getting along despite each one of them having feelings for Marley. At first, they just wanted to punch each other in the face; but by the end, the two were actually getting along, and revealed some insecurities about each other. Ryder realized that he is dyslexic and incapable of learning at the same pace as other people; meanwhile, Jake never feels comfortable as a biracial, half-Jewish kid in a school that loves labels. What was interesting here was that as a result of Ryder backing out of a date thanks to having to study, Marley made a pretty shocking decision: going out with Jake instead. With that move, Marley may have just made her first polarizing decision since debuting on the show earlier this year.

As for some other news, Finn finally started to realize that he has a place as the temporary teacher to New Directions, and it does seem now that the group is going to be okay for Regionals. Let’s just hope that it lasts.

Overall, this was a pretty entertaining “Glee” episode despite some of its flaws, including why Marley would ever trust someone like Kitty to begin with considering how nasty she has been to her over the past year.