‘Glee’ season 5, episode 1 preview: Lea Michele plays Rachel’s big callback

Have you been waiting anxiously to see the big callback audition for “Funny Girl” on “Glee“? While you have seen Rachel Berry perform “Don’t Stop Believin'” as a part of her initial audition for the musical, she is going to be taking things up a notch during the “Love, Love, Love” premiere Thursday night, in an effort to try and impress the producers and land what is the role of her dreams.

During this scene below (first posted by Entertainment Weekly), we have to say first of all that Rachel comes across, unlike some parts of last season, as very likable. She performs the scene with conviction, briefly questions the casting agent / producer / whomever he is after the reading, and then gives her scene partner (who is basically a brunette version of Simon Baker) a compliment regarding how many times she has seen his show. It’s a nice reminder of the Rachel that we first met in the pilot episode, who was ambitious and driven at times to the point of obsession.

As for if she gets the part, the temptation may be to say that she is in trouble given how little she was allowed to read; however, that may be par for the course, and they have called so many people back that they know that they want her for the next phase of the process. We expect this to at least take a little bit of time to figure out if she gets the part or not, and we’re pulling for her more than we thought we would be. We never were really rooting for Rachel to fail by any means, but it would be a happy story for Lea Michele to play; our initial fear months ago would just be that it would represent too much change for the character in a short period of time.

Of course, this isn’t the only important footage that we have to share from the “Glee” premiere; click here if you want to hear some of the music from the Beatles tribute and so much more.

Photo: Fox, video player via SpoilerTV