‘Glee’ season 5 song spoilers: Blake Jenner, Melissa Benoist help lead Beatles classic

The challenge that comes with creating Thursday’s “Glee” tribute “Tina in the Sky with Diamonds” is that the songs of the second half of the Beatles’ catalog are so unique and so out there that it is almost impossible to fully replicate them. Take, for example, the performance of “Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band” below. This is one of the band’s more iconic songs from what is basically a concept album. How can you really cover that and make it into something that is completely your own. The simple answer to that is that you cannot.

This is why we are basically left with a performance like the one that we have below. Blake Jenner (Ryder) and Jacob Artist (Jake) anchor the early portion of it, while Alex Newell (Unique) and Melissa Benoist (Marley) take on the later portion of the song. It’s basically a straight cover of the song, and while everyone puts forth their best effort, it is one of the odder covers of the entire episode in the end. Not only is this a hard song to perform, but it is a hard song to connect to anything thematically.

The stories for these four in the new season have yet to even be touched on. Therefore, it’s not really clear how Unique and Ryder are doing following the catfishing fiasco, and if Jake and Marley are still going strong with their at-times complicated relationship. Given that these four actors all earned themselves promotions to series regulars over the past year, there is a hope for them to have greater stories. We just don’t know if it is coming, given that it is already known that the focus seems to be shifting more and more to New York City.

Like this performance? Then check out a few others below.

1. Lea Michele (Rachel) and Chris Colfer (Kurt) tackling “Get Back.”

2. Darren Criss (Blaine) and Chord Overstreet (Sam) anchoring “Hey Jude.”

Photo: Fox