‘Glee’ review: Introducing Ryder Lynn, and an hour without Rachel Berry

For those of you wanting more of McKinley High from “Glee” season 4, there was plenty of it present in Thursday night’s new episode. There was no Rachel, and barely even a mention of New York save for Blaine sniveling over Kurt as he continues to guilty himself into the world’s deepest depression.

The theme of the episode was really rather simple, as we started to see New Directions prepare for the start of their “Grease” musical. This meant auditions, callbacks, and finding a man who was at first a very reluctant director in Finn. Still depressed over the state of his life at the moment, he spent most of this hour doubting his abilities before Artie ended up on the right path … but now before he managed to offend and create a dangerous enemy in Sue Sylvester. Finn as the “new Will” is interesting, as it shows us a far different dimension to this character than what we have become accustomed to … he’s now a true leader having to make decisions for a whole group of students, and the most important move this week was casting a new Danny and a Sandy.

The candidates here were actually somewhat surprising, as newbie Ryder Lynn (Blake Jenner) was the frontrunner until Jake Puckerman decided to jump on board at the last minute in a show of jealousy over Ryder and Marley spending time together. Ultimately, Kitty ended up joining just to create further chaos. To make matters even more interesting, Finn balked at pressure to not cast Wade / Unique in the role of Rizzo, and gave Unique the shot she so wanted despite being anatomically a man.

Ryder ended up getting the role of Danny, and Marley did end up ultimately getting the Sandy role. This means that there is more trouble coming up for both Kitty thanks to her sudden anger at her casting on the show. As for a criticism, why complete ignore who both Sugar and Joe are playing at this point? Why are Joe and Sugar even on this show for a line every episode or two?

“The Role You Were Born To Play” was a pretty fun episode, with the major problem being that some of the new characters are a little cookie-cutter for now. Rachel and Kurt were missed, but somehow, we managed to survive without them or without the couples together. There was some Will and Emma goodness in here, as they had a nice scene where they bonded despite Emma not going to Washington with her fiance.

What do you think about this episode?