How does one optimally watch Glee, the sprawling 6 season musical comedy? First, they probably need to search up “where is Glee streaming”, unless they’re a high-tech ninja who has the series on Blu-Ray. Second, they should read this article, where I detail some advice to make the watching experience more rewarding.
STEP 1: Take the thesis to heart
The show itself issues a viewing instruction in its pilot. Glee is, by definition, about opening yourself up to joy. Far from being an empty platitude on a plaque, it is a foundational idea in the show. Glee is simply unfit for sarcastic, ironic viewing. In fact, that’s probably the quickest way to get annoyed with the show.
Opening yourself up to joy when you watch the show can take many forms. When I watched it for the first time in middle school, my “Glee Joy” took the form of hope. Maybe I can escape the bullies and find acceptance, I thought. Some years later, as I’m rewatching, my “Glee Joy” looks like jamming out to music that I’ve been trained to consider cringe. It means not worrying about my Spotify stats, or how my Wrapped will most certainly reflect my listening.
It’s harder to make room for joy than you’d expect. Joy is vulnerable. As uplifting as it feels, when someone shoots it down, the fall is long. It hurts. However, watching the show without it is a lost cause. It just won’t be as fun. Take the leap!
STEP 2: Mind your company
Decide who you want to watch it with, and make that decision carefully. A Glee episode out of context, removed from its serialized plot, can be way more confusing than fans give it credit for. While the recap at the beginning of the episode can help, it’s worth it to pick the shared episodes carefully.
I’m in the process of showing selected episodes from the show to my boyfriend, who hadn’t seen any of Glee before meeting me. I wanted to get episodes across the seasons, focusing on quality and plot relevance. Here is my tested list of the truncated Glee, from Seasons 1-2:
SEASON 1:
Episode 1, Pilot
Episode 2, Showmance
Episode 4, Preggers
Episode 9, Wheels
Episode 13, Sectionals
Episode 18, Laryngitis
Episode 22, Journey to Regionals
SEASON 2:
Episode 2, Britney/Brittany
Episode 3, Grilled Cheesus
Episode 6, Never Been Kissed
Episode 11, The Sue Sylvester Shuffle
Episode 16, Original Song
Episode 20, Prom Queen
Episode 22, New York
**NOW UPDATED**
SEASON 3:
Episode 2, I Am Unicorn
Episode 6, Mash Off
Episode 10, Yes/No
Episode 14, On My Way
Episode 18, Choke
Episode 20, Props
Episode 21, Nationals
Episode 22, Goodbye
SEASON 4:
Episode 1, The New Rachel
Episode 4, The Break Up
Episode 6, Glease
Episode 8, Thanksgiving
Episode 14, I Do
Episode 17, Guilty Pleasures
Episode 22, All or Nothing
SEASON 5:
Episode 1, Love, Love, Love
Episode 2, Tina in the Sky with Diamonds
Episode 3, The Quarterback
Episode 9, Frenemies
Episode 11, City of Angels
Episode 14, New New York
Episode 17, Opening Night
Episode 20,The Untitled Rachel Berry Project
SEASON 6:
Episode 2, Homecoming
Episode 4, The Hurt Locker, Part One
Episode 5, The Hurt Locker, Part Two
Episode 8, A Wedding
Episode 11, We Built This Glee Club
Episode 13, Dreams Come True
STEP 3: Remember the writers
Glee, at least its first two core seasons, has 3 writers. Ryan Murphy, Ian Brennan, and Brad Falchuk all have different quirks and focuses with their approach to the show. To put it in show choir terms: the chorus has many distinct voices. If it feels like the show is inconsistent, or that its priorities change from episode to episode, you’re not wrong.
This particular rewatch has been aided by a spreadsheet where I track the directors and writers of each episode. After watching the episodes with the writer’s name at the front of my mind, their voices have gotten much clear.
I can say that Ryan Murphy episodes tend to be focused on big musical set pieces. If it’s a tribute episode to a particular artist, for example, it’s probably going to have his name on it. In comparison, Ian Brennan episodes tend towards strict themes. Take Season 2 Episode 7 “The Substitute” as an example, where every plot and subplot has to do with substitutes and substitutions in an on-the nose way. It’s also worth mentioning that Brennan is the one who came up with Glee, which was originally a movie script that was inspired by his own experiences with show choir.
Brad Falchuk is the hardest writer to pin down out of the lot. If anything, it’s probably because he’s consistent. He seems focused on the characters that are already there, and fleshing out the world further. Maybe we can blame this inscrutability on his Master’s in Screenwriting from AFI, which might have flushed the quirks out of his work. Maybe his marriage to Gwenyth Paltrow had retroactive effects on his voice in the show. There’s really no way of knowing.
Past these men, and the two seasons of television that they wrote, a new cast of writers enters the game in Season 3. After the start of Season Three, the share of Ryan/Brad/Ian episodes drops precipitously, and the reins are officially loosened. I’ve found that seeing Glee as a communal creative effort takes the sting out of plot decisions that I dislike.
STEP 4: Watch the backgrounds
The chorus line is worth keeping an eye on. One of the fun things about the ensemble cast is that they all come from different places. Before Heather Morris was playing Brittany, she was a backup dancer for Beyonce. Jenna Ushkowitz (Tina) was from Broadway. Chris Colfer (Kurt) had just graduated from his Indiana high school.
These myriad origins create fun background action. Cutaway reaction shots and actors’ busywork add some fun, unexpected punchlines.
STEP 5: Remember that it is somebody’s passion project
Glee was not written to be successful. Nobody expected it to get big the way it did. When you watch the show, it’s easy to picture it alongside its success, but on so many levels, its success was a fluke. If Ryan Murphy didn’t do show choir in college, it probably would’ve never been made. That was the reason why he took a chance on Ian Brennan’s idea in the first place. If he did improv in college, maybe I’d be writing about a show called “Yes, And” (which I may have to write myself when I have more distance from college improv).
This information casts the pilot alone in a much different light. The pilot was written for a show that would probably never get a second episode, which is why it can stand on its own so well. Every new episode after the pilot is a miracle.
Some people watch the show now and think “how did they get away with this?” or “how can a show that spawned a concert tour be so weird?”. This isn’t an incorrect way to watch the show, but it forgets the underdog status that underpins the Glee meta-narrative. Glee itself is a story, but the stories we tell about Glee are key to our enjoyment.
What is the ideal way to rewatch Glee? On a couch? Wearing headphones? Stoned out of your mind? Most of these material facts come down to your preference as an audience. I posit instead that enjoying Glee to the fullest extent on your rewatch has to do with mindset and information.
Some shows are great to watch cynically. Glee isn’t one of them. I recommend saving that vibe for something like Love is Blind.
A “correct” Glee viewing experience should be fun, emotional, and vibrant. Mindset will take you 90% of the way there, and a quick Google search of “Glee themed cocktails” can give you that last 10%.
I wish you luck in your very own rewatch journey!