‘Glee’: The Gang Move To The “New New York,” Adam Lambert Proves To Be Valuable Friend

Lisa Timmons | April 2, 2014 5:48 am

After last week’s graduation episode, McKinley High seems like a million miles away now that the focus of the show is shifting to Glee‘s original crew in New York City. It’s a reunion of sorts with Rachel (Lea Michele), Kurt (Chris Colfer), Blaine (Darren Criss), Sam (Chord Overstreet), Artie (Kevin McHale) and Mercedes (Amber Riley) joining forces to take on the city that never sleeps. In case you were wondering how the kids fare in the big city, don’t worry — despite a big fight, a man-makeover and a mugging, they all make it through the ups and downs in the end.

As we open on the episode, we learn that it’s been months since graduation. Rachel leaves the theater after her Funny Girl rehearsal only to learn that she has a town car at her disposal as a thank you from the show’s big-shot producer. She rides in the back seat of the black, shiny car with the window halfway down and sings Petula Clark‘s “Downtown.”

Kurt joins the singing with a spring in his step as he jumps off the subway. Blaine joins Kurt for a cup of coffee. Artie and Sam meet up to sing and sip coffee as well. The long and the short of it is that everyone’s basically in NYC now. They all meet up for lunch, with Rachel whisking everyone away in her town car except for Artie and Sam.

In the loft the next morning, Blaine wakes up early to make pancakes and is generally being a perfect fiance. After a minor mention of concern that they’re becoming an old married couple, they launch into a duet of Sinatra’s “You Make Me Feel So Young” as they get ready for the morning.

Sam jumps in at the end of the song and we learn he’s been couch-surfing with them for months. Kurt’s totes over it. Cut to Artie’s ground-level experience on the subway, where he gets robbed.

Blaine returns from his day out to find Sam playing video games, where he’s been all day. Blaine is about to broach the subject of Sam moving out when Sam beats him to the punch. He’s bummed out and broke after finding a total of zero modeling gigs since moving to New York. He gripes about being told to cut his hair and the city in general. He explodes by saying, “I hate New York.” At this, Blaine drags him out of the apartment to force him to have some fun in the city.

They sing “Best Day Of My Life” by American Authors with a flash mob in Times Square. I literally can’t imagine something that would be less effective at cheering me up, but it seems to work on Sam.

Next, Kurt’s in miming class with Blaine in NYADA, much to Kurt’s annoyance. They bicker quietly over Sam, while Kurt unconvincingly assures Blaine that he’s not feeling suffocated by his fiance with the fact that they’re basically around each other 24-7.

After his Times Square inspiration, Sam steps into a salon to chop off his “dirty hippie” locks and much to my non-surprise, he subsequently looks a million times better. They all meet at the loft to find Artie calling the police to report his mugging and bemoan living in the city. Rachel saunters in and acts like a diva about the whole situation, effectively annoying everyone.

Kurt and Elliot (Adam Lambert) chat in a music store. Kurt complains how his relationship with Blaine is driving him nuts. Elliot gives Kurt advice to set some boundaries. They sing “A Great Big World” from Rockstar. Seriously, no music store is safe from these two and their spontaneous band practice.

Rachel’s inner monologue in the town car has her lamenting that she’s “losing [her] authenticity.” As a result, she has the driver pull over in Chinatown, so she can mix and mingle with the common folk. How quaint!

At the loft, Blaine marks off a corner for his work space. Sam returns home with his new haircut and apparently, has booked his first modeling job with Bubble, underwear that promotes booty contouring for men. He also announces that he’s moving into an apartment for models. Blaine seems thrown by this news. Kurt arrives home to see the work space and erupts. It turns into a lover’s quarrel between him and Blaine.

Outside a subway stop, Artie gathers the courage to get inside and gets splashed by a cab going through a puddle before he can make a move.

Blaine bursts into Elliot’s apartment to accuse him of trying to steal Kurt away and tells him,”Back off!” Elliot then hands him an acoustic guitar as a security blanket and the two of them have a heart to heart. He encourages Blaine to just to give Kurt space. Blaine is pretty quickly subdued, and moves to leave but Elliot insists they sing something together, which they do. A spontaneous ditty entitled “Glitter Rock Vampire.”

Rachel meets Artie at the subway and tells him that she’s given up her town car to ride every day with him. They sing Petula Clark’s “Don’t Sleep in the Subway.” Meanwhile, at Sam’s new model apartment he finds out his roommate is Sam, a hot blonde — basically the female version of himself.

Kurt waits up for Blaine. They have a serious relationship chat in the living room. Blaine suggests he move out to “take a step back.” Despite Kurt’s initial protest, they agree.

The two Sams chat excitedly in their new room and they seem to be hitting it off until she pulls out all her pill bottles. Artie and Rachel tell the story of how they saw Artie’s mugger on the train. Long story short, they managed to retrieve Artie’s stuff.

Blaine then announces that he’s moving out. And just like that, Sam and he decide to become roomies. And out of nowhere, Mercedes just walks into the apartment. At this point, muggers should be the least of these kids’ problems. How has a murderer never just sauntered in to slay them all?

The next day, Mercedes and Sam chat gaily about her new apartment and she offers to let Sam and Artie rent out her second bedroom. After Sam tries to kiss her, Mercedes shuts it down but clearly, the chemistry is still there.

Rachel is whisked away to the theater, where we see her on stage singing the Barbra Streisand standard “People.” As she croons, we see the gang getting into the swing of things in NYC. We end with everybody toasting to their new homes at a potluck.

So the main takeaway from this episode is that despite what you may have heard, securing a clean, safe apartment in NYC is as easy as pie. And everybody’s going to be just fine.

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