Analysis / Glee The New York Story

Quinn's logic is 100% valid

Yes, Quinn's methods were unconventional and she had ulterior motives—one can argue she was the antagonist during the summer arc of the story— but take all of that out, and her concerns towards Puck rushing to get married to Marley are valid. While police officers and people in the military do marry young, she brings up the very logical fact that Marley and Puck are not even 21. Marley is 17 when she is proposed to and is 18 when she gets married. It is legal, but it usually is ill-advised as many marriages do not last. Marley and Puck do end up deconstructing the Married Too Young trope as by the end of the story, they are still Happily Married.

The rest of the Alumni in a way gaslight Quinn that she's wrong, and it may be their own warped way of thinking because Finn and Rachel got married at 19.

At least Brittany and Santana waited until they were in their mid-twenties.

Deconstructing All Girls Want Bad Boys

Marley and Puck at face value are the most clichè couple in the entire story—Marley was the shy girl that is known as the "good one" of the group, and Puck, putting it nicely, was troubled. Even Puck outright mentions that it is a common clichè while trying to defend his relationship against Finn. However, the relationship supports the trope Opposites Attract and deconstructs tropes such as I Can Change My Beloved and More Experienced Chases the Innocent.

• It most likely was not planned by the actual writers of the show, but Marley and Puck personality-wise are contrasting opposites. It is used to build both characters as they both take each other's strengths to flesh them out.
  • Marley struggles with speaking her mind and at first relied on Finn and Puck to fight her battles for her. Puck teaches her to be more opinionated, and as the story goes along, Marley starts standing up for herself. She even takes a few pages out of Puck's book of insults, all which Bree—and later Kitty—deserved.
  • Puck struggles with being kind to others. Marley teaches him to be kind even in the face of adversary, which he massively demonstrates when he selflessly brings home a foster child after a heroic day at work.
• Marley did not have to convince Puck to change his ways. Her kindness and her love for him was enough for him to realize he wanted to change for her. Puck being Marley's significant other was an integral part to his character development, and led to him becoming one of the most fleshed out characters by the story's end.
• Going back to canon, Puck is very experienced when it comes to sex, believing that he can have it with no strings attached. He abandons that way of thinking when Jake, his own brother, cheated on Marley, and Puck developed an actual friendship with her. For the first time he cared about someone that wasn't necessarily himself, and that led to his character doing a full 180 as soon as they got together. Puck in High School would be pissed that a girl wouldn't put out for him. When Marley voices her concern about not wanting to sleep with him yet, he emotionally connects with her and understands. Right before they're about to have their first time together, Puck is nervous as he wants to make sure it's a positive experience for Marley.

Rachel—and later Finn's—Face–Heel Turn is more complex than at face value

Finn and Rachel spend the "Season 4" arc of the story dealing with an unexpected pregnancy. It causes conflict among the two because Finn is just beginning to experience success as a Glee Club instructor and Rachel was slated to star in Wicked after her run in Funny Girl. However, as the two begin to accept they're going to be parents, Rachel's father's drive her mad to the point where she ends up miscarrying the baby in a car accident. Rachel is in such grief that her life begins to head on a downward spiral. But what sets her off is when she finds out Marley is pregnant around the same time she lost her baby.

Rachel's behavior towards Marley after the fact is downright despicable. She berates Marley, slaps her in the face, exposes her eating disorder to TMZ and tries to spike her drink with alcohol while knowing Marley is pregnant. Rachel comes to her senses when she realizes she alienated everyone, Finn included, and decides to befriend Marley again in order to get back in Finn's good graces. While Rachel comes to terms with her behavior, Finn starts spiraling with alcohol, and finds himself in massive trouble when he is arrested—by Puck—for DUI.

Both situations highlight grief as a very powerful thing, and if not properly or healthily dealt with, it can easily spiral out of control.

• Given the easy-going nature of Marley and Rachel's friendship before this arc, Rachel would not have acted volatile towards her had she been dealing with her grief properly. Rachel's actions in pushing Finn away led to Finn blaming himself for the baby's death, as he felt he could have stopped Rachel from getting in that car.
• Finn's storyline in particular highlights that Finn was not only hurting himself with his actions.
  • He could have killed a random stranger had he hit someone while under the influence.
    • Puck is immensely emotional after he has to handcuff Finn and put him in a police cruiser. He sobs in Marley's arms as soon as he gets home from work.
    • Worst of all, he hurt Rachel, as his poor decision making resulted in him taking off his wedding ring and having a night on the town with another woman.

It also provides a learning experience for Finn as he learns life can be unexpected. He has a vastly different reaction when he finds out in "Season 5" that Rachel is pregnant again.

Puck's insecurities in his relationship make sense

A rinse and repeat storyline Puck goes through is someone shows infatuation towards Marley, he turns into the Green-Eyed Monster, and it results in him being insecure because in his mind he believes Marley can do better. Even though in Marley's eyes, Puck is the only one for her. Puck eventually grows out of it, but the root of his insecurities are actually closer than we think.

Quinn and Puck's mother made him believe he wasn't capable to be in a loving relationship due to their own personal beliefs. Quinn constantly called Puck a "Lima Loser", and out of High School is only interested in keeping him as a back-up option should her first option fall sideways. Puck's mother had her own heartbreak when Puck's dad left them, resulting in her resenting her own son—which after Finn's father makes her one of the worst parents in the story.

Puck has been told his entire life he would never be good enough for anyone. So when he enters this relationship with Marley, he realizes she is essentially the perfect partner because she has this unwavering belief in him. It's oblivious to Marley, but Puck, along with an abundance of male characters, make it clear that Marley is insanely gorgeous, and is one of the best singers in the series.

A talented, conventionally attractive female interested in Noah Puckerman? Of course he would think he's dreaming, which causes him to hold onto their relationship tight to the point where it's a double-edged sword. He loves Marley to the point where he knows he has a good thing with her, but he sometimes holds on too tight and it causes conflict when he's confronting the new "flavor of the season". Now, some of them did deserve tongue lashings or worse—Jacob Posey and Lucas Hatchett for example—but Artie and Sebastian never acted on their feelings, and knew better than to try to home wreck a relationship where Marley showed zero interest in them romantically. It was merely a pipe dream, and in Sebastian's case a storyline plot to highlight the realization that he was a bisexual male.

Puck's insecurity is never portrayed as okay, but it is understandable as to why he felt the way he did. He just needed to reflect on all the good he's done and see why Marley was attracted to him in the first place.

Marley Rose was the luckiest and unluckiest character in the entire story

There was no doubt Marley became a Creator's Pet once she became an integral part of the story. But while being a creators pet is usually viewed as a negative, it was very necessary for her, as her character in canon left little to be desired. Marley's character as a result was positively fleshed out.

However, everything bad that could happen to a person definitely happened to Marley. She was sexually assaulted, lost a court case for said SA because the evidence wasn't obtained properly, tricked into taking a record deal that didn't benefit her or her relationship, was negatively portrayed as a horrible person for fighting back against Bree, had private pictures she took of her and Puck leaked, almost commits suicide, went into labor during a bank robbery, found out her birth father—who was also Finn's father—abused her mom, and had to think Puck died on the job—twice.

To contrast the unluckiest moments in her life, Marley marries the love of her life and starts a family with him at 18, is the star of Finn's Glee Club when she fast track graduates WMHS and enrolls in NYADA, gets a recording contract she actually finds is worth taking, is catapulted into '"Taylor Swift'' levels of fame, wins three Grammys the first year she's nominated, owns her own record company, is cast as the lead in her first movie, and if you read the sequel, Marley is an EGOT all before she turned 30.

So when something drastically bad happens to Marley, you can usually expect something drastically good to happen to her as well.