Summary
Time to get groovy with another tribute episode, this one celebrating one of the more influential genres. We should also tell you that we're going out of order here, as the main crux of the episode is a three-person split narrative.The glee club does disco in a tribute to Saturday Night Fever. In order to help Finn, Santana and Mercedes figure out what to do after they graduate, Will assigns them to perform songs from the movie that would show how they feel about their lives. Finn decides to become an actor. Santana wants to become famous, but reconsiders when Brittany uploads a sextape of the two of them on the web. After her performance, Mercedes says she wants to become a recording artist; Sam posts a videoclip of that performance, which gets excellent reviews. Wade Adams (Alex Newell), a member of rival glee club Vocal Adrenaline, asks Kurt and Mercedes for advice about whether to perform as his transgender alter ego "Unique".
While there is no home stretch per se, we do end the episode with everyone in their finest Travolta as ND be "Staying Alive".
Next Time: Another tribute, though one done out of necessity due to a more recent passing.
Songs in the episode
All by The Bee Gees unless specified.- You Should Be Dancing performed by Brittany, Blaine, and Mike
- Night Fever by New Directions
- Disco Inferno by The Trammps, performed by Mercedes, Santana, and Brittany
- If I Can't Have You (Yvonne Elliman version) by Santana
- How Deep Is Your Love by Rachel
- Boogie Shoes by KC and the Sunshine Band, performed by Vocal Adrenaline
- That's the Way (I Like It)/(Shake, Shake, Shake) Shake Your Booty by KC and the Sunshine Band, performed by The Singsations (Will's glee club)
- More Than A Woman by Finn with Rachel, Santana, Kurt, Brittany, and Blaine
- Stayin' Alive by New Directions with Will and Sue
Tropes include
- The Cameo: Jonathan Groff as Jesse St. James.
- Character Development: Finn's not-hate-but-not-like of gay people in the first few seasons - and even his flippancy surrounding them in the first half of the season - seems to have at least subsided now that his dream sequence is him and Rachel dancing with two same-sex couples: Brittany/Santana and Kurt/Blaine.
- Everything Is Online: The method used to distribute Santana's sex tape and Mercedes' performance that gets her a job on a label.
- Girl on Girl Is Hot: In-Universe, explained as the reason why Santana's sex tape is so popular.
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Hilarious in Hindsight: The glee club's reluctance to do disco in Showmance, the second episode, makes it funny how enthusiastic they are now. The dance floor and their increased talent helps sway their opinion, though. - Home Porn Movie: "2 Girls, 1 Cat" - Santana and Brittany intercut with clips of Brittany's cat. Santana is mortified, but Brittany thought she was helping and is shameless about it.
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Irony as She Is Cast: The best dancers - Heather Morris and Harry Shum Jr. (Mike and Brittany) aside - are Dianna Agron and Kevin McHale, by a long shot. Dianna's been a professional dancer longer than Heather, in fact. The irony comes in both her and Kevin's characters being wheelchair-bound, while it's temporary for Quinn, she doesn't even appear in this episode. - Nice Job Breaking It, Hero/Nice Job Fixing It, Villain: Sue wants Unique to present as a female so that Vocal Adrenaline will lose and New Directions have a better chance. Instead, everyone seems to love Unique and they get through to Nationals.
- Romance on the Set: The writer of this episode (Matthew Hodgson) was dating Naya Rivera.
- Shout-Out: To 2 Girls 1 Cup with the title of the sex tape.
- Twofer Token Minority: Unique, black and transgender.
