Now introducing The Rachel and Blaine Show
The episode is focused on McKinley putting on the West Side Story musical and Finn and Rachel's and Blaine and Kurt's first sexual encounters. The Dalton Academy Warblers are also re-introduced with a new leader, Sebastian Smythe, who has an eye for Blaine.
Next Time: The single most emotionally revolting moment in the entire run, and the incident that tainted the person responsible for said incident until the day he died.
Songs (from West Side Story unless specified):
- Tonight, by Rachel and Blaine
- Uptown Girl, by Billy Joel, performed by the Warblers with Blaine
- A Boy Like That by Santana*
- I Have A Love by Rachel*
- America by Santana and Mike with the cast
- One Hand, One Heart by Rachel and Blaine
Tropes:
- Call-Forward: Kurt compares Karofsky to Yogi Bear, which becomes Blaine's Affectionate Nickname for him in season 6.
- Celebrity Paradox: Two of the Warblers (one being Grant Gustin, who plays Sebastian) were in West Side Story. The pair were, in fact, only introduced in this episode because of the National tour ending just before filming started.
- Continuity Nod:
- Rachel mentioning waiting until 25 to lose her virginity, which she outlined last season.
- Puck not using condoms, which is 99% effective at preventing pregnancy, as Quinn proved through season 1.
- Black Comedy Rape: Brittany's Played for Laughs "I lost [my virginity] at cheer camp. He just climbed into my tent, alien invasion."
- Did Not Do the Bloody Research: Not only are Artie's edits to the musical a daring choice, they're also illegal - the licensing for amateur productions of West Side Story forbid altering the arrangements of musical numbers (like making "A Boy Like That" and "I Have A Love" into a duet, and inserting more performers into "America"). It's unlikely that someone would find out and care, but still.
- Hypocrite: Artie's (and Finn's) opinions on losing your virginity, and Puck telling Finn that it's "not cool" to cheat on his girlfriend.
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Fanfic Fuel: Many fics emerged from this episode, most featuring Rachel regretting giving her virginity to Finn. - Lousy Lovers Are Losers: When Santana hears Rachel is planning her first time with Finn she "feels obligated" to inform Rachel that Finn is awful in bed. Naturally, she comes across as worse then him by insulting him in such a manner.Santana: Speaking from experience, Finn is terrible in bed. If Rachel wants to have my sloppy seconds, she should know what she's getting into. It was like being smothered by a sweaty out-of-breath sack of potatoes that someone soaked in body spray.
- Plays Great Ethnics:
- Invoked In-Universe with any student who is even a bit foreign being made to be a Puerto Rican extra. Santana, the only actual Hispanic, takes the role of Anita. There's also Jewish Rachel and Puck, Korean-American Tina, and Irish Rory. Averted with Chinese Mike playing New Yorker Riff, as it's a main role so more cast on talent.
- The glee cast themselves. They're all from the USA or Canada, except Harry Shum, Jr. He's Costa Rican, i.e. Hispanic, but plays Chinese Mike because of his Cantonese descent - the only minority character excused from playing an Hispanic, which is pure Irony.
- Naya Rivera is half Puerto-Rican, playing Santana who's a non-specific Hispanic playing a Puerto Rican. Chita Rivera, who originated Anita, is similarly half Puerto-Rican.
- Shout-Out: Kurt's bucket list number 5 to Twilight.
- Their First Time: The point of the episode is Rachel losing her virginity to Rachel.
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What Could Have Been: Joey Richter auditioned for Sebastian. - Willing Suspension of Disbelief: The Artie/Beiste sex talk would never happen in this thing we call Reality.
