"Better a fallen rocket than never a burst of light."
~ Tom Stoppard, The Invention of Love

Thursday, August 29, 2019

The Book of Rannells: Glee: Season 6, Episode 13 – “Dreams Come True” (2015)


Like How I Met Your Mother, Glee was another show that I stuck with until the moderately-bitter end.  It was an absurd series that was sometimes hilarious, sometimes tacky, something beautiful, sometimes bombastic, and always insanely extra.  It had some seriously-lean years in there, although the final season did get itself together somewhat (similar to the end of Scrubs.)  Of course, season 6 could be wildly uneven as well, but when it comes to this episode, the series finale, I’m mostly satisfied with how it shakes out.

The episode opens on the climactic moment of Nationals 2015, with Will standing alongside the New Directions waiting for the results with baited breath.  From there, we move back and forth between the present and five years in the future, seeing various characters make their goodbyes and set their paths, then watch where those roads take them.  It all culminates, as everything on this show does, in the auditorium, for one last performance.

As is typical with Glee, plenty of the proceedings are absurdly over-the-top, with an inordinate amount of glee-club members rocketing to silly levels of fame in so few years.  (In some ways, though, it’s actually less over-the-top than reality, as the hypothetical 2020 features Jeb Bush running for reelection – not even a Ryan Murphy show could’ve dreamed up the satire that is real life.)  At this point, I’m pretty much used to it on this show and roll my eyes but don’t grumble.  It’s still fun to see what becomes of some of these characters I followed for six seasons, and as with any later-season Glee event episode, I like the glimpses of characters who left the show (hi, Mike Chang!)

Some good songs here.  Kurt and Blaine’s duet of “Daydream Believer” is lovely, performed in a goofy but very cute setting.  Will and Rachel both have beautiful goodbye numbers, “Teach Your Children” and “This Time,” respectively.  And of course, the big blow-out final number, OneRepublic’s “I Lived.”  Sure, the song choice is pretty high-school graduation, but it’s worth it to see all those characters singing together one last time.  Cameos from pretty much everybody who’s ever been through the New Directions – including Jesse, which delighted me (you can never have enough Jesse St. James in my book) – brimming with exuberance and catharsis.  Pardon the expression, but it was certainly a good note to go out on.

As for Andrew Rannells, he makes a brief cameo as himself in one of the 2020 segments, presenting at the Tony Awards.  Incredibly short, with just a few quick Best Leading Actress in a Musical jokes – I smiled at “Dame Maggie Smith in Miss Jean Brodie’s Second Prime,” and his enthusiastic delivery of “Anne Hathaway in her one-woman show Anne!, Exclamation Point!” cracked me up.

In itself, this is barely more than nothing to see, but it is a tiny bridge between Rannells starring in Ryan Murphy’s The New Normal in 2012 and being featured in the Murphy-produced The Boys in the Band in 2018.  In that way, I suppose it’s a little sign that, even though The New Normal was short-lived, Murphy still liked Rannells and liked working with him.  And I’m on record as flat-out loving Rannells’s performance in The Boys in the Band, so I’ll take it! Not to mention, Rannells is reprising his Boys role along with the rest of the cast in Murphy’s Netflix adaptation of the play and has been announced as part of Murphy Netflix adaptation of The Prom, so I think it’s safe to say the Rannells is now officially one of Murphy’s people.

Recommend?

In General – While I’d say this is a better-than-average episode of late-seasons Glee and a pretty good series finale, it doesn’t do much good to recommend just a series finale.  Paired with seasons 1-3 and maybe some of season 6 (you can mostly skip the middle,) I’d recommend it for folks who like silly shows about performing.

Andrew Rannells – Naw, not enough for him to do.

Warnings

Language, sexual references, and thematic elements.

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