Recap after the jump.
After sackfuls of gimmick episodes towards the end of the year, Glee is starting to hit its stride once again, hopefully returning to early season one form.This week's assignment - pick a love song to perform for Valentine's Day. Puck (Mark Salling) has developed a bizarre crush on Lauren - beauty truly is in the eye of the beholder. Finn (Cory Monteith), on a high after winning a conference title in Sunday's episode conjures a plan to win Quinn back from Sam. Capitalizing on his rediscovered popularity, he sets up a kissing booth - $1 a kiss to raise money for the glee club. He figures that Quinn will try and avoid it but eventually succumb through peer pressure and kiss him, reigniting the fires of their love. No, it doesn't make sense, but this is the world of Glee after all.
Santana (Naya Rivera) ridicules his plan when he announces it to the club, but is bitten back by everyone else who think her "keeping it real" is really just her being a bitch. Disturbed by this revelation and angered at "her man" Puck's fixation on Lauren, she breaks down in the hall. Puck performs Queen's "Fat Bottomed Girls" as his song, attempting to woo Lauren, but it backfires as she finds it incredibly offensive.
Down Dalton Academy way, Kurt is hanging out with Blaine who makes an enigmatic reference to someone he has grown close to and is ready to declare his love for. Kurt initially thinks its himself, it later it's revealed Blaine is talking about someone else entirely. He plans to round up the Warblers, Dalton's glee club and serenade the object of his affection. On reflection, Kurt realizes while talking with Rachel and Mercedes that he had misunderstood his friendship with Blaine for something deeper. Rachel (Lea Michele) at the same meeting of minds reveals her ingenious (and adorable) plan to take a $100 bill to Finn's kissing booth, and as he won't enough change for it, he'll have to kiss her a hundred times which will no doubt make him realize that he's meant to be with Rachel forever and ever.
Quinn (Diana Agron) has sussed Finn's game and warns him away from her. Sam (Chord Overstreet) spies their close interaction and jealously confronts her later on, but she denies having any feelings for him. He decides in a roundabout way that the reason she won't pay into the booth is because she really does have feelings for him and is purposely avoiding him. Quinn goes to the booth to prove him wrong and Sam watches as they kiss (pervert!) - it seems innocent on the surface, but in their heads there are explosions in the sky. Quinn peels away to make secret plans to meet with Finn the next day.
Rachel has also gone to the booth, pretending not to care anymore but when Finn only kisses her on the cheek rather than the lips, she reacts angrily proving she's not over him at all. While refusing her advances, he does give her a belated Christmas gift - a star pendant, because she is a star in the making. Awww. After a snappy joint number by Artie (vocals) and Mike (dancing), Santana shows up with a pendant of her own, a heart she bought by herself but which she expects Puck to pay for. However, he rebuffs her and she attempts to take out her frustrations on Lauren but gets the crap beaten out of her, holy bajoly!
The Warblers flash mob the Gap to perform for the random guy Blaine is crushing on, but he's not impressed - turns out Blaine's affection was as misplaced as Kurt's. After a crushing rejection, Kurt admits how he feels but Blaine is insistent they should just remain friends. In the much more interesting storyline, Santana, doing her best Mentaliz impression, figures out that it's back on between Quinn and Finn and plots revenge for some imagined slight. Seeking out a mono patient at the hospital where she volunteers, she proceeds to spread the infection to Finn via the booth who passes it onto Quinn at their secret rendezvous.
Following a bizarre rendition of "My Funny Valentine" by Tina, the lovebirds are both taken ill - Santana is keen to present her own theory (which is of course the correct one) to the club, including a thoroughly confused Sam. Quinn decides they each need to figure out what's going on between her and Sam and Finn and Rachel respectively before they resume any kind of relationship. Rachel later visits Finn herself and recognizes that she can't compare in his mind to Quinn - at least not for now, and resolves to quit pursuing him. Her own song is one of independence, Katy Perry's "Fireworks", inspired by the ones seen by Finn during that kiss. The episode ends with a performance by the Warblers and a cheeky wave from Santana to Sam.
Oh yeah, I guess there was some story between Puckerman and Lauren too. Puck asks Lauren out on a date and gets stood up but it seems like their relationship takes a step forward in any case, and oh good God! I know, I'm a horrible discriminating person, but this is just gross. We discussed the possibility that Glee takes place in some kind of warped anti-reality, but this pairing is just not believable even for that. It feels more like a crack pairing than anything else. Finn/Quinn seems hated by the fandom but I like it because those two actors work so well together. A term I use a lot in relation to good television is natural; that's how it is when they are sharing the screen.
I really liked seeing more of Santana - the crazy jealous part we already knew but we also got to see other vulnerabilities and sides to her - plus, Naya Rivera is really cute. Her fight with Lauren goes into the pantheon of awesome fights which includes Harmony vs Xander from season four of Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Hopefully we'll get to see more of the other two wholly underdeveloped characters Mike and Brittany as well. Kurt is no less annoying than usual - I couldn't care less about his foibles, for someone the writers obviously love so much, he is a really immature character. I wasn't so into the Katy Perry number, and of course Tina's song was just weeeeeiiird but all the other sets worked great in this episode, particularly the performance by the Warblers at the Gap. I found this to be a solid, entertaining episode.
"Glee" airs Tuesdays on FOX at 8:00 pm EST.
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