Though “Glee” the show hasn’t grabbed me the way it has a lot of other viewers and reviewers, the writing about “Glee” has been some of the most fascinating TV criticism of the season. There were times, in fact, where I made an effort to watch an episode just so I would understand what Myles McNutt or Todd VanDerWerff were writing about it.
The finale seemed more tonally consistent than a lot of the season, and the “Bohemian Rhapsody” sequence was the kind of moment you either go with or accept that you just shouldn’t be watching the series. My major issues were that New Directions’ Journey medley wasn’t nearly as impressive as we were supposed to think it was, and that the final results didn’t make sense based on what we saw of the judging room.
(Also, while Matthew Morrison’s performance of it was quite good, I’ve long believed that the Israel Kamakawiwo’ole version of “Over the Rainbow” needs to be banned from all movies and TV shows for a very long time due to overuse, and this moment did nothing to change that belief.)
Still, you’re much better off reading Myles, or Todd, or HitFix’s Ryan McGee recap, or my old partner Matt Zoller Seitz’s excellent essay for Salon about the show’s “radical sincerity” than you are in reading me again discuss my ambivalence towards the show. So go follow a link or three, and feel free to comment here with your own thoughts on both the finale and this first season as a whole.