"Special Education" is the ninth episode of the second season of the American musical television series Glee, and the thirty-first episode overall. It was written by series creator Brad Falchuk, directed by Paris Barclay, and aired on Fox in the United States on November 30, 2010. In "Special Education", the McKinley High School glee club New Directions competes in the Sectionals round of show choir competition against the Hipsters and the Dalton Academy Warblers, while dealing with internal feuding that threatens to rip the club apart.
The episode shows the former member of New Directions, Kurt Hummel (Chris Colfer), at his new school Dalton Academy, where he joins the rival Warblers. With his departure, New Directions must find a new twelfth member to remain eligible for the competition. Club director Will Schuester (Matthew Morrison) decides to feature overlooked performers from the group for Sectionals, to the consternation of the usual lead singers, Rachel Berry (Lea Michele) and Finn Hudson (Cory Monteith). The episode received a wide range of reviews, with a small majority commenting favorably; some viewed it as a lesser version of the first season's Sectionals episode. By contrast, the six songs covered during the show received generally favorable reviews, with the most praise going to "Dog Days Are Over" and "Valerie" as performed by New Directions, and "Hey, Soul Sister" as sung by the Warblers.
Upon its initial airing, this episode was viewed by 11.68 million American viewers and garnered a 4.6/13 Nielsen rating/share in the 18–49 demographic, up significantly from the previous episode, "Furt".
Plot
The show choir Sectionals competition is imminent,The first Sectionals event was seen in the season one episode entitled "Sectionals". and the New Directions glee club is one below the required minimum of twelve members now that Kurt Hummel (Chris Colfer) has enrolled at Dalton Academy, home of their Sectionals' rivals the Warblers. At club director Will Schuester's (Matthew Morrison) behest, Puck (Mark Salling) attempts to recruit his football teammates, but they lock him in a port-a-potty. He is rescued the next day by AV Club president and wrestler Lauren Zizes (Ashley Fink), and she agrees to join New Directions, though he has to bribe her first.
Will invites school guidance counselor Emma Pillsbury (Jayma Mays) to accompany him to Sectionals. She accepts, and suggests he consider featuring other club members instead of his usual choices, co-captains Finn Hudson (Cory Monteith) and Rachel Berry (Lea Michele). Will gives the lead vocals for one song to duets competition winners Quinn Fabray (Dianna Agron) and Sam Evans (Chord Overstreet),The duets competition occurred in the season two episode entitled "Duets". which upsets Rachel and Finn, while Brittany Pierce (Heather Morris) and Mike Chang (Harry Shum Jr.) are given lead dancing roles on another number. When Brittany admits she is nervous about performing, her boyfriend Artie Abrams (Kevin McHale) gives her a "magic comb" to boost her confidence. She and Mike commence time-consuming rehearsals for their dance routine, and Mike's girlfriend Tina Cohen-Chang (Jenna Ushkowitz) suspects that they are having an affair; when Artie confronts Brittany about it, she confesses that she has been avoiding him because she lost his comb. Artie admits that the comb was never magical, and tells Brittany that she is magic.
Kurt attends his first meeting with the Dalton Academy Warblers. He learns that the setlist for Sectionals is selected by a council of upperclassmen, and is offered a chance to audition for a solo at Sectionals. He visits Rachel for advice, and at her recommendation sings "Don't Cry for Me Argentina" from the musical Evita. Kurt is not given a solo, and his friend Blaine (Darren Criss) suggests that he try to fit in rather than stand out.
Santana (Naya Rivera) tells Rachel that she and Finn had sex the previous spring, and Rachel is furious that Finn's claim to be a virgin was a lie. Emma counsels them, and then realizes that she should not attend Sectionals with Will since her boyfriend Carl (John Stamos) would be hurt; she and Carl fly to Las Vegas, Nevada for the weekend.
At sectionals, the Hipsters and the Warblers perform first, the latter singing Train's "Hey, Soul Sister" with Blaine on lead. Despite much backstage drama, the New Directions set goes smoothly, with Quinn and Sam performing "(I've Had) The Time of My Life" and Santana singing lead on Amy Winehouse's cover of The Zutons' "Valerie"; Brittany and Mike receive several bursts of applause for their dancing. New Directions and the Warblers tie for first place, which means that both groups will advance to the Regionals competition.
Emma tells Will that she married Carl in Las Vegas, and despite his shock, Will says he is happy for her. Finn breaks up with Rachel after she confesses that she made out with Puck to get back at him over Santana. New Directions performs Florence and the Machine's "Dog Days Are Over" to celebrate the club's competition survival, with Tina and Mercedes (Amber Riley) singing lead.
Production The competitors for Sectionals were announced three episodes prior in "Never Been Kissed": the a cappella Warblers from Dalton Academy, an all-male institution in Westerville—they were seen in that episode performing the song "Teenage Dream"—and the Hipsters from the Warren Township continuing education program, which consists of seniors working toward earning General Educational Development diplomas. While Criss sings lead on the Warblers song, the background vocals are sung by the Tufts Beelzebubs, a male a cappella group from Tufts University in Medford, Massachusetts, not the actors playing the Warblers on screen. The Beelzebubs had not yet met Criss at the time the episode aired. The scenes of the Warblers performance of "Hey, Soul Sister" were filmed in a theater over the course of two fifteen-hour days, according to Chris Mann, one of the actors: from the front on the first day, and from the back on the second.
Cheyenne Jackson as Dustin Goolsby and John Stamos as Carl Howell were originally supposed to have scenes in this episode—the Fox publicity included a photograph of a scene between Dustin and Will—but Jackson's was cut entirely, and only a brief shot of Stamos embracing Mays as Emma was retained in the final version. Recurring characters in this episode include glee club members Mike Chang (Shum) and Sam Evans (Overstreet), school bullies Dave Karofsky (Max Adler) and Azimio (James Earl), Stamos as Howell, and Criss as Blaine Anderson, lead singer of the Warblers. Vicki Woodlee, mother of Glee choreographer Zach Woodlee, plays one of the Hipsters; as the youngest of the performers at 60, she had to wear a great deal of makeup to emulate an older person's appearance, including "pounds of powder". Zach Woodlee instructed those cast as Hipsters, the oldest of whom was 83, to limit their dance movements to seem more realistic. Scenes were filmed over the course of four days. Actress and former American Bandstand member Bunny Gibson plays another group member. Co-stars include Fink, who appears as new glee club member Lauren Zizes, Telly Leung and Titus Makin Jr., who return as Warblers Wes and David, respectively, and Riker Lynch, Eddy Martin and Curt Mega, who debut as Warblers Jeff, Thad and Nick, respectively.
"Special Education" features cover versions of six songs: "Don't Cry for Me Argentina" from the musical Evita, Mike + The Mechanics' "The Living Years", Train's "Hey, Soul Sister", "(I've Had) The Time of My Life" from the film Dirty Dancing, "Valerie" by The Zutons (although specifically a cover of the version by Mark Ronson featuring Amy Winehouse), and Florence and the Machine's "Dog Days Are Over". Each song was released as a single, available for digital download, with two separate versions of "Don't Cry for Me Argentina" released—one by Chris Colfer (Kurt) and the other by Lea Michele (Rachel). "Valerie" and "(I've Had) The Time of My Life" are included on the fifth soundtrack album Glee: The Music, Volume 4, released on November 26, 2010, and "Hey, Soul Sister" was included on the seventh soundtrack album, Glee: The Music Presents the Warblers, released on April 19, 2011.
Reception
Ratings and viewership "Special Education" was first broadcast on November 30, 2010 in the United States on Fox. It received a 4.6/13 Nielsen rating/share in the 18–49 demographic, and attracted over 11.68 million American viewers during its initial airing, and thus won its time slot despite airing simultaneously with network specials, including Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer on CBS, Christmas In Rockefeller Center on NBC, Dr. Seuss' How the Grinch Stole Christmas and Shrek the Halls on ABC, and CW's usual offering, One Tree Hill. The total viewership and ratings for this episode were up significantly from those of the previous episode, "Furt", which was watched by 10.41 million American viewers and acquired a 4.0/12 rating/share in the 18–49 demographic upon first airing on television on November 23, 2010.
In Canada, 2.32 million viewers watched the episode, ranking second for the week. In the UK, the episode was watched by 2.602 million viewers (2.218 million on E4, and 384,000 on E4+1), which made it the most-watched show on cable for the week.
Critical reception "Special Education" received mixed reviews from television critics. The most enthusiastic reviewers were from The Atlantic, where both Kevin Fallon and Patrick Burns declared it the "best episode of Glee all season", and Meghan Brown suggested that the show should "just do competition episodes from now on". Aly Semigran of MTV was similarly laudatory, and said that the show was "back in top form"; she added that the episode "felt very reminiscent of the magic the first season provided".
Others were more tempered in their praise. James Poniewozik of Time said the episode was "grounded" and "solid-if-not-spectacular", and highlighted how Glee "has developed into a broad ensemble, where any of several characters is capable of taking the spotlight, even an originally comic-relief character like Brittany." Emily VanDerWerff of The A.V. Club and the Houston Chronicle Bobby Hankinson both liked the episode—VanDerWerff gave it a "B+"—but they, like Erica Futterman of Rolling Stone who was less complimentary, were disappointed that it failed to measure up to the last time New Directions competed in Sectionals. VanDerWerff wrote, "When the show […] remains, at some level, a show about a bunch of kids who just love to sing and dance and maybe have wacky adventures on the side, it remains fundamentally strong, as it does tonight." She also stated, "The fact that the Warblers and New Directions tied, while probably necessary for whatever reason, is ridiculously anticlimactic and keeps this episode from an A− pretty much singlehandedly."