"I Kissed a Girl" is the seventh episode of the third season of the American musical television series Glee and the fifty-first overall. Written by Matthew Hodgson and directed by Tate Donovan, the episode aired on Fox in the United States on November 29, 2011, and featured the election for a new senior class president at McKinley High. It also covered the special congressional election between Sue Sylvester (Jane Lynch) and Burt Hummel (Mike O'Malley), plus repercussions from the outing of Santana (Naya Rivera) during the congressional campaign.

The episode as a whole received mixed to negative reviews from critics, though several praised Santana's scene with her grandmother. The music was viewed more favorably by reviewers, and earned mixed to positive reactions. Six songs are covered in the episode, including Katy Perry's "I Kissed a Girl". All six were released as downloadable singles, and five of them charted on the Billboard Hot 100.

Upon its initial airing, this episode was viewed by 7.9 million American viewers and garnered a 3.2/8 Nielsen rating/share in the 18–49 demographic. The total viewership and ratings were up from the previous episode, "Mash Off", which had aired two weeks before.

Plot Santana (Naya Rivera) is about to be suspended for hitting Finn (Cory Monteith), but he claims it was merely a stage slap. He then blackmails Santana into having her glee club, the Troubletones, temporarily meet with her former club, New Directions, so he can show her how they all support her. Kurt (Chris Colfer) and Blaine (Darren Criss) sing "Perfect" to her, which leaves her unimpressed, but Finn's slow, stripped-down rendition of "Girls Just Want to Have Fun" is better received.

Puck (Mark Salling) ostensibly sings "I'm the Only One" for Santana, but delivers most of the song to an embarrassed Shelby (Idina Menzel) in front of a suspicious Quinn (Dianna Agron). Quinn later tries to seduce him, but he refuses and calls her crazy. Shelby calls Puck for assistance when her daughter Beth has a minor medical emergency; the two later have sex, but she regrets it and asks him to leave. Angered, Puck returns to Quinn, and she reveals her desire to have a second baby with him. Puck refuses, and tries to comfort her; he offers to share an important secret if she promises not to tell anyone.

Kurt's quest to become senior class president appears doomed and along with it his college prospects; he confesses to Rachel (Lea Michele) that he is thinking about stuffing the ballot box to ensure that he wins. Sue's (Jane Lynch) congressional campaign is also in trouble: to combat allegations that she is a lesbian, Sue decides to start an arbitrary relationship with a man, and chooses former bedmate Cooter Menkins (Eric Bruskotter), who has been having difficulty connecting with Coach Beiste (Dot-Marie Jones) due to her emotional armor. A distraught Beiste sings "Jolene", confesses her love for Cooter and tells Sue she won't give him up without a fight. Sue loses the congressional election to Burt Hummel (Mike O'Malley).

An arrogant jock (David Wilson Page) tries to seduce Santana to "make her normal". The female members of both glee clubs defend her, and together they sing "I Kissed a Girl". Santana comes out to her parents, who are accepting, but when she tells her grandmother (Ivonne Coll), she tells Santana to leave and never return, saying it is a sin to speak of such things.

Kurt and his father Burt are called in to see Principal Figgins (Iqbal Theba), where it is revealed that although Kurt apparently won his election by 190 votes, more votes have been cast than there are students. Kurt admits that he contemplated cheating, but decided against doing so. Nevertheless, Kurt is disqualified and Brittany wins the election. Kurt tells Finn and Rachel that he is still under suspicion, and after he leaves, Rachel admits to Finn that she was the one who stuffed the ballot box because she wanted to help Kurt.

To end the week, Santana sings "Constant Craving" to the combined glee clubs, inter-cut with Shelby and Kurt also singing. Rachel then arrives and confesses that she was the one who committed election fraud: the incident will go on her permanent record, she is suspended for a week and she is banned from participating in the impending show choir Sectionals competition.

Production The episode was written by Matthew Hodgson and directed by Tate Donovan. Filming began on October 13, 2011, while the fifth and sixth episodes, "The First Time" and "Mash Off" respectively, were still shooting, though the fifth episode finished the following day. The final day of filming was November 1, 2011.

Series co-creator Ian Brennan revealed to TV Guide that the episode would have not one election in it, but two: both senior class president and the congressional special election would occur on the same day, and McKinley High would be a polling place for the latter. According to Brennan, "People are voting for both elections in the school, with signs pointing voters in different directions", and there will be a "very surprising twist" in the final results.

Football recruiter Cooter Menkins (Bruskotter) returns in this episode, and becomes a bone of contention between Coach Beiste and Sue. Other recurring guest stars who appear in this episode include Principal Figgins (Theba), teachers Shelby Corcoran (Menzel) and Mrs. Hagberg (Mary Gillis), Kurt's father and congressional candidate Burt Hummel (O'Malley), Coach Beiste (Jones), cheerleader Becky Jackson (Lauren Potter), school reporter Jacob Ben Israel (Josh Sussman), Troubletones member Sugar Motta (Vanessa Lengies) and New Directions member Rory Flanagan (Damian McGinty).

Music in the episode includes the song from which it gets its title, Katy Perry's "I Kissed a Girl", which was previously sung by Tina for her glee club audition in the show's pilot. Jones performs Dolly Parton's "Jolene" during the episode, her second time singing on the show; her first was a duet with Matthew Morrison in the second-season episode "Blame It on the Alcohol". All six songs from the episode have been released as singles including "I Kissed a Girl" and "Jolene"; the other four are k.d. lang's "Constant Craving" sung by Rivera, Menzel and Colfer, Cyndi Lauper's "Girls Just Want to Have Fun" in the Greg Laswell version sung by Monteith, Melissa Etheridge's "I'm the Only One" sung by Salling and a clean version of Pink's "Fuckin' Perfect" entitled "Perfect", sung by Colfer and Criss.

On August 6, 2012, co-creator Ryan Murphy uploaded a deleted scene in which Santana comes out to Sue and her fellow Cheerios to YouTube.

Reception

Ratings

"I Kissed a Girl" was first broadcast on November 29, 2011, in the United States on Fox. It received a 3.2/8 Nielsen rating/share in the 18–49 demographic, and attracted 7.90 million American viewers during its initial airing, up from the 7.08 million viewers and 3.0/8 rating/share for the previous episode, "Mash Off", which was broadcast on November 15, 2011.

Viewership was also up significantly in the United Kingdom and Canada. In the United Kingdom, "I Kissed a Girl" was watched on Sky1 by 1.09 million viewers, an increase of over 21% compared to "Mash Off" two weeks before, when 900,000 viewers were watching.UK viewership data: "I Kissed a Girl": "Mash Off": In Canada, 1.79 million viewers watched the episode, which made it the eighth most-viewed show of the week, up ten slots and 9% from the 1.64 million viewers who watched "Mash Off" two weeks prior.Canadian viewership data: "I Kissed a Girl": "Mash Off":

In Australia, "I Kissed a Girl" was broadcast on January 27, 2012. It was the first new episode since "Mash Off" had aired on November 16, 2012, and was in a new Friday evening time slot as opposed to the previously scheduled Wednesday broadcasts. It was watched by 575,000 viewers, down over 15% from the previous new episode, which was watched by 683,000 viewers. David Dale of the Sydney Morning Herald was scathing in his opinion of the show's rescheduling: "Channel Ten must be insane to waste a new season of Glee on a night when the target audience are all out trying to get alcohol with fake IDs. Look at the pathetic numbers in the Friday chart."Australian viewership data: "I Kissed a Girl": "Mash Off":

Critical reception The episode as a whole received mixed to negative reviews from critics. Rae Votta of Billboard wrote that it "stumbles as much as it shines, with two plot lines-worth of structure that make sense, and two that fall completely flat". Rolling Stone Erica Futterman stated that "while there were undeniably significant plot moments, the emotional depth was lacking", and Robert Canning of IGN said it was "kind of boring" and nothing happened to "make it better than bland". AOLTV Crystal Bell found it frustrating, and said that the "worst part" was that it "made me stop caring about these characters". Emily VanDerWerff of The A.V. Club wrote that "a ton of it just didn't work". The Houston Chronicle Bobby Hankinson looked on the episode more favorably, however, and maintained that while it did not achieve the level of the previous two, it was a "pretty strong outing nonetheless".

Lesley Goldberg of The Hollywood Reporter said that the scene where Santana comes out to her grandmother only to be rejected was a "powerful moment and Rivera delivered in a way equal to Chris Colfer and Mike O'Malley's scenes during Kurt's coming out". Bell also complimented the sequence, though she criticized the next scene for showing "a happy, smiling Santana" with no further explanation, and Canning and Kubicek were also unhappy with her abrupt change in mood, as if nothing had happened. VanDerWerff, though she called the coming-out scene "a moment that's played with a sort of bracing honesty and moving empathy" for what Santana was going through, stated that the "Santana storyline has been one of the best things about the back half of season two and this front half of season three, and the scenes that should be its emotional crux are occurring in our imaginations", such as when she comes out to her parents. Goldberg called the fact that Finn suffered no consequences for his outing of Santana "a missed opportunity". Bell, however, thought that his telling Santana that "he cares about her and doesn't want her to hold her feelings for women in anymore" was "one of the most touching scenes of the series", though Kubicek characterized Finn's statement that he cared for her because Santana "was his first" as creepy. MTV's Kevin P. Sullivan derided the choice to perform "I Kissed a Girl" as "poor comprehension of song lyrics", since Santana "is a lesbian and not just [a] drunk girl who kissed another girl after drinking". VanDerWerff wondered why Santana was so happy during the song, since she had just experienced "the sort of outrageous bigotry she'll have to put up with for the rest of her life".