TV Binge: Glee (Season 6 Finale, 2015)

Glee has taken us on a journey. Over the six years of episodes, they’ve gone through a lot and for those like myself who spent a lot of time watching it since it first started, it is a goodbye. One that has been expected but still, as you come to discover, a little hard. Its also one of the reasons why it has taken me about a month to get this up. Glee started its journey for the first few seasons in McKinley High School and saw the growth of its characters graduate high school and head off into their own futures staying in Lima or moving to New York or wherever else and finally after hardships still coming back together in Season 6. Sure, the last few seasons have kind of lost a bit of what it used to be but something about watching the final season and the further it gets to the finale, made it a little hard to let go. That just might be sentimental me talking, of course.

Again, I’m getting ahead of myself! Let’s check it out!

Glee (Season 6 Finale, 2015)

Creators: Ian Brennan, Brad Falchuk, Ryan Murphy

The final season of Glee. It is hard to imagine that Glee is has come to an end last year! It is. As much as I stopped watching it after feeling a little disappointed with the fourth season, it always had this nagging feeling to continue. I wasn’t crazy about Season 5 either and going into Season 6 was really trying to stay optimistic about it when I pressed play on the first episode. I feel Glee holds a lot of memories and for the fans, the second half of the seasom definitely improves immensely from the first half and we can see them taking the time to end the series respectfully and they definitely do. The best is seeing a final reunion of pretty much all the characters by the end and sending off a final encouraging message.

Lets breakdown the season in two parts. The first part, as mentioned before was not so engaging. For the most part, we start with hardships and Rachel picking up her pieces after bombing her career and finally finding a way to restart the glee club at McKinley High after Sue has become the principal and ruled out all arts from the school. It starts feeling a lot like how the show started but instead of Will, we have Rachel fighting. As they build up the Glee Club again, the next gen members group together but this time, the focus yet again is not on them but on the original Glee club group that shows up in rotation to help Rachel out, not only in driving Glee Club into the right direction. Here is where the show suffers a little in the sense that it proved that Glee was not viable as a long running show because the audience and crew grows attached to the characters and when these characters grow up and the focus is still on them, its hard to grow the cast and take it back to its roots at McKinley and the new Glee Club. The problems become redundant at times except with new voices. Some of amazing voices but yet they don’t get to hit their full potential.

In the second half, it is still focused on Glee Club andn their path to regionals. However, the main focus goes back to rounding out the season and all the loose ends with the old members, the cast the audience has grown to love (or hate). There are some moments that make no sense and some that are downright awkward. It made me wonder what I missed the whole time. However, the loose ends were done well whether it is for Sue Sylvester and Becky or Rachel, Kurt, Brittany or Sam. Everyone got something about having courage, taking challenges and finding themselves. It constantly paid respect to Corey Monteith’s character which is nice because he was significant to the show. The finale didn’t feel rushed and felt like it was a nice goodbye. It reminded me of a lot of the past early seasons of Glee and why I liked it. It also made me miss it but also knowing that it was the right time.

The final season of Glee is not the best season in its entire TV lifespan however, it is done in a decent and respectful way to the show and its fans. Perhaps it took a little while to get there in the first half but the second half was quite fun to watch. For fans of Glee, I feel like it shouldn’t disappont too much.

Are you a Glee fan? Did you finish the series?

TV Binge: Glee (Season 5)

Honestly, I’ve been in the mood for TV series and there’s is an endless amount of shows I need to catch up on or just simply start.  Netflix doesn’t make choosing very easy and I probably end up taking more time trying to choose what to watch than actually watching the movie.  Either way, Glee was updated with Season 5 maybe a week or two ago and I started it up right away! One thing is that, Glee ended recently and its always a happy and fun show to watch.  The last two seasons haven’t been great on story or content but I always liked how the Glee cast mash up the songs and put it into the context of what was going on.

Let’s check this out! 🙂

Glee (Season 5)

Creator: Ian Brennan, Brad Falchuk, Ryan Murphy

Cast: Lea Michele, Matthew Morrison, Jane Lynch, Chris Colfer, Naya Rivera, Kevin McHale, Jenna Ushkowitz, Darren Criss, Chord Overstreet, Becca Tobin, Jacob Artist, Melissa Benoist, Blake Jenner

 In case you are not current with Glee, Glee follows McKinley High School’s Glee Club called New Directions lead by Mr. Will Schuester (Matthew Morrison).  This group is not the cool kids and they are always bullied for being different from the rest of the group.  At the same time, cheerleading coach Sue Sylvester (Jane Lynch) is always out to get in their way.  In Season 5, the first group has already graduated including Rachel (Lea Michele), Kurt (Chris Colfer) and Santana (Naya Rivera) who have moved to pursue their dreams in New York City.  While at the same time, the glee club in McKinley is lead by now seniors: Tina (Jenna Ushkowitz), Sam (Chord Overstreet), Blaine (Darren Criss) and Artie (Kevin McHale) and with the younger blood, they hope to win the Nationals a second year in the row, in fact with the changes at McKinley, a lot lies on them winning it.

In a nutshell, that’s what Glee is about.  I guess if you didn’t watch the first 4 seasons, you probably won’t be inclined to watch this one.  Season 5 was a step up from Season 3 and 4.  What works here is how they now incorporate whats going on in Lima and McKinley and NYC and the graduates.  In fact, the song choices and themes are pretty good (for example, The Beatles).  The season started a little rocky and I wasn’t really sure if I could get into it but they did find some sort of balance.  While the young blood isn’t quite as strong plot wise.  Let’s face it: the original Glee club had a lot of drama in the first two seasons to make up for everything that they didn’t really have much to work with and be different.  But they were still good singers and they were going somewhere, except they weren’t enough to build a deep connection with the audience (at least they didn’t with me).  As much as I enjoyed watching them, I didn’t really mind whether they were there or not and it felt like the focus was on the original members of Glee club anyways.

Another factor that had some of the best episodes was how they kept Finn (Cory Monteith) and his death into it.  There was a lot of tugging heartstrings to keep that feeling there.  It wasn’t just the tribute episode, which was done extremely well, and I have to admit that I did shed quite a bit of tears there.  But then, they chose Seasons of Love to open the episode and I love that song.  That episode was definitely the best one in the whole season.  They didn’t stop there though.  Finn’s character was a constant reminder throughout the entire season and I respect that, except at some point, I started wondering if it was really a way to keep the dedicated viewers to keep coming back since he was a key character.  Still, I liked how they added that in.

On the New York City tangent, a new deeper friendship develops between Santana being part of Kurt and Rachel’s life.  At the same time, they also have guest appearance for a few episodes with Adam Lambert.  I was never too familiar with him except for the few songs that hit the radio but this guy is pretty good.  I like his style and flair that he added to the show.  Plus, once the focus of the show landed more on New York City after graduation and phased out McKinley a little, the tone changed and it made it feel a lot more like it was watching Glee from the first few seasons but just in a different place. Its not a bad thing and they work hard to give them more older decisions that have to determine their future.  Glee was always a lot about these kids following their dreams and fighting against the norm and it seemed to be reaching for those roots again and I personally really appreciated that.

Overall, Glee Season 5 kicks it up a little more.  Maybe its that season 4 helped build liking the new blood in New Directions and also getting used to flipping between New York City and McKinley so it works out better.  At the same time, Cory Monteith’s death gave his character a lot of heartstrings that were being tugged as we remembered his character and all the influence it had on the plot and the show in general.  He is definitely missed.  The music they choose was really good and I enjoyed it all for the essence of what Glee is.  It may be a new place but seeing the old cast appear as guests for a few episodes also really added to it all as well.  I definitely enjoyed Season 5 of Glee and I look forward to how they end it all in Season 6.

Are you or were you a fan of Glee? Have you seen Season 5? What do you think of it? Have you finished the show?

Girl Most Likely (2013)

I don’t really remember why I chose to watch Girl Most Likely.  I think it was one of those mid week times when I just felt the week was going SO slow and work was ridiculously stupid and I needed a break and a good laugh.  I don’t think I read a lot of reviews on this one and if I did, I probably wasn’t outstandingly good or bad.  So either way, maybe it was my faith in Kristen Wiig or my wanting to check out Darren Criss in a non-Glee scenario.  Whatever the reason, I watched this comedy. Let’s check it out!

Director: Shari Spring Berman, Robert Pulcini

Cast: Kristen Wiig, Annette Bening, Matt Dillon, Darren Criss

Imogene (Kristen Wiig) is a failed New York playwright who decides that when her boyfriend leaves her that she was going to stage a suicide, except her suicide note was so convincing that the hospital psychiatrist sends her to her only family left, her gambling mother (Annette Bening) living in New Jersey, to be supervised and to make room for more urgent patients.  She gets back “home” since a long time and reunites with her younger brother Ralph (Christopher Fitzgerald) and also realizes that her mom now has a strange boyfriend called George “The Bousche” (Matt Dillon) who makes some wild claims about who he is, while she also realizes that her mother also rented out her old bedroom to Lee (Darren Criss), a guy who studied in arts and music.  Despite having to embrace the humiliating move back home, she starts to learn a little more about herself, where she wants to go and accept her family for who they are as well as where she comes from.

I really don’t know what to say about Girl Most Likely. Girl Most Likely is not a very entertaining movie at least for the most part I didn’t actually laugh a lot for watching a comedy but it wasn’t so stupid that I turned it off also. Comedy is a hard genre to grasp because its so hard to determine what makes people laugh. The best way I can describe how I feel about this one was that I didn’t really care.  There were parts that I like and then some that I know probably was supposed to make me laugh but didn’t. Kristen Wiig plays a great awkward adult role.  She’s just simply great at it.  I mean, just look at Bridesmaids, right? She was pretty great in that.  I think for Girl Most Likely, it had to do with the layout of the story that didn’t work for me and maybe character design more than the actors.  It felt like something was missing to life it above what it turned out to be.

For one, lets start with Kristen Wiig.  I think she did a great job in acting out Imogene.  The only deal was Imogene was at times, pretty annoying.  She was like that girl who had something, failed and didn’t know how to pick herself up again and just lost it after that.  Its the women that embody all the needy and crazy and just can’t be alone but thinks she has everything in control when she doesn’t.  Wait, that sounds a bit like me.  Maybe a fraction, either way, the way they did it was a bit irritating.  Still, between wanting to just slap Imogene and wake her up (maybe that was the intention), there were moments that I started rooting for her but thats because her character grew (kind of).  Why kind of? Her character was somewhat sporadic in the weird not totally making sense way. I still hold that Kristen Wiig did the best she could to pull this together.

My second reason for seeing this was Darren Criss. I’m over Glee like I haven’t seen the last 2 seasons or something. I’ve always felt that Darren Criss would be the most likely to have some form of success in acting or whatnot.  I like him the most in the show and I was pretty happy to see that he got a role outside of it.  Although they still give him some parts of singing and musical talents, its a different vibe to see him in the whole make out scenes and kind of girl magnets.  To me, it added some life to this flick and I really liked his character.

Annette Bening played as Kristen Wiig’s mom and she was really not such a pleasant person but at the same time, among all her faults, at times, she did bring some funny-ish moments.  Same goes for Matt Dillon, who did one of the most awkward characters ever but somehow, I don’t really know if I was able to laugh at his humor.

On a side note, I think the most lovable character goes to Christopher Fitzgerald who plays Ralph. He was pretty bit socially awkward or deficient if anything but he was the enlightening person in a pretty funny and cute way.  It packed in a few surprises here and there.

OVERALL, everyone brings there game in this one but this comedy lacks humor that works for me (maybe it might work for you).  I may have gotten a few chuckles and giggles but nothing like laughing out loud or anything.  It also seems to rush to wrap up this story and give everyone a sudden jump to all have something different and tries to pop in some surprises. Although, I didn’t laugh a lot and it really lacked something to make it anything worthwhile to revisit, the reason I did finish was that Kristen Wiig does try to work with this pretty irritating and self-absorbed character who kind of stole my heart for a split second in hopes that this movie will turn around.  I guess my problem with it is that its a comedy that doesn’t really make me laugh so that makes this not so good anymore.

Have you seen Girl Most Likely? Did this movie work for you? What do you think about Kristen Wiig?