Glee season 1 episode 15 review

15. The Power Of Madonna

Rachel and Finn were totally a couple until he broke up with her to date two of the Cheerios then realised he was in love with her, only to be dumped right back when she met Jesse St. James, lead singer of rivals Vocal Adrenalin.

Will and Emma’s romance has gotten off to a slow start and they decided they need some space for Will to find out who he is outside of a relationship and Sue is back with a vengeance to finally get rid of the Glee club once and for all. And that’s what you missed on Glee.

Wanting to empower the Cheerios, Sue decides to get them to emulate Madonna to get some fire into their routines. With the suggestive pictures of Principal Figgins still in her possession, she demands he play Madonna’s music over the school intercom to keep the momentum going.

Having been inspired by the music of Madonna and after overhearing the problems of the girls in New Directions, Will decides to follow the same path as Sue and sets a Madonna-themed assignment for the club, much to the cringement of the boys, who feel that, really, they are superior to the girls.

This is very much noted in the problems everybody seems to be facing this week. After attending a Wiggles concert, Jesse wants Rachel to sleep with him, but she refuses, causing him to stomp off and make her re-evaluate her decision.

Sweet little Artie decides to become a chauvinist pig and tells Tina the only way to keep his interest is to wear tighter, more sexy clothes. Emma decides to follow Madonna’s example and go all the way with Will, and Cheerio Santana offers to relieve Finn of his virginity (after all, Madonna always goes for younger guys).aAl this happens to the Madonna classic, Like A Virgin, and is, frankly, brilliant.

Eventually, though, only Finn and Santana end up doing anything, as Rachel and Emma decide not to go through with it at the last minute. Finn, however, does keep his night with Santana a secret from Rachel, as the act itself was meaningless and he does, in fact, regret it. I have a feeling this is coming back to bite him in the bum in the future.

Wanting to prove to Rachel he is serious about them, Jesse switches high schools and joins New Directions (the dirty spy), and feeling left out and that less material will be going to them to sing, Kurt and Mercedes join the Cheerios and perform a fierce rendition of 4 Minutes.

Empowered by the use of Madonna, they confront Will saying the only reason they joined the Cheerios is because they hardly ever get any solos and will be members of both clubs. They also give Sue a make-over to Vogue which is, frankly, the best thing I have seen on television for a long time.

Finally, understanding what dumb asses they have been, the boys sing What It Feels Like For A Girl (which, frankly, is a low point in this otherwise fantastic episode), and Artie apologies to Tina for his behaviour and the two finally get back on track again.

This episode was the big one, really, for Glee. There was a lot of hype and I am really pleased to say it lived up to it. The songs were delivered brilliantly (bar one) and the episode put in place some seeds which will develop later in the season.

Finn and Rachel’s relationship really got some heart to it this week and they are both really coming along nicely as leading characters.

As always, Jane Lynch is amazing as the evil Sue and her version of Vogue was so spot-on, and if there was one last thing that made this episode for me, it had to be Madonna through the ages, roaming the halls of the high school.

Each inch of this episode was bang on for me and I really hope next week’s episode can stand up to this. 

Read our review of episode 14 here.