New York (Glee)
The episode was written and directed by series creator Brad Falchuk, filmed in part on location in New York City, and first aired on May 24, 2011 on Fox in the United States.
The McKinley High School glee club, New Directions, performs at the National show choir competition in New York City and finishes in twelfth place.
Rachel (Lea Michele) and Kurt (Chris Colfer) sing a song from a Broadway stage, as does their director, Will Schuester (Matthew Morrison).
While a number of scenes were praised, including the epilogue after the club's return to Lima, Ohio, reviewers excoriated the fact that New Directions arrived in New York with their songs for the competition unwritten, and deemed it completely illogical.
The McKinley High School glee club, New Directions, travels to New York City to compete in the National show choir competition.
After spending hours trying to compose music, their only creation is "My Cup" by Brittany (Heather Morris), Artie (Kevin McHale), and Puck (Mark Salling).
Encouraged by his fellow male glee club members, Finn (Cory Monteith) asks Rachel on a date in Central Park.
As the date draws to a close with Puck, Artie, Sam (Chord Overstreet), and Mike (Harry Shum, Jr.) serenading the two with "Bella Notte", Rachel feels torn between Finn and her dreams of being on Broadway, and leaves after refusing to kiss him.
The New Directions set begins with Rachel and Finn singing the duet he wrote, "Pretending", and an enthusiastic audience falls silent when the two of them kiss at its conclusion.
A jealous Jesse St. James (Jonathan Groff) confronts Finn after the performance, and asserts that the unprofessional kiss will cost them the championship.
New Directions is not one of the ten groups named to advance to the finals the next day, and finishes in twelfth place out of fifty competing show choirs.
[1] Ten locations were used during the New York filming, including Times Square, Lincoln Center, the Gershwin Theatre, Central Park, and Sardi's.
Washington Square Park, which was used on the final day of filming, had not been approved as a location by the city until after the production team arrived in New York.
Other recurring characters included glee club members Mike Chang, Sam Evans and Lauren Zizes (Ashley Fink), and Kurt's boyfriend Blaine Anderson.
Erica Futterman of Rolling Stone wrote, "We didn't actually expect the New Directions to win nationals, but the episode just felt like it was going through the motions rather than seizing the opportunity to do something truly spectacular.
The arrival of New Directions in New York without having their songs already prepared received widespread condemnation, including from VanDerWerff and the Houston Chronicle's Bobby Hankinson, and led Brown to write, "there is absolutely no universe in which that makes sense.
[18] Reiter felt Rachel was making a "false" choice in her refusal of Finn at the end of the date, and wondered "couldn't she at least have asked him" if he would consider coming to New York.
[21] At the competition performance, Poniewozik said of the end of "Pretending", "I may not be that invested in Finn/Rachel, but the startling moment where the audience disappeared in the middle of their kiss made me feel like I was.
Poniewozik wrote that the episode "did a really fine job handling its epilogue, in which New Directions had their hopes crushed, went back to Lima—and found that it was a pretty awesome experience regardless.
"[24] Canning said it was a "nice denouement, putting everyone at peace for having failed to reach the top ten at Nationals and getting their hopes high for next year.
[23] Futterman called it an "infectious, high-speed mash-up" and Hankinson listed it as one of the four favorite songs from the episode, though Kubicek said the on-screen performance "would make any real New Yorker want to kick [New Directions] in the shins".
[6] The use of "Bella Notte", by contrast, was generally approved of, though Kubicek thought it was "kind of weird that they weren't really there", and Berk gave both of its two stars out of five solely due to the "spectral singers".
[26][27] VanDerWerff thought the song was "well-performed", and Benigno gave it a "B+"; she had a very different take from Kubicek, as he found the imaginary appearance by the male club members hilarious.
[17][22] Although Kurt and Rachel being allowed on the stage of a Broadway theater was deemed improbable in the extreme by many critics, most were willing to suspend disbelief and enjoy their duet of "For Good".
[29] Futterman noted, "the arrangement feels flat and the dancing is overexaggerated", and Hankinson called this song and the Vocal Adrenaline offering, "As Long As You're There", "meh".
[22] The nicest thing Kubicek wrote of it was that it sounded as if the lyrics had been "written by a lovesick teenage boy", and he called "Light Up the World" a "trainwreck".
[26] Berk was even harsher: "When the show has carte blanche access to every amazing song in the history of popular music, there's something terribly humiliating about watching the kids sing this shit tune as their finale, and do so with such desperate conviction.
The two original songs sung by the main Glee cast did best, with "Light Up the World" debuting at number thirty-three on the Billboard Hot 100, on an issue dated for June 11, 2011.
