I Just Watched Glee Again, And I Have Some Questions For The Creators.

Glee was bonkers, but some things about the world and McKinley High still demand answers. Looking at you, Ryan Murphy.

Hi! I'm Sage, and I was the ideal target audience for Fox's seminal classic Glee.

I was a classic musical theather nerd, and the same grade as Rachel, Kurt, and all the other original members of the New Directions (the characters, not the actors). I recently discovered a 6th season that I didn't know about (or perhaps just suppressed the memory of), so I decided to rewatch the entire series from the beginning because what else should I be doing these days?

We all know Glee didn't really stand the test of time...

Fox / Via Twitter: @oocglee

But some questions about the Glee universe still bother me to no end.

Who originated the roles of Elphaba and Galinda in Wicked in the Glee universe?

As any 2000s theater kid knows, the roles of Elphaba and Galinda were originated by legends Idina Menzel and Kristin Chenoweth. However, both of these stars had other roles in Glee.

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Shelby Cochran was the director of Vocal Adrenaline, the New Directions' main competition in Season 1. She had a quick fling with Will Shuester, and it was revealed that she was Rachel's birth mother (even though in the first episode they said she was born by surrogate...). She was portrayed by Broadway legend Idina Menzel, known for roles like Maureen in Rent, Elizabeth in If/Then, and of course, Elphaba in Wicked.

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April Rhodes appeared throughout the series as an alcoholic wannabe Broadway star. She taught the Glee kids "valuable" lessons and brought audiences bangers such as Last Name and Home. She also dated Will Schuester and purchased the auditorium to ~save the glee club~. Pint-sized power-soprano Kristin Chenoweth came to Glee with Broadway credits from You're a Good Man, Charlie Brown to A New Brain. But she is arguably most known for smashing "Popular" as Galinda from Stephen Schwartz's Wicked.

We know Wicked exists in the Glee universe because not only do they sing songs from the show (including a rendition of Defying Gravity in front of Kristin's April Rhodes), Kurt and Rachel sneak into the Gershwin Theater and sing on the stage. In my opinion, Wicked would not be as successful without its two leading ladies. Who else could have made a musical appeal to the masses by sheer talent and force of will?

In the same vein, how could Santana dress up as Uncle Jessie for Halloween when John Stamos aka Uncle Jessie was an actor in the show?

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Super nitpicky, but for a child who loved Full House, how could Santana not recognize an actor she loved when he walked into the choir room pretending to be Carl, Emma's hot dentist boyfriend?

What is McKinley High School's budget?

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For a school constantly threatening to shut down the glee club due to budget concerns, they seem to have all kinds of amenities that most high schools do not. I won't go into the Cheerio's budget, since Sue mentioned multiple times that they have boosters who donate specifically to them, but there are a lot of other inconsistencies around the rest of the school. What kind of high school has a slushee machine? And I also recall several times where elaborate sets were constructed on the stage for just one non-competition number and then never seen again (hey there, Singing In the Rain/Umbrella and Roar).

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If I were principal of McKinley High, that slushee machine would be the first to go. That alone would lower the bullying statistics at the school.

Oh, and high school teachers have offices that aren't their classrooms? They "needed the choir room for a computer lab" but the Spanish teacher needs an office for what? High schoolers don't do office hours.

Speaking of inconsistencies, the other high schoolers at McKinley can't seem to make up their minds about the glee club.

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I get it, they did a great job with Toxic, but there is no way that a school poisoned against a club would not go full-on cheering within the span of one musical number. They line the halls to cheer for the glee club winning nationals, and then one week later go back to bullying them. Pick a lane, kiddos!

This one is silly, but what kind of PJs do these students wear?

Fox / Via glee.fandom.com

Rachel's nightgown in Like a Virgin was the first case that comes to mind, but I recall that multiple characters would wear literal negligees. Most high schoolers I know don't even own a slip, and back in high school I wore over-sized T-shirts and mismatched pajama bottoms to bed. I wore a nightgown once when I was 11 performing in Gilbert & Sullivan's The Pirates of Penzance, but that was set in the 1800s.

Where do the glee kids go?

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During my 4 years in high school, I think we had one (1) student transfer in and maybe two transfer out. In public school, your options are to go to the school in your disctrict or go to private school. The only private school mentioned in Glee was Dalton Academy, which is all-male. So how is it that from season to season, entire slews of students transfer away, all of whom are members from the same club? The odds of that are highly unlikely. Was something more sinister going on in glee club that was forcing students to move their entire families away to go to a different school? Maybe Mr. Schuester was stealing money from all the kids to pay for his hair gel and Journey royalties...

Where do the glee kids go (pt. 2)?

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More on this, because it started to get really bad in the later seasons. Characters would miss episodes spanning an entire week without explanation. Sometimes multiple weeks, or they would never return (justice for Joe). Most of these students should be charged with truancy for missing so much school. No wonder Brittany had to repeat her senior year.

This one's for the music nerds. How do all the glee kids know every song?

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Glee has done covers from pretty much every genre, a lot of which are improvised or only prepared by a couple of members from the club. When you watch the group, you can see that the entire group falls in with perfect harmony, changing keys in sync, and they magically know all the words. There is no way they can all know the chord progression to every song, and even if they can pick it up quickly, how do they all sing the same vowels? As someone who always learns the alto part to songs, what sounds good in the group usually is nonsensical on its own. I've sung songs I knew well with other people who also know the song well, and there is always that weird moment of "am I singing the top part or the bottom?" and "who takes the descant?" You just can't do that without at least a discussion.

Don't get me started on the perfectly in sync improvised dancing or the fact that most of the time, they were mouthing the words to the melody even during someone's solo.

Where did they find the instrumental support that they did?

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For a school that hated their glee club, they got a lot of musical support. Multiple gospel choirs, full orchestras, slews of violinists, and a band on standby are just a handful of examples of incredibly talented musicians available to the New Directions just for one-off numbers and rehearsals. My high school band was good, but these guys never missed a beat. They also knew every song without sheet music, too? And how could one of the glee kids say "Hit it" without setting a tempo or anything and they could just go off on whatever song they started singing? Did they have to practice which each glee kid for their solo number each week?

I mean, it's not like they were practicing for any of the competitions, since they always picked their set lists so last minute :).

And lastly, Sue calls out a number of these oddities, which makes me believe that these decisions were a creative choice?

Fox

Listen, as a Crazy Ex-Girlfriend fan, I stan a self-aware, self-mocking TV show. That being said, you have to suspend a lot of disbelief when you watch this show. It knows what it is, and it will push it right in your face. Sue frequently calls out the missing students, the overqualified band, and the outlandish sets, as if she were watching the show with us and questioning the same things. That also means that the creators recognized these patterns and instead of preventing them, chose to include them anyway. Thank you Sue, for saying what we are all thinking and calling out your own show on its nonsense. End of rant.

I've thoroughly enjoyed watching a show I was obsessed with in high school through a more modern lens, and all of the above criticisms come from a place of love from a fan.

Anyway, I'm interested to hear what other facets of Glee bugged people. Maybe something like the problematic relationship between a teacher and a group of high school students.