Glee “The Spanish Teacher” Review

For me, one of the biggest mysteries of Glee is how a goofy white dude from Ohio such as Will Schuester became fluent in Spanish. As we learned in this week’s aptly title episode, “The Spanish Teacher,” he never did. He’s been faking it for years, but employing sombreros and maracas just won’t cut it anymore. To get tenure (which I have never, ever heard of within public high school), Will has to become the world’s greatest non-Spanish speaking Spanish teacher quick.

Who better to help him than Ricky Martin? Still gorgeous fourteen years after he was livin’ la vida loca, Ricky (his character had a different name, but there’s no point in trying to remember it) is clearly a better Spanish teacher, not only because he speaks the language, but because he has a passion for it. Sadly, Will doesn’t, and never did, which leads to the first Santana smack-down that wasn’t born out of meanness or frustration. She rightfully accuses him of marginalizing her culture through ignorance, rather than hate. Realizing she’s right, Will transfers to the history department and gets Ricky hired as McKinley’s new Spanish teacher. Which means we will never see another scene in Spanish class ever again. Adios, over-sized sombrero!

As for who got tenure? Well, it wasn’t Sue, who has suddenly decided that she needs to have a baby. (Um…okay. Best repeated line of the night, “With whose vagina?!) She even went so far as to ask Will for some sperm, prompting Emma to stand up for her man’s man juice. It was a tender, if out of the blue, moment for Sue, who admits to admiring Will for being the better man despite everything she’s done to him.

No, it was Emma who earned tenure. Her informative, if inappropriate, pamphlets put her over the top. Surely someone who can prevent jock itch deserves eternal job security. By the way, when did Irish Boy join the football team? I know they play rugby across the pond and can take a beating, but is Coach Beiste trying to get him killed? He looks like a sardine in a pond of tuna.

After swearing them to secrecy, Rachel told Mercedes and Kurt about the engagement. They were both appropriately appalled. Kurt went straight to Finn and not only reemed him out for following Rachel’s dreams instead of his own, scolded him for not sharing the news with him first. They are, after all, brothers, and it was nice of the show to remember that.

Mercedes and Sam somehow ended up in Emma’s office, talking about their relationship, which it turned out they don’t really have because despite really, really liking each other, Mercedes still chose her jock boyfriend at the end of the day. Okay, look. I know I’ve been hard on Mercedes this year, and believe me, I wish it didn’t have to be this way. But when she goes and does stuff like this, what am I supposed to do? Applaud her? What was the point of making googly eyes at Sam for the past couple of episodes? Does this jock have naked pictures of her or something? Or could she be, just like Emma’s pamphlet suggests, a two-timing ho?

It was a good thing that there was a lot of character stuff in this week’s episode, because the musical selection was horribly sub-par. Out of all the Latin music in the world, these were the songs they picked? Really? I’m not an expert, but I can’t help but feel that by picking these particular songs, Glee did far more to marginalize Santana’s culture than Will’s matador outfit ever could have.

What did you think of the episode? Let me know below!