Entertainment

Is Rachel Headed For Failure On 'Glee'?

by Christine DiStasio

What the hell, Rachel Berry? After Glee set Rachel up as a Broadway star in last week's "Opening Night," apparently she's all good and ready to throw it all away. On Tuesday night, the perpetually ambitious Barbra-wannabe decided that maybe she needs more than theatre in her life and royally screwed up her Funny Girl stardom. But instead of falling flat on her face, Glee rewarded Rachel. Now, talk about royally screwing up.

Not that we're surprised — Glee time-jumped again on Tuesday night. (Seriously, when are they going to stop with that?) Not too far (about 56 shows' far), but just far enough for them to show Rachel hating on her dream because it's too monotonous. I guess we can all understand how it could get boring, showing up to work every day just to do the same thing over and over and over. But what we can't understand is that Funny Girl was Rachel's dream — and she beat that into us in almost every episode over the past five seasons. I mean, she quit NYADA for this and now she's ready to give it all up in the least admirable way just because she's bored?

Anyway, Rachel gets offered an audition from a FOX executive (ha) for a new television show, The Song of Solomon, after one of her Funny Girl performances. And at first she's like, "I couldn't," and then she's all like, "Theatre is just a means to an end, so I'm going." She tries to get a day off but, of course, this revival is all about her and Sydney isn't ready to give her time off yet. (Let me repeat, she WANTED this life.) So Rachel fakes the flu to go to L.A. and audition — and it turns out to be a disaster. Just because a show has "song" in its title doesn't make it a musical. (Karma's a bitch, Rachel.) She flops and then her understudy flops off the stage and can't go on. Not so great.

Rachel ends up missing her flight because of that darned L.A. traffic and, as a result, misses the show that Sydney's relying on her to show up for. (Santana goes on for her instead.) And so it seems like the shit is going to hit the fan — and it does, kind of. Rachel obviously ends up feeling terrible about taking her dream for granted, as she should. And Sydney reprimands her for lying and putting the show in danger, as he should. And we were all ready to watch Rachel try to prove herself or be miserable under the threat that Sydney will sue her and ruin her reputation if she does anything like this again.

But because this is Glee and because this is Rachel Berry, Rachel gets REWARDED for her bad behavior. Apparently the laws of karma don't actually apply to her. As she's walking out of Sydney's office, FOX calls and wants to give her a development deal. I know, this is basically Lea Michele's real-life story — but C'MON, MAN. Rachel more or less almost effed everything up that she's ever wanted because she wanted more... and she's getting rewarded for that?

It seems out of place on a show in which Mercedes and Santana are both struggling and hitting walls with their careers. And Blaine and Kurt's relationship is set to be compromised by Blaine's rise to stardom. Are things going to get even the slightest bit difficult for Rachel — or does everyone else have to suffer every week to balance out her living the dream life?

I understood why Glee wanted to give Rachel some good luck this season, but this is just getting way out of hand. Unless she's being set up for a downfall in the remaining two episodes of the season, I might have to actually start rooting against Rachel Berry for awhile. At least until she gets knocked down a few pegs.

Image: FOX