By the end of tonight's episode of Glee I actually said out loud, "What the hell is this show doing?" Unless the tone of this musical comedy is going to shift hard into a series of intense emotions and soulful ballads, then things seriously need to get back on track. Or should I say less seriously. The strength of Glee is its fun, stagy performance element. This episode only had half of a musical number and an otherwise distracting chain of stories within stories. We're only four episodes in and it's already losing focus.

The episode opens with Kurt dancing around with two cheerleaders to yet another pop R&B tune, only for his manly-man dad to catch him being, to use the technical term, ultra gay. A good half of the episode is devoted to Kurt wiggling his way into the high school's failing football team to distract his father from his justified suspicions. Cue a too-ridiculous plot about a dancing football team that wins the big game with a choreographed routine that defies even the remarkably thin thread of logic that holds this show together.

The other major plot was the bombshell that Miss Pretty Cheerleader Quinn is, as the episode title suggests, pregnant... AND FINN'S NOT THE FATHER!!!! Ugh. Really? Haven't we officially hit the point in our culture when ironic high school pregnancies are too cliche to stand anymore? Say what you will about her quirkier-than-thou prose, Diablo Cody, and for that matter Ellen Page, pretty much put that plot twist to bed. Glee does not need such an artificial conflict, especially considering how it seems designed as the one and only reason to keep Will's wife in the story at all.

The only development that had anything to do with the actual glee club in this episode was Rachel's reaction to being passed over for a West Side Story solo. We got to hear Tina sing the part, which ended up being the only actual musical performance by anybody in the entire episode. The rest was just an over-used recording of "Single Ladies" by Beyonce.

This was also a pretty Jane Lynch centered episode. She got to give plenty of weird monologues as a guest anchor on the local news, which was funny, just not funny enough to carry the episode.

Best Moment: The one when the musical show actually featured one of its cast members singing.

Favorite Song: See above.

Episode Rating: 2.5/5- I tune into Glee because it's different. When it abandons the things that make it unique, it's just another forgettable network comedy. I'm willing to accept that this episode was a setup for much more rewarding material down the line, but as it stands it just wasn't very entertaining. I also think they could have stretched Kurt's anxiety about coming out to his dad over the course of several more episodes instead of effectively capping his story in two consecutive weeks. On the plus side, next week's previews include some music from non-R&B artists, so at least we're moving beyond American Idol Mark II.