My glee at the return of Glee

The tongue-in-cheek school musical comedy Glee returns to E4 on Monday night. For Gleeks already obsessed with this cross between Revenge Of The Nerds and Fame, the date will already be in the diary and Glee parties will be held in women’s (and gay men’s) flats around the capital. But if the buzz of this series passed you by the first time, let Belle fill you in on all the glitter and glam that is Glee.

Glee follows a group of high school geeks and misfits at William McKinley High School, and their teacher Will Scheuster, as they practice and perform in the school show choir in the hope of  winning at the glee club sectionals (equivalent of county finals). During the show, the characters frequently break into a cheesy song and dance acts and while a High School Musical for adults may not be your thing, Belle suggests if you embrace le fromage and go with the flow, it won’t be long until you are performing some lounge room Karaoke of your own.

Aside from all the singing and dancing there are of course rivalries for both staff and students, romances, breakups and backstabbing all done in the most deliciously comical way that will leave kids wondering what the adults are laughing about! So just what’s going on in this brilliant new show?

Spanish teacher Will Scheuster is the new director of the school’s failing Glee Club putting him in direct competition for cash with Sue Sylvester the Cheerios cheerleading squad coach. He is determined to take the club back to its former glory but with his mish-mash of members and opposition from both Sue and the football coach Ken, can he turn the club around? And it is not just the challenge of running Glee Club that has Will all in a tiz. His wife Terri has also announced she is pregnant and Will is worried about impending fatherhood. At the end of the last episode, he had proved that the Glee Club’s group New Directions  has what it takes when they win the Sectionals but at the same time he discovers that wife Terri has been lying about being pregnant.

Not everyone wants to see the Glee Club succeed. Sue Sylvester is the coach of the Cheerios, the school’s cheerleading squad, and is use to being head of the number one club on campus. Sue is willing to do ‘whatever it takes’ to win so when she realises she is losing some of her budget to the increasingly popular Glee Club, she is eager to see then fail. She frequently taunts Will with classics such as: “You’ll be adding revenge to the long list of things you’re no good at, right next to being married, running a high school glee club and finding a hairstyle that doesn’t look like a lesbian.” Sue makes every effort to sabotage New Directions, often using her Cheerio implants to help her, including leaking their set list to the other teams at the Sectionals which results in her suspension from the school when she is busted. You can be sure that Will’s arch-nemesis  will not take this lying down and is already plotting her revenge!

But the Glee Club mentor does have someone of his side. Guidance counsellor Emma has a not so secret crush on  married Will. She accompanies Will and the Glee Club to their competitions in an effort to get closer to her the object of her desire.  After discovering that Will’s wife is pregnant, Emma gets engaged to the school football coach hoping it will help her get over Will once and for all. However it all becomes too much and she breaks off her engagement and resigns from her post. At the end of the last episode, she told Will that she was leaving the school only for him to say that he has left his wife and plant a larger smacker on her!

And it is not just the staff that are getting it on. The two stars of New Directions are Rachel and Finn. Rachel is a geek, brought up by her two dads who hopes that he love of musicals and her natural talent will help her find fame and a boyfriend. While Finn is the school’s Mr popular. Quarterback of the football team and dating head cheerleader Quinn he is blackmailed into joining the Glee club after Mr Scheuster finds marijuana in his locker. Rather than be ostracised, he convinces some of the other jocks to join the club too.

Now this is where it gets complicated so you will need to concentrate to keep up. Rachel fancies Finn but dates his best friend Puck since Finn is unavailable. Finn’s girlfriend Quinn discovers she is pregnant but since Finn and Quinn haven’t slept together, Quinn knows it is Puck’s as they had a one night stand. She convinces her boyfriend that she got pregnant when they shared the hot tub together and the naive  Finn believes her. When coach Sylvester discovers that her head cheerleader is pregnant she chucks her off the squad. Not ready to become a single mum, Quinn agrees to give up the baby to Will’s wife Terri in a private adoption so that Terri can hide her hysterical pregnancy and produce a tot. The plan comes crashing down when Will discovers that Terri is not really pregnant. In the last episode the whole of Glee Club discover that Puck is the dad of Quinn’s baby but decide that it is best to keep it from Finn and Rachel.

So you got all that?

Glee returns to E4 on Monday 19th at 9pm

Here is a taster of what to expect:

*photo credits: E4