This whole story is a spoiler for last night’s episode of Glee
I had the pleasure of watching the Rocky Horror Glee Show, which aired last night, and it was one of the best episodes I’ve ever seen. They struck the perfect balance between a solid plot and some incredible musical numbers. I’ve only seen the Rocky Horror Picture show twice when I was young and don’t think I’m qualified to judge whether it was a suitable homage, but it seemed perfect to me. Some racy scenes were edited or cut for the sake of television, and all of that was framed as necessary in the context of a school production. We got to see Mr. Schue, Finn and Sam shirtless while Emma and Mr. Schue had some sexy moments together performing “Touch Me.” Here are what I thought were the highlights:

Sue’s evil plan to infiltrate the production
Sue had some of the best lines of the night as usual, including this gem during her “Sue’s Corner” bit on the local news. “Halloween… the day when parents encourage little boys to dress like little girls and little girls to dress like whores and go to go door to door browbeating hardworking Americans into giving them free food.” Sue was eventually recruited by producers, played by original RHPS castmembers Meat Loaf and Barry Bostwick, to try and subvert the show’s production and use it as talking point on debauchery in schools. She was ultimately unsuccessful.

The boys get body conscious
Finn and Sam were daunted by the idea of having to strip down for their roles, and were surprisingly body conscious. In one scene the girls mocked Finn’s body, explaining that the boys did it to them regularly and that turnabout was fair play. Sam, who was initially set to play beefcake Rocky Horror, was meticulous and obsessive about his diet. Finn said that he never worried about what he ate until now while Artie hypothesized that women judge men’s bodies more due to the Internet. “Internet Porn altered the female brain making them more like men and thus more concerned with our bodies.”

Mercedes as Frank-N-Furter
Mercedes ultimately took the role as transvestite Frank-N-Furter (played by Tim Curry in the film) after Kurt turned it down and Mike Chang had to drop out. Her performance of “Sweet Transvestite” was incredible. I would have liked to have seen more scenes with her, she was so good.

Emma and Mr. Schue get sexy
Mr. Schue staged the whole production as a bid to get close to Emma, and it worked – temporarily. When they performed “Touch Me” we got to see Emma come out of her shell while Mr. Shue revealed his perfect abs. Emma’s boyfriend, dentist Dr. Carl, put the kibosh on that and made Will realize how petty he was being.

John Stamos doing Hot Patootie
John Stamos is a solid guest character this season and I’d like to see him become a regular. He’s good for Emma and he’s good for the show. The man can sing, and he wears the hell out of a leather jacket. Glee should stick to characters that work instead of relying on stunt casting. You know that queen Goop is about to make her debut next week, and I’m not looking forward to that.

There were plenty of other great moments in this show, including Kurt as Riff Raff, Finn as Brad and all the women of Glee playing various incarnations of Magenta. Rachel was less insufferable as she supported Finn and didn’t hog the spotlight in this episode. I like where this show is going, and hope that they continue to put out such good entertainment. When Glee is good, it’s just fabulous.

If you’re in the US you can watch the entire Rocky Horror Glee Show episode on Hulu starting tomorrow. For now here’s their performance of Time Warp, again only if you’re in the US. Sorry about that!

Many photos via BuddyTV