Fancy Garbage Can

but like… it starts with blaine coming to mckinley to confront karofsky, and from there, he just? is so Around? like kurt makes a point of saying blaine asked Him to hang out, not the other way around, and got them tickets to rent. he goes to dinner with kurt and one of his other friends and tries to engage with mercedes! he goes to their championship game and a party with kids from another school, who he mostly doesn’t know very well! just like… even as a friend, blaine is so willing to both reach out/initiate things with kurt, but also be part of kurt’s world and not expect kurt to just come to him and be in his?

and it’s easy to see, tbh, how kurt might interpret that as romantic interest, but it’s also just like. Good Friend Shit.

the other side of this that’s interesting to me though is that?? blaine is SO open and ready to have kurt as a new friend when we don’t really get a sense of whether he’s particularly close with anyone at dalton? he says they’re his friends in season 3, and i think he means it, but when we see them interact in season two, it doesn’t?? really seem like he’s super close or hangs out with anyone else?

(the rest of this is even putting aside also that while they invited kurt for a solo as a show of good faith, he was probably a lot less likely to get one just by nature of having Just transferred and barely practiced with them. i think a more realistic show probably would have had them wait for him to perform with them until after sectionals but i get why the show as it exists can’t really do that.)

anyway, narrative frustrations aside, i think, based on kurt’s audition, it makes sense kurt doesn’t get it? i’ve seen it said before that the warblers just didn’t appreciate an authentic emotional performance but i don’t think that’s it. like, the show (to me) intentionally writes him as not really internalizing what rachel tells him about picking something much more personal to himself? like she said that and then he immediately picks the song she sang as an example. that feels a little telling. sure, they have similar tastes in some areas, but why This song at This moment for Him, yk?

and it’s not that kurt doesn’t sound good! he genuinely does! but i do think there’s an element of this actually not being a very in-depth emotional authentic performance, but instead kind of… playing at one? compare this to “as if we never said goodbye” and the difference to me is Staggering.

and i know some have gripes with blaine (upon being asked his advice) say “don’t try so hard” and “if all you care about is getting noticed you’re never gonna make it with the warblers”. but i don’t think he means don’t put effort in or don’t care or don’t stand out? YMMV on this but that particular performance feels less like kurt’s being truly emotional and more like he’s trying to Prove how good and emotional he can be - which reads different, and i think what blaine’s trying to say is that’s how it came across and that it was holding him back a little. whether not one agrees with that mindset, i do think it makes sense with showing how blaine thinks about music and with how the warblers function.

but kurt buddy. you cancelled existing plans with a friend because your new friend asked you to hang out. you promised to make it up to her on friday night and then did the exact same thing again. mercedes doesn’t just “feel left out” you like. actually quite literally did leave her out, multiple times.

and the ep seems to overall agree with his stance that she, like, just needs to get a boyfriend of her own (even tho he and blaine aren’t even dating yet lmao) and she’s inappropriately jealous (and dealing with this via the really ridiculous and honestly fatphobic tot plot but whatever). but like?? can we not have sympathy for kurt AND also understand that he’s kinda being not a great friend to her in this moment? and that she has a right to feel upset about that??

also like - even blaine, when the three of them finally hang out Together, seems to know it’s a little weird for her and tries to be nice and bring her into the conversation? he asks her what she thinks of what they’re talking about and then says they should talk about stuff she’s interested in too… only for kurt to IMMEDIATELY follow it up with another thing that is much more geared toward his interests lmao.