hello im really curious to hear your thoughts on the all of me/“for when you’ve made something up for no reason”. obvs feel free to answer priv if you don’t wanna share out loud x
I'm always down for discussing out loud, hee!
Referencing the last gif in this lovely post -- where Blaine's singing "All of Me" and the caption says "for coming clean about something you made up for no reason". I'm not gonna read too much into the actual statement since I don't wanna ascribe intent to the gifmaker's work, but it does line up a bit with how I see that song/sequence of events.
OKAY SO. The thing is with Glee, is that it's parody and so there's all kinds of over-the-top shenanigans that I let slide because I don't think there's any real point to getting granular with who was offensive about what and whose actions are morally reprehensible. In the midpoint of their relationship, I do think Kurt was sometimes cruel and Blaine was sometimes manipulative, but I enjoy that narratively and like seeing them work through a high school relationship that was now intended to be a lifelong match. They're growing as individuals and as a couple, there's bound to be some misfires and dramas otherwise there's no show.
What I don't like is when there's out-of-character things that are never given any sort of proper attention to make them resolve internally to the show's universe, and even more importantly to the characters themselves. So while I was excited by Blaine's increasing downward spiral of being annoying and suffocating and it materializing in his body image issues, paired with Kurt honing his body into what he'd always wanted to externalize while also being impatient with Blaine's increasing need for reassurance, I think that having Kurt be physically violent was not handled well. Him hitting Blaine hard on purpose during their fight training was kind of shocking but at least it was in a context; him slapping lunch off the piano in anger was downright alarming. Both of the actors' body language take it out of the realm of Glee campiness; it feels actually distressing to watch.
And I'm not even saying these things couldn't have been salvaged! But they weren't. Kurt inexplicably asked why Blaine was coming at him so hard in fight class, and wasn't particularly concerned about the lunch bag thing. Idk if they shot the fight scene in a way that wasn't initially scripted, but as it was shown, Blaine wasn't coming at Kurt hard at all. But that aside -- there's other instances where I feel that characters did things for the plot that were tonally off for them, like Sam telling Ryder it was super studly that his babysitter had sex with him. That didn't fit Sam's character AT ALL and it could've been resolved if there had been any attention paid to why Sam, as somebody who did sex work as a teenager and had to find a way to mentally cope with it, would urge this same coping mechanism onto Ryder, but nope. And I haven't watched The Quarterback a lot to remember the specifics but I think there was a scene where Tina tried to make Finn's death about herself? Which if it had been explained as some form of misaligned grief would have fixed it but nope.
For me personally I don't see Kurt (within show canon) being the kind of person who manifests his frustration and anger in physical violence, especially not with his intimate partner. UNLESS there's a reason that we then explore a little bit, like that since he was bashed Kurt's struggling with the emotional aftermath and it's making him more volatile than usual, more determined to not be taken advantage of or underestimated. I don't recall anything like that coming up in their make-up scene talking about trust and it could've, easily!
I loooooove the June Dolloway arc conceptually, but I do think they leaned a little too heavily into just how scared Blaine was to come clean with Kurt -- which was played initially for laughs only to have his fear validated by Kurt's uncharacteristically violent response, and then pmuch dismissed as being something Blaine made up in his head. When clearly it wasn't, according to the lunch sailing across the rehearsal studio, heh.
I like Klaine, I love both Kurt and Blaine and I think they were wonderful starter boyfriends for each other, but as the show progressed and there were episodes like this where the characters contradict themselves and act in ways that the writers didn't even bother trying to internally resolve, it just made me think they were better off as friends. Or heading towards their future klivorce sooner rather than later.
