Okay, okay, writing staff of Glee you heard me (kind of) and at least gave some of your minor (cough not-white or in a wheelchair) characters some stuff to do in recent weeks, and you even included a moment of not totally unearned tenderness for Sue Sylvester, who’s, you know, a lady. I’m still waiting for some actual plot development on the Mercedes/Artie/Tina front – and, based on last week, I think that one guy is now just going to be known forever as “other Asian” – but my real beef is that you’ve gone squishy. I know I worried about your getting all hateful, but now you’ve got characters tossing their whole, erm, character out the window so as to advance heartwarming plot points. What are you, television?

Like, two weeks ago when Sue was being her normal evil self right up until mysteriously adding a girl with Down’s Syndrome to the cheerleading squad. The final reveal is that Sue herself has sister with Down’s Syndrome whom she visits at the end of the episode. So far, so believable. Grumpy people sometimes have complicated families . . .or so I hear . . . I’m with you, Sue. And then she starts to read.

Little Red Riding Hood.

And just when the writers have this chance to show her being the Sue we have come to love and hate and show us something new,  they whiff. She just reads the book, sweetly, like everyone’s idea of how you behave around a disabled person, unless you’ve enough experience to realize that you mostly behave like your damn self.

My ending? Sue picks up the book, looks at her sister (who’s also in bed, weirdly – like, did she break her leg, too?) and starts to read.

SUE:

Little Red Riding Hood was a degenerate tramp who should have known better than to walk in the woods at night wearing an outfit like that, and got what we all knew was coming to her.

Or, last week, when after Quinn gets kicked out in a pretty moving and real-for-TV-on-an-essentially-campy-show way, her glee-mates sing “Lean on Me” to her and Finn. Oh wow, I just got that. Finn and Quinn. Anyway, annoying hokey song for annoying hokey purposes aside, Puck (real baby daddy and arch-rival to Finn and closest thing to a boy-villain around) joins in.

What? No he doesn’t! He stands in the hallway glowering and looking in menacingly through the window. Because he won’t stand by them – oops, lean on them – oops, offer himself to be leaned upon. Soaps, people, soaps!

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