“Wheels”
November 11th, 2009
There’s a moment in “Wheels” where we fear the worst of Sue Sylvester, testing our ability to see past what we expect her character to do (something offensive and mean-spirited) to what she could potentially do (something transformative). And, in some ways, “Wheels” is very much the same sort of proposition. Ever since I learned ahead of time that “Wheels” was written by Ryan Murphy (as the writers appear to be cycling the scripts between the three of them), I have been fearful of when his worst habits (like his penchant for Terri and the more outlandish storylines) would emerge.
So, I spent most of the episode waiting for the episode to take some sort of turn, to go from being charming and funny and resonant to become outlandish and overbearing. I kept thinking that any scene which felt the least bit emotional would suddenly become undercut by something mean or cruel, and that this was all some sort of Sue Sylvester-like trick.
However, it appears that Murphy has been inspired by his fellow writers, because “Wheels” works in ways that Murphy’s previous episodes simply have not. The episode isn’t perfect, trying to do a few too many things at once, but each and every one of those elements manage to connect at som level. It is an episode that more than any other thus far feels as if it works because of, rather than in spite of, the show’s recurring storylines.
This isn’t to say that everything’s rosy, but it is to say that “Wheels” was certainly a watermark for Murphy’s work on the series, and easily the most starkly dramatic hour yet.
Cultural Learnings 