Glee - Season 4 Episode 20 - Recap - Lights Out

“Lights Out,” an episode written by Ryan Murphy, is a super fun episode of Glee, and brings us one of the best musical numbers of this season. Check out the full recap for Glee season 4 episode 20 Lights Out.

Mr. Schue informs the glee club that they are going to have some serious competition in the form of American Idol’s Jessica Sanchez, who makes her first appearance in this episode. Just as the club members are plotting something solid for regionals, the lights go out and everyone is left in the dark. Unlike other schools, class is going to continue in the midst of this blackout. Mr. Figgins informs the school via the PA that he won’t even be using it anymore because he needs to conserve energy for his back vibrator. Mr. Schue’s plan for stadium songs is caput now: instead, he vows the theme of the week as ‘unplugged.’

Jake talks to Ryder about ‘Katie’, who is still catfishing Ryder. Ryder reveals that he has shared things with ‘Katie’ that he has never shared with anyone else before, and Jake even seems a little wounded at Ryder’s reluctancy to dish. Back at their apartment, Kurt and Rachel stage something of an intervention with an aimless Santana, who now works inside a cage at a saucy joint. Kurt tries his hardest to get Santana to do something with herself to “make her motor rev” but according to Santana, that happens “every time I cage dance.”

Sam starts out the unplugged theme with “You’ve Lost that Lovin’ Feelin,’” a song he was apparently conceived to. Ryder randomly jumps in halfway through, and their voices sound heavenly together. Sam has found something new to strip down: his feelings. During the number, Artie is noticeably distracted and texting on his phone, and Sam calls him out about it once he has finished. Artie can’t follow up Sam’s performance because he “needs my synth.”

Isabelle is back! Just as cute as ever, she asks Kurt to help her with the guest list for the Ballet Gala and he’s even allowed to “draft in a couple friends” to help him out. She’s kind of the best fairy godmother ever. Sue is back too, only now she’s a personal trainer and Blaine is in her yoga class. Perfect opportunity to see Darren bending in every direction, eh? Sue is loving life out of McKinley, where she can still be the boss of everyone around her. Blaine meets up with Sue after a session and begs her to set the record straight. Roz is even worse at being a coach than Sue was and Sue needs to come back and boost morale!

Artie gets inspired to do a song with authentic sounds in the room (like bottles, cups, etc) from Sam’s little freakout in glee club. Back at the apartment, Kurt invites Rachel and Santana to the gala, an invitation neither of them can turn down. Kurt and Rachel had ballet dreams since they were young, but Santana claims she was never into ballet. There are even some cute flashback scenes where we get to see a young Kurt and a young Rachel doing their thing.

Ryder is doing a different thing with his unplugged assignment: using a full orchestra. That works. His rendition of “Everybody Hurts” is beautiful and the number fits his voice so well. Missed opportunity to add some more tug-at-your-heartstrings flashes with more characters during the song, but whatever. After his song, it’s clear that Ryder has found his happy place and reveals a big secret, collectively, to the glee club. As a child, he was molested by an older girl, a babysitter to be exact. Ryder is clearly uncomfortable and feeling awful about everything, but the guys (especially Sam) seem to think it’s so cool. The way Artie and Sam reacted to Ryder’s story was extremely annoying and I can only hope that it will get the proper resolution within the next episode. I’m actually loving the whole catfishing storyline, so hopefully Ryder’s story arc can reach a satisfying conclusion by the season’s end. Kitty, who was clearly moved by Ryder’s revelation, goes out on a date with him to Breadstix and tells him that she, too, was molested. Her friend’s older brother climbed into her sleeping bag one night during a sleepover when he started to “feel her in places.” The story Kitty tells actually feels real and raw and true. The writing has never been better and I totally felt for Kitty and the struggle she tells Ryder about.

In glee club, that awesome number Artie was planning turns out to be “We Will Rock You”, done as a big group number. It’s fun and fast-paced, keeping with the mood of the song in general. Meanwhile, Sue visits the Cheerios and a heartbroken Becky tells her she might be quitting the team. Sue has a flash/daydream of ruling the Cheerios again (by way of musical number, Annie’s “Little Girls”), so it’s clear that the team is still on her mind even if she won’t say so. This storyline also didn’t see a proper resolution this episode, so hopefully everything will come to fruition by the time of the season finale in just a few short episodes.

The Ballet Gala is about to start, and just as Rachel is about to beg Isabelle to view the show via the audience, Isabelle invites all three of them to watch with her from the best seats in the house: the wings. The four of them (Isabelle, Santana, Kurt, Rachel) all sing the best musical number of the episode, “At the Ballet”, which is stunning in its simplicity. The voices mesh into what can only be described as musical harmony, wherein Santana reveals that as a child her abuela set her up for classes. Even Santana had ballet aspirations! After the number, Isabelle ensures Santana that not knowing what to do with your life is totally okay: “Baby steps are okay.” It turns out this is just the push Santana needs, as she attends some offshoot NYADA classes for her dancing.

Roz drags Becky to see Principal Figgins after her lewd behavior annoys her, and when she leaves Figgins and Becky alone, Becky informs him that she needs to tell him something very important. Is she going to reveal that she brought in the gun? The anticipation is killing me. The lights go back on and it turns out that it was just caused by a mylar balloon stuck in an outlet behind a file cabinet. While talking to ‘Katie’ online, some weirdly shady behavior makes it look like Kitty is definitely behind the whole thing. Her timing for asking Ryder out is too weird since ‘Katie’ essentially went away right before Kitty showed up. Ryder kind of picks someone he might not even get intimate with in any sort of real way instead of going on another date with Kitty. For the final musical number of the episode, Schue tells the kids that the only things they will have are their voices. It’s gonna be acapella this time. "The Longest Time" is fantastic, and definitely lives up to the other solid Billy Joel covers the show has done thus far.

What did you think of “Lights Out?” Season 4 is coming to an end soon, but Glee still has at least another two seasons. I’m excited for Blaine’s proposal to Kurt. Who’s ready?