'Glee's Back & Better Than Ever

We've been waiting a long time for FOX's Glee to return and Tuesday night's episode "Frenemies" was well worth the wait. The series' midseason premiere packed a punch — literally — by airing the highly anticipated Rachel Berry bitch-slap and by including another incredible performance by Naya Rivera's Santana Lopez. That girl can do no wrong lately and Rachel's Funny Girl director agrees — Santana nabbed the role of Fanny Brice's understudy and shit's really hitting the fan in Brooklyn.

Rachel and Santana weren't the only pair of "Frenemies" featured during this week's aptly titled episode. On the NYC side of things, Kurt took aim at Adam Lambert's Starchild to see if he's trying to take over as frontman of The Pamela Lansburys and Artie and Tina duked it out at McKinley to see who'd be class valedictorian. But really, all we care about is whether or not Santana's going to hunt Rachel down and go Lima-Heights-Adjacent on her ass — or more realistically, whether or not she'll steal Fanny Brice and where Rachel plans to live now that she's peaced out of the loft.

Santana & Rachel

So Santana hates working at the diner and she hates that all anyone sees her as is the Yeast-A-Stat girl. Awkward. She's ready for her big break — or at least ready to not be serving breakfast specials to ignorant tourists. Rachel's still running around flaunting her Funny Girl success and in what seems like a backhanded act of kindness, she invites Santana to be a part of her New York Magazine photo shoot to promote the musical.

Santana says yes – how could she pass up a free manicure and clothes — but we all knew what was going to go down there. Santana Lopez is no one's background model; this girl is born to be a star. The two performed a duet of Sara Bareilles' "Brave" (which was amazing because duh) while she has a daydream of costarring in the photo shoot with Rachel.

Fast forward a little to Rachel bailing on band practice because she has to help audition her understudy all day. If there were a little lightbulb over Santana's head, it'd have gone off at that exact moment because the next thing we know, she's putting on a stellar performance of "Don't Rain On My Parade". Seriously, that girl brought down the damn house and Broadway to its knees. And now Rachel Berry is totally scurred.

Obviously Santana gets the part and Rachel's really bitchy about it, even after she winds up and slaps Santana across the face for telling her that she sucks. (Ouch, but also deserved.) They bitch a little at rehearsal, but the director doesn't care because their story is going to fill seats. So they deal but when they get home Rachel's all like, "Kurt, tell her she needs to move out," and Kurt's like, "Nah, not getting involved and I'm disappointed that you're being so selfish." And Rachel decides that it's high time she get the hell out of that place.

Kurt & Starchild

Kurt's STILL dealing with his insecurities regarding Starchild's crazy audition for their band, so he decides to spend a day with the guy to feel out his motives. Keep your friends close and your enemies closer, Kurt; we like your style. But Starchild is actually really genuine and is just happy to have met someone like Kurt in the first place.

After enduring a short period of impossible uncomfortable and awkward questioning, courtesy of Kurt, he straight up tells him that he has no interest in becoming The Pamela Lansburys' frontman. The two go guitar shopping, where they perform a duet of The Darkness' early 2000s hit, "I Believe In A Thing Called Love" and then decide to be BFFs. (Their duet was also AWESOME, by the way.) And they end their friend-date by taking a Lansbury selfie — thank god, another selfie craze for us to join in on.

Artie & Tina

Artie and Tina apparently have identical academic, extracurricular and attendance records — so they have to participate in a showdown to figure out who will give their commencement speech at graduation. I'm sure you can already guess how this went. Tina was all like, "PITY ME, ARTIE. I NEVER WIN ANYTHING AND I ONLY APPLIED TO BROWN AND ONE OTHER SCHOOL. I NEED THIS TO GET IN," and Artie was like, "Not really my problem and also, you're a bitch." Thank you, Artie, because someone really needed to tell her that.

So, two of Glee's oldest friends duked it out until Tina embarrassed herself in the choir room by pushing Artie's wheelchair over and knocking him onto the floor. SERIOUSLY, TINA? YOU SUCK. Who does that? We always knew Tina was the worst but this is just the epitome of terrible and now everyone knows it.

Luckily for her, Artie buried the hatchet before presenting to the Sue's "team of idiots" judges. He gave a really nice speech about her and dropped out of the race — but so did Tina. Ugh, I guess she really did mean her apology for tipping him over. So neither of them win and instead, Sue names the third in line, Blaine, as class valedictorian. Plot twist!

Blaine, who drops a few, acknowledged, humble brags because he's amazing, asks Tina and Artie to help him sing a song instead of read a speech to the class. They agree and McKinley lives happily ever after for the time being — well, after they perform Kelly Clarkson's hit "Breakaway". What an uplifting graduation song, right guys?

Good for you, Glee. You made a strong return and Santana's poised to crazy-bitch her way to the top, just the way we like her.

Image: FOX