'Glee's "New Directions" Kind Of Disappointed

Well, that's a wrap, Gleeks. After an exceptional amount hype and a slow leak of spoilers, the second part of Glee 's 100th episode event, "New Directions," aired on FOX Tuesday night. It was kind of disappointing — and not even because somehow, performing "Don't Stop Believin'" for the sixth time actually gave us the feels, again. The episode seemed like someone had just thrown their hands in the air and, with them, threw important opportunities and closure to the wind. Which is so not the Glee we know, nor the Glee we were saying goodbye to.

Aside from wasting a significant amount of time having Gwyneth Paltrow's Holly Holiday perform her (unnecessarily long and irrelevant) own song, the episode seemed to completely gloss over the kids who were being left behind. Which kind of made us feel like they were just placeholders this entire time to keep Mr. Schuester and Lima relevant to the story. (WE NEED TO KNOW WHAT'S GOING TO HAPPEN TO KITTY!!!) We spent so much time trying to get attached to them and care about their problems — it just didn't seem right. And, honestly, it almost felt like Murphy ran out of things to do in this episode with the New Directions alumni — which is weird, considering how big of a deal it was to have everyone back.

But Murphy did one thing right, however — he let us be happy that Tuesday night was probably Jenna Ushkowitz's Tina Cohen-Chang's last episode by reminding us of how damn annoying and self-centered Tina is at all times. (By the way, that teased Friends sequence was a total letdown — totally not surprising because it came from Tina's imagination.)

So how can you disappoint when you base an episode on nostalgia and everyone's love for Glee's former greatness? Here's how:

1) Casting The McKinley Kids Aside

This was a serious cop-out on Murphy's part. We were force-fed the love triangle between Marley Rose, Jake, and Ryder, among other drama surrounding the new group of Glee kids, and there was no pay-off. Aside from a brief moment in the choir room during which the aforementioned threesome looked at each other like, "Wow, it's really over," and Kitty tearing up at Artie's graduation, that was it. It's more likely than not that these two episodes marked their final appearances and Ryan Murphy gave them no send-off at all. They were just bystanders to the older kids waxing nostalgic about their time winning championships and being dramatic in the hallowed halls of McKinley.

They've lost things alongside the alumni too — even though these 100th episodes were supposed to be a celebration, they were also a long-coming goodbye and these kids were just along for Rachel Berry's ride. And seriously, WHAT'S GOING TO HAPPEN TO KITTY?

2) "Don't Stop Believin'"

We were totally hating on the fact that they were performing this song AGAIN on Tuesday night. And for good reason — because the best performance of this song was during the Season 1 pilot episode and when they performed it at Regionals the first time. But we kind of understood why they were going there — they were saying their final goodbyes to McKinley and Schuester by singing the first song they ever performed in the auditorium. Except, there's no Glee fan out there that doesn't equate the Journey power-ballad that the show loves SO DAMN MUCH with Cory Monteith and Finn Hudson.

I know we said goodbye to Finn and put his plaque in its "final resting place" in the auditorium last week but Ryan Murphy missed a huge opportunity to pay one last homage to the character. The performance was emotionally charged (nostalgia, saying goodbye to Mr. Schue, the past, and etc.), but when the cast lined up for the final notes of the song we expected them to end the same way they began — by doing this:

HOW DID YOU END YOUR LAST PERFORMANCE IN THE MCKINLEY AUDITORIUM WITHOUT THIS SIGNATURE MOVE? THE SONG CAN'T END WITHOUT IT — so I guess somewhere on the Glee set, the club's strange piano player is still pumping out the notes to "Don't Stop Believin'". And we're left wondering how Murphy skipped out on this opportunity to come full circle.

3) Quinn & Puck's Relationship Announcement

What the hell was this about? "I've decided to be Puck's girlfriend." Okay, Quinn, that sounds great. They sang a really nice duet to P!nk's "Just Give Me A Reason," even though it was kind of boring and then acted like they were making a marriage announcement. Which was, again, a waste of time that could've been used better by another character — like Rachel, who was tearing up during their duet. When did we stop caring about how Rachel feels about everything? We already knew everything that Quinn had to say about why she chose to date Puck — so we're not sure why she needed to justify the situation to everyone in the choir room (especially since half of its inhabitants hardly knew her).

It was just an unnecessary use of time that could've been spent on Artie and Kitty or Rachel having one last heart-to-heart with Mr. Schue. Puck and Quinn were always going to get together in the end, and now that he's got his act together, there was no reason to justify being with him. He's a decent guy, Quinn, stop being so insecure.

Images: FOX, Glee/Wikia