Spoilers, etc oh and THIS IS LONG. Apologies.

So this week’s theme was Sexuality. Mark Salling and Ashley Fink were the guest mentors and Mark Salling totally made Hannah’s year by telling her that he spent the most time watching her. And she handled herself way better than most would in that scenario. And then he goes on to launch a thousand ships by telling Alex he is, “a sucker for guys who have a higher range.”

Ashley Fink is someone I don’t know a lot about, but I do love her character on Glee. But she was seriously lovely, very gracious and sweet and yeah, she was awesome. She tells Samuel that he’s,” equal opportunity sexy.” Which he is. And that’s awesome.

But Samuel wins the homework assignment, and Lindsay actually says “no” out loud, which was pretty weird. Starting to understand why others dislike her, but it wasn’t enough to make me go there. And funny, because she really believed she’d outshone the group and she definitely did not. I was surprised Samuel won, but that was because I thought Hannah and Damian really knocked it out of the park. Cameron, of course, brought the sexy by putting his arm around Hannah. Ok, that was unfair, he did let Lindsay straddle him, but the arm around Hannah was bizarre.

They’re then paired up — Samuel and Alex, Lindsay and Damian, and poor Hannah gets saddled with Cameron “Is it because I’m a Christian?”.

And then! Eeek. They’re all talking in the boys’ dorm and Samuel starts going on about how he’s uncomfortable “playing gay” because his mom’s a Christian and that’s how he was brought up, and I’m like OMG WOULD YOU PEOPLE KEEP THIS SHIT TO YOURSELVES? Like, how was that supposed to make Alex feel? I would have thought it’d be in everyone’s best interest to make their partner in this feel as confident and sexy as possible.

There’s the awkward moment when Cameron is given the direction to kiss Hannah, who looked stunning, and refused. And there are all the awkward moments where Hannah is crushing on Damian big time and being jealous.

So the bottom three are Alex, Damian and Cameron. And Alex is amazing. He just has the most incredible voice and it just gets better every time he sings. Damian is saddled with a cut down version of Danny Boy which I thought he did really, really well, but bored Ryan. And Cameron did a so-so version of Blackbird and then. He fucking quit. And Ryan Murphy, who seemed to want him gone, starts wanting him to stay. Oh yeah, Ryan Murphy likes people playing hard to get. But Cameron sticks to his guns and decides it’s time to go. Even with Ryan freaking Murphy talking about how much he wants to write for him. Never mind the boy cannot act. Or will not. Either way, it’s hard to write for an actor who won’t act.

You know, thinking about it, I want to write for Cameron too. So here goes.

First, I have to pick a name. That name is Paul.

You, Paul, are from what people might call “white trash”. Your parents drink too much. They’re only employed part-time or temporarily. You’re an only child. One year your dad was working, you got a guitar. It wasn’t great, but it came with a book, and you taught yourself to play. You weren’t great at school but you found learning to play music was easy. You could feel the emotions you spent so much of your energy turning off. You played stuff you heard on the radio, and the music your parents loved. It was the first time you thought they really paid attention to you. But you played your own music too, stuff that saved you, and made you feel like you could be loved. You played those songs in your room, when your parents weren’t nearby and didn’t tell you to be quiet.

On Sundays, a bus would come around the neighbourhood and pick up kids for a church down the road. Your parents didn’t go to church, but it was a chance for you to do something else. So you did. And they taught you about God and how Jesus died for you, and for your sins. For your parents’ sins. It gave you a lot to think about without the thinking hurting. But most of all, at church, you found people who expressed themselves so much through music. It seemed like everyone there could sing. You started bringing your guitar.

You felt like your church friends were your real family. They didn’t know, of course, what happened at home. You’d only let go little pieces of it, out loud. But when you were praying and singing, you could tell Jesus all of it. And you felt at peace.

Still, you didn’t feel like you belonged. Not like the other kids whose parents were there every week. Like the other kids, dressed in their Sunday best, different nice clothes every week. You were just in old jeans that were a bit too short and a t-shirt with a hole at the seam. You longed to feel more like you belonged.

And, in the youth group, you met this girl, this beautiful, red haired girl called … Donna …  who radiates sunshine and happiness. She is so far from your life that she seemed like heaven and all good things. Her parents bring her to church every week. Her dad helps out with youth group sometimes too. You like her dad. He’s a real dad. You can’t even imagine him passing out on the sofa, or saying those things your dad says to you.

And she seems to like singing with you while you play your guitar. You both lose yourselves singing “Shine Jesus Shine” over and over until your voices are hoarse. She gives you tapes of Christian artists, and you learn their music together. When you can’t be together, you talk on the phone for hours at night. You’re only 15 but suddenly you understand why some kids marry so young. You want to spend the rest of your life with her. With her family. You want to be a part of that. So, you know, YOU WOULD FUCKING KISS HER.

So yeah, don’t let the door thump your stupid ass on the way out the door, Cameron.

I have really complicated feelings about Ryan Murphy writing a Christian character. And before anyone goes “but what about Quinn and Mercedes and Sam?” That’s not the kind of Christian he’s talking about. Those Christians may believe some of what they’re told, but there are few fundamentalist Christians who harp on about feminism, or who wholeheartedly accept their gay friends. I’m assuming that I was the kind of Christian he’s talking about. The kid that goes to youth group, missions conferences, really believes that opening the Bible to a random page each night will give you a message from God. (Probably not the kid who wakes in the middle of the night to sneak a cigarette at said missions conference, and showers before returning to her bunk *ahem*). So, it would be interesting. But also, uncomfortable. All the nasty things that underlie that sweet, cheery exterior of the born again Christian.

Doesn’t seem to be much of an issue now.

No images, because I have to go to work and just don’t have the time. I’ll pretty the post up later 🙂