I hadn’t realized what made it feel so familiar until I read your mention of _Pushing Daisies_. You’re right, it’s extremely similar- although, I must say, the banter in _Pushing Daisies_ is a bit better.

Which brings me to another element you’re not accounting for, which is that these aren’t traditional fantasy sequences or musical interludes. These are show choir arrangements. It’s pretty much the standard M.O. of choir arrangements to divorce the songs as thoroughly as possible from their original contexts and performers. Most especially for characters like Will & Rachael, the music is taken for what it is. If anything, they might identify with the composer rather than the performer (eg, “Take a Bow” wasn’t written by Rihanna) – but I still don’t see how that could be convincingly integrated into a show that so definitively (by the very nature of the show choir conceit) allows the characters to have their own take on the music.

Nope. Can’t do it.

One minor quibble: you can watch the 2nd ep in its entirety on fox.com right now (I did so last night) so, unless there’s something inherently superior about hulu that I’m somehow missing, there’s no reason to wait.

Anyway, about which “Take a Bow” setting was the “real” one. I had sort of assumed that it was, in fact, the one on stage – or perhaps *both* the one on stage and the one in the mirror. I came to this conclusion based on the fact that Rachael’s previous scene concluded with her asking Will if she could use the auditorium to rehearse, after school. Given the ridiculously short time in which she cobbled together a performance-ready version of “Let’s Talk About Sex,” it’s totally believable within the world of the show that she and the other wunderkind gleek girls could’ve indeed been rehearsing, in those shots. I’d have to watch it again, but I remember the theater being pretty dark and the lighting being rather simple, both of which speak against the likelihood that it was an actual (if imagined) performance.

I also want to pull this idea out for further discussion: “When high school students—or people in general, rather—rely on pop songs to give weight and validity to their emotions, they don’t make a clear separation between the song and the artist.” I would disagree, heartily. I can’t quite figure out how to argue against it in any concrete sense; all I can say is that speaking from experience, having been a teenager who did such things on a pretty regular basis, my daydreams never involved duets, or me dressed up as the performer or anything. They were pretty much just me, being awesome. There is always, as a singer, an element of mimicry of *style* and even *voice quality* that tend to occur. Having never heard Rhianna or her version of this song, I can’t say whether Rachael’s voice was doing this. I also can’t speak for any other teen wanna-be-chanteuses; I’m just saying that the scenes sat right with my memories, while your challenges don’t.

Oh, and I thought the radio edit of Gold Digger was “broke *bloke*” – that’s what it sounded like they were saying, anyway. It makes more logical sense… but given the history of radio edits, that makes it more likely that my hearing is wrong.