This Tuesday Glee is heading to Sectionals and for the second year in a row, Rachel Berry won’t be featured. While she’s sitting in the audience, New Directions and the Troubletones will do battle on stage. There’s also another group, but let’s be honest, they’re not gonna win. For that matter, there’s no way the Troubletones will win either.

The next new episode, “Hold On to Sixteen,” also marks the return of Chord Overstreet as Sam Evans, who is one of the many people Finn ropes into joining New Directions because, as I’ve been pointing out since the start of the season, the group needs 12 members to compete at Sectionals and, as of the end of the last episode, New Directions only has nine eligible performers.

In the first video, the Troubletones hit the stage for their big Sectionals performance, a mash-up of “I Will Survive” and Destiny’s Child’s “Survivor.” I have two big problems with this. First, it annoys me that suddenly the Troubletones have 12 members when we have NEVER seen more than seven during the rehearsals. Maybe they just magically appear when needed?

Second, I don’t buy this performance for one second. Shelby is supposed to be some brilliant coach who has won a slew of titles, yet she decides to do a mash-up of two gimmicky pop songs? After the brilliant Adele mash-up, it’s unbelievable that Shelby would waste Santana’s emotional depth or Mercedes’ diva skills with a light and silly number like this. My only hope is that the plot involves Quinn blackmailing Shelby to purposefully put on a subpar set or else she’ll spill the beans about Shelby and Puck.

The second video of Chord Overstreet singing Toby Keith’s “Red Solo Cup” begins with Sam telling New Directions, “It’s time you all got a little country back in this joint.” In order for that to be true, wouldn’t there have had to be country in the joint before this? Because there hasn’t been, and Sam has NEVER been very country. I guess being poor has turned him into a completely different character.

Glee‘s “Hold On To Sixteen” airs Tuesday at 8pm on FOX.

(Image courtesy of FOX)

John Kubicek

Senior Writer, BuddyTV

John watches nearly every show on TV, but he specializes in sci-fi/fantasy like The Vampire DiariesSupernatural and True Blood. However, he can also be found writing about everything from Survivor and Glee to One Tree Hill and Smallville.