Top 10 Glee Plot Holes You Never Noticed

Have you ever noticed that the Glee club’s popularity wildly fluctuates from season to season? In “A Night of Neglect,” the club encounters great resistance when trying to round up people to attend their benefits concert. However, back in the first season, they managed to secure a full house for their fall invitational. But it’s not just inconsistencies in audience numbers. Reactions to the club dramatically vary as well. Sometimes the club receives cheers and ovations after performing, both onstage and off. Other times, they are relentlessly heckled or met with great indifference from the students. It’s almost as if it depends entirely on what that episode’s specific story entails.

We can chalk this one up to a simple joke, but it’s still an inconsistency, damn it! Way back in the second episode, Sue gives Will a list of McKinley’s special education classes so he can find recruits for the Glee club. It’s a funny joke that was quickly forgotten. However, Sue later runs for Congress and mentions that there is no special education program at McKinley, contradicting the list she gave to Will. Either this was a joke not meant to be taken so seriously, there was never a special ed program and Sue just made it up to annoy Will, or her remark was a false statement made for sympathy.

In the same episode that Sue gives Will the list of special education classes, Principal Figgins gives Will a list of pre-approved songs that promote family-friendly values, recommended to him by his pastor. Quinn then performs “I Say a Little Prayer” with the Cheerios and the list also and the restrictions are never mentioned again. In fact, not only is the list entirely ignored, but the New Directions try to sing religious songs in “Grilled Cheesus” only for Figgins to deny their right to do so, explicitly contradicting the list he received from his pastor. We guess he forgot about the family-friendly values.

We can chalk the previous entries up to jokes or plot necessities. However, there’s simply no forgiving or overlooking this one. In the fourth season finale, “All or Nothing,” Ryder dramatically mentions that he will be quitting the Glee club after Regionals. And wouldn’t you know it, he never actually quits. This would obviously be fine if the show explained his character development, but we never received any indication that he had changed his mind, that he left and later returned, or that he made up with Unique. We were just supposed to forget about it and pretend that it never happened. And we did.

Another character inconsistency is Finn’s deep connections to Ohio. Throughout the early seasons, Finn seems committed to living a simple life in the state. Rachel calls Finn a “country boy” when discussing life in New York City, and Finn shows contentment working at Burt’s auto shop as a laborer. There seems to be no indication that he desires to leave Lima, or even Ohio. However, in the third season episode, “The First Time,” Finn becomes upset when Cooter doesn’t choose him for the Buckeyes and shows outward disgust at the thought of staying in Lima forever. Which is it, Finn?

Here’s a tip for future showrunners: if you have a character say that they have “big plans,” it’s best if you actually go through with them instead of dropping the idea altogether. Near the end of the second season, Quinn ominously tells Finn that she has big plans for their New York trip. And this isn’t like a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it type thing. It’s the final, foreboding scene that leaves the episode on a cliffhanger. And while in New York, Quinn does… absolutely nothing. Oh, that’s not exactly true. She goes for a haircut after opening up to Brittany and Santana. Was that her big plan? Cry and get taken out for a sympathy haircut?

News flash – living in the heart of New York City is not cheap, even with roommates. Rachel and Kurt live the high life in New York. They live in a killer loft, they begin dressing with impeccable fashion, and they fly back to Ohio, like, every other weekend. And just where exactly are they getting the money for this? They don’t regularly have steady jobs, student loans don’t cover that, and we seriously doubt that their parents are giving them $1,800 a month for rent plus living and travel expenses. So, how exactly did they afford that apartment? TV magic? We’ll go with TV magic.

And for that matter, just where the hell is the Glee club getting their money for all these elaborate showstoppers!? A major aspect of the show is that the Glee club, and McKinley High for that matter, doesn’t have any money. The club often resorts to raising small amounts of money themselves and McKinley certainly isn’t shy about keeping the arts on a shoestring budget. So just where exactly does the club get the funds for all the outfits and costumes, sets, Broadway-caliber light rigs, and rain machines? Maybe from the same place that Kurt and Rachel get the money for their Vogue-esque New York lifestyles.

In the episode, “On My Way,” Quinn runs a stop sign while texting Rachel (don’t text and drive, kids) and gets into a horrific car accident. She suffers from a badly compressed spine and is confined to a wheelchair. The injury is so bad that she has very little feeling in her legs and is uncertain if she will ever walk again, despite her optimism. Five episodes later, Quinn is up and about at prom and is back to her normal, dancing self within no time at all. We’re not doctors here or anything, but it seems like an awfully short time to recover from such a debilitating injury.







Before we unveil our top pick, here are a few honorable mentions.



Tina Dumped Artie & Mike, Not the Other Way Around




Finn Didn’t Audition for Glee, Despite What He Told New Directions

Rachel’s dream of becoming a Broadway star is, like, THE key component of her character. Besides possibly her obnoxious diva behavior, her passion and ambition towards making it on Broadway is her single defining characteristic. Hell, Finn even calls off their wedding so she can go to New York and become a Broadway star. And while she lands a dream role in “Funny Girl,” she quickly abandons Broadway for TV, burns her bridges with Broadway producers, and moves back to Ohio. Sorry, but what? The Rachel of seasons 1-4 would never do a thing like that. There’s character inconsistency, and then there’s simply dropping almost five seasons’ worth of character development for seemingly no reason whatsoever.