After looping the first episode of Glee for months, we finally got a new episode this week. The big question everyone had was, “Will it maintain its endearing quirkiness?” I think it did.

The characters stayed pretty true to the established cliche roles, and even though they are near-caricatures, I think they work. As a matter of fact, the portrayals are so over the top that they’ve actually looped around to the realm of believability.

The school situations are way more absurd than the happenings of the Glee Club, though. For instance, a teacher would never be given a part-time janitorial job by a principal; the job would go up for bid through the BOE and applicants would be ranked and placed according to seniority, etc. blah blah blah. Another point, and one that is important to me, is the fact that the school counselor is still referred to in the antiquated “Guidance Counselor” terminology. Still, if those are my biggest gripes, I’m thrilled.

I like how we got to see the setup to some resolution for the big events of the premiere. The oh noes!Baby situation leaves me satisfied and the will-they-or-won’t-they of Finn/Rachel was addressed early on, as it should have been. I wasn’t a fan of the final song, so I fast forwarded through it. This may be the case with future episodes, too, but I’m not watching the show as a musical, so that’s fine with me.