"Michael" is the eleventh episode of the third season of the American musical television series Glee, and the fifty-fifth overall. Written by co-creator Ryan Murphy and directed by Alfonso Gomez-Rejon, the episode aired on Fox in the United States on January 31, 2012. It is a special tribute episode to Michael Jackson, and features eight of his songs as a solo artist, and one he sang as part of The Jackson 5.
Reviews were widely varied for the episode: some felt it was the best of the third season to date, and others were quite critical, though the overall mix was somewhat more positive than negative. A number of reviewers noted that tribute episodes have tended to be light on plot, though several felt that this episode had surmounted the usual storyline problems that had plagued past tributes.
The episode's musical performances were viewed more favorably, with many of the nine performances given high praise, including "Wanna Be Startin' Somethin', "Human Nature", "Smooth Criminal", and "Scream", the last of these primarily for Kevin McHale's dancing. Five of the songs—the first three above plus "Bad" and "Black or White"—charted on the Billboard Hot 100 and the Canadian Hot 100, while the other four were also released as singles but did not chart.
Upon its initial airing, this episode was viewed by 9.07 million American viewers and received a 3.7/10 Nielsen rating/share in the 18–49 demographic. The total viewership was up over 20% from the previous episode, "Yes/No".
Plot Glee club members Mercedes (Amber Riley), Santana (Naya Rivera) and Brittany (Heather Morris) are disappointed that they missed their chance to sing Michael Jackson's music at Sectionals, so director Will Schuester (Matthew Morrison) says that New Directions might include Jackson for the upcoming Regionals competition. Blaine (Darren Criss) performs "Wanna Be Startin' Somethin' to demonstrate his suggested number. However, he mentions this possibility to Sebastian Smythe (Grant Gustin), the new captain of the Dalton Academy Warblers and a Regionals competitor, and Sebastian later announces that the Warblers, who will be performing first, will also be doing Jackson's music. New Directions challenges the Warblers for the right to perform Jackson, and they meet in a parking garage at night and compete to "Bad". At the end of the number, Sebastian throws a slushie at Kurt (Chris Colfer) but Blaine interposes himself: he is hit in the face and badly injured.
Finn (Cory Monteith) asks Rachel (Lea Michele) for her answer to his proposal since he has waited the three days she requested, but she is not ready, so he agrees to wait longer. Rachel asks Quinn (Dianna Agron) for advice, and Quinn advises her to refuse and leave her past behind. Quinn has done so, and she has been accepted at Yale; she sings "Never Can Say Goodbye" to former boyfriends Puck (Mark Salling), Finn and Sam (Chord Overstreet), and to the glee club. Sam calls Mercedes to the auditorium and asks her to sing with him—they have never duetted in glee club. She refuses and starts to leave, but he begins "Human Nature" and she joins in. Afterward, they kiss.
Blaine's cornea was deeply scratched in the incident and he needs surgery. The club wants revenge on Sebastian; Kurt says he should be expelled from Dalton, but Will asks them to let the system handle it. Artie (Kevin McHale) refuses: he is fed up with being told it will get better and says it should be better now, and leaves. Despite wanting revenge, Kurt is unwilling to use violence, so Santana goes to Dalton and accuses Sebastian of lying about the composition of the damaging slushie. He challenges her to a duel: the song "Smooth Criminal". He admits after they finish that he rigged the slushie with rock salt, and hits her with an unadulterated one. Santana secretly recorded the encounter, and plays her evidence to New Directions, who in turn invite the Warblers to their auditorium, show them that they "get" Jackson better by performing "Black or White", and reveal to the Warblers the proof that Sebastian deliberately tried to injure one of them.
Kurt's father Burt (Mike O'Malley) takes Kurt out of class to hand him his letter from NYADA. Kurt opens it and discovers to his elation he is a finalist for admission; Burt is overcome with pride. Kurt tells Rachel, only to discover that she has not received any letter from the school; Rachel dissolves in tears. Finn later sings "I Just Can't Stop Loving You" to Rachel, and she tells him she loves him and that she accepts his proposal. She ultimately does get a finalist letter from NYADA and tells Kurt, to his joy, but she has not yet told Finn.
Production
Executive producers Ryan Murphy and Brad Falchuk had been mentioning since before the second season ended that they were planning another big tribute episode that they had been wanting to do since the first season, but would not reveal the name of the artist. On December 6, 2011, the same day that they were airing the "Hold On to Sixteen" episode that featured three Jackson family songs, Murphy announced that they had finally obtained the rights to do a Michael Jackson tribute episode.
The episode was written by Murphy and directed by Alfonso Gomez-Rejon, who had most recently directed Asian F. Filming had begun by December 12, 2011, and was interrupted by a two-week holiday vacation. Both of the last two shooting days before the vacation began, December 15 and 16, ran a couple of hours past midnight, with the final night not ending until three in the morning. Filming had not yet completed when the twelfth episode, with guest star Ricky Martin, began filming on January 5, 2012, the third day after the holiday vacation ended. The two episodes continued in parallel until the final Michael Jackson number was shot on January 13, 2012, over a month after filming began and the same day that the thirteenth episode commenced filming.
It had been announced late in the summer that Darren Criss, who plays Blaine Anderson, would be starring on Broadway in How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying from January 3 through 22, 2012, with rehearsals beginning there a couple of weeks before his debut. At the time, the reports said he would be missing "an episode and a half of Glee". The final scene filmed before the holiday break was the first song in the episode, for which Criss sang lead, and he filmed several scenes in the episode in those last four days. He is singing lead on the song "Wanna Be Startin' Somethin. Criss spent five weeks in New York City, the last three starring in How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying from January 3 through 22, 2012.
The Dalton Academy Warblers return in this episode, and perform "Bad" with New Directions, which was shot on location in a "parking garage just outside the Paramount Studio gates". On the previous day, several members of New Directions did their first location shoots in the building used for Dalton Academy. The Warblers shot their own number, "I Want You Back" by The Jackson 5 with Gustin on lead vocal, but the song was omitted from the final cut of the episode. This was the second time in the third season that ten musical performances were shot for an episode but only nine were ultimately included: Rivera's rendition of "Santa Baby" was cut from the episode two before this one, "Extraordinary Merry Christmas". "I Want You Back", like "Santa Baby" before it, was nevertheless released as a single, and on August 3, 2012, Murphy released the originally filmed scene including it uploaded to his YouTube page. The Warblers number had already run into difficulties earlier in production: it was originally planned to be Jackson's "Rock with You", but there were problems clearing the rights, so "I Want You Back" was selected and filmed instead. Gustin and Rivera performed "Smooth Criminal" with on-screen musical guests 2Cellos, Luka Šulić and Stjepan Hauser, who became famous when their instrument-only two-cello cover of the piece received over three million views on YouTube in its first two weeks. The arrangement used for the performance is based on the 2Cellos version.
The remaining six songs that are covered in the episode include "I Just Can't Stop Loving You", performed by Michele and Monteith; The Jackson 5's "Never Can Say Goodbye", sung by Agron; "Ben" sung by Colfer, Michele and Monteith; "Black or White" featuring Riley, Rivera, Michele, McHale and Colfer; "Human Nature" sung by Riley and Overstreet; and the Michael and Janet Jackson song "Scream", performed by McHale and Harry Shum, Jr. "Human Nature" was originally reported as being part of a mash-up with Nat King Cole's "Nature Boy", but the song as performed is the Jackson song alone. All ten songs recorded—the nine in the episode plus "I Want You Back" which was ultimately cut—have been released as singles, available for download.
Recurring guest stars in the episode include Kurt's father Burt Hummel (O'Malley), glee club members Sam Evans (Overstreet) and Rory Flanagan (Damian McGinty), and Dalton Academy Warbler Sebastian Smythe (Gustin).
Reception
Ratings "Michael" was first broadcast on January 31, 2012, in the United States on Fox. It received a 3.7/10 Nielsen rating/share in the 18–49 demographic, and attracted 9.07 million American viewers during its initial airing, an increase of over 20% from the 3.1/8 rating/share and 7.50 million viewers of the previous episode, "Yes/No", which was broadcast on January 17, 2012. In Canada, 1.84 million viewers watched the episode on the same day as its American premiere. It was the tenth most-viewed show of the week, up two slots and 14% from the 1.61 million viewers who watched "Yes/No" two weeks earlier.Canadian viewership data: "Michael": "Yes/No":
In the United Kingdom, "Michael" first aired on March 8, 2012, and was watched on Sky 1 by 682,000 viewers. Viewership was down over 15% from "Yes/No", which attracted 805,000 viewers when it aired the week before.UK viewership data: "Michael": "Yes/No": In Australia, "Michael" was broadcast on February 24, 2012. It was watched by 535,000 viewers, which made Glee the thirteenth most-watched program of the night, down from eleventh the week before. The viewership was down nearly 4% from the previous episode, "Yes/No", which was seen by 556,000 viewers.Australian viewership data: "Michael": "Yes/No":
Critical reception The episode was given a widely varied reception by reviewers, ranging from Erica Futterman of Rolling Stone, who called it "season three's best episode so far", to BuddyTV John Kubicek, who described the episode as "just plain silly and ridiculous", though the overall mix was somewhat more positive than negative. Raymund Flandez of The Wall Street Journal wrote that "the episode was well paced, well sung and well danced", though he was unhappy with the concluding number, and Entertainment Weekly Joseph Brannigan Lynch said the episode "contained some of this season's best dramatic and musical performances". Crystal Bell of HuffPost TV stated that she was "a little underwhelmed" by the episode, which "never quite lived up to the greatness that is Michael Jackson". IGN's Robert Canning gave the episode a "great" 8 out of 10, and characterized it as "more than just a theme episode" in which he was "connecting to characters" that had not "grabbed" him since the first season.