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Sectionals
Season One, Episode Thirteen

First Aired	December 9, 2009
Episode Guide
previous "Mattress"	next "Hell-O"

Sectionals is the thirteenth episode of Glee's first season, and the thirteenth episode overall. It premiered on December 9, 2009.

Sectionals is finally here for the Glee Club, but when Quinn's secret unravels, the club may not be able to recover in time to compete. Since Will has been disqualified from the competition, Emma steps up and tells him that she will take the kids to sectionals as the club's faculty adviser even though her wedding is on the same day, and Will makes a potentially life-changing decision. Meanwhile, Sue's scheming hits an all-time high as Jane Addams Academy and Haverbrook School for the Deaf perform the New Direction's setlist.

The episode was written and directed by Brad Falchuk.

Plot

As a result of a technicality in the show choir competition rules, Will is not allowed to accompany New Directions to Sectionals because he had taken a mattress in the previous episode, Mattress.

Emma postpones her own wedding by several hours so that she can take the club in his place, although her fiancé, football coach Ken Tanaka, feels she is choosing Will over him. The glee club learns that Puck is the real father of Quinn's baby. They decide not to tell Rachel, believing that she will tell Finn, but she deduces it anyway and tells him. Angered by their betrayal, Finn fights Puck, then leaves the club on the eve of Sectionals, and has to be replaced by Jacob Ben Israel.

New Directions arrive at the event to discover their competitors have received an advance copy of their set list, and are performing the songs they had chosen. Emma calls Will, who talks with Finn and convinces him to rejoin New Directions. The club scrambles together a new set list. Emma then confronts rival choir directors Grace Hitchens and Dalton Rumba, while New Directions are forced to choose new performance pieces at the last minute, aided by the return of Finn. Mercedes allow Rachel to take over the ballad, because if anyone is going to wing it on the fly it should be her and Rachel says that she has a song that she's been working on since she was five, Don't Rain on My Parade. Finn arrives just in time and brings along a number that the New Directions can put together as their second choice, You Can't Always Get What You Want, while Quinn decides on the finale song, Somebody to Love.

After their performance, Grace attempts to confess her duplicity to the judges, but they have already unanimously decided that New Directions has won the competition.

Having previously discovered that his wife Terri was faking her pregnancy, Will tells her he no longer loves her.

He later attends Ken and Emma's delayed wedding to find that Ken has ended the relationship as a result of Emma's feelings for Will. She announces her intention to leave William McKinley High School, explaining that it will be too painful for her to carry on working with both Will and Ken. Back at school, Principal Figgins suspends Sue for leaking the glee club's set list, and has Will reinstated as New Directions' director. This leaves the Cheerios with no coach. The glee club members show Will their trophy and perform My Life Would Suck Without You for him because he couldn't be there to see them win Sectionals. As Emma prepares to leave the school, Will chases after her and stops her with a kiss.

Songs

Song Title	Original Artist	Performer(s)
And I Am Telling You I'm Not Going	Cast of Dreamgirls	Mercedes Jones
And I Am Telling You I'm Not Going †	Cast of Dreamgirls	Jane Addams Academy
Proud Mary †	Ike and Tina Turner	Jane Addams Academy
Don't Stop Believin' †	Journey	Haverbrook School for the Deaf
Don't Rain on My Parade	Cast of Funny Girl	Rachel Berry
You Can't Always Get What You Want	The Rolling Stones	New Directions
My Life Would Suck Without You	Kelly Clarkson	New Directions

† denotes an unreleased song.

Guest Stars

Special Guest Star

Eve as Grace Hitchens

Guest Cast

Co-Stars

Josh Sussman as Jacob Ben Israel
Peter Choi as Emcee
Thomasina Gross as Perfect Engleberger

Trivia

This episode was watched by 8.127 million viewers.
This episode gives the first hint that Santana and Brittany have been hooking up. Santana says, "Sex is not dating," and Brittany then adds, "If it were, Santana and I would be dating."
Jayma Mays called the kiss between her and Matt Morrison, "The Kiss." And Jayma wasn't given the script about that kiss, in order to keep it real.
"Sectionals" was originally supposed to be the last episode of the first season, but Fox asked for nine additional episodes after this one.
Rachel sang Don't Rain On My Parade for Sectionals from the musical Funny Girl. Interestingly enough, her mother would go on to sing a song from the same musical, which enlightened Rachel that she was her mother.
Both Shelby and Jesse (unknown at this point on the show) saw Rachel's performance of Don't Rain On My Parade as stated in Hell-O by Jesse and in Theatricality by Shelby. This enlightened Shelby that Rachel was her daughter due to their similar voices, range, and looks and because of that she encouraged Jesse to befriend her so she can be closer to her.
The choreography from My Life Would Suck Without You was mostly dances they have done before. Such as Last Name when they dance around in cowboy hats, Hair/Crazy in Love the opening dance number as Rachel walks by the cast they all turn around swinging their hair, "Push It" when the group does pelvic thrusts together, "I Kissed A Girl" with the girls pointing towards their crotch as Tina did, Kurt, Tina, and Brittany performing dances reminiscent of "Single Ladies," and Brittany, Santana, and Quinn, perform dances they did from I Say a Little Prayer.
When ND is performing You Can't Always Get What You Want - in the shot when Grace/Eve is looking at ND performing you can see on the right of Grace there is one of the choreographers that choreographs Glee in real life, Brooke Lipton.
This is the episode that Lea Michele submitted for her 2010 bid for the Emmy for Lead Actress in a Comedy.
The only sectionals competition in which Rachel sings.
Emma had first stated (since her engagement with Ken) that she did not want to have a big ceremony for their wedding, nobody had to know about it- or even be there. However, the reception clearly showed preparation for a fair amount of guests (finger food, reception hall, etc.).

Errors

Toward the end of Rachel's solo at sectionals, the rest of the group comes on stage. In the close-up, you can clearly see Finn and Puck cross paths and stop behind her. Then, in the wide shot, the boys are still walking by Rachel at the front of the stage.
The club asks for Will's help in setting the set list for sectionals and Will says he can't help them. However, the set list is already in place, as Sue has leaked it to the other two teams.
When Emma confronts the directors of the rival glee clubs, she wonders if the deaf students will sing "Don't Start Believing." The correct title is "Don't Stop Believing" (Actually, due to Emma's slight accent in the way that Jayma has created the character, it sounds much like "Start," but in all actuality, says "Stop").