This week on Glee on the Rocks, we cover 5x19, “Old Dog, New Tricks,” the Chris Colfer-written detour that somehow works because it’s old people, puppies, and just enough Rachel to keep the season’s chaos limping forward.

Rachel tries to rebrand her image after Broadway gossip exposes her Funny Girl mess by hiring Santana as a ruthless publicist and inventing an animal-rescue charity event called Broadway Bitches, complete with a disastrous pap walk that ends with her getting dragged down the street by dogs. Correct, honestly.

Meanwhile, Kurt, feeling left behind while everyone else gets careers, scandals, showcases, and/or strange rich lady mentorships, finds purpose at the Lexington Home for Retired Performers. He auditions for Peter Pan, gets pulled into Maggie’s story, and makes one very questionable attempt to reconcile her with her estranged daughter. Sounds about Kurt.

And then there’s Sam, Mercedes, and McConaughey the dog, which gives us one of the rarest Glee miracles of all: someone remembering Sam’s actual backstory.

Also happening in this episode:

⭐️ Rachel Berry attempting public image rehab while continuing to be Rachel Berry
👠 Santana Lopez as unpaid publicist, crisis manager, and professional hater with a cause
🎭 Kurt joining a retirement home production of Peter Pan and accidentally pitching us a spin-off we would absolutely watch
🐶 Sam adopting McConaughey without asking Mercedes, and the surprisingly adult conversation that follows

Did we love every song? Absolutely not. Did every plot point make sense? Please, this is still Glee. But did we enjoy watching this one more than expected? Somehow, yes.

xoxo,
FotR

We are once again asking the 9-1-1 writers’ room to be brave. Be bold. Be intentional.

In this Fandom on the Rocks bonus episode, we’re looking ahead to Season 10 of 9-1-1 and laying out our very reasonable, completely measured, not-at-all-unhinged wishlist for what we want from the next season.

Some of these wishes are mild-mannered expectations. Some are pipe dreams. Some are pure crack. All of them are delivered with love, frustration, and the deep spiritual exhaustion of two people who are, frankly, tired Grandpa.

An incomplete list (you have to listen to the episode for the full experience, obviously):

• Buddie canon, obviously — but as a choice, not a crisis. No more near-death experiences as romantic shortcuts. We want Buck and Eddie to choose each other because they have already built the life, the family, the trust, and the deeply suspicious platonic marriage.

• The bottle episode agenda — two couches, a kitchen table, the firehouse, and people actually talking to each other. CPR recertification? Station inspection? Power outage? We don’t care. Lock them in and let the character work happen.

• A wildfire that actually means something — Los Angeles is their home. Let the big disaster be about the community they serve, not just another round of “how can we almost kill the 118 this time?” Also, yes, burn down South Bedford and make Eddie move in with Buck. We said what we said.

• Group hang for joy — not a funeral, not a wedding, not a hospital, not a crisis. Give us a barbecue, a beach day, a game night, karaoke, softball, something. This show talks about found family all the time. Let us actually see the family.

• Emergency lightning round — influencer immersive experience gone wrong, wellness retreat horrors, science fair explosions, cruise ship dock chaos, revisiting elevator trauma with consequences, and a CPR training cold open where everyone roasts each other’s compression technique. Because silly emergencies are fun.

And, because we are us, we also discuss crop tops (obviously), drag brunch, Christopher needing an actual storyline, May and Ravi's developing romance, Maddie and Chimney in their leadership roles, Eddie Diaz as a queer-coded man written so loudly we are all begging the show to notice, and why Season 10 desperately needs one thing above all else: Intentionality.

Show us the storyboard. Show us the wall. Know where these characters are going when you start writing. Let big things mean something. Let the emotional arcs actually arc. We are paying adult money to watch this show. Give us the goods.

As always, we complain because we love this show. We want 9-1-1 to be the best version of itself, and we want Season 10 to remember that the show is strongest when the emergencies are wild, the characters are grounded, and the found family actually feels like a family.

Drop your Season 10 wishlist in the comments. What are you manifesting? What are you begging for? And how many crop tops is too many crop tops? Trick question. The limit does not exist.

xoxo,
Fandom on the Rocks

This week on Glee on the Rocks, Rachel Berry gets everything she’s ever wanted and immediately decides it’s not enough. In 5x18, “The Back-Up Plan,” Rachel risks her Funny Girl dream for a TV audition she is wildly unprepared for, Kurt and Blaine get pulled into the deeply weird orbit of rich socialite June Dolloway, and Mercedes and Santana quietly become the only people in New York making choices with even a shred of common sense.

This episode we break down:
🎭 Rachel Berry speedrunning career self-sabotage
💎 June Dolloway spotting Blaine and deciding to adopt him as her own personal show pony
🎶 Mercedes and Santana saving the episode with basement harmonies and actual friendship
📞 Sidney Greene delivering the only appropriate response to Rachel’s nonsense
⭐ And an honestly wild number of guest stars for an episode that seems to have misplaced half the cast

We talk chaotic Broadway logic, deeply questionable TV ambitions, unsettling Shirley MacLaine vibes, and Rachel once again fumbling a dream people would kill for. Thank Barbra Mercedes and Santana are here to provide the only functioning brain cells in New York.

xoxo,
FotR