And because the third part of the scene involves the ever-useless Mr. Schue talking about the time he tried to kill himself because he got caught cheating on a fucking math test, for Christ's sake, I'll be ignoring that bit, too, THANKS, and are we done here? Oh, we're not? First we have to listen as the children tell us what they're looking forward to in life? Well, fuck you, Glee, because I don't give a shit. Isn't this supposed to be the Regionals episode? Why are they not rehearsing? Why haven't we had a musical number in ten minutes? WHERE'S THE GODDAMNED SINGING?

Oh, here it is. While I was screaming, we shot through this evening's second commercial break to land on the opening of this evening's actual Regionals competition, and it would be remiss of me, I suppose, to jump right into the festivities without first making note of tonight's special guest judges. They are, in order of introduction, "deputy zoning commissioner Melba Jackson-Wright," "president of The Ohio Plumbers' Union Local 109, Mr. Harl Beindorf," and "Central Ohio's number-one late-night horror movie host, Svengoobles." Svengoobles is, of course, this show's take on the seemingly-immortal Chicago-area legend Svengoolie, and if you're thinking that's an infuriatingly obscure reference for this show to be making, it might help to know that Svengoobles is being played by Chicago-area native Ian Brennan, who's apparently been a Svengoolie fan for a very long time.

And with all that out of the way, we finally -- finally -- reach the Regionals proper. First up are The Swallows, who open with a startlingly dull a cappella version of Lenny Kravitz's "Stand," which is followed by a somewhat more energetic rendition of yet another bit of bland, boring nothing I've never heard before in my life, the latter of which was originally performed by a manufactured Anglo-Irish boy band no one in North America will ever care about, ever. It's a shockingly uninvolving set, especially considering the fact that it takes up about five full minutes in the middle of one of the series' huge annual competition episodes, but don't think for a second that stops the onscreen audience from leaping to their feet several times to cheer and applaud anyway.