Buckeye Civic Auditorium. Emma's taken her seat on the aisle and has already patched Will in via cell, so the two have nothing left to do except fret and babble at each other until the emcee strides out onto the stage to announce, "And now, our final team: McKinley High's New Directions!" A vamp I recognize instantly hits the soundtrack as the camera jumps backstage to capture Rachel steeling herself for the plunge through that forbidding curtain in front of her, and then...

...psych! She wasn't backstage at all! Nope, Rachel's rather daringly chosen to make her entrance through the audience, and without hesitation, she propels herself into her version of "Don't Rain On My Parade" from Funny Girl, and stone me if you must, but Barbra did it better. This show might want to consider avoiding iconic Broadway showstoppers in the future. Just saying. Or maybe I should stop watching the better-known originals while I'm recapping these episodes because, to be honest with you, while Barbra did it better, Lea Michele certainly is kicking a lot of ass, here. (And she's way more enjoyable to watch and listen to than her elder doppelganger was at last year's Kennedy Center Honors. Yeesh.) She starts off a little weakly, but I suppose that's meant to be a character choice, because by the time she's marching her band out in the form of the eleven other Glee Club kids making triumphant entrances of their own down the theater's side aisles, she's well into the sort of full-on belter wail I've grown to expect from this number, and once she hits and sustains that final note, I have no problems believing that Rachel's Sectionals audience would leap to its feet in rapturous applause as it now does. Maybe I'll watch it again.