"Aw, hell no!" Mercedes pretty much shouts, leaping to her feet to protest "Miss Bossypants" and the latter's latest attempt at stealing the spotlight. "I've worked just as hard as you," Mercedes asserts, sassy hands firmly planted on sassy hips as she gets all up in Rachel's bidness, "and I'm just as good as you!" "Do you honestly think you're as strong of a balladeer as I am?" Rachel too-innocently wonders, leading to a very funny bit wherein Mercedes spins around to mouth "'Balladeer'?" at Gaylord Weiner and Butt Lunch -- neither of whom knows where Rachel gets off with her snooty-ass, trisyllabic locutions, either -- while Rachel obliviously assures Miss Pillsbury that ballads are kind of her thing. Heh. Emma, clearly feeling as if she's in a bit over her head, quietly suggests Rachel let Mercedes "give it a try," and for whatever reason, Rachel agrees. As she and Miss Pillsbury head over to the chairs, Mercedes shoots a little attitude in Tinkles's direction and asks -- sassily! -- "Do I even need to tell you what song?" Tinkles, God love him, replies with a broad smile and an enthusiastic shake of his head, so Mercedes next instructs the horns and the strings to keep up, and here we go: Mercedes launches herself into an awkwardly truncated version of "And I Am Telling You I'm Not Going" from Dreamgirls, and while I asserted in the recaplet that Mercedes absolutely kills it, after rewatching Jennifer Holliday's 1982 Tony Award performance for the first time in several years (a certain Chicago nightspot, alas, having long ago retired it in favor of the inferior Jennifer Hudson version from the movie), I have to say I was wrong, because Jennifer Holliday killed it, and then Jennifer Holliday repeatedly brought it back from the dead so Jennifer Holliday could kill it over and over and over again in a performance unequalled in the last twenty-eight years, and this is coming from a guy who thinks Dreamgirls sucks. So, you know. Mercedes? Not so much with the killing it as I'd initially claimed. It is, however, a divalicious showcase of a performance in its own right, and it brings all of the other kids to their feet in a wild ovation -- except for Artie, of course, who has to make do with a wild ovation of the sitting sort for obvious reasons. And in the end, Rachel graciously concedes, honestly complimenting her sometime rival on the latter's power and presentation and whatnot, thereby securing for Mercedes the final spot in the Sectionals set list right before they all hug it out. Aw. Sort of.