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

Glee on the Rocks: 5x19 - “Old People, Puppies, and Actual Continuity”

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

Fandom on the Rocks Bonus Episode #57: Our 9-1-1 Season 10 Wishlist

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

Glee on the Rocks: 5x18 - "The One Where Rachel Risks It All for No Reason"

This week on Glee, Rachel Berry finally makes it to Broadway — and naturally, everyone else is forced to treat it like the moon landing. In 5x17, “Opening Night,” Rachel spirals over bad buzz and opening-night nerves, Sue takes a deeply unnecessary field trip to New York, Kurt’s loft becomes a site of multiple crimes, and Will Schuester pops in just long enough to cry and leave. It’s Rachel’s big moment, and Glee makes sure absolutely no one gets out alive.

This episode we break down:
🎭 Rachel Berry’s opening-night ego spiral
📰 One bad preview and suddenly it’s DEFCON 1
🗽 Sue Sylvester’s cursed New York adventure

Is the episode a little self-indulgent? Of course. Is it also one of season 5’s more entertaining messes? Honestly, yes.

We wouldn't want Glee any other way.

xoxo,
FotR

Glee on the Rocks: 5x17 - “Funny Girl, Serious Delusions”

This week on Glee, everyone gets tested — emotionally, medically, and our patience. In 5x16, “Tested,” Blaine spirals over a cronut-based body image crisis, Kurt enters his gym bro villain era, Artie discovers that sleeping with everyone at film school has consequences, and Sam Evans somehow becomes the only functioning adult in New York City. Yes. Sam Evans. Bless him.

This episode we break down:
🥐 Blaine vs. the Cronut Industrial Complex
💪 Kurt Hummel’s sudden transformation into That Guy from the gym
🦠 Artie Abrams and the extremely literal STD storyline
🙏 Sam Evans praying in a bathroom and still making the best decision in the episode

We talk Klaine’s increasingly miserable relationship arc, the bizarre fat-shaming plotline assigned to an objectively fit man, and how an episode about sexual health somehow becomes mostly about… cronuts and insecurity.

Is it messy? Absolutely.
Is Sam Evans the moral center of the episode? Also yes.

Because it’s Glee.

xoxo,
FotR

Glee on the Rocks: 5x16 – “Cronuts, Chlamydia & Relationship Crimes”

We made it to the season finale of Teen Wolf, but will the pack make it out? In 3×24 "The Divine Move," the pack go toe-to-toe (and claw-to-sword) with the Oni, but controlled this time by Void. They're taking every territory on the board — the Sherriff's station, the animal clinic, the hospital — and by the time they get to the school, our pack's had about enough.

While Derek and his small gaggle of ex-Alphas go face-to-face with Void and the Oni, Scott, Stiles, Lydia, and Kira head inside, and right into a winter garden of horror. There's flashbacks, there's an attempted ritual sacrifice, there's the birth of the Muderpod™, and no one can tell what's real.

Does Void-slash-The Nogitsune get transformed and irrevocably dusted? Does Isaac trap its weird, firefly soul in a box made of Nemeton wood? Does Derek get attacked in his own home by someone who was supposed to be dead and have a coma-esque dream that's eerily inspired by An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge?

Suppose you'll have to listen and find out.

xoxo,
Fandom on the Rocks

(S3E24) Pack Dynamics: A Teen Wolf Podcast - The Divine Move (Season Finale)

In Teen Wolf 3×23, “Insatiable,” the pack is technically moving forward, but everything that matters is coming undone.

There are two Stiles and only one real one, and while our Stiles survives the oni test, the relief barely has time to land. Void Stiles still has Lydia, our Stiles remembers everything the Nogitsune did while wearing his body, and it’s becoming clear this possession has caused real, irreversible damage. Whatever is happening to Stiles isn’t just supernatural — it’s killing him. Not great news.

Lydia is taken to Oak Creek, trapped in echoes of past violence and repurposed as a supernatural alarm system. If the pack gets close, she’ll feel it — and the Nogitsune will know. It’s cruel, efficient, and exactly the kind of psychological torment Beacon Hills specializes in.

Back in town, Meredith Walker escapes Eichen House and reveals she can hear death before it happens, which is both incredibly useful and deeply bad news. At the same time, the twins are hunted with wolfsbane for reasons the episode refuses to explain, and Derek continues to appear exactly where the plot needs him, not where the emotional logic is begging for him.

At Oak Creek, the Nogitsune makes his biggest move yet by stealing control of the oni and turning Noshiko’s weapons against everyone. The fight erupts, and for one brief, shining moment, Alison Argent becomes exactly who she’s been training to be. She kills an oni with the silver arrowhead she made herself — a hard-earned, deeply deserved win.

Teen Wolf, of course, does not let that victory stand. An oni strikes back, and Alison is fatally wounded. Excuse us, but why??

Chris arrives too late, because of course. The Nogitsune disappears once again. And the pack is left shattered and grieving, staring down a finale that no longer feels uncertain — only inevitable.

“Insatiable” sets the endgame in motion in the most Teen Wolf way possible — messy, emotionally brutal, and light on connective logic. The board is set, the losses are real, and Beacon Hills reminds us, once again, that loving something in this town always comes with a body count.

xoxo
FotR

(S3E23) Pack Dynamics: A Teen Wolf Podcast - Insatiable

This week, Glee attempts a Very Serious Episode™ and somehow still makes it mostly about Rachel Berry. In 5x15, “Bash,” Kurt is the victim of a brutal hate crime, Blaine gets the worst phone call imaginable, and Burt Hummel shows up to remind everyone how emotions are supposed to work.

Meanwhile, Rachel declares war on NYADA because accountability is oppression, and Sam and Mercedes try to navigate race, dating, and New York City while Glee makes deeply questionable choices about everything. Because it's Glee.

This episode we break down:
🕯️ Hate crimes as a C-plot (???)
📚 Rachel Berry vs. the concept of school
💔 Klaine hurt/comfort doing the heavy lifting
🎤 Sam Evans committing crimes against social awareness (but we love him)

We talk uneven storytelling, surprisingly effective hospital scenes, why Burt Hummel is the only adult in the room, and how Rachel Berry somehow becomes the worst part of an episode that includes literal violence. (Are we surprised though?)

It’s not subtle. It’s not balanced. But it is very, very Glee.

xoxo,
FotR

Glee on the Rocks: 5x15 - "Hate Crimes as a C-Plot"

In Teen Wolf 3×22, “De-Void,” the pack is still trying to keep Stiles alive while the Oni keep dropping in like it’s a scheduled appointment. Sheriff Stilinski shows up at the loft hoping to save his son, and Void Stiles responds by calmly pressing every single Dad Trauma button he can reach.

Meanwhile, Noshiko confirms what we’ve all been dreading: the Nogitsune isn’t just haunting Stiles — it’s multiplying the problem. Void Stiles pulls the last tail and unleashes a swarm of flies that spreads across Beacon Hills, possessing basically anyone who stands still for too long.

Isaac wakes up and chooses violence, Derek gets infected through an open wound (no thank you), and the situation devolves into “who is possessed right now” chaos at both the Argents’ apartment and the school. Allison and Kira go full weapons-mode, because girls’ night in Beacon Hills is always a combat scenario.

Back at the McCall house, Deaton breaks out the kanima venom like it’s just another Tuesday, and Scott and Lydia go into Stiles’s mind to find the real him — where Stiles is playing Go with the Nogitsune on the Nemeton. Scott howls, Stiles looks up, and the board flips.

For a second, it works.

And then Teen Wolf reminds us it’s Teen Wolf: Stiles is back, but the Nogitsune slips out anyway and takes Lydia with it.

If the evil can leave, what else can it take?

xoxo
FotR

(S3E22) Pack Dynamics: A Teen Wolf Podcast - DeVoid

Teen Wolf said “What if we combined wartime tragedy, supernatural lore, AND your unprocessed emotions?” and 3x21, "The Fox and the Wolf" was born.

This episode is a two-lane highway — half of it is Void!Stiles wreaking absolute havoc in Beacon Hills, and the other half is a 1943 flashback that turns the entire Nogitsune story into a tragic origin romance you absolutely were not emotionally prepared for (we weren't).

In 1943 we meet young Noshiko (played by Arden Cho, living her best multi-role life) and Corporal Rhys, the painfully adorable, utterly doomed soldier she’s secretly seeing.

Back in 2014, Kira learns her mother is 900 years old and also the original source of the Nogitsune (ouch). Meanwhile Void!Stiles is at peak chaos gremlin, politely bapping books off shelves like a feral library cat.

And just for fun, Teen Wolf drops a fandom bomb for the ages: Stiles has revised his supernatural metaphor chess set… and now Derek is the King. Are we not supposed to ship them?

We really are in the endgame now.

xoxo,
FotR

(S3E21) Pack Dynamics: A Teen Wolf Podcast - The Fox and the Wolf

an unofficial retrospective about Glee, the fandom, and its effects on all our
lives every episode we break down the highs and lows of the writing, the music,
and the cultural impact of a network TV show that only ran 6 seasons and ended 6
years ago Support this podcast:
https://anchor.fm/glee-on-the-rocks-podcast/support

Glee on the Rocks: an unofficial Glee podcast

This is Supernatural on the Rocks, a new Supernatural podcast hosted by two of
the voices behind Glee on the Rocks.
[https://anchor.fm/glee-on-the-rocks-podcast] Every episode we cover a season of
Supernatural, digging into the mythology, the characters, and the fandom it left
behind. Join us to remember the road that was. Support this podcast:
https://anchor.fm/spnontherocks/support

fandomontherocks

Shows