Top 20 Glee Plot Holes You Never Noticed

#20: Finn Did Not Audition (Despite What He Said)

In the fourth season episode “The Break-Up,” Finn suggests doing “Grease,” telling Schue that he auditioned for the Glee club with a song from “Grease.” Schue looks at him with proud nostalgia goggles like, “Oh yeah, that was a fine day.” Only, they’re both off their rockers. In the pilot, Mr. Schuester heard Finn singing in the locker room shower, fake-planted marijuana in his locker, and then blackmailed him into joining the club to avoid detention. So, you know, Finn was literally coerced into the New Directions against his will by a faculty member committing a felony. Maybe that’s why Schue didn’t say anything. He knew Finn didn’t actually audition - he just doesn’t want to go to prison.

#19: Brad the Piano Player

Sorry, but uh, who is this dude!? This adult man sits at the piano every single day, with no semblance of a life outside of McKinley, and just kinda waiting for teenagers to sing. He’s always just…there. The true plot hole, however, is his terrifying psychic ability. A student will run in, announce a mashup they just wrote five minutes ago in the hallway, and Brad immediately plays the complex arrangement like “gotchu fam.” How does he know the tempo? How does he know the key change? He never speaks, he never eats, and he never leaves. While the show treats him as furniture, realistically, Brad is either a magical musical entity or a squatter with perfect pitch who the school board simply forgot to fire for loitering around minors.

#18: Brittany Suddenly Becomes a Math Genius

For three glorious seasons, Brittany S. Pierce was the lovable ditz who thought dolphins were just “gay sharks” and didn't know how to read a calendar. She was held back a grade because she literally had a GPA of 0.0. And then she undergoes a character transformation the likes of which we have never seen before. The writers suddenly decided she wasn't dumb; she was actually a secret mathematical genius capable of solving complex equations that baffled MIT professors. Suddenly, she’s scribbling all these crazy equations like she’s Will Hunting. It was a lazy, overnight personality transplant that completely invalidated her entire character arc just to rush her off to college.

#17: The Vitamins

In the season one episode “Vitamin D,” the New Directions are feeling sluggish, so Terri Schuester prescribes them some “vitamins.” In reality, she is handing out pseudoephedrine like candy, effectively putting the entire Glee club on a heavy stimulant regimen. First of all, how did she get these? Sales of these drugs are highly regulated, so there’s no way she would be able to get this many boxes. Here is the kicker: the students face zero fallout. They suffer no lasting health effects, none of them develop substance use disorder. Nothing. The entire club recovers from what is essentially a weekend meth binge without so much as a headache. The show treats a major narcotics incident as a quirky one-off gag, proving that at McKinley, even drug use is just a warm-up for Regionals.

#16: Joe and Sugar Disappearing Into Thin Air

“Glee” had a bad habit of treating characters like disposable tissues, but the disappearance of Joe Hart and Sugar Motta was egregious. Joe, the dreadlocked “Teen Jesus,” and Sugar, the rich benefactor of the club, were standing members of the New Directions. They were there, occupying chairs and singing background vocals. Then they simply vanished from the face of the Earth. There was no graduation scene for them, no casual “I'm moving away” announcement, and no transfer paperwork. They just stopped existing in the “Glee” universe. Yeah, they briefly come back for a final farewell, but we’ll never know what really happened because the show just didn’t care enough to tell us.

#15: Rachel’s Dads

In the very first episode of the series, Rachel Berry proudly looks at the photos of her and her two dads that she has hung in her locker. These are clearly just random actors, and it’s obvious that the show had no intention of ever showing them in person. Fast forward to season three when we finally meet the dads in person, and they’re played by Jeff Goldblum and Brian Stokes Mitchell. While they are both Broadway legends and fantastic in the roles, they are clearly not the same people that we saw in the season one photograph. It is a classic case of TV pilots not consulting the future and then stunt casting purely for the ratings.

#14: Artie Is Allowed to Play Football

In season two, Artie Abrams joins the football team to boost his popularity, and this is about when viewers started to question their devotion to the show. To be fair, the episode does address this and attempts to explain the mechanics, with the suggestion that he will use his wheelchair as a battering ram. While we award points for creativity, this strategy would be an immediate disqualification in literally any real-world league. High school athletic associations have strict rules against hard casts, let alone bringing a fifty-pound metal vehicle onto the field to smash into teenagers’ shins. Finn said there’s no rule against it - no, there definitely is. It was a nice sentiment for inclusion, but practically, it was a lawsuit waiting to happen.

#13: Kurt’s Car

In season one, Kurt Hummel drives a pristine, late-model Lincoln Navigator. While the show paints Burt Hummel as a blue-collar mechanic struggling to compete with big tire chains, the math on his son’s car tells a different story. In 2009, a brand new Lincoln Navigator would cost roughly $50,000, maybe even a little more. That’s more than a local mechanic in Ohio would make in a year. Yes, Burt owns the shop, but after things like overhead and taxes, he was likely taking home a modest middle-class income. There’s no way this guy is buying his 16-year-old son a luxury SUV that costs more than his entire annual salary. The Hummels are constantly stressing about money, yet there is a tank-sized vehicle in the driveway worth more than the down payment on their house.

#12: How Has Sue Not Been Fired?

We all love us some Sue Sylvester, but seriously, how has this woman not been fired? For one thing, she is unbelievably mean, often outright taunting students to their faces and manipulating them against each other. She has zero qualms about inducing serious body positivity issues into her cheerleaders. She tries launching Brittany out of a cannon, which would have certainly killed her. She blackmails the principal of the school. But it gets worse. She also pushes people down the stairs, and at one point she even got Brittany to lie about being sexually assaulted by Bieste. We mean, come on. Never mind how has Sue not been fired? How is she not in prison?

#11: Song Censoring

And here we come to the age-old problem of separating in-universe storytelling from real-world limitations. There are countless times throughout the show when the New Directions censor themselves while singing. Why would they do this? It’s certainly not a moral obligation, because they often use these very same words in conversation. For example, they censor the b-word in “Bad Romance” yet use that very same word all the freaking time. Or they censor the odd mild swear word but have no problem performing sexually provocative dances and grinding on each other. We mean, we know why. It’s because these covers were put on iTunes and they didn’t want kids downloading songs with swearing in them. But there is no reason whatsoever that this needed to happen in-universe.

#10: The Glee Club’s Popularity

Have you ever noticed that the Glee club’s popularity wildly fluctuates from season to season? In “A Night of Neglect,” the club encounters great resistance when trying to round up people to attend their benefits concert. However, back in the first season, they managed to secure a full house for their fall invitational. But it’s not just inconsistencies in audience numbers. Reactions to the club dramatically vary as well. Sometimes the club receives cheers and ovations after performing, both onstage and off. Other times, they are relentlessly heckled or met with great indifference from the students. It’s almost as if it depends entirely on what that episode’s specific story entails.

#9: Special Education

We can chalk this one up to a simple joke, but it’s still an inconsistency, damn it! Way back in the second episode, Sue gives Will a list of McKinley’s special education classes so he can find recruits for the Glee club. It’s a funny joke that was quickly forgotten. However, Sue later runs for Congress and mentions that there is no special education program at McKinley, contradicting the list she gave to Will. Either this was a joke not meant to be taken so seriously, there was never a special ed program and Sue just made it up to annoy Will, or her remark was a false statement made for sympathy.

#8: Figgins’ Approved Songs

In the same episode that Sue gives Will the list of special education classes, Principal Figgins gives Will a list of pre-approved songs that promote family-friendly values, recommended to him by his pastor. Quinn then performs “I Say a Little Prayer” with the Cheerios and the list also and the restrictions are never mentioned again. In fact, not only is the list entirely ignored, but the New Directions try to sing religious songs in “Grilled Cheesus” only for Figgins to deny their right to do so, explicitly contradicting the list he received from his pastor. We guess he forgot about the family-friendly values.

#7: Ryder Quitting Glee Club

We can chalk the previous entries up to jokes or plot necessities. However, there’s simply no forgiving or overlooking this one. In the fourth season finale, “All or Nothing,” Ryder dramatically mentions that he will be quitting the Glee club after Regionals. And wouldn’t you know it, he never actually quits. This would obviously be fine if the show explained his character development, but we never received any indication that he had changed his mind, that he left and later returned, or that he made up with Unique. We were just supposed to forget about it and pretend that it never happened. And we did.

#6: Finn’s Desire to Leave Ohio

Another character inconsistency is Finn’s deep connections to Ohio. Throughout the early seasons, Finn seems committed to living a simple life in the state. Rachel calls Finn a “country boy” when discussing life in New York City, and Finn shows contentment working at Burt’s auto shop as a laborer. There seems to be no indication that he desires to leave Lima, or even Ohio. However, in the third season episode, “The First Time,” Finn becomes upset when Cooter doesn’t choose him for the Buckeyes and shows outward disgust at the thought of staying in Lima forever. Which is it, Finn?

#5: Quinn’s “Big Plans”

Here’s a tip for future showrunners: if you have a character say that they have “big plans,” it’s best if you actually go through with them instead of dropping the idea altogether. Near the end of the second season, Quinn ominously tells Finn that she has big plans for their New York trip. And this isn’t like a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it type thing. It’s the final, foreboding scene that leaves the episode on a cliffhanger. And while in New York, Quinn does… absolutely nothing. Oh, that’s not exactly true. She goes for a haircut after opening up to Brittany and Santana. Was that her big plan? Cry and get taken out for a sympathy haircut?

#4: Kurt & Rachel’s Finances

News flash – living in the heart of New York City is not cheap, even with roommates. Rachel and Kurt live the high life in New York. They live in a killer loft, they begin dressing with impeccable fashion, and they fly back to Ohio, like, every other weekend. And just where exactly are they getting the money for this? They don’t regularly have steady jobs, student loans don’t cover that, and we seriously doubt that their parents are giving them $1,800 a month for rent plus living and travel expenses. So, how exactly did they afford that apartment? TV magic? We’ll go with TV magic.

#3: The Glee Club Has No Budget

And for that matter, just where the hell is the Glee club getting their money for all these elaborate showstoppers!? A major aspect of the show is that the Glee club, and McKinley High for that matter, doesn’t have any money. The club often resorts to raising small amounts of money themselves and McKinley certainly isn’t shy about keeping the arts on a shoestring budget. So just where exactly does the club get the funds for all the outfits and costumes, sets, Broadway-caliber light rigs, and rain machines? Maybe from the same place that Kurt and Rachel get the money for their Vogue-esque New York lifestyles.

#2: Quinn’s Injury

In the episode, “On My Way,” Quinn runs a stop sign while texting Rachel (don’t text and drive, kids) and gets into a horrific car accident. She suffers from a badly compressed spine and is then in a wheelchair. The injury is so bad that she has very little feeling in her legs and is uncertain if she will ever walk again, despite her optimism. Five episodes later, Quinn is up and about at prom and is back to her normal, dancing self within no time at all. We’re not doctors here or anything, but it seems like an awfully short time to recover from such a debilitating injury.

#1: Rachel’s Broadway Dreams

Rachel’s dream of becoming a Broadway star is, like, THE key component of her character. Besides possibly her obnoxious diva behavior, her passion and ambition towards making it on Broadway is her single defining characteristic. Hell, Finn even calls off their wedding so she can go to New York and become a Broadway star. And while she lands a dream role in “Funny Girl,” she quickly abandons Broadway for TV, burns her bridges with Broadway producers, and moves back to Ohio. Sorry, but what? The Rachel of seasons 1-4 would never do a thing like that. There’s character inconsistency, and then there’s simply dropping almost five seasons’ worth of character development for seemingly no reason whatsoever.

Can you think of any more major plot holes? Let us know in the comments below!