A rant: looking at Wemma from a mathematical perspective.

After a promising start to the season and a tantalizing ‘Fix you’ ending to episode 3, there was no further mention of Emma’s OCD. RIB let the Wemma shippers go hungry in episode 4 and then decided to drop nothing more than crumbs during episodes 5, 6, 7,8 and 9. Like hungry birds the shippers gobbled up these morsels, patiently waiting for a bigger serving each week, but the meaty stuff was left in the editing room or just ignored. The shippers, while not exactly starving remained unsatiated. Sure, RIB’s game has improved by having Emma appear in each episode alongside Will but that’s just it: she appears. RIB we need MEANINGFUL INTERACTION, CHARACTER EXPLORATION AND STORY TELLING. Patience is turning to anger. What has happened to the Will-centric story line?  What has happened to the ‘hot’ Wemma action Falchuck tried to pacify the shippers with at the end of last season? What has happened to ‘fixing’ Emma’s problem?

Let’s recap the morsels we’ve been dished up in the last six episodes:

Ep 4: Even though Figgins wanted to cut the school musical and Emma was one of the directors, she was nowhere to be found in this episode. Maybe she was with Dr Shane recovering from her parents’ visit.

Wemma screen time: 0 seconds.

Ep 5: Emma and Will sit side by side watching opening night of West Side Story. Will praises the production. Emma sits as close to him as possible without moving into his lap. They both look deeply moved by Rachel and Blaine singing ‘One Hand One Heart.’ Wemma screen time: 15 seconds.

Ep 6: In yet another yellow nightdress, Emma soothes Will’s frazzled soul after he sees Sue on the TV spouting lies and derogatory remarks about Burt Hummel and his election campaign. Emma’s gentle touch and words of reason ease Will’s tension and have him sighing with pleasure.

Wemma screen time: 17seconds.

Ep 7: Back at the lunch table with Coach Bieste, Will delivers Emma her drink and then shares a look of discomfort with her as Bieste reveals what they think are intimate details about Bieste’s relationship with Mr ‘Cooter’ Menkin.

On Election day, Wemma walk up to Bieste’s table and offer her their support as Sue blatantly flaunts her relationship with Cooter in front of Bieste. Interestingly it is Emma who puts a hand on Bieste’s arm and says, ‘You need to go tell him how you feel.’ This from someone, who to the best of our knowledge, has never told Will how she feels and who has never spoken the words ‘I love you’ within our earshot. The irony.

Wemma screen time: 1 min 25 seconds (but the focus was Bieste)

Ep 8: Emma sits beside Will at Sectionals. They both look a little stunned after the first choir’s performance/Emma jumps up in excitement with Rachel at the announcement of the winners/Will mouths ‘All for You’ as he accepts the winning trophy and looks at Emma from the stage/Emma, clapping, looks back at him with pride and adoration.

Wemma screen time: 11 seconds.

Will’s ‘All for you’ had so much more meaning if you’d read the missing scene from ‘New York’ in which Will asks Emma, ‘And how do people make up for those big mistakes? The ones that keep them from the thing they want the most?’ And Emma replies: ‘They have to work really hard to make up for it. Spend at least the whole summer focused on nothing but making things right.’ Therefore, Will saying ‘All for you’ and sealing it with a kiss means he has followed her advice and is totally committed to her and the success of their relationship.

Then there is the subtext of the songs. Ryan Murphy cleverly chose songs that worked on three different levels: they fitted the character development of Quinn and Mike in particular; they overall conveyed where New Directions are at as a group; and thirdly, as we know Will chooses songs that convey his feelings towards Emma and this time around was no exception. ‘ABC’ by The Jackson 5 is all about how easy love can be if you’re with the right person and the snippets we’ve had of Wemma show their easy rapport with each other. The lyrics, ‘You went to school to learn girl, things you never knew before…now I’m going to teach you all about love dear…’ suggesting that Will wants to show Emma what real love is and what the power of love can achieve. The second song in the medley was ‘Control’ by Janet Jackson. Emma used the word ‘control’ in ‘The Power of Madonna’ when, in the lead up to asking Will to ‘do the nasty’ she says, ‘I need to take control of my body’ and in ‘Rumours’ she says to Will, ‘You inspired me to take charge of my own destiny…’ OCD has controlled Emma’s whole life and she is finally only now getting some control over it. Having met Emma’s parents we realize how pertinent these lyrics are: ‘Did what my father said, and let my mother mold me.’ The following lyrics, ‘First time I fell in love, I didn't know what hit me, So young and so naive, I thought it would be easy’ could be a reference to Emma’s smitten stage of being in love with Will and how quickly she cooled things off between them when things got complicated. Finally Emma has reached a place where ‘Now I know I got to take control, Now I'm all grown up,I wanna be the one in control’. The song is like a mini story of Emma’s character development. New Directions ends with Michael Jackson’s ‘Man in the Mirror’, which is all about changing yourself to make the world a better place. Will and Emma have changed themselves for each other to make their world together a better place.

Ep 9: Emma pushes Artie’s wheelchair into the homeless shelter. Will’s arm is protectively around her. She takes his coat as he prepares to play the piano. Emma sits next to him on the piano stool and sings along to ‘Feed the World’. Will looks adoringly at her.

Wemma screen time: 6 seconds.

In sum, each of these scenes, short and sweet, are filled with shared looks of mutual understanding and adoration, Will’s protective arm around Emma and Emma’s physical closeness to Will. It appears that Wemma are so connected they have become telepathic and don’t need to talk!

Total Wemma Screen Time: 2 minute 14 seconds.

Now let’s say eps 4-9 are on average 40 minutes long. Six times forty equals 240 minutes and Wemma have been given 2 minutes and 24 seconds of that screen time. Therefore Wemma have been given 0.9% screen time. Within that screen time can we say there’s been any Wemma development? NO! Any meaningful discussion? NO! Any more movement to remedying Emma’s OCD? NO! Because 0.9% screen time is not long enough to do anything in.

So now RIB keep us hanging on a thread, dangling episode 10 in front of us with promises of a proposal. This shipper doesn’t like to be pessimistic but my greatest fear is that after the proposal there will be a further six episodes of 0.9% Wemma development until the wedding. Where is the Glee in that?

Let's hope the proposal, the wedding and the Wemma sexy times are so far out of this world that it takes the Wemma shippers a week or more to come back down to earth after viewing. More importantly they'd  better be given more than 0.9% screen time.