'We've been in love for almost three years'

‘We’ve been in love for almost three years,’ Will confirms with Emma, and us. She nods, we nod. THREE YEARS. Wemma’s love story must be the most slowly developed story in the history of television romance writing. There has been an interminable amount of waiting but in ‘Dance with Somebody’, we were delivered a LONG OVERDUE amount of Wemma and wedding news. Let’s begin.

Scene 1: Welcome back to my office Will.

Last week it was WTF? Will is going to Sue (the woman who relentlessly tries to destroy his club) for advice? Did he get lost on his way to Emma’s office? Apart from the proposal, has he even been in Emma’s office this season? This week however, the order of the universe was back and all was as it should be. ‘Thank you Grilled Cheesus. The ‘Will seeking advice in Emma’s office’ scenes have been SORELY MISSED. Like a child needing the security of their routine, this shipper needs those scenes. I felt all warm inside when I saw Will at Emma’s desk; it was like meeting up with an old friend – familiar and comforting and no need to explain anything.

‘How Will I Know?’ a song about the uncertainty of new love leads us straight into Emma’s office to a couple who know for certain how much they love each other. Nice juxtaposition. Will is perplexed by the kids’ inability to move on from Whitney Houston’s death. Emma whips out another of her scene stealing pamphlets ‘Princess Di: why I can’t stop crying’. I love the continuity of Emma’s referencing to Princess Diana. She explains how, for her the death of Diana, and for the kids the death of Whitney is a physical representation of the loss of their own childhoods. I would venture even further and say she couldn’t stop crying because Princess Diana’s death also represented the end of a fairy tale and for someone like Emma, who has tried to escape reality through fairytale romances, it established something that might have been a biting realisation: fairytale endings mostly only happen in fairytales.

Then there was this pertinent line: ‘I was saying good bye to my teachers, my friend.’ My FRIEND. Not friendS. It explains her hatred of loneliness and fear of rejection; her childhood was filled with both of these things. It harks back to Emma explaining why she’s still a virgin to Will on their first date, ‘I just never found the right person…someone who wouldn’t reject me.’ It confirms that Emma’s OCD isolated her from making friendships. After she says this line the camera immediately goes to Will’s face and he frowns. Is this a revelation for him? If he didn’t understand his worth to Emma before this, he must now. He is EVERYTHING to her. It makes him a very precious person.

Scene 2: You found my office AGAIN. Yay.

Once again we move from the uncertainty of new love between Quinn and Teen Jesus to the rock solid Wemma love. ‘I’ve got a little surprise for you,’ announces Will. ‘If this is another Rhianna song in the pool, I have to take pictures this time,’ is Emma’s immediate response. LOL. But not Will, he is a man on a mission and he has a surprise for all of us: he’s found a wedding planner. Just as Rachel has been singing since in vitro, Emma has probably been wedding planning for the same length of time so why would she even need a wedding planner? Maybe to speed up the process? That’s what’s on Will’s mind. Let’s get this wedding happening. We hear you Will. ‘We’ve been in love for almost 3 years?’ Will affirms this with Emma and she nods. We nod too. Why in the hell hasn’t it happened? Emma jumped into marrying Ken and Carl within the blink of an eye, yet she can’t marry Will within 12 MONTHS! (I want to digress here: hearing Will say how long he and Emma have been in love took me back to Terri telling Emma, Will doesn’t remember anything, ‘he goes to the store for milk and comes back with gum.’ Like Will remembering the vest he was wearing the first time they met, it maintains continuity of Will’s character showing how romantic and sentimental and in love with Emma he really is.)

Emma starts searching for reasons against the idea. Is it about the S-E-X (I love that she spells it)? Will brushes that one away but the shippers have received the message: they still haven’t had sex. Note to RIB: the longer you make us wait for the Wemma love scene, the higher our expectations grow. Emma gets all flustered and starts manically spouting all the reasons why the wedding can’t happen until Christmas but Will calms her down with kisses. That is the Wemma we know and love. He keeps her grounded with a touch. (Remember in the first episode, walking into the auditorium to view the competition and Emma is nervously talking and he just puts a guiding hand on her back and she stops talking?) Emma is helpless in his arms (just as he is in hers), sometimes just the nearness of him can override the control of her mind. (Remember ‘The Rhodes Not Taken’ and the scene in which Will stands seductively behind her as she retrieves confidential files for him on April?) One kiss and Emma is smitten all over again. Will knows his powers of seduction but he should also know from ‘The Rhodes Not Taken’ that seduction can only get you so far, especially with Emma. The wedding moves forward to May… for now. 

Scene 3: ‘I get so emotional Baby, Honey, Sweetie’

We meet the wedding planner and as Will says, he’s not really what we were expecting. Oh well. All Will wants for the wedding is an audio system and dance floor. All the shippers want is an entire episode (I’d push for a double) devoted to the wedding and love scene. All Emma wants is the perfect wedding. There’s no way they can produce a wedding of Emma Pillsbury proportions by May so how about September? Absolutely not says Will, pick up your pamphlets and be off.

Kurt sings the lyrics, ‘I don’t want to have to go where you don’t follow’ and Will gives a knowing nod and look. Kurt continues, ‘I have nothing if I don’t have you.’ Is Will thinking about the kids leaving him? Or is he thinking about why he didn’t stay in New York? It doesn’t really matter. Either way it's emotional.

Scene 4: Champagne on a Tuesday?

Crack open the bubbly. Will’s found the perfect wedding reception venue for an OCD sufferer: the KOA camping ground, complete with map! This is an example of the writers sacrificing the establishment of Will’s intelligence and understanding of Emma’s condition in previous episodes for the sake of humour. I’m going to overlook this one because it was funny (especially about the toilets) and I will put it down to Will’s desperation to get the wedding moved to May. ‘It sounds a bit rustic,’ says Emma. ‘Married under the stars, Babe it’s romantic.’ William replies. (Babe? Has Will been listening to Styxx’s ‘Babe’?) Then Emma states something she couldn’t admit to this time last season. ‘I have OCD.’ Will is flailing and she helps him over the finish line by voicing the real reason why he wants the wedding pronto. He wants the Glee kids there and he’s afraid they won’t return in six months time. His outburst of frustration and fear is subdued by Emma’s look of complete reasonableness, empathy and understanding. She reassures him, and helps him come to terms with his impending loss. The kids will return because what Will and the Glee kids have given each other will not be forgotten. Their love will prevail. The voice of reason prevails and this time it's her bringing him down to earth. The wedding is in November. Emma and Will have compromised. Once again we see they are two sides of the same coin. They are each other’s heart and mind. This was a battle of heart and mind and this time the mind won.

So what are we left with?

Expectations. Expectations that Wemma’s wedding will be of EPIC proportions and be given the amount of airtime it deserves. Expectations that there will be a Wemma love scene that blows all other love scenes in television history out of the water. These are massive expectations but RIB by taking so F#$^!(*) long in delivering have positioned us to expect them. Their track record has not been good. The scars of cutting the Wemma scenes from last season’s final episode still linger and act as a constant reminder not to trust RIB. Prepare ourselves for disappointment, arm ourselves with fanfiction and live in hope. In the meantime let's hope we don't have to wait too long between episodes for some more of the delicious and divine Wemma interaction we saw in this episode.