Glee has been coasting on camp and lightly entertaining for a while now, so it’s a pleasant surprise to see the show’s return to poignancy.

Despite a shaky start, with a tired “I am a star” monologue by Rachel Berry, Choke gives way to a series of genuinely interesting storylines. Puck and Kurt especially both deliver polar, yet equally impressive performances, the former determined to push boundaries to ensure his place at performing arts school NYADA, the latter determined to drop out of high school.

Puck begins the episode trying to seduce his Geography lecturer in order to graduate, and burning a guitar at the end of his energetic performance of Alice Cooper’s ‘Schools Out’. Throughout the episode, however, it is touching to see him influenced to do better not only by witnessing his own father’s failings, but also by having a loving group of “bros” around him offering support.

Kurt on the other hand, begins the episode doubting his ‘safe’ audition choice of ‘The Music of the Night’ from Phantom of the Opera, but his final audition of ‘Not The Boy Next Door’ truly showcases a passion for performance and neatly sums up the gloriously over-the-top nature of the character, and of a boy finally feeling comfortable in his own skin.

Whoopi Goldberg’s brief cameo as NYADA dean Carmen Tibideaux is also very entertaining; her voice deep and commanding, and her demeanour uncharacteristically, yet effectively, serious.

Rachel’s excruciating (and unfortunately less successful) audition and subsequent emotional breakdown is also every bit as heartbreaking, if not more so, as you would expect. Lea Michele’s rendition of Kelly Clarkson’s ‘Cry’ at the end of the episode is at once incredibly melodramatic, yet, given the character’s history, tear-jerking at the same time.

However, the most poignant storyline of the episode is that of Coach Beiste, whose black eye is offhandedly mocked by the Glee girls before Sue and her rival Coach Roz Washington, hilariously dubbed as “Black Sue” by Sue herself, come together to make the girls realise the seriousness of domestic violence.

It’s an odd choice of theme for an episode this late in the series, but one that pays off. Dot-Marie Jones gives her most emotional Glee performance to date, her confession that she was hit by her partner being magnificently played, while the girls’ final performance of Florence and the Machine’s ‘Shake It Out’ is similarly touching; bittersweet yet uplifting, despite the final revelation that Beiste has stayed with her husband.

A more three-dimensional personality is revealed in each of the key characters in Choke, and we find ourselves rooting for each and every one of them. If Glee could manage to do this for all the remaining cast, there’s no doubt Season 3 will go out on the high the show began on.

Airs at 9pm on Thursday 26th April 2012 on Sky1.

> Buy the Seasons 1-2 boxset on Amazon.

> Order the Season 3 boxset on Amazon.

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