Glee: Never Been Kissed

"Never Been Kissed" is the sixth episode of the second season of the American television series Glee, and the twenty-eighth episode overall. It was written by Brad Falchuk, directed by Bradley Buecker and premiered on Fox on November 9, 2010. In "Never Been Kissed", the glee club members are assigned a boys against girls singing competition. The bullying of club member Kurt Hummel (Chris Colfer) intensifies, but he meets a new ally in Blaine Anderson (Darren Criss), the lead singer of a rival glee club. Puck (Mark Salling) is released from juvenile detention and forms a friendship with Artie Abrams (Kevin McHale), and football coach Shannon Beiste (Dot-Marie Jones) is hurt when she learns that several of the students are visualizing her to quell their amorous moods. The episode began a story arc about bullying which spanned the remainder of the season. It coincided with a spate of suicides among bullied youths, which reportedly gave the cast and crew additional inspiration to do their best work. Six songs were covered—four in the form of two mash-ups—and all were released as singles which charted on the Billboard Hot 100. Critics were less enthused by the mash-ups than the other performances; Criss's cover of "Teenage Dream" was particularly well-received, and became the first Glee single to top the Billboard Digital Songs chart. 10.99 million US viewers watched "Never Been Kissed". It was one of six episodes that were submitted to the judges for Glee's nomination in the Outstanding Comedy Series category at the 63rd Primetime Emmy Awards. Jones received an Outstanding Guest Actress in a Comedy Series nomination for her work on the show, and submitted this episode for judging. Reviewers approved of her performance but were very critical of her storyline and polarized by the plotting of the bullying story, though they generally approved of the episode's Puck and Artie sub-plot.