♪breathe♪

♪condolences♪

will led jesse st. james into the choir room, giving the original 13 flashbacks to the year prior, "new directions i would like to introduce you to our new show choir consultant jesse st. james."

"i don't trust this guy. not as far as i can throw him," logan snarls, scowling at the college drop-out.

finn agreed with logan, "he's gonna trick us into doing something stupid so his alma mater wins."

"i don't need to do much tricking to get you to do something stupid, finn," jesse smirked, getting under the quarterbacks skin.

cass glared at him, "god, i want nothing more than to punch your face in."

"guys, jesse is just a consultant," mr. schue tries to tell his students. "i still make all the calls. i have all the confidence in the world in you guys. i just think we could use all the help we can get because this is it. we've been working so hard for two years for this moment, and that moment is finally here. i was talking with Jesse and he agreed we should continue with our successful trend of doing original songs for the competition. i was thinking of doing one group number and one duet."

"rachel and i should sing a duet. we killed it last year at regionals with "faithfully"," finn suggested.

puck scoffed, rolling his eyes at his old best friend, "yeah. it killed us."

"we lost," logan reminded him.

"may i?" jesse asked. "i agree that rachel should sing lead, but, finn, i think it's best if you sit this one out. the fact is, most of the other guys in here are better singers and mike chang and logan schuester, who don't even sing, can at least dance. you kind of sing and dance like a zombie who has to poop."

"you see what i'm talking about?" finn yells at their teacher, the only thing holding him back was cass. "this guy's a jerk!"

will couldn't help but agree that jesse crossed a line, "maybe you could be a little gentler with your advice."

"gentle?"

"yes."

"i'm sorry. i didn't realize we were training for the "good try" ribbon at nationals. i thought we were in it to win the whole thing, and there's only one way we can do that," jesse told them.

"poison darts?" puck asks.

cass shook her head no, "sacrificing you to the show choir gods?"

"christ almighty cass," sam laughed, finally seeing the dark side of cass schuester that everyone talked about.

jesse narrowed his eyes at the brunette, "the vocal adrenaline strategy is simple. identify your best performer and build the entire performance around them."

"so what does everyone else do?" tina asked, knowing that she in no world would be the new directions star player.

kurt, however, had hope, "and who's our star performer?"

"we're gonna have auditions to find out. i'm gonna post a sign-up sheet later this afternoon."

cass stared at her father figure, "don't you think this is kinda not our style? we don't do this kinda thing."

"normally i'd agree with you, but this is the big time. i think we should listen to jesse."

the bell rang, dismissing the glee club including their new consultant. cass hung around to play the piano while her father started his sign-up sheet, "you gonna audition, cass?"