As much as we hated the Acafellas for trying to divert Will's attention, they had two of the night's biggest numbers. But excellent though they may have been, they still couldn't live up to Vocal Adrenalin's outstanding set piece or even more moving — Mercedes' incredible rendition of her rage she felt for losing her man. Let's take a look at more petty tyrants, heart break, and sexily loosened bowties!

"Poison": The obvious poison was Will himself, who decided that having never pursued his own youthful singing ambitions, he needed to follow his dream to perform. That lead him to create the Acafellas, the world's first all-male music-less hip-hop review, with thumbless shop teacher Henri, coach Ken, and Sheets and Things clerk Howard. When a performance at a local restaurant lead to an invitation to sing at the big PTA meeting (and this was bigger than even the mom-crazy gatherings in Park Slope, so that's saying something), Will forgot all about why he started coaching his choral castaways and focuses all his energy on his new project.

Of course that led the remaining Glee kids to head off in search of Dakota Stanley, the best show choir choreographer in the Midwest—which is something akin to being the best baton twirling instructor in the Northeast. Dakota is much meaner and shorter than any winner of Little Miss Twirl, and his insistence that the choir members change their appearance and diet doesn't go over so well. The poison is sucked out more quickly than if Finn got a snake bite in front of Rachel and Kurt, and the crew decides that they'd rather have their uniqueness than a collection of snazzy lifts, dips, and ball changes from Dakota.

Also dripping poison in the porches of ears were the cheerleaders, who are on a mission from Sue Motherfucking Sylvester to disband the group so that she can purchase a fog machine. They latch on to lonely Mercedes, coaxing her into going after obvious babygay Kurt. It does not end well.

"Mercy": Both Howard and Henri needed some mercy from the juggernaut of pressure that was the Acafellas. Howard's quick bow was never really explained (though it might have had something to do with plot devices), and Henri couldn't stand the pressure and it led to a relapse of his cough medicine addiction. It wasn't long after that that Will was begging Finn for mercy so that he would join the group to keep his hope alive.

Begging to get into the group was Puck, the mohawk of our dreams. Puck has a dream too. He wants to sing and play guitar and get into the pants of every cougar in Lima, Ohio. With a body like his, he should have no problem realizing at least part of dream. Puck lets Ken know he wants in, and Ken agrees, because he feels like the only reason he is getting laid is because he's in the band. Oh, poor poor Ken. If only poor Puck wasn't going to steal all the MILFs for himself.

Will's father, played by the debonair Victor Garber, asked to be released from his own regret and finally followed through on his dream of attending law school. Will's journey with his ill-fated boy band did serve some good. We're begging for Garber to come back, and maybe have this Broadway vet sing a bit!

"Bust Your Windows": Mercedes knows how to stop a show, and she also knows how to take revenge! When babygay Kurt, the object of her affection, tells her that he is in love with someone else, she literally throws a rock through her windshield. When he said it, he was looking square at Finn, but Mercedes—the luxury coupe of denial—thought he meant Rachel.

She got over it quickly though, and apologized, which is when babygay Kurt came out and we cried real actual tears at a television show. That hasn't happened since David Archuleta lost! Kurt doesn't have the confidence to bust the windows out of his glass closet (as gay-raised Rachel says, "He wore a corset to second period"). Maybe it has something to do with his unsupportive family that doesn't like that he has a tiara collection in his hope chest or wears formfitting red sweaters that stop at the knee. It's sad that he still doesn't have the confidence to leave the lies behind, but, as Mercedes suggests, the kids in Glee know what he's going through and hopefully they can help him grow. Way to stick up for your own, Mercedes. We have a feeling that the bonding the two did this episode will lead to Mercedes being the hag supreme of McKinley High. Oh, babygay Kurt. Just thinking about you makes us want to cry!

Sandy took revenge for being left out of the Acafellas by weaseling his way back into the group with his Josh Groban ruse. He said he could bring the singer to their gig and that he was looking for an opening act. Suddenly, they were all blinded by fame. The poor guy needs something other than selling pot and his "Desperate Housewives fan fiction." We would suggest that he mentor babygay Kurt, but he would just lead him to a life of drugs, bitchiness, and bad pastel-colored sweaters tied around the neck.

Also busting things up was Sue Motherfucking Sylvester, but she took a different approach. This time she decided to help them fail by organizing the fund-raising car wash so that they kids could afford to hire Dakota Stanley. However, his poison didn't make the croak, and she called her cheerleader minions into her office. "Smell your armpits. That's the smell of failure." Brilliant! We can't wait until she teams up with equally evil Sandy next episode.

"I Wanna Sex You Up": For an episode filled with sexy songs, there wasn't a whole lot of nookie going around, except for Will, who thinks he was getting majorly laid because his wife was digging his new band. Wrong! She was just trying to make a baby, and continuing to fail.

Rachel still wants to sex up Finn, and she knows the feeling is mutual and confronts him about it. He needs to bring her a plate of I'm sorry cookies! Rachel has decided to channel the sexual energy aroused by her football-playing cohort back into their singing enterprise. That means when he says he'll quit if they hire Dakota Stanley, she says that's fine with her. Well, her voice does, but everything else about her body language suggested that she would utterly fall apart if he wasn't in her life. Rachel redirecting her focus away from a boy is a very adult response. We would have been busting the windows out of his car. And his bitchy cheerleader girlfriend too. But that's us.

Speaking of us, we want to sex up Puck and his dreamy mohawk. He's so hot we need to swoon all over again.

Ok, done. Sandy was feeling the gay love for Josh Groban, who did not appreciate the locks of hair, edible baskets, nude pictures, and sonnets he'd been sending the singer's way. Groban's appearance was fantastic and shows that this treacly singer is in on his own joke. Anyway, he loved the act, but thanks to Sandy's poison, didn't want them to open for him. Their reign of terror was over, and Will got back with Glee, reinvigorated by their own brush with terror at the hands of Dakota Stanley.

On the back burner this week was Emma, who still wants to sex up Will even though she continues to date Ken. Doesn't she realize that sticking around is only going to make things worse when she eventually leaves? We can't wait for this slow simmer to boil over into a saucy mess.

We knew it at the time, attributing a "weirdly riveting" quality to Groban's performance as we liveblogged. Nearing the end of the day after, we're still pretty much alone in our estimation. But that doesn't mean we're wrong. Anything but, in fact.

Let's face it: The failure of this year's Emmys was systemic, not individual. Even Don Rickles (!), arguably the funniest presenter of the evening, faced a down crowd still nursing its shellshock from the opening bit. On both sides of the proscenium, too few of the components required to make the show move had any impulse or incentive to do so. The Nokia was a tank of vulnerable, cynical sharks — most too gutless (e.g. all five hosts) to rock the institutional boat on its surface while too bloodthirsty (e.g. Jeremy Piven, Neil Patrick Harris) to swim away without reminding the Academy that it got away with its life. And the Academy, adrift, responded simply by rowing faster — in circles. On the night when good TV was the coin of the realm, bad TV was the gold standard. What are you going to do?

That's not likely the kind of rhetorical question Josh Groban asked himself before he went onstage, but it's the one he answered throughout the number. What are you going to do, really, when the ineptitude of the Emmys is such that you can't possibly surmount its ingrained, enduring awfulness? And the producers are cutting set changes, acceptance speeches... everything but your performance? While the world around him — including the very concept of the number — melted down, Groban, for whatever reason, and for better or worse, went for it.

And as far as we could tell, he pulled it off. Say what you will about his talent, his popularity, his banality, his backstory, whatever, but the guy isn't stupid. He knew the position he was in, he knew the job he had to do, and unlike the hosts, writers and producers who pumped (and tape-delayed!) three hours' worth of bullshit into America's beloved televisions, he did his job. And he pretty much meant it — every outlandish segue into a condescending gospel choir or Muppet guest appearance seemed to nudge his energy incrementally higher. It was genuinely stirring, as in: We might not have finished our liveblog without it.

Moreover, take his riff on South Park —absurd to the extent it was sincere, momentarily elevating his medley to the level of performance art. It returned with the Animal/X-Files cameo and the COPS bit, and when he closed out with Carol Burnett and Cheers, he was among the two or three others onstage all night who could hold his head up opposite Rickles. Was he great? Probably not. Was he essential? Without a doubt.

There's the philosophy that says the harder you try, the stupider you look, and we're not wholly averse to it. But it applies to Groban's Emmy haters, too. Lighten up a bit. If he could do it under the circumstances, God knows we can, too.