"Hold On to Sixteen" is the eighth episode of the third season of the American musical television series Glee, and the fifty-second overall. The episode title is from a line in John Mellencamp's song "Jack & Diane". Written by Ross Maxwell and directed by Bradley Buecker, the episode aired on Fox in the United States on December 6, 2011, and featured the return of Sam Evans (Chord Overstreet) to McKinley High and New Directions, and their participation in the Sectionals show choir competition.
Eight songs are covered in the episode, which include three songs originated by members of the Jackson family and performed by New Directions: The Jackson 5's "ABC", Janet Jackson's "Control" and Michael Jackson's "Man in the Mirror". The performances were reviewed favorably for the most part, the notable exception being Toby Keith's "Red Solo Cup", which was given a mixed reception. The episode as a whole was also given a mixed reception, with some reviewers criticizing the ease and rapidity of Sam's return, though others felt the show was back on track after developments in recent episodes.
Five of the seven tracks from the episode—three of four singles, and two of three from the soundtrack album Glee: The Music, Volume 7—charted on the Billboard Hot 100 and the Canadian Hot 100, with the cast's "We Are Young" debuting at numbers twelve and eleven, respectively, selling 137,000 downloads in the United States. Upon its initial airing, this episode was viewed by 7.11 million American viewers and garnered a 3.0/8 Nielsen rating/share in the 18–49 demographic. The total viewership and ratings for this episode were down from the previous episode, "I Kissed a Girl".
Plot New Directions member Quinn (Dianna Agron) plans to get Shelby (Idina Menzel) fired for sleeping with a student, Puck (Mark Salling). She wants to reclaim Beth, the baby she gave up to Shelby for adoption, and sabotage Shelby's rival Troubletones glee club prior to Sectionals competition. Rachel (Lea Michele) insists that Quinn will ruin Beth's life if she takes her from her true mother, Shelby.
New Directions needs twelve members to compete, but has only nine with Rachel suspended from school. Finn (Cory Monteith) and Rachel travel to Kentucky to ask Sam (Chord Overstreet) to come back to McKinley High for Sectionals. Unknown to his parents, Sam is dancing at a strip joint to help pay family expenses; he wants to return to McKinley, and they agree to let him go. Upon his return, Quinn attempts to reconnect with him to help her reclaim Beth, but he refuses her. He tells his former girlfriend Mercedes (Amber Riley) that he intends to woo her back from her new boyfriend, Shane (LaMarcus Tinker). For the final two performers they need, New Directions recruits the bassist and drummer from their regular instrumental support, the William McKinley Jazz Ensemble, to sing and dance.
Blaine (Darren Criss) complains to his boyfriend Kurt (Chris Colfer) that Finn always dismisses his suggestions in glee club. Sebastian (Grant Gustin) interrupts them. With Blaine elsewhere, Kurt warns Sebastian to stay away from Blaine, but Sebastian declares his intention to steal him. Back in the choir room, Blaine suggests some dance choreography, but Sam wants instead to add moves that "sell sex". Blaine angrily declares that he is "not for sale", gets into a fight and storms off. Finn goes after him and finds Blaine pummeling a punching bag. Blaine demands to know why Finn has been so hostile since he transferred to McKinley, and Finn admits he was jealous of Blaine's talent and apologizes.
Tina (Jenna Ushkowitz) is appalled when Mike (Harry Shum, Jr.) tells her he will not be applying to dance schools as planned, but has instead applied to Stanford's pre-med program to please his father. Tina tries to intervene with Mike's father (Keong Sim), but he remains convinced that dancing is too risky a path for Mike.
Sectionals this year are being held in the McKinley auditorium, and the Unitards—led by Harmony (Lindsay Pearce)—perform first. Quinn leaves the auditorium to tell Principal Figgins (Iqbal Theba) about Shelby and Puck, but Rachel urges her to warn Shelby first. Quinn confronts Shelby, who tells her that she is resigning from McKinley and apologizes to her. The Troubletones perform next with a mash-up of "Survivor" and "I Will Survive". New Directions then performs "ABC", "Control" and "Man in the Mirror", and Mike and Tina are surprised to see Mike's father in the audience. Afterward, he tells the couple that he now understands that dancing is Mike's passion, and Mike should apply to the best dance schools. Mike thinks he missed deadlines, but Tina reveals that she secretly sent in an application. The two happily hug. New Directions wins Sectionals, and the Troubletones come in second.
Quinn decides not to reveal Shelby's secret for Beth's sake. She convinces Rachel and the director of New Directions, Will Schuester (Matthew Morrison), to promise to feature the Troubletones members in all future New Directions competitions if they agree to be in the group. She tells Mercedes (Amber Riley), Santana (Naya Rivera) and Brittany (Heather Morris) of the deal, and all three, along with Sugar (Vanessa Lengies), come to the auditorium to join with New Directions in singing "We Are Young".
Production The episode was written by Ross Maxwell and directed by Bradley Buecker, and its title comes from a line in John Mellencamp's song "Jack & Diane". Filming began on November 2, 2011, following completion of the seventh episode the previous day, and finished on November 21, 2011. All but the first eight days were shot in parallel with the ninth episode, "Extraordinary Merry Christmas", which began filming on November 10, 2011.
Overstreet, who played New Directions member and football team player Sam Evans in the second season, returns for the first time this season, and will have a multi-episode recurring role. Sam's parents will appear for the first time in this episode; his father is played by John Schneider, and his mother by Tanya Clarke. Series co-creator Ryan Murphy also stated that Pearce returns as Harmony in this episode, and Gustin will appear for the second time as Sebastian Smythe, a member of the Dalton Academy Warblers.
Other recurring guest stars appearing in the episode include teacher Shelby Corcoran (Menzel), exchange student and New Directions member Rory Flanagan (Damian McGinty), Troubletones member Sugar Motta (Lengies) and Mike's father Mike Chang Sr. (Sim).
Eight songs are covered in the episode, which include three songs originated by members of the Jackson family and performed by New Directions: The Jackson 5's "ABC", with leads by Ushkowitz, Colfer, Shum and Agron; Janet Jackson's "Control", with leads by Kevin McHale and Criss, and a spoken introduction by Agron; and Michael Jackson's "Man in the Mirror", with leads by McHale, Monteith, Salling, Criss and Overstreet. Those three songs are included on the soundtrack album Glee: The Music, Volume 7. The five other songs are Toby Keith's "Red Solo Cup" sung by Overstreet; a mash-up of Gloria Gaynor's "I Will Survive" and Destiny's Child's "Survivor", performed by the Troubletones featuring leads by Rivera and Riley; "Buenos Aires" from Evita featuring Pearce; and fun.'s "We Are Young" sung by a reunited New Directions. "We are Young" is featured on the soundtrack album Glee: The Music, The Graduation Album.
Reception
Ratings "Hold On to Sixteen" was first broadcast on December 6, 2011, in the United States on Fox. It received a 3.0/8 Nielsen rating/share in the 18–49 demographic, and attracted 7.11 million American viewers during its initial airing, down from the 7.90 million viewers and 3.2/8 rating/share for the previous episode, "I Kissed a Girl", which was broadcast on November 29, 2011. In Canada, where the episode was broadcast the same day, 1.61 million viewers watched the episode, which made it the eleventh most-viewed show of the week, down three slots and 10% from the 1.79 million viewers who watched "I Kissed a Girl" the previous week.Canadian viewership data: "Hold On to Sixteen": "I Kissed a Girl":
Viewership also declined in the United Kingdom and Australia. In the United Kingdom, "Hold On to Sixteen" was watched on Sky1 two days after its US premiere by 869,000 viewers, a decrease of over 20% compared to "I Kissed a Girl" the week before, when 1.09 million viewers were watching.UK viewership data: "Hold On to Sixteen": "I Kissed a Girl": In Australia, "Hold On to Sixteen" was broadcast on February 3, 2012. It was watched by 567,000 viewers, which made Glee the thirteenth most-watched program of the night, up from fifteenth the week before. The viewership, however, was down slightly from the previous episode, "I Kissed a Girl", which was seen by 575,000 viewers.Australian viewership data: "Hold On to Sixteen": "I Kissed a Girl":
Social media The night the episode debuted, many topics related to the show appeared in the top ten trending topics on Twitter. At one point, Glee executive producer Dante Di Loreto tweeted "6 trending topics?!", indicating that six of the nine available slots were filled by Glee-related topics, but soon posted a correction: "Ha! OK, 8. I forgot #WhiteChocolate was us!" A review of the episode by Jenna Mullins of E! Online posted the same evening stated that "within five minutes" of his appearance, the returning Sam Evans was "trending all over Twitter".
Critical reception
"Hold On to Sixteen" received a mixed reception from reviewers, though the music was more favorably received. Robert Canning of IGN called it "very underwhelming" and gave it an "okay" rating of 6.5 out of 10; he noted that competition episodes such as this one spend more time on performance, and deemed the non-performance segments "blase". Rolling Stone Erica Futterman characterized "the moral of this week's story: embrace your youth" as "overkill", but noted that once the competition began, the episode "succeeded in spite of itself". Amy Reiter of The Los Angeles Times called it a "feel-good episode" that came as a "huge relief" after the show "had lost its moral footing these last few weeks", and AOLTV Crystal Bell said it gave her "some hope for the rest of the season". Rae Votta of Billboard summarized the episode this way: "Overall, it was a Glee that felt like the plots were dealt with as fast as humanly possible to cram in as much singing and dancing as we can."
Many reviewers took issue with the implausible nature of several plot points. Jen Chaney of The Washington Post decried the "lack of basic logic" in Sam being "able to so easily transfer back to McKinley", Entertainment Weekly Abby West pointed out the "considerable amount of paperwork" required for a "minor to move in with noncustodial guardians in another state and register for school", and Michael Slezak of TVLine was bothered that Sam's parents did not establish who those guardians would be, and how this would affect him academically. Futterman pointed out that "Mr. Schuester has again failed to pick a set list ahead of time" despite "weeks of pretense about preparing for sectionals". Both Slezak and MTV's Kevin P. Sullivan were unimpressed with Quinn's late-in-the-game thought to apply to so competitive a school as Yale.