Finding ‘Glee’

“Glee” may occasionally be silly and self-involved, and its characters obsessed with stuff that ultimately won’t matter three minutes after they graduate. But it would be a mistake to forget where it comes from.

Specifically, show creator Ryan Murphy, who spent seven seasons telling stories in skin and blood in the epic drama of “Nip/Tuck” on FX.

“Nip/Tuck” at its best explored a universe of pain within a small cast of characters. The central storyline focused on a partnership of two plastic surgeons in Miami. Already it can be dismissed as frivolous pointlessness – starlets, party girls, and an obsession with beauty over substance, right?

Within the first season we find one of these doctors, Sean, in a midlife crisis, worried about his passionless marriage to Julia, his wife of 18 years, worried about their two kids, Matt and Annie, worried that he’s getting old. He wants to get out and focus on the kinds of things that got him into plastic surgery in the first place -- growing up with a cleft palate. He wants to do pro bono work and the kinds of surgeries that will actually help people.

The other doctor, Christian, pursues a hedonistic lifestyle of drugs and party girls to repress his memories of sexual abuse at the hands of his foster father. Desperate for success, he takes on shady clients and becomes an unwilling stop on a drug lord’s supply train, with poor women trafficking heroin inside breast implants, which he then has to remove at gunpoint.

Oh, and by the end of the first season we discover not only is Julia deeply infatuated with Christian, but that Christian is in fact the father of Sean’s son, Matt. Matt himself goes on to disfigure a girl in a drug-fueled hit-and-run, fall in love with his mother’s life coach, Ava, (who turns out to be a transsexual) and to father a child with a porn star who’d slept with both of his fathers before him.

That’s just a taste of the resume of the guy behind all the singing and dancing.

Original songs

So when Murphy has “Glee” character Rachel Berry, played by Lea Michele, try to write original songs, her first attempts are ridiculous. She writes emotional, over-the-top songs about her headband, for example, and about being an only child, but we pretty much knew it wasn’t going to end there.

After all, Murphy was responsible for a show that traced some of the most harrowing emotional dysfunction imaginable. I suspect that’s part of the reason why he brought Jessalyn Gilsig -- who played a sex addict in “Nip/Tuck” -- into “Glee” as Glee Club coach Will Schuester’s ex-wife: To occasionally remind us of that fact.

As it happens, “Nip/Tuck” also featured some of the best music and best use of music on television, so “Glee” allows him to revel in an aspect of production he clearly loves.

And this week’s installment of “Glee” blew Rachel’s earlier attempts out of the water.

The class collaborated on a piece about overcoming their fellow students’ low opinion of show choir -- “I’ll get you back when I’m your boss,” etc., titled “Loser Like Me.”

And Rachel -- in response to a painful realization that a boy she loved didn’t love her back -- poured that pain into a heart-ripping ballad titled “Get it Right.” Something relatable, something that stands perfectly well on its own -- “What can you do when your good isn’t good enough?” -- and transcends the character’s own generally self-involved and myopic perspective.

Which is probably why it’s already in the top 20 downloads on Amazon.com along with the class-collaborated piece, “Loser Like Me.” And as of Wednesday afternoon, Michele announced via Twitter that the songs were the No. 1 and No. 2 downloads on iTunes.

Nationals

In the world of the show, their performance of these songs launched their team to nationals, a track we’ll witness when the show returns next month. As pure visual theater, as entertainment, I think Murphy has found an excellent forum to continue exploring his obvious love of music and intricate characters.

“Glee” is one of those shows where the right people came together at the right time to celebrate creativity and art -- something we really haven’t seen at this level since the mid-1980s with “Fame.”

And it’s also a good argument for the development of students as the whole person. At a time when schools struggle with budget shortfalls and arts programs face cuts nationwide, it raises the question, is this really the best time to be limiting creative outlets?

Congratulations to Ryan Murphy for putting a show together that takes us past fluffy show choir performances and middlewestern teenage angst to questions such as these. Well done.