When the news of Cory Monteith’s death was announced to the world, there was a great outpouring of sadness at the loss of such a talented actor. Everyone turned their attention towards the creators of the show “Glee,” in which Monteith starred as Finn Hudson, to see how they would handle Monteith’s death on the show.
On Thursday, Oct. 10, three months after Monteith’s death from a heroin overdose, “Glee” finally aired the episode that would deal with the death of Finn.
There were several unexpected things that Ryan Murphy, co-creator and writer of the show, chose to do with the episode.
First, he and other creators made the decision to have the episode take place weeks after Finn’s death and funeral. This was a pretty understandable choice to make, as it would have been way too hard on the actors to relive the moment they heard that Monteith died.
The show also did not explain how Finn died. It was the respectful thing to do and I completely agree with it. But that being said, it left me a little empty, because I found myself wondering what happened to Finn and it felt strange not having that answer.
There were also, of course, some moments that were heart-wrenching to watch, such as when Finn’s mother broke down on the floor of Finn’s room, crying that she has to continue living without her son.
Of course, when Rachel Berry, played by Lea Michele, returned to sing “Make You Feel My Love” for Finn, it was an incredibly emotional moment. I felt that it was the “realest” moment of the episode, because Michele had been dating Monteith for several years.
Michele couldn’t be in the episode for long, since the death had such a serious impact on her, but the moments that she was on-screen were the most heartbreaking, starkly reminding us that we didn’t just lose a favorite TV character, but we also lost the man who played him, who meant a lot to a lot of people.
The episode was a good tribute to Finn as well as Monteith, but as the episode concluded, I found that I had expected something more from the creators. I wanted to see more of Monteith while he was on the show.
There were a lot of songs sung in his honor, by Mercedes and Santana among others. I wish they had shown us clips of Finn with those characters during these songs. I think the episode would have done well with more montages of Finn’s performances and scenes from the show. It would have made for a poignant homage to both Monteith and Finn.
Although I had hoped for more, I must say that the tribute episode was emotional, had an excellent array of songs to celebrate his life and did well in showing how much Finn meant to the characters on the show, while reminding the viewers of how much he meant to them too.
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