Warning: The following article contains spoilers, read at your own discretion.
On July 13th of this year, 31 year old actor Cory Monteith was found dead in his Vancouver hotel room. The coroners ruled the cause of death as an overdose of heroin and alcohol.
Monteith was best known for his starring role as the lovable, awkward Finn Hudson in the hit television show Glee.
After consulting with his on-and-off-screen girlfriend, Lea Michele, Glee‘s creators decided to delay the filming of season five, pushing the premiere to September 26th of 2013. This delay gave Monteith’s cast mates and friends, an understandable three weeks to deal with his death.
As a result of his passing, Glee‘s script writers had to rewrite the first two episodes of the season, which had originally included Finn Hudson. Rewriting the script would be the easy part for the writers, the difficult part was trying to figure out how Monteith’s character would be “killed off” of the show.
Any questions fans had as to how the delicate tragedy would be handled were answered on October 10th when the third episode of Glee’s fifth season aired. This episode was appropriately titled “The Quarterback.”
In football, the quarterback is the player who directs the team’s offensive play. He is the leader, the star, and the one everybody looks to for directions. In Glee, Finn Hudson was the starring quarterback.
Regarding the chosen title, co-creator, Ryan Murphy, noted that, “Cory really was that, to [the actors and the crew] and to me particularly. There was nobody on that crew who did not like Cory.”
The episode opened with the past and present members of the Glee club singing a cover of “Seasons of Love.” Each member was dressed in black, the setting was dimmed, with only a spotlight shining on the heartbroken group, and when the song came to an end, they all sadly admired a picture of Finn clad in his McKinleyHigh School football gear.
Following this touching performance, a narration was given by Finn’s fellow Glee club member and stepbrother, Kurt Hummel (Chris Colfer). As warned by Murphy, an explanation of just how Finn died was not given, but in his monologue, Kurt says, “Honestly, what can you say about a 19 year old who dies?”
The episode was set three weeks after Finn’s funeral. Will Schuester (Matthew Morrison), Glee club’s beloved instructor, called for a reunion on their quarterback’s behalf. Once everybody arrives at McKinley, fans learn just how Finn’s loved ones are dealing with his death.
Mr. Schue and Kurt are the level-headed ones, trying their best to keep it together for everybody else. People like Blaine Anderson (Darren Criss), Sam Evans (Chord Overstreet), and Mike Chang (Harry Shum Jr.) are all relatively quiet throughout the whole episode, trying and failing to hold back tears.
Then there was Mercedes Jones (Amber Riley) and Artie Abrams (Kevin McHale) who took advantage of the opportunity to sing about their emotions.
Mercedes hit heart wrenching notes as she belted out “I’ll Stand by You” by The Pretenders, a song that had once been covered by Finn himself. Artie, along with Sam, sang James Taylor’s “Fire and Rain.”
Noah Puckerman (Mark Salling) was the epitome of anger in this episode. Puck was Finn’s best friend and he’d always turned to and trusted Finn to point him in the right direction.
McKinley’s football coach, Shannon Beiste (Dot-Marie Jones) was the one to make Puck come to the realization that he has to be his own quarterback in life. This scene, though slightly awkward at first, caught everybody off guard with the deep, heartfelt words Coach Beiste spoke.
Another standout scene was between Finn’s mom (Romy Rosemont), stepfather (Mike O’Malley), and Kurt as they shifted through their late family member’s items. Finn’s mom started off strong, but ended up breaking down on the floor of her son’s bedroom as she weakly said, “You have to keep on being a parent even though you don’t get to have a child anymore.”
But the show-stopper came when Santana Lopez (Naya Rivera) burst into tears halfway through a cover of “If I Die Young” by The Band Perry.
Yet, all of this could be considered a simple preface to the appearance of Finn’s longtime love interest, Rachel Berry (Lea Michele), who had been absent from the entire show until 42 minutes in. If anybody managed to keep their cool through the rest of the tears, Rachel’s emotionally draining rendition of Bob Dylan/Adele’s “Make You Feel My Love” was where the entire audience lost it.
Shortly after her performance, Rachel had a one-on-one with Mr. Shue in which she brokenly uttered, “He was my person.”
The episode closed with still more tears, showing a previously held-together Will Schuester clutching Finn Hudson’s letterman jacket as his wife and McKinley’s guidance counselor, Emma Pillsbury (Jayma Mays), holds him in her arms.
Even though it does leave unanswered questions, “The Quarterback” pulls at any viewer’s heart strings – even if they hadn’t been a fan of Cory Monteith or Glee. It was a therapeutic way for the cast, crew, and fans to say their final farewell to Finn Hudson.
