Glee: The One We’ve All Been Dreading (S5:E3)

By: Baby Z

There honestly is no amount of words for the grief I felt during and well after the tribute to Finn Hudson/Cory Monteith on Glee during the Oct. 10th episode.  It’s even possible that I hadn’t watched the episode until today, because I very genuinely did not want it to be over, did not want to say goodbye to Cory,  nor to his beloved character Finn.  Somehow in my mind, watching the show would be confirming that he has, in fact, passed away and I haven’t been ready.

The show started off with Finn having already passed away, his funeral having taken place along with a short bit of time between his passing and “current days.”  There was the expected scenes at the beginning of the episode of Kurt’s obvious grief, along with an extremely difficult to watch scene between Finn’s mother, his step dad (Kurt’s father) and Kurt.  This scene is hands down the best performance she who played Finn’s mother has ever brought to the show, and it is gut-wrenching.

Just after Finn’s mom placed his Letterman’s jacket in the “Donate” box, Kurt asked whether he could take it instead.  This upset Puck tremendously, as he felt he deserved the jacket far more than, you know, Finn’s step brother, having been besties and football cohorts.

Everyone at the school is still taking the news pretty badly, and have constructed a shrine around his locker, containing just about every possible item one would ever expect to find a shrine.  There are songs sung, there are tears shed, and there’s even what turns out to be a physical altercation between Santana (whose performance in this particular episode is among her best thus far on the show in my opinion) and Sue Sylvester.

We also discover that Mr. Schue has not cried as of yet.  His feeling of obligation to remain strong, combined with - I’m sure - guilt over how things were not the same between them over the last few months playing a role in his inability to grieve the way he needs to.

But none of these aforementioned scenes rivaled the one when Rachel Barry (aka Lea Michelle) showed up to the HS arm in arm with Kurt.  Until this point in the show if I’m being completely honest, there were quite a few moments that were very poorly executed (written) and came off as quite contrived / forced.  The scene in the locker room when Puck finally loses it a bit… yes, it was somewhat touching however it also seemed forced.  Same thing regarding Santana. (Who was later given Finn’s letterman’s jacket by Kurt, only for it to turn up missing when she awakened from a nap.)  Of course, they all thought it was Puck.

Have I mentioned that there was not one mention of his character’s cause of the death in the entire episode?  Ryan Murphy has said this was very much a debated and difficult decision to make.

I don’t feel I need to get into majorly specific play by plays on this episode, as everything pretty much was what we all expected:  everyone’s devastated, however I will say that Sue Sylvester also put on one hell of a performance herself.  She gave Finn shit any chance she could, and in this episode pontificated about how much regret she’s feeling because he’s’ now died thinking she did not like him.  It was a sentimental moment, but not overdone as some of the other performances in the episode.  The character of Sue, I felt, stayed true to the character.

Back to Rachel, she sings to the Glee Club, tears streaming down her face and all the agony she’s feeling is shown as each word is sung.  She later has a conversation with Mr. Schue, and I think hers was the most ‘realistic’ reaction to Finn/Cory’s passing (and since they were together in real life, I suppose this makes sense.)

It’s during this conversation that she presents him with a plaque containing Finn’s picture on it with a funny “Finn” quote at the bottom.

The closing scene is Mr. Schue returning home from work, plopping down on the couch and then…..he pulls out Finn’s lettermans jacket from his bag.  Upon holding it, and OCD wife chick walking in, he finally loses his shit, and sobs & sobs, really driving home how sad they are (in real life too from what I’ve read) about Finn/Cory’s death.

A couple other things to point out:

• Santana offered a $10,000 reward for the return of Finn’s letterman’s jacket, still missing.
• I love that Rachel’s “Finn” necklace was visible throughout her parts in this episode.
• Speaking of Rachel, she used the “He was my person” line from Grey’s Anatomy, just thought that was interesting.  Creative writers couldn’t think of their own “thing”.
• The very noticeably missing Quinn from the episode, who played a major role in Finn’s life at one point.
• There was a tree planted in his honor that earlier in the episode had been stolen.  By the end, the football coach and Puck planted a new tree, with a little metal head plate with Finn’s information on it. 
• Puck informs the coach that he’s joining the military (he says Air Force which… I found pretty laughable as the Air Force is pretty strict as far as I know about who is chosen to join and Puck d
• Santana threatens to leave and basically never return as well.
• Tina Cohen Chang  is beginning to get on every last never I have left.  NO POINT TO THE STORY - get rid of her *yawns*
• The scene that Santana sings in but then breaks down? Awesome.
• Puck’s’ song to Finn was beautiful
• I really think they should have discussed his passing.  Maybe this will come up this season again & we’ll know.

In a nutshell that’s the show.  It looked to me like Ryan Murphy WANTED to do it much more dramatically, but battled between friends already having a hard time with the whole thing and Fox execs I’d image worried about it being TOO much for the age demographic to handle.

RIP Cory Monteith, you will be greatly missed and forever loved.

-BZ