Glee: The Quarteback (#5.3)

Six times.  That was the number of times I, with my favorite snuggling blanket and a box full of Kleenexes decided to join the actors on Glee in mourning their friend Cory/Finn.  It was a bit impossible, really, to find where the line was drawn here.  I, of course, didn't know Monteith and was only familiar with the goofy, affable, charming, cute guy he played for four years on one of my favorite shows.  But you could feel the pain in many of the performances this week, and you could tell that the writers and actors were having a hard time telling apart the two.  What that left us was one of the most moving of the series' history, and though it didn't get us anywhere new or different with the plot, it was still an hour worth viewing.

The show opened with both the current and many former students returning to bid adieu to Finn through that opening Rent number ("525,600 Minutes"), and quickly we moved into a voiceover from Kurt.  The episode never addressed how Finn died, which I have to admit was frustrating in an otherwise strong episode.  Kurt's admission at the beginning of the episode about it not mattering (clearly speaking more for Brad Falchuk and Ryan Murphy) left us wondering throughout the entire episode if we'd learn how Finn died.  It ultimately doesn't matter, but how he died was going to reflect on our memories of the character.  This seems petty and small in the face of the actual tragedy of Monteith's death, but it's hard not to feel like they did the character a bit of a disservice in this regard by not giving us closure with him.  Again, small quibble, but it's definitely there.

The show progressed with a number of small scenelets with most of the "old-timer" characters getting to reflect on their relationship with Finn.  The most moving, and by far the best, was the breakdowns that Chris Colfer, Romy Rosemont, and Mike O'Malley experienced reminiscing.  You could feel the pain, particularly coming from Rosemont, of her losing her son.  That speech about how she has to remain a parent even though she doesn't have a child anymore just hit me; it was a such an oddly difficult truth to speak.

I know that his song catalog isn't filled with numbers that would have been appropriate for such a circumstance, but I wish everyone had followed the lead of Amber Riley's Mercedes and sang songs that Monteith had sung on the show.  None of the subsequent numbers had the wallop in it that hers did because you could hear Finn singing in the back of your head.  That said, when Lea Michele showed up right before a commercial break, I was in tears, and her later version of Bob Dylan's "Make You Feel My Love" was a knockout.

There's so little left to say about the episode.  Really, the entire show was dedicated to grief, and the ways that music can bring you through it. I thought it was pretty appropriate to end the episode, if not with Rachel, then with Matthew Morrison's Will, the other center of this series.  You knew it had been him who had stolen the jacket, and knowing that Finn was like a son to him, I was glad that they gave him a moment to shine (even though I'm not always Pro-Matthew Morrison plots in Glee world).

What were your thoughts on this episode?  Did you like the way that they sent off Finn/Cory?  Did you wish Dianna Agron and Heather Morris had shown up?  Did you think it was the appropriate time to send Puck and Mark Salling into the sunset of Glee characters?  Did you also notice that they got the timeline wrong on this series (they've known each other for four years, not three)?  Share in the comments!