Tears of "Glee"

This morning, my teenage daughter informed me that her cold is back because she cried so much last night. A quick Google search assured me that no, crying cannot actually cause a cold. Sorry. 

But, my daughter is convinced.

I myself do not have a cold, but I did indulge in my share of tears last night as well. 

My daughter and I watched "The Quarterback," a tribute to Cory Monteith, also known as Finn Hudson, on Glee.

The series' critics have long denounced the show for its sentimentality, and — too often, too preachy — overall schmaltziness. In its four years, we've dealt with teen pregnancy, teen suicide, gay bashing, disabilities, alcohol abuse, domestic violence, religion ... the list goes on and on. Big topics, big musical numbers. Interestingly, the show never really tackled drug addiction. When I heard that Glee would dedicate its third episode to the memory of Cory Monteith, who died of an accidental heroin overdose this summer, I assumed that they would finally do so.

But, surprisingly, Glee's creators decided not to address it. At all. In fact, in a quiet voiceover at the very start of the tribute episode, Chris Colfer, as Finn's stepbrother Kurt, explained that it had been a month since his death and that people kept asking how he'd died. But, Kurt asserted that it didn't matter. The focus, instead, would be on how he'd lived.

On the one hand, this seemed a little too open-ended. A major character, arguably one of the most major characters, of the show was being killed off (not by choice, I know, but still ...) and the audience would understandably have questions. On the other hand (and when it comes to Glee, I often defer to that other more forgiving hand), it was a no-win situation for the writers. If Finn died of anything other than a result of his heroin addiction (leukemia, say, or a car accident), it would have felt false. But, Finn would never (never, never, in a million years, never) have experimented with heroin. That's one of the things we loved about him. He made it hip to be square.

So, within the first thirty seconds, Kurt warned us that our questions would go unanswered. From there, we moved into the first group number, "Seasons of Love" from the Broadway hit Rent.


525,600 minutes, 
525,000 moments so dear. 
525,600 minutes — how do you measure, 
measure a year? 

In daylights, in sunsets, in midnights, in cups of coffee. 
In inches, in miles, in laughter, in strife. 
In 525,600 minutes — how do you measure 
a year in the life?


How about love? 
How about love? 
How about love? 
Measure in love. Seasons of love.


Love. Right. Love Glee or hate Glee (and I have friends in both camps, as well as friends who loved it then and hate it now), you have to hand it to them. For the past four years, the Glee team has rarely hit a false note when it comes to choosing songs. The stakes were higher last night, but the soundtrack was perfect.

Another smart move was to focus on the show's veterans. Sure, the freshmen members of New Directions (a veritable slew of youth and talent introduced last year) are largely likable, but Finn's death, Finn's story, isn't their story. Instead, we heard Mercedes sing "I'll Stand By You" (Chrissie Hynde's anthem, originally featured in year one when Finn sang to his assumed baby daughter's sonogram). Sam and Artie sang James Taylor's "Fire and Rain." Santana tried to get through "If I Die Young," and Puck defiantly asserted Springsteen's "No Surrender."

There wasn't a dry eye in the house. Especially not in ours.

Then, at last, there was Lea Michele. There was no question that the entire cast (and crew, no doubt) were going through a strange and terribly painful collision of personal and public grief. But, Michele's situation had to have been the most extreme. Monteith's real-life girlfriend, Michele stood and sang "Make You Feel My Love," openly weeping. It was a scene worthy of an Emmy Award, although rewarding her incredible acting might somehow negate the incredible reality that she wasn't actually acting at all. What a brave girl she is. And what better way could she honor her loss than by exposing herself and her unfathomable pain like she did? I hope she can heal. I hope she can be happy. She deserves it.

It's tempting to criticize an inflated sense of self-importance built into Glee's tribute episode. "We know how important Glee is to you," the creators are saying. "We know you're mourning the loss of our star. We'll guide you through that. We'll show you how it's done."

But, it's hard to criticize something that came out of so much genuine love and was executed with so much respect and thought and skill and talent. The sheer talent Glee puts on the TV screen each week remains for me a thing of wonder and awe.

As my daughter's renewed cold attests, "The Quarterback" was pitch perfect.

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R.I.P. Finn Hudson

The other morning, I couldn't sleep. I was tossing and turning, stressing out about work and I finally figured that it would be better to get up and get some of that work done. So, I went to my office and turned on my computer. As per usual, I went to Facebook. The first thing that came up in my newsfeed was a post about Cory Monteith. He had been found dead in a hotel room in Canada. He was 31.

"No," I quietly said. But, I knew it was true. And, sadly, it wasn't really that unusual. Promising young Hollywood star, history of drug abuse. I didn't know him personally. I didn't even know much about his personal life. But, it made me so sad.

Because he was Finn Hudson.

My now teenage daughter and I were Glee fans (or "gleeks") since the beginning. Not only did we follow the show religiously, but we bought all the music and went to see the cast perform live, twice — once at Radio City Music Hall and again at the Boston Garden (oh, sorry, the TD Bank North Garden, or whatever it's now called). Together, we cheered (and sometimes cringed) as McKinley High's "New Directions" show choir beat the odds to become national champions. They were a motley crew of misfits, enormously talented, embarrassingly adolescent. It was impossible not to root for them.

Monteith's character, Finn, was the star quarterback, handsome, cool, dating the head cheerleader. At the same time, he was a bit of a dim bulb (okay, a very dim bulb) and ... well, to be honest ... a big doofus. He wasn't perfect; he slipped up sometimes. In a couple of Glee's preachier scenes, he used the words "faggy" and "retarded." At one point, he thought he saw Christ's image on some toasted bread and spent the better part of an episode praying to "Grilled Cheesus."

But, flawed as he was, Finn was the moral compass of the group. He really tried to figure out the right thing to do and then do it. And, when he finally (barely) graduated from McKinley and chose to go into the army, it was one of the show's truest notes. This idealistic boy really would have done that. His decision was all the more poignant because the smarter, fairly liberal audience knew what real life in the military might do to him.

Monteith was older than the other actors playing high school students on Glee. He didn't have much professional experience when he was cast. And, he was arguably the weakest link in terms of vocal ability. But, he was pitch perfect as Finn. You really believed in this earnest young man. You really wanted the world to be a better place for him.

The only things I knew about the actor were that he was from Canada, that he was dating his co-star Lea Michele, and that he had struggled with drug addiction since he was thirteen. 

Thirteen.

After dropping out of high school, Monteith worked odd jobs and continued to have substance abuse issues until he finally ended up in Hollywood. Landing the role of Finn was a fluke — he didn't sing or dance, and for his audition tape, he did a drum solo on an odd lot of Tupperware containers. But, Glee's creative team saw something in him. And soon 7.5 million fans did as well.

In interviews, Monteith always stressed that he was not Finn. He was open about his past and last Spring, when he checked into rehab (not for the first time), he was very public about it.

"If I can, through my experience, shed light on the way out of a difficult situation, that I know many kids are experiencing, just like I did when I was a teenager, that's, that's huge."

I don't know ... he sounds a lot like Finn to me.

While my daughter and I are both sorry about Monteith's untimely death, I think I'm more so. My daughter has started to outgrow Glee. And maybe 31 doesn't seem so young to her. It seems awfully young to me.

Cory Monteith's real-life was not a sit-com or a musical. And, now, sadly, we know it didn't have a happy ending.

Good-night, sweet prince. Don't stop believing.