Glee creator Ryan Murphy reflects on the ing of actor Cory Monteith, saying that the show probably shouldn't have continued without him. Monteith portrayed one of the show's lead characters, Finn Hudson — a kindhearted high-schooler that appeared throughout the first four seasons until Monteith's untimely ing in July 2013. The cast and crew paid tribute to Monteith with the Glee season 5 episode "The Quarterback", which blurred the lines between story and real life and essentially served as a way for the series to say a heartfelt farewell to an immense talent that was gone too soon.
But, during an interview on the And That's What You REALLY Missed podcast with former Glee stars Jenna Ushkowitz and Kevin McHale, Murphy itted that the Fox dramedy probably wouldn't come back after Monteith's death if he had the chance to do things differently today. Sharing his memories of Monteith, who died at the age of 31 from a toxic combination of alcohol and heroin, Murphy candidly discussed how "The Quarterback" was filmed too quickly after the loss and how there was no way of recovering from it:
“I thought a lot about that recently, and I would not have done that now. I felt like it was way too raw and way too soon. If I could do it all over again, knowing now what I do know, I probably would’ve said, ‘You know what? We’re gonna take a year off and then we’re gonna check in and see.’ But all of us did know that when that happened, our hearts all kind of broke. And we were all kind of done. The spirit and joy of it has left the building.”
How Glee Handled Cory Monteith's Death
Murphy held an event in honor of Monteith in late July 2013, following the actor's ing, which was attended by the Glee cast, crew, and creators in addition to others involved with the series. After consulting with Lea Michele, who played Rachel Berry on the show and who had been dating Monteith, it was decided to postpone the filming of new episodes but ultimately continue. In the podcast interview, Murphy said this had a lot to do with the fact that crew depended on the series as a source of income.
"The Quarterback" doesn't state the reason for Finn's death. In a voiceover, Kurt Hummel (Chris Colfer) mentions it's not a question of how Finn died but how he lived. Glee would continue for two more seasons without Monteith, concluding in 2015, and his character would still get mentioned and appeared as part of previously used footage. In the Glee finale, Sue Sylvester dedicates the auditorium in the central school to Finn's memory and names it after him. This was an acknowledgment of how central the character — and the actor who portrayed him — was to the whole series.
Still, as Murphy's comments illustrate, along with the conflicted feelings of McHale and Ushkowitz, it was an unfathomably difficult situation for all involved, and it wasn't only theirs to deal with. Although creatively, it might have felt right to end Glee after such an unexpectedly tragic situation, it wouldn't have been a simple decision to make.