Earlier in the year, Glee creator Ryan Murphy opened up about the death of friend, and one of Glee’s pivotal actors, Cory Monteith . The Glee actor passed away on July 13 of a mixed drug toxicity in a Vancouver hotel room.
A few months ago, Murphy revealed that it was incredibly hard to write the Glee tribute episode, which saw the death of Monteith’s staple character Finn Hudson. After he wrote the episode, Murphy said that he knew how the series would have originally ended, and Cory Monteith/Finn Hudson was a big part of the ending.
“The final [season] was designed around Rachel and Cory/Finn’s story…. I always knew that, I always knew how it would end. I knew what the last shot was – he was in it. I knew what the last line was – she said it to him.”
Now Murphy is revealing that original ending that he intended on writing before Monteith’s tragic death. It sounds like it would have been the perfect ending between the main arc between Finn Hudson and Rachel Berry (played by Monteith’s real girlfriend Lea Michele). As part of a special year-end issue for Entertainment Weekly, Murphy wrote:
“For me, Cory was both the beginning and the ending of Glee …literally.”
“Rachel was going to have become a big Broadway star, the role she was born to play,” while “Finn was going to have become a teacher, settled down happily in Ohio, at peace with his choice and no longer feeling like a Lima loser.”
Murphy continued to describe what’s now a heartbreaking series end that will never be realized on screen:
“Rachel comes back to Ohio, fulfilled and yet not, and walks into Finn’s glee club. ‘What are you doing here?’ he would ask. ‘I’m home,’ she would reply. Fade out. The End.”
Dealing with Monteith’s death has been hard for all involved in the production both personally and creatively speaking. After the memorial aired, Murphy spoke to TVLine about the reworked series finale , and how it will honor Finn.
“When a tragedy like that happens you sort of have to pause and figure out what you want to do, so we’re figuring that out now.”
“I’m going to tell the studio and the network [in a week] how after Cory’s unfortunate passing we can end the show that I think is very satisfactory. And kind of in his honor, which I love.”
Are you satisfied with Murphy’s new ending?
[Image credit: DFree / Shutterstock.com ]