A sad note for Glee

There was a Glee Marathon on the Star World channel last Sunday and I had fun watching the old episodes of the popular series and finding out how far the kids of McKinley High have come through these past four years. It felt good finding out that the show has become more spectacular with guests like a singing and dancing Sarah Jessica Parker and a benevolent Whoopi Goldberg.

The first batch of Gleeks has now graduated from high school. Rachel and Kurt are now in New York trying for a career on Broadway. Quinn is off to parts unknown. Puck is cleaning swimming pools in Hollywood. Sue Sylvester is still leading the Cheerios and lusting after the Glee rehearsal hall. With Mr. Schuester busy with work and family, the job of leading the Glee Club has been passed on to Finn.

The tall and handsome and built like a quarterback Canadian Cory Monteith plays Finn Hudson. He has matured a lot since 2009. Coaching the New Directions to the Regional Competition is no easy job. More so when the group loses on a technicality at the finals and they will now lose their rehearsal hall to the Cheerios. There was this rather compelling shot of Cory in this episode. He was seated alone in the empty theater where Finn awaits the arrival of his errant members now intent on other pursuits.

I thought then how sad he looks and oh so lonely. Maybe, Cory has indeed been sad and lonely lately and that is why he has appeared only in a few episodes of the current season. Maybe that is why he went into rehab. Maybe things will get better for him soon as rumors have it that he and Lea Michele who plays Rachel will be announcing their wedding date before long. Hopefully, he had already won his long battle with substance abuse.

I had a lot of maybes in mind but I soon had to give up on them because just as the Glee Marathon was going on last Sunday afternoon, there came the news that Cory had died. Our good guy Finn, had been found dead in his room at the Fairmont Pacific Rim Hotel in Vancouver, British Columbia last July 13. He was only 31 years old.

It was already obvious that Glee had found a star in Cory from the moment he took a shower singing the classic rock ballad Can’t Fight This Feeling by REO Speedwagon in the pilot show. And there was no more stopping him when he joined Lea in a duet of Journey’s Don’t Stop Believing. Glee had produced its first hit song and there, born before our eyes was a love team for the ages and we all got hooked.

Glee was both daring and entertaining. The series tackled a lot of controversial issues and showed a lot of drama happening among its many characters. It also effectively blended current Top 40 hits, pop classics and show tunes with high school life, a combination once thought would never work on television.

Cory and Lea lorded it in the boy and girl romance department. They had faults but they always came across as sincere and wholesome. Lea’s Rachel is ever the star in the making, a role model for girls dreaming of stardom. Cory’s Finn, though was more than that. He made it cool for guys to sing and dance while also leading the football team. That is something very, very difficult to pull off.

To say that the news of his death was a shock is an understatement. Cory was so young and talented and just starting to find his bearings as an actor. Besides, he was a star of Glee, a show close to the hearts of many. They had brought so much music to our homes. They had been parts of our lives for years. Finn and all those other kids were never supposed to die and should remain always young.

What do you think will happen to Glee now that Monteith is gone? I guess there will be some period of mourning, some tribute presentations for Cory that we should not miss. And then the show will go on. That is how it is in show business. Even the saddest of events become opportunities for new and exciting developments.

The memory of Cory as Finn will be ever present in Glee but there will surely be new romantic interests for Rachel. Maybe, the producers will be able to find another Cory. Maybe, there will be somebody who will do even better. But Cory will always be there, forever young and a part of the legend of Glee.