Erasing The Past

I haven’t watched "Glee," Fox’s teen musical comedy-drama series, since I was a senior in high school. While watching this week’s episode "The Quarterback," I found myself thinking about SAT practice and high school drama—the elements of my life circa 2009. This nostalgia reminded me of how young Cory Monteith, the late actor who was memorialized in "The Quarterback," was when he died this past July. Monteith, 31, was much older than his on-screen persona, Finn Hudson, when he died of a toxic combination of heroin and alcohol after a lifetime of battling drug addiction. Yet, the series’ poignant—if awkward—tribute to Monteith makes the tragic loss of his potential clear.

How the series chose to memorialize Monteith, however, was not necessarily a conventional choice. In "The Quarterback," Finn Hudson has recently died but the episode never reveals or alludes to his cause of death; characters talk about missing him and anecdotes from his life, but not a single clue as to how he died. The rationale behind this creative choice is essentially stated by character Kurt Hummel, Finn’s stepbrother and fellow Glee Club member. "Everyone wants to talk about how he died too, but who cares?" Kurt says in a voiceover. "One moment in his whole life. I care more about how he lived." Though there is no right way to grieve, it is questionable if the series missed an opportunity by not acknowledging how Monteith died.

Though how Finn died may not change how Kurt and other characters mourn his loss, "The Quarterback" is still for all intents and purposes a television episode within a larger narrative. Not revealing how he died leaves a noticeable gap. In response to Kurt’s line, Hank Stuever of the Washington Post says, "Well, of course it does, if this is still a television show and not just an exercise in demonstrative grief-through-song." In a review of the episode, Stuever writes, "It came across as a bizarre absence of basic plot in a show that built its reputation on deftly locating comedy in the most uncomfortable personal details." Though in some circles, "Glee" is less than critically acclaimed due to its awkward genre shifts, improbable events, and of course, how its characters burst into song, the series is known for its striking honesty. How the characters handle extremely personal and difficult issues is one of the series’s admirable traits. Not mentioning how Finn died—whether of drug abuse like Monteith or of something else—removes a crucial element of the story.

Not specifying how Finn died does allow the episode to focus more generally on the characters’ feelings of loss and implicitly, the cast and crew’s feelings of loss as well. "We wrote it because we loved Cory," "Glee" co-creator Ryan Murphy said to Entertainment Weekly. "So the episode is about how all the people loved Cory and find it really hard to go on with the show so to speak, but that’s the whole point of this show." In the episode, this sentiment is conveyed in a memorial plaque with Finn’s picture and a quote from the McKinley High quarterback: "The show must go…all over the place…or something like that."

"Glee" will go on—despite some people’s protestations—but its choice not to acknowledge how Monteith died was not necessarily consistent with its artistic values. Furthermore, the show prides itself on illustrating how young people handle personal challenges, and drug abuse could have been one of them if "The Quarterback" was more candid. It is a fictional television show and not an afterschool special, but how the series has treated issues such as sexuality and now grief makes it clear that the series wishes to provide role models for its young fans. Characters in "The Quarterback" consistently reinforce the importance of grieving and expressing emotions and illustrates the bevy of responses to loss: in addition to the Glee club’s director, Mr. Schue, encouraging the students to sing songs that remind them of Finn, other characters such as Coach Beiste emphasize the importance of acknowledging pain and loss. Though the death of a young person is devastating no matter what the reason, the episode may implicitly prescribe a "one-size-fits-all" response to grief. Monteith’s death and struggle with drugs was highly publicized, so not acknowledging how he died was perhaps pointless, or worse, glorifying. A PSA about drug abuse aired after "The Quarterback" and mentioned Monteith candidly, but it seemed a bit moot after an entire hour of grief to a non-specific death.

"The Quarterback" blurs the lines between Cory Monteith and Finn Hudson as it attempts to mourn both in one episode. Perhaps attributing Finn’s death to drug abuse would have been untrue to the character, since Finn Hudson’s background does not include drug abuse. Perhaps attributing Finn’s death would have, as Kurt Hummel stated, not changed the ripple effects of his loss. Though there is no single right way to grieve, "Glee" missed a chance to delve into the uncomfortable by erasing how he died and focusing on the hole he left behind.

—Staff writer Hayley C. Cuccinello can be reached at hayley.cuccinello@thecrimson.com.