Ryan Murphy planned to reunite Michele and Monteith in original Glee finale
Glee creator Ryan Murphy had originally planned to end the hit TV series with an emotional reunion between Lea Michele and her onscreen love interest, Cory Monteith.
The producer has always maintained he knew how the story would end, but he reveals his plans were thrown into disarray following Monteith's untimely death from a drug overdose in July (13).
Murphy shared his ideas in a eulogy he delivered at a private
memorial service for the Canadian, who played Finn Hudson, over the
summer (13), and now his speech has been published in the new issue
of Entertainment Weekly.
In the tribute, he said, "For me, Cory was both the beginning and
the ending of Glee... literally.
"The ending of Glee is something I have never shared with anyone,
but I always knew it. I've always relied on it as a source of
comfort, a North Star. The very last line of dialogue was to be
this: Rachel (Michele's character) 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."
The loss of Monteith forced Murphy to rework the storyline and he
decided to kill off the actor's character so he could give both the
tragic star and his TV persona a final farewell in an emotional
memorial episode, which aired in October (13).
Michele, who had also been dating Monteith in real life, recently
confessed shooting the farewell episode was especially hard for
her, stating, "I feel like, for me personally, I've lost two
people: Cory and Finn."
Murphy is due to wrap up the hit musical comedy series for good
after next year's (14) season six.