I am not even going to pretend like I didn’t—I cried my eyes out during the series finale of Glee.
But the final episodes weren’t as disappointing as I thought they would be. I felt like it gave enough closure and acknowledgment, especially of the original characters, their lives and the future of the New Directions.
The two-hour series finale starts as a flashback to 2009 during the pilot episode of Glee, showing you the “behind-the-scenes” stuff. It showed how Rachel, played by Lea Michele, and Kurt, played by Chris Colfer, first met, and it went into detail and reminded you how miserable and closeted Kurt was back in the day. It even touched on his thoughts of suicide because of the bullying he endured being the only openly gay student at McKinley High.
The second half of the show takes you through the present, showing the new New Directions winning Nationals again, and five years into the future of most of the original cast members.
It shows “Klaine”—the joint name given to Kurt and Blaine— as a power couple in their future Broadway world, and Rachel Berry as the chosen surrogate for their child (providing the same gift someone provided her two gay dads). It also showed her, the star of the show, winning her first Tony award as she’s married to Jesse St. James, played by out actor Jonathan Groff.
Sue Sylvester, played by the hilarious Jane Lynch, is shown as the VP to future President Jeb Bush, dedicating and renaming the McKinley High auditorium (which is now a performing arts school run by Will Schuester, played by Matt Morrison) in honor of the late Finn Hudson, who was played by the late Cory Monteith.
Monteith died in July 2013 from a drug overdose.
From Lynch’s character thanking Kurt to openiong her eyes to the horrors and dangers of bullying gay youth to Rachel having Klaine’s child to the entire cast being reunited, the final episodes gave Glee the farewell it deserved.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qaqVwlkTENc
I think the legacy Glee leaves behind is that of a show representing LGBT youth and the struggles they go through in school; Kurt being bullied, Santana (played by Naya Rivera) exploring her sexuality, Rachel being raised by two dads, and that doesn’t even scratch the surface on the LGBT issues the show touched on in its 6-year run (i.e., Sue being supportive of Beiste’s transitioning). As much crap that people give Glee, it was much more than a show about singing and dancing—it was a show that let people know that it’s OK to be different and just be yourself as long as you don’t stop belivin’.
I will now be forever sad that a its reign has come to an end… onto watching Ryan Murphy’s next project – Scream Queens.
