I had the tissues ready.  I set aside the hour to cry and enjoy the memorable character that was Finn Hudson, played by the late Cory Monteith, who helped make Glee such a powerful and exciting show to watch during the first few seasons.  However, I never touched the tissues and hardly found reasons to be moved by this episode because of the strange and weak way Glee creators chose to tell Finn’s story.  

The show started off with a showstopper, with the group singing “Seasons of Love” from the Broadway musical Rent.  In my opinion this song was my favorite by far and showed the Glee cast really united.  However, there were a couple noticeable characters missing from the get-go: Rachel Berry and Quinn Fabray both Finn’s love interests on the show.  Already the show was off to a strange start.  

Next, we are transported to NYC where Kurt and Rachel live together and Kurt is caught in his thoughts explaining that Finn had already been dead for three weeks and furthermore that his cause of death was not as important as how he lived his life. Most viewers knew that creator Ryan Murphy was not going to expose the way Finn died, but it still came as a surprise when it came out of Kurt’s mouth: not even the slightest explanation (a 19 year old is just dead, huh?).  I found that unsettling.  The actor Cory Monteith died of a drug overdose and was 10 years older than Finn’s character, so maybe drugs might not have been the way Finn died and frankly would have been out of character, but he had to have died from something!  

Moreover, we are supposed to believe that Finn has been dead for three weeks already.  So the last two weeks while the Glee cast from Lima, Ohio to NYC were bouncing off the walls singing Beatle songs in their oh-so-over-the-top cheerful way, Finn was already dead and there was never a mention of him?  Or are we supposed to believe there has been a gap of three weeks since those episodes until now?  Either way I’m not buying it.  I think it was a weak way to introduce the story line.  As viewers we are as invested in Finn’s characters as the actual characters on the show and we deserved to know how he died and to have seen the characters emotional reactions to that.  Instead we see a depleted Glee cast, already aware of Finn’s death, come together to sing songs in the choir room, which they do every week.  Why not sing the songs with some flashbacks showing each characters moments with Finn or have the characters singing in places that remind them of Finn.  Awkward singing in the choir room aside, there was an even larger gap in the plot when Rachel Berry didn’t show up until the very end and Quinn Fabray didn’t show up at all!

However, the storyline that I found to be the strangest was that Santana, somehow, is the most upset by Finn’s passing: she’s angry, can’t finish singing, wants to keep his Letterman jacket, and stands up to Sue on his behalf.  Hmmm.  Not-realistic-at-all. Last time I checked, Santana and Finn were never friends and their hook-up early on in the show was centered around Santana shamelessly taking his virginity devoid of feelings for him.  Santana’s emotional moments throughout the episode were meaningless and empty if you consider her non-existent friendship with Finn (it’s not like Brittany died!). Maybe in real life she was the only actor who was able to hold it together during the scenes so by default she got more camera time? 

In short, the episode really felt like more of a getting-through exercise for the cast than an episode about remembering Finn for the fans.  I would have liked to see flashbacks of Finn during his most memorable moments with important characters like Rachel, Puck, Quinn, Kurt, his parents, and Mr. Schue; remembering Finn should have included anecdotes from his story lines on the show.   All in all, the songs were still beautiful and it was an interesting topic for Glee to tackle but I do believe they missed several opportunities to really make this episode really special.