Looking back, Ryan Murphy says Cory Monteith's death probably should have ended Glee
Ryan Murphy said he would have Cory Monteith's fatal overdose differently today
Nearly a decade on from Cory Monteith’s fatal overdose, Ryan Murphy doesn’t think Glee should have continued on as a show following his death. Glee went on to film another two seasons after the tragedy.
“If I had to do it again, we would’ve stopped for a very long time and probably not come back,” Murphy shares on the “And That’s What You Really Missed” podcast (via the New York Post), hosted by Glee alums Jenna Ushkowitz and Kevin McHale.
“I would be like, ‘that’s the end,’” Murphy continues, adding, “Because you can’t really recover from something like that.”
The series did grapple with Monteith’s death one month after the fact, in the memorial episode “The Quarterback,” which saw his character Finn Hudson also die in-universe. The episode aired during the series’ fifth season.
Despite their ability to memorialize him onscreen, Murphy shares that it was difficult to handle such an unexpected loss without any preparation.
“It wasn’t, like, a normal death where someone is sick, and you can see them,” Murphy recalls of losing Monteith. “It happened so quickly with no warning,”
During the appearance, Murphy also discusses the prospect of a potential Glee reboot—be it a Broadway show or additional episodes. Per Murphy, there’s certainly a legacy to be explored, but not for a long while, and not without a very clear purpose.
“It’s sort of like an interesting legacy that I’m interested in doing in a positive way after sort of pausing for a while,” Murphy muses (per IndieWire). “But I don’t know. I just love what it says and what it did. And there will never be in my life another Glee, anything close to it, in terms of me feeling so close to it.”