"Glee" cast, crew and the executives have been trying to figure out how to best deal with Cory Monteith's absence from the show ever since his sudden and tragic death. Monteith's body was discovered in a Vancouver hotel room, an autopsy report said that his death was due to a lethal mix of heroin and alcohol.
The death of the beloved "Glee" star, who played Finn, shocked everybody. According to Perez Hilton, executives held several meetings on how they were going to remove Finn from season five. Ryan Murphy, the show's creator, recently spilled some of the secrets surrounding the new season to TV Line.
Murphy confirmed that episode one of season five has been pushed back and will air on Sept. 26, a week after the original date, TV Line reports. Many people felt like the pushback wasn't long enough but Murphy said the executives all consulted with Lea Michelle first before making any final decisions. According to Murphy, Michelle said she felt it would be better if the cast and crew got back to work sooner rather than later.
"We had several options. We could delay shooting until November, we delay shooting until January. But ultimately, what we decided to do for the cast and crew was start shooting with something that we had already written," he said to TV Line. "We had written two Beatles episodes in May and had been working on that tribute for four years. We just decided that it would probably be the best for everybody to get back together and be working and have grief counselors on set for two weeks, which we're going to do."
He also revealed that the new season won't address Monteith's death in the first two episodes but the character Finn will die in the third episode. The show was originally supposed to have four episodes for the fall but following the death of the actor that has changed.
Murphy said that the first two episodes will be Beatles episodes and the third will become a tribute to Finn and Monteith. After that the writers are going to take a break to figure out how to deal with the rest of the season.
"We're writing the third episode, which deals with Finn's death - which, you can imagine, is a very difficult episode to write," he said. "[It] has to be done very carefully and with a lot of taste and really making sure that it's a tribute to Cory."
A lot of fans were wondering if Michelle, who played Monteith's girlfriend on the show and in real life, would return for the new season and Murphy confirmed that she will definitely be back.
"It's just a crazy, really difficult, emotional time," Murphy told TV Line. "I think what we're really trying to do is deal with it as a family, which is what the group of people is. Lea is obviously very grief-stricken but she's also one of the strongest people I know."
