#camussie

[justcravingattention]

I have several issues with how the show has written Finn's legacy (most of them centered around the constant push as Sam as the new Finn) but Rachel not including Finn in her acceptance speech was not one of them. I loved the focus of Will in the speech because I am a sucker for a full circle ending and that was one.

This is all my completely uneducated opinion since I haven’t watched since S4, but… yeah, Sam as the new Finn was sorta ridiculous. It seemed, though (again, uneducated), that they came on real strong with that and then left it alone (probably so they could then tease Samcedes instead of Samchel). 

You’re right about the full-circle thing, too. People forget how many one-on-one interactions there were between Rachel and Will in S1. And I think it’d be fine that Rachel didn’t thank Finn in her speech if she’d acknowledged him in some other way during the episode. The speech is just an easy target for something that could have been Finn-related but wasn’t. 

[henriettaline]

Glee continues to pretend that Finn never existed. Rachel's bedroom had a wall of high school pictures and who was front and center? Sam in his gold shorts but no picture of Finn. Not even in a group picture. Honestly it really is one big FU to Finn fans.

Oh, Sam in his outfit from the episode where Rachel called Finn "the hottest guy in school." Or so I remember.

So much for "love is how you stay alive, even after you're gone." So much for everything that both the character and actor did, for the sake of the club and the show. So much for his achievements in what he finally found that he was good at. (And he was, oh how he was.) It's just decoration now, a picture here and there to be left behind.

As well as being a deeply offensive way to treat someone, it also seems to be profoundly unhealthy. Burying your memories of someone and their importance to you, in the name of "moving on", isn't dealing with loss, it's running away from it. The feelings don't go away if buried, they fester, and a topic that someone completely refuses to talk about is often something they're not dealing at all well with. Unless they're actually planning to have some sort of intervention or negative consequences on the show, to illustrate how wrong this avoidance is, then it's a horrible thing to do and to encourage remaining viewers to do.

[justcravingattention]

Congratulations on the house! Also thanks for getting out a new chapter of "The Brass Ring" in the middle of moving and settling in. It was, as always a good read. I especially loved that there was so much focus on Finns musicality. That was one huge thing missing from his season 4 "journey" of deciding to become a teacher.

Thank you! It’s a big transition with a lot of intimidating aspects but I feel so lucky to be able to do it. 

Glad to hear you liked the chapter. The show definitely touched on Finn’s musicality as part of his teaching journey (I’m thinking about the Jukebox Hero scene with Ryder and the Greased Lightning auto shop scene) but then it all sorta fell off before Marley randomly said the words out loud and *poof* Finn was at college two episodes later.

[justcravingattention]

I was fine with Robin/Barney not working out because I thought they never worked. I was even fine with the mother dying as it sadly happens. I just didn't like the implication that Ted/Robin were going to reunite as I thought they didn't really work either. If they had just left it on Ted's talk to his children without the rah rah ing for a Ted/Robin pairing it would have been a good ending to me

Well, I guess another thing to keep in mind is that we don’t know for sure that Ted and Robin wind up together. Yeah it’s strongly implied, but for all we know he showed up at her doorstep with the blue French horn, went upstairs, and talked with Robin all night about how great they are as friends and how lucky they are to still be in each other’s lives and hence don’t want to mess that up. It’s all open to interpretation, which I’m sure some people find more irritating than anything, hehe. But I can agree with the sentiment that it felt a little bit like pandering, i.e. like the daughter was basically the voice of the fandom saying "this show is not really about what you're saying it's about!!!11!1!!!"

[justcravingattention]

I agree comeback means ND. I also think that the originals left on the show will come back and help Will (in a very short arc) re-establish the club. That is how RM can kind of sort of have the terrible ending he wanted because Rachel will be returning to Lima. I just hope Rachel is only coming back for a visit to help out because giving up her hard fought career is the last way to honor the man who tap danced on his own heart to make sure she would follow her dreams.

Yeah, and people have also talked about a possible time-jump. It could be a few years down the road, after all the cast members involved have achieved some measure of success in whatever way, and want to give back to the place they came from, blah blah blah. My question is if/whether they’ll time-jump the entire season, or pick up where they leave off this year but have the finale be a sort of epilogue a few years into the future. EIther way I doubt they’ll have 2014 Rachel completely abandon Broadway and run back to Lima permanently. 

[justcravingattention]

I'm no fan of RM & agree that he had little regard for Finn's character but I don't think having the character die was because of that. I think having the character alive off screen while the audience knew the actor died would have alienated the audience even more. I can't think of one show that has done that. As far as the last episode I still contend Finn wasn't used for a ratings ploy as much as he was used to try and transition Sam into his role.

All valid points. And at the risk of sounding like a broken record, I’ll say this again: there was no “right” answer or obvious choice for how to handle Finn’s SL after Cory’s death, and I’m sure it wasn’t an easy thing to deal with for anyone involved. My personal opinion as an audience member is that I feel pretty damn alienated with my favorite actor gone and would have enjoyed some way - however abstract and never-been-done-before-on-TV - for the character he played to be kept around. And since I didn’t watch the last episode (or any episodes this season) I defer to your perception there re: ratings ploy vs. Finn-Sam transition. 

To continue my last post. I know it is hard to consider but I am not against Rachel being moved forward into another romance next season. What I am against is them using someone they have been trying to sell as Finn 2.0 since season 2 in that role. Saying Sam & Finn are interchangeable is what demeans Finn’s story. Not writing him out in the first place because the actor passed. A new Rachel romance should be with someone different than Finn i.e. someone older & not in the arts at all.

I can understand this too, yeah. It’s all about the subtleties of these things, IMO. Regardless of who the person is, I’d hate for them to have Rachel simply jump into a new relationship for a stupid reason, or no reason. She shouldn’t just “move on” for the sake of “moving on”. As with what I said before, I don’t know if there’s any one “right” answer a la “Rachel should be with X-type of guy” or “It’s okay if Rachel gets a new boyfriend after X-amount of months.” I’ve also previously stated that I’d love for Rachel to be pursued by a boy but reject him - not in a coldhearted way, but by simply explaining what happened and that she’s not sure if she’s ready, yadda yadda yadda. It’d be nice if they remained friends and the guy was gentlemanly about everything until she was able to reciprocate romantically. (This is after resigning myself to the fact that they’re likely to put her in a romantic situation at some point. Hopefully I’m wrong and it isn’t a forgone conclusion.)

And again, having not watched, I’m not sure if my opinion is worth anything. If they’re being totally blatant about Sam being the ~new Finn, yeah that’s entirely lame and insulting. But if it’s more subtle… I’m not sure I blame them. The show is in a position where it constantly needs to sell its Next New Thing to the audience to keep people interested. Seems like for a while it was the Klainegagement (an SL which I haven’t heard all that much about lately TBH). Now apparently it’s Sam as the new Finn and (if I’m reading everyone’s comments correctly) hints of possible Samchel romance.

And who knows what will come next? If you think back on Glee as a whole, they’ve always done this, jumping around with ill-conceived SLs and randomly revamping certain characters that they then shoved down our throats. The difference is that in the past, we at least had the underlying Finchel SL (and, to a certain extent, the overall group dynamic) keeping us interested and eagerly watching each episode. Things started to fall apart last season when they had the split settings of NYC and WMHS. Now, with Finn gone and the other characters graduated and pursuing different future paths, things feel disjointed to a certain extent… but at the same time the bunch of them are all winding up together in NY feels forced. I don’t know. The fact that I can’t seem to make sense of all this is a large part of why I don’t think I’ll ever watch S5 or S6, in addition to the other major reason for not watching. :-(

[justcravingattention]

Rachel also mentioned rehearsing "My Man" made her sad. Given that he wasn't a day to day presence in her's or Kurt's life for almost a year before he died I think the small mentions here & there work. What doesn't work is trying to slide another character right into his place. That is why the Sam/Rachel tease in 506 cringeworthy and that is what made part of the Finn mentions this week seem manipulative. Finn had his place on this show and Sam has his. They are not interchangeable.

^^

[justcravingattention]

Here was the problem. They have done a decent job so far of showing how Finn's death is affecting K & R through moments since 503. I wouldn't expect ND to have those same moments because they are high schoolers. I also always expected them to dedicate Nationals to Finn so that felt appropriate as did the inclusion of Carole/Burt. The problem was using F's memory to try and sell Sam as the new Finn. They should have left that aspect out and the episode would have not felt manipulative.

^^

Thanks for sharing! This all sounds rational and fairly consistent with some of the other stuff I'd heard about the episode. And I’m glad I get the benefit of this perspective without actually having to watch the show, hehe.