Watercooler: Glee's Graduation Earns High Marks
Matthew Morrison
Ok, raise your hand if Glee made you weepy last night. Don't worry, nobody is here to judge.
McKinley High's graduating class of 2012 went out on a high note with a season finale so solid, emotional and entertaining, you would have thought you were watching one of the show's first 13 episodes.
Filled with callbacks to the kids' early days in New Directions and perfectly picked tunes — everyone had to perform "goodbye" songs — it was only about, oh, six minutes into the hour before we started to well up. After that, it was on. Kurt's dad doing "Single Ladies." Will serenading his students with "Forever Young." Sue's speech to Quinn. The seniors' "You Get What You Give." One scene after another, we were happily reminded why we celebrated this show so hard when it first started. Glee felt like it found its heart again.
And then, in an one jarring moment, it broke ours by returning Finn to the hero's spot in the most unexpected way. After failing to get into the Actors Studio and faced with being Rachel's excuse to defer her start at NYADA (which totally made a mistake by denying Kurt), the middle-aged high-schooler drove his bride-to-be to the train station instead of the chapel and dumped her, thus freeing the woman he loved the most to follow her dreams to New York City. Say what you will about Lea Michele's penchant for cry-singing but this time, we needed it. And she nailed it. The That Girl outfit maybe not so much.
So now we wait to see where this all leads next fall. And trust us, we will be back. This is a hard show to quit, even when it's less than awesome. But when it's this good, it's impossible not to sing its praises.
What did you think of Glee's season finale? Did the gang graduate with high honors?
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