TV Blog Buzz: Was the ‘Glee’ Cory Monteith tribute appropriate?

The reviews are in for the “Glee” tribute to Cory Monteith and his character Finn and while they’re mostly positive, they are a bit mixed.

First, if you haven’t seen the episode yet you can stream it at Global’s website: http://bit.ly/GS8TXF

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Slate called it “a very moving spectacle” that struck the right balance between exhibiting raw emotion and yet still being “relatively restrained.”

“The power of sadness as spectacle, the potential catharsis of group mourning, the healing nature of the heaving sob were the episode’s raison d’être — grief theater understood as something collectively restorative,” wrote Willa Paskin. http://slate.me/19qgS68

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Entertainment Weekly, on the other hand, called it “an earnest, flawed tribute” for denying fans an explanation of why the character Finn died.

“I sympathize with any ‘Glee’ fan who has spent four years investing in this series, through thick and thin, and in Finn’s character in particular. You were not wrong to want to know his fate. You had a right to that answer,” argued Jeff Jensen. http://bit.ly/17uIcNP

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In a column written before the show aired, Time’s David Sheff correctly predicted the show would not link Monteith’s overdose with his character’s death and called it a missed opportunity.

“In America, we still view addicts as the other: those on the streets huddled in alleyways or doorways, unkempt, uncouth, possibly dangerous. We walk around them, averting our eyes. Or we follow their antics on TMZ — Paris Hilton and Charlie Sheen, the brunt of jokes about their attempts at recovery followed by relapse. Monteith was a fresh faced, clean-cut heartthrob. When he died, a radio interviewer called and asked me to explain what happened. He said, ‘But Cory seemed so normal.’ He was so normal even in his drug addiction, a condition he shared with 23 million Americans,” Sheff wrote.

He goes on to say that “Hollywood isn’t obliged to portray reality — indeed, authenticity is anathema to feel-good shows like ‘Glee’ — but by whitewashing addiction, the producers are failing its audience of young people, the group most vulnerable to overdose.” http://ti.me/19vjnpL

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TV critic and Canadian Press contributor Bill Brioux shares a personal story of working with Monteith for a story and how the actor was “polite, considerate, able to see past himself.” http://bit.ly/19FzYcs

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