It’s easy to hear the word Glee and roll your eyes a bit. It’s not secret that the show is nowhere near as popular as it once was and even though it struggled in the past two seasons, we have to remember one thing: When it began, Glee was stellar. At its best it was moving, informative, controversial, inclusive and a whole lot of fun. And while it has certainly lost its footing along the way, it’s still an important show.
I don’t know what to expect from its final season. I hope that the word on the street – that this season will focus on bringing everything full circle – is true. I hope we get a bit of that season 1 magic back. I’m not quite convinced that it’s even possible at this point, especially when you consider everything the show has lost, including the one character who brought such incredible heart to the table. RIP, Cory Monteith. You won’t be forgotten.
With that being said, the show still has the power to deliver some incredibly moving moments, to make big statements about the world and to evaluate the importance of having dreams. Here’s what I hope will happen for some of the major returning characters.
Will Schuester:
Quite simply, Will needs to stop being so unrealistically wonderful. There’s been an undercurrent of sadness to his character and I want that sadness to explode into full-on jaded bitterness, at least temporarily. He didn’t get his Broadway dreams; he remained tethered to small town Ohio where he watched his star slowly fade. Word on the street is that Will now coaches Vocal Adrenaline, which indicates that he’s not quite who he used to be and I’m okay with this. Why? Because it’s realistic.
Sue Sylvester:
Look, Jane Lynch is awesome but I just can’t get behind this character. I hope she’s little more than a vehicle for some minorly funny one-liners and not a major plot shifter.
Tina Cohen-Chang:
After trying and failing to score every solo in Brown’s accapella group, Tina should completely stop singing. She’s moved on to a new hobby – maybe she’s now a die-hard fitness freak or something – and has thrown herself into the completely. At long last, Tina Cohen-Chang is the straight up star of her domain. She refuses to come back to Lima to help Rachel put the Glee club back together (until Blaine tells her he’s in love with to lure her back.)
Noah Puckerman:
Puck should totally be a D-list reality star. I mean think about it: He got big break on some incredibly cheesy dating show set in LA after Quinn broke his heart and when his career starts to flounder he comes back to Lima to try and win her back.
Quinn Fabray:
Quinn has always brought a good share of the show’s relationship drama and I hope this continues. She should be married to some obnoxiously wealthy older businessman, expect she continues to hook up with Puck behind his back. Maybe we really come full circle and Puck will knock her up again, at which point she realizes that they belong together.
Brittany Pearce:
After graduating from MIT in a record-breaking two years, Brittany should land a gig teaching math at McKinley. Being back in Lima makes her miss Santana, who, for once, isn’t giving her the time of day. At the end of the series, she should totally poach the cheerleading coach position from Sue. She should also continue to host ‘Fondue For Two,” which has a decent YouTube following (it’s especially popular with stoners.)
Santana Lopez:
Santana Lopez should be a boss. Like, a literal boss – a young exec at a hot PR firm that specializes in covering up (and creating) sex scandals. She threw herself into her career after Brittany rejected her marriage proposal and hasn’t looked back since.
Mercedes Jones:
Mercedes should join a girl group (a la Destiny’s Child) only this time, she’s the star. Still the group is struggling and it eventually breaks up. When this happens, Mercedes heads back to Lima to start writing more music and help Rachel with New Directions.
Sam Evans:
Sam should a personal trainer in Lima who does occasional voiceovers for commercials and obsessively follows Mercedes’ career. When she returns to town, he falls all over himself to win her back and eventually succeeds.
Blaine Anderson:
I’ve heard that Blaine has returned to Lima to coach The Warblers but I hope that’s just a rumor….because how good would Blaine be as the singing host of an American Idol-like show? Though he and Kurt split after moving in together, he hasn’t settled down with anyone else and knows that once he achieves what he wants out of his own life, he’ll be ready to make things work with his longtime love.
Kurt Hummel:
Kurt should take on an entry-level editing job at Vogue before the long hours and shitty pay cause him to quit. He starts his own blog, which doesn’t get too popular….but it does catch the eye of a big Broadway director, who offers him a job. When the show picks up, Kurt should be the hottest costume designer in the theatre community. He’s also dating a Broadway star….until he catches him cheating. He and Blaine end up back together, bringing a new maturity to their relationship and finally making it work.
Rachel Berry:
Rumors say that Rachel struck out in Hollywood big time. She returns to Lima with a bruised ego to revive the glee club (this is actually happening) and slowly realizes that it’s okay that she didn’t become a huge star. She should struggle to control the glee club until she realizes that in oder to connect with the members, she needs to do what Finn would have done. She starts dating tentatively – but her love interest in a totally new character. She shouldn’t date a character we already know because not everyone ends up with their high school sweetheart.
Finn Hudson:
He may be gone but he should never be forgotten. If the writers want to bring back some of the magic, they need to keep Finn’s memory alive as much as possible. Some of the past seasons’ best moments came from the characters memorializing Finn, after all. Even in death, he’s what holds this show together.
