What did everyone think of the episode "The Quarterback?"

I get his sentiment that it was too raw in the moment, and as an audience we didn’t know Cory the way the cast and crew did. But I feel like it was needed, having an in memoriam at the beginning and/or end of an episode would have felt too little.

Not addressing it was also impossible. Cory was one of the leads of the show, Finn was a part of the ship in the show. They were in the beginning stages of Finn’s big story line for the rest of the show. I could understand maybe giving it longer than they did to give his friends more time to grieve, but I feel like the episode also gave us as an audience a time to grieve in a somewhat parasocial way.

Personally, I found the episode somewhat comforting to show that there is no wrong way to approach grief, and that grief can make you do stupid things. It just sucks that the message had to come through a real lost life, instead of just a fictional one.

I thought the quarterback episode was good, but it was definitely emotional to see the cast’s reactions to his death. 

Especially when Naya breaks down while singing If I Die Young. 

I’ll never forgive how they portrayed Tina

I hate to say it but when I rewatch, I have to skip this episode. There is so much emotion and heart put into it. It can be such a heartbreaking watch that I can’t always emotionally handle it. Especially if I’m going through my own irl losses, it can bring up emotions in me that I just don’t want to feel. TV for me, is an escape. That being said, I think this episode was a great tribute to Cory and his contributions to the show. It’s needed. It’s just a hard watch.

I didn’t like some of the dramatic aspects of the episode like Sue and Santana fighting over lighting the candles or Shue taking the jacket. I thought it was overly distracting in an otherwise lovely tribute

It has a lot of issues tbh but I guess it was cathartic for the cast and crew. I’m sure they believed it was a good tribute to Finn/Cory and that’s all that matters.

If I’m judging it strictly as an episode if television I think it’s near perfect. I think the songs were mostly great, the story was as tasteful as it could be, and the message was lovely in a gut wrenching way. That said I complete understand his sentiment and feel terrible knowing how hard it must’ve been for the cast while filming.

I've watched it maybe twice, I can't bare watching Rachel appear nearer the end. No matter what you may think about Rachel Berry, whether she's being good, bad or a pain or a diva or whatever Lea played Rachel with such a sparkle that seeing her towards the end of the episode appearing it's too difficult. It was like the sparkle of Rachel and indeed Lea had been sucked out and I can't stomach it. Having to act devastated about losing an on screen friend/significant other that you actually lost in real life is unfathomable to me.

It's a very moving and fairly well done episode but I do have some struggle watching people I know may or not be acting grief when it was probably quite real grief they were portraying.

Everything was perfect except how they wrote Tina in the episode

As difficult as it was for the cast and crew, it did need to be addressed for both the show to continue and to give fans an opportunity to grieve. Finn was a main character in the show and they couldn't write him out gradually the way they did for characters like Quinn and the season 4 newbies.

Cory's death was huge, probably one of the most shocking of 2013. It's the celebrity death that had the biggest impact on me in my teens and I'm sure a lot of glee fans felt the same.

Cory's also not the first actor and wasn't the last to have an episode dedicated to them. Riverdale did it for Luke Perry when he died, and he was not as big of a character in Riverdale as Cory was in Glee.

I’ve only ever watched it once I just can’t do it again

I think it’s a beautiful tribute both to Cory and Finn. I’ve only seen it once all the way through (when it premiered). The other times I’ve rewatched I can’t get through it. I start crying and usually skip the episode. It’s just too painful and the casts emotions were so raw and real, it makes it a very difficult watch. I believe they filmed it only like 2 or 3 weeks after Cory died. Everything about it really makes me sad for the cast, and as a huge fan of the show, it’s absolutely heartbreaking. Finding out Mr. Shue basically stole Finn’s jacket, and watching him sob into it, ripped my soul out of my body. Now post 2020, it has an even heavier feeling. Losing Naya so young as well, and under such tragic circumstances, really makes this episode a no go for me. She sings if I die young in this episode. In retrospect it’s both hauntingly beautiful, and gut wrenching. I could cry thinking about it, and a lot of other moments from the episode.

Now at the time of this all actually happening, and the ep premiering, I was kind of mad ab the episode. I cried the entire time. And I don’t quite know why it made me so mad, but the fact that they give you no explanation for Finn dying was extremely upsetting and made me feel so angry, empty, and confused. I felt robbed of some sort of resolution for the character. I suppose it was just too paralleled to what had actually happened, and how a lot of death happens. One day, they just aren’t here any more. They get ripped from our lives, and it doesn’t always make sense. Or have a rhyme or reason. I understand now why they did what they did, but really struggled with it at the time. I quit watching the show mid season and didn’t end up seeing it in its entirety till 7 or 8 years later.

I think the biggest problems with this episode (and really all the filming of season 5) is that they didn’t wait long enough. I believe they filmed this episode a month after Cory’s death. Imagine losing not only a coworker, but a very close friend and then having to have all those emotions brought to the front and filmed for tv show a month after their death. They definitely needed to address his death in some way and it couldn’t be a little scene since he was such a huge character, but they should’ve given them at least a year off in between those seasons. I think the world would have understood taking a break. At the time, I was fully expecting them to cancel the show after his death. It’s been a while since I listened to that episode of the podcast, but I’m fairly certain Ryan Murphy says that if he had a chance to redo it, he would have cancelled the show then.

I felt like it was too soon, the cast was obviously grieving, if they had given it a week or two more it wouldn’t have felt so personal. Borderline intrusive

Naya’s performance was incredible and so heartbreaking and I just felt like it was cathartic at the time.

as stated on what you really missed they should have had atleast a 6 month break