7 Tearjerking TV Sitcom Tributes To Cast Members Who Died

Though Cory Monteith was 31-years-old when he died of a drug overdose, he was much younger in the eyes of his fans, who watched him most frequently as teenager Finn Hudson in the musical television series Glee. That aspect, considering him as ten years younger than he was in actuality, made his untimely death a little harder for viewers to take.

Because the manner in which Monteith died had already taken over headlines, the creators of Glee opted to leave Finn's death ambiguous, even admonishing such interest in the opening scene where one of the characters says, "Everyone wants to talk about how he died. But who cares?" The show clearly didn't want any of the messy real-life controversy bleeding into the show's tribute.

The rest of the episode, "The Quarterback," was an hour-long tribute to both the actor and his character through song medleys. Each song seems a little less polished than usual for the show, which typically puts so much emphasis on the songs being iTunes ready. Here, it's like the actors are singing, not their characters. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5kAIiL9gGqE

When Monteith's real-life girlfriend, Lea Michele (who also plays his girlfriend in the show), gets through her speech about the losing the love of her life and sings Adele's "Make You Feel My Love," it leaves a weepy path of destruction.