After going back five years during the opening hour of a moving finale, viewers jumped ahead to 2020, as Glee closed out its impressive run by giving us a look at where various characters ended up once their days in New Directions were truly over.
Kurt and Blaine were happily living in New York City, being totally fabulous and starring at Lincoln Center in the first-ever LGBT take on Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?
Rachel volunteered to serve as the couple’s surrogate… and she also won a Tony Award. In her acceptance speech, Rachel thanked her husband (Jessie St. James), along with Mr. Schuester, telling the latter:
“Dreams really do come true.”
Mercedes remained very successful, while Sam was happily heading up the New Directions (merely one of four glee clubs at the new-and-improved, arts-based McKinley). He had also found another new girlfriend.
Tina and Artie were contentedly coupled up and as cute as ever.
Sue was elected for a second term as Jeb Bush’s Vice President, with Becky working as a Secret Service agent and with many track suits bearing the letters VPOTUS.
Sue returned to McKinley to close out the finale in order to dedicate the Finn Hudson Auditorium and to deliver an emotional speech about how she once thought glee club was silly.
However: "What I finally realized [is] it takes a lot of bravery to look around you and see the world not as it is, but as it should be: A world where the quarterback becomes best friends with the gay kid, and the girl with the big nose ends up on Broadway.
Glee is about imagining a world like that and finding the courage to open up your heart and sing about it. That's what glee club is. And for the longest time I thought that was silly. And now I think it's just about the bravest thing that anyone can do."
Remember when Santana, Mercedes, Brittany and Sugar formed their own group, the Trouble Tones? This "Rumour Has It/Someone Like You" mashup was the highlight of their time together
Best Glee song of all-time? "The Scientist" featured the show's four main couples breaking up: Finchel, Klaine, Brittana, and Wemma all split. Our hearts split along with them.
Santana Lopez departed life in Louisville for the bright lights of The Big Apple... and showed up as a legit "Girl on Fire." Naya Rivera for all the wins!
The finale concluded with a buoyant, beautiful rendition of "I Lived,” one that featured nearly all the key players and one whose lyrics represented the show at its best:
I did it all/I owned every second that this world could give/I saw so many places, the things that I did/With every broken bone, I swear I lived.
