It looks like Lea Michele’s heading back to the beginning…
The 27-year-old part-Spanish actress and Glee star will be returning to Ohio for the Fox musical dramedy’s sixth and final season.
The truncated season will revolve around Michele’s character Rachel Berry, who returns to Lima after a “humiliating failure” as a television actress.
The former New Directions star will head back home to figure out what she wants to do next and, after discovering that Sue Sylvester (Jane Lynch) has disbanded the glee club, undertakes the task of reinstating and leading the group that helped launch her career.
Meanwhile, Blaine (Darren Criss), Sam (Chord Overstreet) and Will (Matthew Morrison) have all found new and surprising gigs in Ohio.
Fox notes that other McKinley High alums will also return for Glee‘s final run.
Michele, Criss, Overstreet, Lynch and Morrison will all return as series regulars and be joined by Chris Colfer (Kurt), Dot-Marie Jones (Coach Beiste), Kevin McHale (Artie) and Amber Riley (Mercedes).
Naya Rivera will return with a reduced role. Max Adler has also booked a major recurring role in the final season, reprising his role as Dave Karofsky.
Co-creator Ryan Murphy told The Hollywood Reporter at the Emmys on Monday that he doesn’t currently know what the final scene of the series will be. “I did. I don’t anymore, but I think it will be emotional,” he said.
Murphy told reporters in April that the final season would feature a time jump and focus more on the original castmembers, shifting the focus from its previous relocated home in New York.
“The final season is really its own story and its own location, and while the New York stuff will be alive, the final season is not New York-centric at all,” Murphy said. “It really [will be] a lovely, fitting season that … dwells on the original people that were on the show and what happens to them and how they give back. That really is the last season. … We’ll revisit some of the new kids that came and went. There’s a return of the Jane-Matt characters in a big way. It’s really interesting, a very sweet, satisfying ending to the story.”
Murphy’s original vision for the end of the series featured Rachel and Finn’s (the late Cory Monteith) “star-crossed lovers getting together and having a happy ending and them both getting their dreams.” He added, “The fact that that can’t be is a big pain in all of our hearts.”
Glee‘s final season returns midseason on Fox. An exact premiere date has not yet been determined.
