Cory Monteith's character won't die of drug OD on 'Glee'

LOS ANGELES, Aug. 16 (UPI) -- "Glee" creator Ryan Murphy says the late cast member Cory Monteith's character Finn will not die from an accidental drug overdose on the U.S. dramedy.

Monteith, 31, died last month in a Vancouver hotel room. An autopsy revealed lethal amounts of heroin and alcohol in his system and his death was ruled an accident.

Murphy told Deadline.com Finn will die off-screen in the third episode of the upcoming season of "Glee," however, the manner of his death will not echo that of his portrayer's real-life demise.

"The hard part for all of us is that the past week we've been holed up writing the memorial episode," Murphy told the entertainment industry news website. "There were a lot of things that we had to decide -- how are we going to deal with his death? At one point, we were going to have his character die after an accidental drug overdose -- that was something we had considered. But we have decided that we're not going to have him pass from that. Basically, what we're doing in the episode is we are not telling you yet, or maybe not at all, how that character died. The idea being, how somebody died is interesting and maybe morbid, but we say very early on in the episode, 'This episode is about a celebration of that character's life.' That might be weird for some people, but it felt really exploitative to do it any other way."