Lea Michele’s Glee Reunion Made Me Rewatch This Bittersweet 2011 Episode

Glee took its final bow more than a decade ago — but the musical lore lives on.

On April 16, Lea Michele was honored with her own portrait at Sardi’s, the Broadway hot spot known for its walls of celebrity caricatures. “To say that I’ve been waiting my whole life for this is not an exaggeration,” the Chess star said (via People) — noting that she’s loved the restaurant since she was a child performing in Les Misérables, and was “overwhelmed with gratitude” to be recognized there.

The event served as an unofficial reunion of Michele’s collaborators across the decades, including the cast of Broadway’s Spring Awakening and, of course, Glee. Kevin McHale, Alex Newell, and Darren Criss were among the New Directions alums who turned up to show their support for Michele. Naturally, so did Jonathan Groff — who starred with Michele in Spring Awakening before playing her love interest (and rival) Jesse St. James on Glee. Fellow Spring Awakening alum and one-time Glee guest Skylar Astin also joined the bunch for a sweet group photo.

And of course, Sardi’s itself is something of a Glee character. Rachel and Finn visited the restaurant in Season 2’s “New York,” which aired 15 years ago and followed the New Directions to their first national competition. While they didn’t win — the judges apparently didn’t love #Finchel’s passionate, on-stage kiss — the episode brought no shortage of iconic Glee moments, including Rachel and Kurt singing “For Good” and Patti LuPone giving Rachel some words of wisdom during a chance encounter at Sardi’s: “Rachel Berry, promise me one thing — you’ll never give up.”

And as Rachel tells Finn in a bit of prescient manifestation: “One day, they’re gonna put a cartoon like this of me on these walls.”

It’s not the first time life has imitated art for the Glee star. In 2022, she portrayed Fanny Brice in a revival of Funny Girl, just as Rachel Berry did on screen. And last year, she told People that she showed her young son the episode of Glee where Rachel sings “Let It Go” — which, in Frozen, was originally sung by her on-screen mom Idina Menzel. (It all comes back to Glee, OK?)

“He has started to know that mommy is a singer, and I wanted to play him me singing a song,” she told the magazine.