Ryan Murphy talks "Glee" Cory Monteith memorial episode

Ryan Murphy is giving a bit more detail on what fans can expect to see when "Glee" bids farewell to Cory Monteith.

The third episode of this coming season is a tribute to the 31-year-old actor, who died last month from a mix of heroin and alcohol. Finn Hudson, the lovable jock character played by Monteith, will be written out of the series.

• Lea Michele remembers Cory Monteith at Teen Choice Awards
• Cory Monteith's final films to premiere at Toronto Film Festival

"There were a lot of things that we had to decide -- how are we going to deal with his death?" the "Glee" creator said in an interview with Deadline. "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," he continued. "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."

Murphy said the tribute episode, which begins filming this week, "turned out to be a lovely tribute" and is "a very heartfelt look at how young people grieve."

"We loved Cory and we loved Finn and it feels like a huge loss and a huge heartache not to have either of them around," he added. "We're trying to craft an episode that's not just about us grieving but about a lot of the young fans grieving."

The new season of "Glee" begins airing Sept. 26.