If a Glee reunion does happen, it is being put together from the show’s fan memory rather than its original call sheet. Lea Michele was the lead from the pilot. The two names that followed her into talks this week took far longer roads to the front of the stage: one began as a cheerleader who barely spoke, and the other arrived as a transfer student whose exit fans refused to accept.

As Deadline reported, citing sources, Heather Morris, who played the cheerful, scatterbrained Cheerio Brittany S. Pierce, and Chord Overstreet, who played Sam Evans, are in talks to return for the Disney+ and Hulu reboot. They join Michele, who is in talks to reprise Rachel Berry. None of the three deals has closed.

Morris’s route into McKinley High is one of the show’s odder origin stories. A dancer who had toured as one of Beyoncé’s backup dancers, she was brought in to teach the cast the “Single Ladies” choreography just as the producers were looking for a third cheerleader. Brittany started as a background figure with almost no lines, and grew as the writers realised Morris had a gift for one-liners. She was made a series regular in the second season, and Brittany’s romance with Santana Lopez became one of the show’s defining storylines, ending in a double wedding in the final season. Naya Rivera, who played Santana, died in 2020. A return for Brittany means going back to that story without its other half.

Overstreet’s Sam joined in the second season, a transfer student who signed up for the football team and the New Directions glee club. When his option to become a series regular was not picked up for the third season, fans campaigned online under the hashtag #DontCutTheChord, and he went on to rejoin the show in later seasons. Since Glee, he has built a parallel music career, including the 2017 single “Hold On,” certified double platinum in the US, and starred in Apple TV+’s Acapulco.

Disney+ and Hulu announced the series order earlier this week without naming any cast. The reboot comes from 20th Television, the studio that produced the original. Co-creator Ryan Murphy said last month he had been in touch with “around 10 of the original cast members.” Murphy created Glee with Brad Falchuk and Ian Brennan. It ran for six seasons on Fox from 2009 to 2015, won six Emmys, including awards for Murphy, Jane Lynch and guest stars Neil Patrick Harris and Gwyneth Paltrow, and currently streams on Hulu. No premiere window, showrunner or story details have been announced.

Murphy’s count was about ten. Three names into the talks, the roll call already reads like a summary of the show itself: the lead from the pilot, the cheerleader from the back row and the transfer student the fans would not let go.