‘Glee’ season 5 spoilers: Lea Michele – Naya Rivera scoop; plus, episode count

There are a couple of important things here to report now when it comes to “Glee” season 5, but let us start with something that we know has become a hot subject of debate as of late: Whether or not the fifth season of the show is going to be made up of 22 episodes. There were rumors running around that the order may be shortened to 19 episodes, and it was easier to buy into these “rumors” than most discussions of such things. Why? Think along the lines of the fact that there was the hiatus after the Cory Monteith tragedy, and that production time loss may have just meant that Fox decided to just go with a shorter order.

However, TVLine confirms today that there will still be 22 episodes in this fifth season, with the back nine of them being (as we know already) more New York-centered stories compared to ones that put the life and times of McKinley High into perspective.

We have also done a little bit of schedule-counting here, and unless Fox decides to air the two parts of the 100th episode together in a two-hour event, the season finale would be on Tuesday, May 27 if they air an episode a week starting with the show’s return on February. The point in us doing this mostly was to show that there could still be time for all 22 episodes without the show pushing into June.

Also, a bonus scoop courtesy of the aforementioned website: Not only could the tension regarding Santana (Naya Rivera) going for an understudy role for “Funny Girl” anger Rachel (Lea Michele), but the move could have implications so drastic that the living situation is compromised. While we know that some could be upset at this, we’ve always found it a little strange that the Rachel / Santana tension went away at times following the move.

In case you’ve missed it, there are all sorts of important “Glee” updates that you can see over at the link here, whether you are talking about the 100th episode, or who could be moving to New York from Ohio.

Also, sign up now for our CarterMatt Newsletter if you do want even more updates sent straight to your email.

Photo: Fox