In light of Glee’s newest Sue Sylvester craziness, we’re reminiscing about the worst (or is it the best?) of this lovable antagonist’s schemes over the past six seasons.
In Glee’s most recent episodes, “The Hurt Locker, Part One” and “Part Two,” the show reached a new level of Sue Sylvester insanity by introducing the audience to her ‘Hurt Locker’ – a storage unit in which Sue has been keeping physical evidence of all her hatred over the years. This included detailed charts, voodoo dolls and bits and pieces of evidence from incidents where she was wronged.
If that wasn’t bad enough, in the very back is a secret shrine to Sue’s one true passion – Klaine. This creepy love-filled display was revealed in “Part One,” as she began her campaign to get the ex-couple back together by breaking up Blaine and Dave Karofsky by attempting to seduce Karofsky with an actual bear. This week, in “The Hurt Locker, Part Two,” Sue’s next step towards her dream Klaine reunion played out. She locked Kurt and Blaine in a fake elevator together and – via a tricycle riding Saw franchise murder-puppet version of herself – commanded them to kiss in order to be set free.
It’s easily one of the most ridiculous things to have ever happened in Glee, but then again, you could say the same about so many things involving Sue Sylvester. We got inspired by this week’s episode to take a look back at some of the craziest Sue schemes in Glee history.
Willkommen
Sue’s main goal has always been to disband, eliminate, or otherwise destroy Will Schuester and New Directions for disrupting the natural order of things in high school. One of her first-ever attempts at that was to lure Rachel Berry away from the glee club in the hopes that it would collapse without her. Sue does this by teaming up with jilted ex-glee club teacher Sandy Ryerson and putting on a school musical – Cabaret – starring Rachel. Rachel somehow doesn’t realize that she’s the only person involved in the musical and that it might not be quite legit.
The League of Doom
Who could forget Sue’s position as General Zod, leader of the League of Doom? This dastardly crew, including Honey Badger (Terri Schuester), The Pink Dagger (Sandy Ryerson) and Sergeant Handsome (Vocal Adrenaline coach Dustin Goolsby) banded together to commit evil several times in season 2, with aims including ruining the glee club’s fundraiser, reinstating the school gossip rag The Muckraker, getting Will to quit and leave town, and redirecting the glee club’s Nationals flights via Libya.
Do You, Sue
She tried to marry herself. She tried to marry herself. She tried to marry herself.
Bride From Hell
Because one set of wedding antics wasn’t enough, Sue later shows up to Will and Emma’s big church wedding in an exact replica of Emma’s gown, in order to cause Will public embarrassment. When Emma eventually flees the scene in an un-Sue-related panic, Sue walks down the aisle herself as a stand-in bride in order to deliver the news to Will. The sad thing about this one is that she actually seems to think she was helping the situation.
Dressing For Success
During season 3, Sue has a change of heart and decides that she wants to help the glee club win Nationals, and she’s just as willing to undertake her schemes in support of New Directions as she was in order to bring them down. In an attempt to sabotage Vocal Adrenaline, Sue tells Kurt and Mercedes to encourage Wade’s cross-dressing tendencies, intending to make a scandal for the opposing team. When this backfires and Wade impresses the crowd as Unique, Sue changes tactics and demands a drag performer of their very own. Kurt refuses, but Puck is happy to “man up.”
Framing Figgins
After being suspended for claiming responsibility for season four’s school shooting incident, Sue appears in season five as principal. How did she do it? Oh, simply by breaking into Figgins’ office in the middle of the night and planting porn, gambling receipts, a polygamous marriage certificate, a bill of sale granting campus drilling rights to a fracking company, and an autographed copy of Hitler’s biography Mein Kampf for the authorities to find. After that, she was begged to return to McKinley and take over the top position.
Watch The Queen Conquer
In “Feud,” Sue tries to force Blaine to re-join the Cheerios (she needs a a shiny, sexually non-threatening gay to throw her girls in the air at Regionals) and when he refuses, it’s war. Sue torments Blaine with everything from cement in his hair gel to ruining his family’s credit rating, but Blaine meets his snapping point when Sue hired a plane to fly over the school, trailing a banner bearing a euphemism about his bedroom preferences. The two finally fight it out in a musical battle based on the famous feud between Nicki Minaj and Mariah Carey. Sue wins, by popular vote, and you know what, based on the performance, she kind of earned it.
Sue vs New York
Due to a convoluted reason involving Sue’s Corner and her own hypocrisy, Sue demands to accompany Will to New York City for Rachel’s opening night on Broadway. Her plan once she gets there is a) to prove to herself that she hates the city, and b) hate-watch Rachel’s performance. She walks out in the middle of Funny Girl and meets her match in misanthropic restaurant owner Mario, with whom she has sex with all over Rachel and Kurt’s apartment.
The Reign of Terror
In the season 6 premiere, Sue has taken her tyrannical role as “America’s winningest principal” to the next level, battling teen obesity with mandatory weigh-ins and raw kale, and squashing out the arts programs once and for all, including forcing the remaining glee club students to transfer to other schools. This is all enforced, of course, by Sue occasionally releasing hounds.
Honorable mentions:
We’ve really only scratched the surface here. Remember when Sue blackmailed Figgins by slipping him a roofie and pretending they had sex? Remember when she actually had sex with Bryan Ryan inside her office ceiling? Remember when she rigged the Secret Santa and went all Grinch on the school? Remember ‘Sue’s Kids’? Remember when she coached a rival school’s glee club while still working at McKinley? Remember when she tried to fire Brittany out of a cannon? Remember when she asked the glee club boys to be sperm donors for her pregnancy? Remember when she ran for congress?
Oh, Sue. What’s to become of you? Glee has eight episodes remaining, and it’s hard to predict what kind of ending Sue will get for the series finale. She’s still possibly in the process of hypnotizing Sam, and it looks like she’ll be continuing to awkwardly break the fourth wall about Klaine shipping if the end of “The Hurt Locker, Part Two” can be taken seriously. What will Sue’s final scheme be? Will she have a change of heart, or go out in all her crazy, flaming glory?
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