For the show's first four seasons, Sue is the track-suit wearing coach of the William McKinley High School Cheerleaders (otherwise known as "the Cheerios"), and a ruthless bully with an iron fist to both students and faculty members alike.

Mary McNamara for the Los Angeles Times has written that "Lynch alone makes Glee worth watching", while Entertainment Weekly's Ken Tucker has called Sue "the greatest Broadway-musical villain to ever co-star in a TV series".

[2] She falls in love with news anchor Rod Remington (Bill A. Jones), but their burgeoning relationship comes to an abrupt end when she discovers he is sleeping with his co-anchor, Andrea Carmichael (Earlene Davis).

[12] She is appointed acting principal after having Figgins infected with the flu,[13] but although the school board is so impressed with her performance they make her position permanent, she resigns when they refuse to uphold her expulsion of Dave Karofsky (Max Adler), a bully who had threatened to kill glee club member Kurt Hummel (Chris Colfer).

Her estranged mother Doris (Carol Burnett), a recently retired Nazi hunter, visits in an attempt to make amends for her absentee parenting, but is continuously critical of her daughter, to the point that Sue disinvites her during her wedding ceremony.

Brittany and her friends Santana Lopez (Naya Rivera) and Quinn Fabray (Dianna Agron) ultimately quit the squad, which loses at Regionals after having won the national title for six straight years.

When her attempts to do so fail, Sue decides to become the coach of Aural Intensity, one of New Directions' Regionals competitors, and deliberately injures their director in order to get the job.

Their first mission, to ruin a New Directions benefit, fails when Sandy is won over by a performance from Mercedes Jones (Amber Riley) and donates the full amount needed.

Devastated by Jean's death from pneumonia, Sue turns to Terri, who has the glee club's plane tickets for Nationals changed from New York to Tripoli.

Kurt and his stepbrother Finn Hudson (Cory Monteith) help Sue to clean out Jean's things, and she accepts their offer to have New Directions perform at the funeral, as she is afraid no one else will come.

She will instead be running for the United States House of Representatives on a platform of lowering health care costs, as her sister had faced significantly higher bills in her last few years.

This angers Kurt's father, Burt Hummel (Mike O'Malley), who arranges for local businesses to sponsor the musical, and he enters the congressional race as a write-in candidate to defeat her.

Sue attempts to combat the implications by starting a relationship with one of her former bed partners, Ohio State football recruiter Cooter Menkins, who had recently been dating Coach Beiste.

She shows unusual compassion, telling Will she will help him win nationals, letting Quinn rejoin the Cheerios, and is visibly upset at Karofsky's suicide attempt.

He is demoted to janitor, while she takes his job as principal, where she constantly torments Figgins, and tells Will and Roz that she will keep the Cheerios and New Directions going if they win in their upcoming competitions.

Following Finn's death in the episode "The Quarterback," Sue orders the memorial in the school to be taken down, which angers Santana to the point where she confronts her and pushes her into a filing cabinet.

In "City Of Angels", after New Directions comes in second in their Nationals competition, Sue disbands the club, although she gets Will a job interview at Carmel High School as the new Coach for Vocal Adrenaline.

She later comes to New York City as Will's companion since neither his wife Emma Pillsbury (Jayma Mays) nor Beiste could go to see Rachel's broadway opening night in Funny Girl.

She also forcibly transferred Unique, Marley, Ryder Lynn (Blake Jenner), and Jake Puckerman (Jacob Artist) to other schools (she kept Kitty in McKinley for the Cheerios) to completely get rid of glee club's history.

In "Jagged Little Tapestry", Sue gives Beiste her support for the latter's transition process, and alongside Tina Cohen-Chang (Jenna Ushkowitz), Quinn, and Coach Roz, are equally apprehensive about Becky's new boyfriend Darrell (Justin Prentice).

During the course of the season, Sue tricks Sam Evans (Chord Overstreet) by setting Rachel up to sabotage her; it is also revealed that she secretly wants Kurt and Blaine's relationship to succeed, and was devastated when they called off their engagement.

Sue is then allowed to attend the wedding and helps convince Kurt and Blaine to marry alongside Brittany and Santana, providing the rings for them when they don't have any.

Heartbroken over Becky's betrayal, she is further hurt by her mother, Doris', claim that Sue is "the daughter she couldn't love", although both of them eventually reconnect after admitting each other's misdeeds.

[17] Initially berating Will, she retaliates by joining as Vocal Adrenaline's coach, only to reveal that she deliberately created a spectacle that would alienate the judges to thank Will for standing up for her when she got exposed.

New Directions members from years past and present unite for one last massive group song, with Sue and Becky joining the entire cast for one final bow.

'"[18] The casting notice described Sue as "the anal, tightly wound, and ruthlessly ambitious leader of the Harrison High cheer leading squad.

It was because she felt that she never received the respect she deserved as a teacher and even the then Principal Figgins "insulted" her and said that she was a cheerleading coach so she needed to "try some pants" because she was wearing an office skirt and that she had long hair.

The character of Sue has received widespread praise, lauded as "the greatest Broadway-musical villain to ever co-star in a TV series" by Entertainment Weekly's Ken Tucker.

[41] IGN's Eric Goldman later assessed that a comic actress such as Lynch is necessary to make the character loveable, given that her key traits include smugness, ignorance and casual racism.

[44] Variety's Brian Lowry was critical of Lynch in early episodes, deeming Glee's adult cast "over-the-top buffoons",[45] and writing that she "chews through her material so relentlessly as to be fitfully funny but usually just plain annoying.