Sue Heck

"I went from being invisible, to being mistaken for an Asian flu. I tried changing myself, but it didn't work."

—Sue, to Frankie

Sue Sue Heck (later Donahue, born February 29, 1996) is the younger sister of Axl Heck and older sister of Brick Heck, and the overlooked middle child of Frankie and Mike Heck.

The show starts with Sue in 7th grade A true dork optimist even in high school . She eventually graduates from Orson High as the class of 2015 , despite her overt enthusiasm and bubbly personality, Sue tends to find herself under-appreciated and disregarded. Notably she once intentionally disappeared to see if her absence would spark concern; it didn't. She does, however, maintain rather strong relations with both of her parents.

Sue has lots of optimism even though many times she is let down by fellow students at her school. That is what makes her one of the most positive characters on the show.

Her relationship with her brother, Axl, is initially strained. Their polar opposite personalities leave them in disagreements and fights more than occasionally, though through listening and understanding one another, their bond strengthens, so much so that they eventually confide in one another about their issues. Sue's relationship with her younger brother, Brick, is much less problematic, as their shared inability to fit in with the larger crowd causes them to lean on each other for support.

Although she found herself in rather undesirable circumstances on several occasions, Sue consistently maintained a positive outlook on life, refusing to quit after numerous failures. This determination made her a beloved character by fans and viewers alike, and her character concluded in a marriage with long-time crush Sean Donahue.

Sue has a very high failure rate when it comes to trying out for anything. She frequently applies to numerous activities and clubs, but will usually either not get accepted or get cut shortly after getting in. The only things Sue can keep up are activities with no cuts (such as when she went to college) or her own self-made activities, like wrestlerettes. When Sue was younger (around the age of 5) she was actually the polar opposite of that, having numerous activities that she excelled at, though for an unknown reason that stopped being the case by the time the show started.

Appearance

Sue is seen with long light brown hair until she starts college and cuts it to her chin after burning half of it off with a ‘garage sale curling iron’. In season 9, episode 13 Rusty states to Mike she strongly resembles their mother, Sue’s grandmother, who died before Sue was born, Sue has very pale skin and brown eyes.

Romances

Brad Bottig: Brad was Sue's first boyfriend. They dated briefly in season 1, until Sue caught Brad smoking, which led to an end to their romantic relationship later that season. However, Brad and Sue remain best friends.

Matt: Sue begins to date Matt in season 3, Matt shows Sue a grand gesture to tell her he likes her. This leads to them dating; however, their relationship lasts only a few months before Matt moves to Zionsville. Once there, he meets Sherri, which causes him and Sue to break up. In season 4, Matt says he will escort Sue to her Valentine's dance; however, he cancels after getting back together with his girlfriend.

Darrin McGrew: Sue and Darrin have an on again, off again relationship spanning over two years (Seasons 4-6). In the episode Valentine's Day IV, Sue is left crushed after her ex-boyfriend Matt said he would take her to the Valentine's dance but ditches her for a girl he met at his new school. Darrin is the one to break the news to Sue and offers to take her, so she doesn't have to go alone. They share a kiss over the trash can while cleaning up after the dance. They begin dating in the following episode Winners and Losers. This stint of their relationship is short-lived as they break up in Dollar Days due to Axl's attitude about their relationship. In the episode Change in the Air, Sue sees Darrin when he comes to the Heck house to fix their air conditioner. Her feelings for him are re-sparked until she finds out he has a new girlfriend. In the episode The Walk, Sue is asked by 5 different guys to prom (Sean, Brad, her boss Edwin, Derrick Glossner, and Darrin). She breaks off all her other dates but Darrin because she wants to go to the prom with him. However, when he finds out from Sean that Sue has 5 other dates, he cancels on her, and Sue goes to the prom alone. Darrin eventually goes to Sue after Axl tells him he is mad at him for ditching Sue because Sue really wanted to go to prom with him. Darrin shows up and tells Sue how he really feels about her, and they share a kiss. In The Wind Chimes, Sue reveals she and Darrin are dating after the prom the previous night. ^[1]

In Valentine's Day VI, Darrin organizes a scavenger hunt for Sue that ends at Darrin's new house with him proposing to her. In The Answer, Sue is panicked about marrying Darrin and can't find the words to tell him that she doesn't want to get married. When Mike angrily says he will kill Darrin, she intervenes and tells him she will break off the engagement. After several failed attempts, Sue finally tells Darrin she has many other things she wants to do before getting married and breaks off their engagement (as she was still in High school, and he was already in college). Darrin responds by ending their relationship because he is ready to settle down in life. Although it is unclear, it possibly would have been illegal for them to get married, as she was (possibly) still a minor at 17 and he was over 18, making him a legal adult.

Logan: Logan dated Sue for a short period of time during season 6 and 7. He works at Abercrombie and first met Sue at Spudsy Malone's where she works. He asked Sue if he could take her to her prom when it is revealed she doesn't have a date. When Sue couldn't get anyone to take over her shift, she had to work that night but Logan volunteers to help her. While working, a lot of things go wrong, and Sue ends up getting cheese sprayed on her dress. She thanks Logan for helping her and apologizes to him about not being able to go to the prom. Just when Sue is getting ready to leave, Logan asks her if she wants to dance with him. She accepts. Sue mistakenly saves the wrong phone number for Logan, and after sending a few texts to him with no response, Sue assumes he no longer wants to be with her. In college, Sue runs into Logan and their relationship lasted for a while longer until Logan tells Sue that he wants to become a priest and that if they wanted a future together, they couldn't get married.

Jeremy: Sue started dating Jeremy in Season 7 after things ended with Logan. They initially met while he was protesting and chained to a tree on her way to her 8 am class. After getting yelled at by his professor, he eventually unchained himself and went to class, which was Sue's class. They start dating soon after. Their relationship went on through the summer, much to Frankie's dismay. He was often controlling of Sue, viewing her more as a follower than a girlfriend. She struggled to break up with him in the episode "True Grit," sending her no-cut acapella group and then Axl, before finally doing so herself. He was a little bitter about the break up, and mentioned so in a later episode when Sue was riding the golf cart with Tyler.

Tyler: Tyler dated Sue throughout season 8 and is the student safety cart driver at East Indiana State. They first met when Sue was coming back from a party. She quickly developed a crush on him and started a habit of driving around campus in his golf cart. When Sue discovered that Tyler already had a girlfriend, she thinks that her crush for him is over. The next day, Tyler drives up to Sue and says that his girlfriend broke up with him because she thought that he liked another girl. Tyler then tells Sue that the girl he was talking about was her and they kiss. After that they both agree to go to the Chancellor's Ball together. Sean also asks Sue to the Ball, but she declines and feels terrible. At the Chancellor's Ball, Sue spends a lot of time talking about Sean. Tyler genuinely and kindly tells Sue that if she has feelings for him, she should go to the ball with Sean instead of with him.

Aidan: The guy that Sue assumed Sean Donahoe had set her up when they agreed to "set each other up on dates", which turned out to be the Postmates guy that knocked on the door to deliver Lexie's food. He's in a band, clumsy, and kind.

Sean Donahue: Sue and Sean had crushes on each other on and off between seasons 2-9, leading to their marriage in the series finale, A Heck of a Ride. It starts off with Sean always being there to take Sue to prom, and Sue always has a date and rejects him, but when Sean asks her to the Chancellor's Ball, she has to reject him yet again but feels so bad. She spends a significant amount of time talking about Sean before the Ball and Tyler, her boyfriend and date helps her realize that she likes Sean and she shouldn't give up on him. Sean also likes Sue but never had the courage to ask her out, but he liked her too much to give up on her. They both try to get together, but as fate would have it, Sue seems to find herself with other guys, and Sean's every attempt is sabotaged by Brick and Axl unknowingly. In the final episode, Mike makes Sue realize that she shouldn't pine after a guy because she is a ray of sunshine. So as Sue is about to give up and move on, she plans to give Sean a parting gift as he is about to leave for Ghana for an internship. Coincidentally, she cannot give it to him face to face, so she slips it in his bag with a sweet note. When Sean is in the airport during security, he finds the gift, a snow globe, because of a bag check. The security officer reads him the note, and Sean realizes the gift is the same snow globe he bought for Sue and had previously thrown away at her apartment building thinking Sue was seeing someone. He rushes to her and confesses his feelings; in reply, she kisses him, and in the end, they date, break up twice, get back together, and end up marrying.

Trivia

• Sue often goes unnoticed at school, causing many students and staff to forget her name, including the cheerleaders.
• Sue graduates' high school as class of 2015
  • While on the Middle School news team, her teammates referred to her as "Cue Card Girl," as she was the one holding the cue cards during the show. While she tried out for the news team, the coordinator referred to her mistakenly as "Sue Hickey."
  • While on the High School volleyball team, she was referred to as "Floorboard," due to making a hard jump during her tryout and breaking through the gym floor.
  • While trying out for the Middle School Cross Country team, she was referred to as "Barb," which would later turn into "Barb Heckie" during her middle school graduation. It is unknown where the name "Barb" came from.
  • When ordering a pizza in college, the name on the order is listed as "Sue Hack."
  • In her senior yearbook, along with her one decent picture (as many of her photos have been horrible), she is labeled as "Ana Harajanaan"
• She started a cheerleader group for the wrestlers named Wrestlerettes.
• Axl has many rude nicknames for her, such as: Sucky, Pukey, Dukey, Sue-Pid, Bubble Girl, Cage Match, Dork, Turtle Girl. He also labels her contact information in his phone as "Super Dork Don't Answer"
• Chuck from the Quarry calls her "Little Girl Mike"
• Sue has a Twitter account (@SueHeckWins), an Instagram account with the same handle, and a Facebook page. Obviously, none of these exist in real life.
• Her full name is Sue Sue Heck due to an error made by her parents on her birth certificate. She almost changed her middle name to Lily once, but she changed her mind at the last minute after the woman approving her name change commented that "Sue Sue" was an interesting, unique name.
• Sue is left-handed.
• Sue had an overbite-crossbite, which was overcorrected to an "unprecedented" overbite-underbite, which resulted in her having to wear headgear at night to correct the issue, as well as braces. Her braces were finally removed in the Season 6 opener.
• It has been revealed in Unbraceable You, that Sue has been in a book of dental abnormalities.
• She created her own (short-term) alter-ego - "Suki," who, contrary to Sue, is right-handed, parts her hair on one side, and doesn't sweat the small stuff.
• Despite Sue being a generally lovely person, she does have some toxic behaviors especially during her relationship with Darrin, like when she broke up with him and ghosted him after he gave her a necklace that he had also given to his ex girlfriend (and also his mother). She tried to act like nothing had happened though and they reconciled soon after.

  

• Sue had braces for 8 years, from when she was 9 to when she was 17. This is mentioned by Mike and Frankie in Unbraceable You. Within the timeline of the show, this means she wore them between the beginning of season 1 through the start of season 6.
• Her braces were removed ‘prematurely’ due to her ‘spongey bone’ in Unbraceable You. Frankie had forced the orthodontist to remove them because she had been in them for close to a decade, and her bite was so close to perfect. They were removed, but her teeth started "shifting," causing her to get a retainer (which the orthodontist should have given her to begin with).
• It is possible that her long-term braces were caused by long-term pacifier usage (from birth-6 years). This was revealed in the episode The Bridge, when Mike claimed that it is Frankie's fault, she's in braces, as he threw the 'binky' away so she would stop sucking on it, but Frankie dug it back out and gave it back to her. Mike then claimed "Whatever, the point is she [Sue] sucked on it until she was 6, and now she's in braces!"
• Sue has dated both of Axl's childhood friends, Darrin and Sean, marrying the latter.
• It is unknown if she and Sean have children, as she will be the only Heck child who doesn't have children as Axl and Brick both have at least possibly four children, Axl having 3 boys and one unborn child in A Heck of a Ride and Brick possibly will have four children with Cindy revealed in Halloween VI: Tick Tock Death.

  

• She gets along better with Brick than she does with Axl, stating that she feels the two 'have a special connection.'
• She likes waffles, as revealed in The Bee.
• She was born on Leap Day, often causing Frankie to 'float' her birthday.
• She later attended college at East Indiana State, pursuing a degree in Hospitality & Hotel Management.
• Her phone password is "Sue Heck Wins."
• The Donahue family taught Sue how to ride a bike.
• Like Brick, Sue has a tell when she lies. Hers is that she throws up. To prevent this, she adds a bit of the truth by following up her lie with the phrase "and so on and so forth and what have you."
• Sue skipped school one time in high school after Axl convincing her to do so.
• She accidentally wrote that she was Native American on her college form believing the term meant she was born in America.
• It is revealed in the Year of the Hecks, that Sue likes any shampoo that is peach.
• In Hecks on a Plane, it is revealed in Sue's diary that she hates lettuce.
• Some of Sue's favorite artists include Taylor Swift, Justin Bieber, One Direction, and Beyonce.
• She is allergic to Christmas Trees.
• Mike claims that Sue dresses like a 3rd grader.
• She was Sargent-In Arms at Orson High School during her senior year.
• She won "Best Laugh" Senior Class Superlative.
• Sue loves America.

References