William Michael "Will" Schuester is a major character on Glee. He was in charge of the William McKinley High School Glee Club,New Directions. Will is the school's Spanish teacher until Season Three episode The Spanish Teacher, where he takes a job as a history teacher. He is married to Terri Del Monico in Season One, but they divorce after Will finds that Terri has lied to him about being pregnant. He is currently married to and living with McKinley High's guidance counselor, Emma Pillsbury. In Trio, it is revealed that Will and Emma are expecting a child. Their son, Daniel Finn Schuester, is born in Opening Night. In Transitioning, he returned to McKinley as the alumni consultant for New Directions, having served a very brief term as director of Vocal Adrenaline.
He is now the principal of McKinley High, now designated as a performing arts school.
Will was married to Terri, who he had been with since high school. They divorce after Will finds out she was faking her pregnancy. Will was close friends with the football coach Ken Tanaka, and has a complicated "frenemy" relationship with Sue Sylvester, the school's cheer leading coach who despises the Glee Club. He works as a Spanish teacher at William McKinley High School, but later gives away the job to David Martinez and takes a new job as a history teacher. Will is now married to the school counselor, Emma.
Will becomes the new director of the Glee Club after the firing of Sandy, and posts a public audition sheet where only 'five kids' sign up: Rachel Berry, Kurt Hummel, Mercedes Jones, Tina Cohen-Chang, and Artie Abrams. Although the kids are each revealed to have musical talent, the first rehearsal goes terribly leaving Will disheartened. Will is also forced to make the agreement that his group will show at Regionals, or risk being shut down. Unfortunately, they lack enough members to even compete at sectionals, which they must win before competing in Regionals. Will ends up discovering a powerful new talent in Finn Hudson whilst hearing him sing in the locker room shower. Unfortunately, as no members of the football team would be willing to risk the social scorn that would accompany an audition for the Glee Club, Will resorts to a shocking bit of manipulation and blackmail by planting marijuana on Finn (courtesy of Sandy, who is now selling it after the fallout of losing his job).
At the same time, Will's home life is shaken when his wife, who has been longing for children, announces that she is pregnant. Although overjoyed by the announcement, Will realizes that he can't afford to raise a child on his teacher's salary and intends to quit, much to the surprise of the Glee kids and the pain of Emma Pillsbury, who has a deep-seated crush on Will. She gives him some honest advice before he leaves. This advice, along with hearing the Glee kids perform Don't Stop Believin' on their own, convinces him to stay.
In an attempt to gain twelve members to New Directions, Will decides to perform at an assembly. He later sings in Gold Diggerwith Mercedes and Artie. He is angered with them when they perform Push It, instead of Le Freak, since none of the students wanted to do disco. He is surprised when Quinn Fabray, Santana Lopez and Brittany Pierce audition and accept them into the Glee Club.
The episode opens with Will telling his parents at dinner that Terri is pregnant. They are tickled, but Terri is understandably shocked. Will confides in his father that he is scared. Will's father tells him parenthood is all about guts, and he regrets not following through with his dream of being a lawyer.
Later on voicing the concerns of the Cheerios members, Rachel tells Will at practice that their choreography needs work. They want to hire Dakota Stanley, a professional choreographer with a Broadwaybackground.
After a particularly strong rendition of For He's a Jolly Good Fellow, Will decides to form an a cappella group named Acafellas with Ken, Henri, and Howard. Will begins to miss Glee Club rehearsals for Acafellas. The club hires Dakota behind Will's back.
The group perform Poison at a sports bar. After the show,Figgins asks Will if they will perform at the next PTA meeting. After Howard and Henri quit, Finn and Puck end up joining. They perform I Wanna Sex You Up and they eventually end the group in the last scene of the episode. It is shown Will has returned to Glee Club and McKinley.
Finn asks Will to help the Football team at dancing, believing it will help them win. Will gives a solo to Tina, instead of Rachel, prompting Rachel to quit Glee. At the end of the episode, Noah Puckerman, Mike Chang and Matt Rutherford join Glee, increasing the numbers to eleven, one away from the required number.
While at dinner with Terri, Will meets a former student who is still in Vocal Adrenaline. Will has Emma look up the file of April Rhodes, a classmate of his who was the biggest star of the McKinley High Glee Club and Will's first crush. He sees on her transcripts that she came three credits shy of graduating.
Will finds April online, and she has him meet her at a luxury home. After pretending the mansion in hers, April is outed by a real estate agent as a squatter. Outside, April tells Will she went to New York with her high school sweetheart and never ended up making it big. She agrees to come back to McKinley, take a few courses to graduate, and join Glee again.
At the bowling alley, Will expresses his concern that April is a poor influence, and she tells him she will go back on the wagon. He then confesses his dream was for them to perform together. They do a quick duet of Heart's Alone.
April shows up drunk for the Invitational performance. Emma thinks Will shouldn't let her go on, but he decides yanking her would only be punishing the other kids. New Directions go on, with April doing a rousing rendition of Carrie Underwood's Last Name.
After the first number, Will tells April he can't let her go back on stage. April agrees, telling Will the kids are lucky, and that they have him to prevent their lives from turning out the way hers did. Needing a new lead, Rachel steps in - sucking up her pride to be the "understudy" and helps the group knock Somebody to Loveout of the park in the second act.
With weeks before Sectionals, Will is worried the Glee Club is being a bit too overconfident. He tells Emma it started when they received a particularly easy sectional draw. Will decides to have the boys face the girls in a mash-up competition. The winner gets to chose the number for sectionals. Will tells them there will be a surprise celebrity judge. Will tells Emma he wants her to judge the Glee-off. While he's talking to her about the competition, Terri walks in and tells them she is the new school nurse.
After an argument with Sue, Sue takes many of the members, leaving Will with only five, splitting the club into two groups. Will tells Terri he's tired of not having any involvement in their unborn son. He demands to be taken to the next OB appointment. Quinn and Sue force Brittany and Puck to leave Will's group, and go into Sue's.
When Sue starts to walk out, and tells her group to walk out on them too, Will and Sue have the "throwdown" shown at the show's opening. The result is that all of the kids walk out of the room. At the fake ultrasound, Dr. Wu pretends Will and Terri are actually having a girl because Terri has learned that Quinn's baby is a girl through Will. Will gets emotional seeing images of his child.
Ken and Emma ask Will to help them with the first dance song at their wedding. Emma wants I Could Have Danced All Night and Ken wants Thong Song. They ask Will to make a mash-up up of the songs and teach Emma how to dance.
Will wants the Glee kids to work on a mash-up using Bust a Move. None of the men are interested in singing it as a solo, so Will fires off a version himself. Will does a solo version of "Thong Song" with Emma while she is wearing her wedding dress. He ends up slipping on her train and pulling her on top of him
Will tells Emma he simply can't get the two songs together for her wedding mash-up. They agree it is because the songs just don't go together. She thanks him for the lessons and he walks out.
Non-Cheerio Quinn thinks she will start everyday with a slushie facial, but Will assures her the Glee kids will be there to clean her off. He then admits that he can't imagine getting hit in the face by one, resulting in a mass slushie facial given to him by the kids. Will takes it in good humor as the students cheer.
Will is informed that the club's budget doesn't cover a handicapable bus to Sectionals, meaning Artie can't travel with them. Will encourages the other club members to support Artie, not only by holding a bake sale to raise funds for a handicap bus, but also by spending time in wheelchairs to experience what life is like for him.
Will tells the Glee Club they must perform at least one ballad at this year's sectional competition. Will gets paired with Rachel, who wants to sing Endless Love. During the duet, Rachel begins falling for Will. Rachel brings Will a gift, which sets off further alarm bells that she may have a crush on him.
Will tells Emma the tale of Suzy Pepper, a student from two years earlier who fell hard for Will. She also gave him a novelty gift and ended up calling his home in the middle of the night. When Will finally was honest with Suzy she ended up eating a super-hot chili pepper and having to be taken to the hospital. Emma suggest Will let Rachel down easy with a song.
Will sings Don't Stand So Close To Me/Young Girl but instead of listening to the lyrics, Rachel stares star-struck at Will, as does Emma. After going to his house, Will finally has to tell Rachel nothing can happen.
Will suspects that Sue has been colluding with rival Glee Clubs, and visits the Jane Addams Academy for girls recently released from juvenile detention. When their club director Grace Hitchens reveals the extent of the school's under-funding, Will invites her club to perform in the McKinley High auditorium, where the girls perform Bootylicious. Will is intimidated by their opposition.
Will purchases wigs for New Directions and has them utilize hairography themselves, performing Hair/Crazy in Love. Dalton Rumba, the Glee Club director at Haverbrook School for the Deaf, feels slighted by the invitation Will extended to the Jane Addams Academy, and arranges for his own club to also perform at McKinley High. His club duets with New Directions on John Lennon's Imagine, and Will realizes that the new mash-up and hairography routine is not working.
He removes it from the club's set-list, replacing it with a performance of True Colors. Unbeknownst to Will, Sue reveals two songs from New Directions' line-up for sectionals to Grace and Dalton, suggesting they have their own clubs perform them to gain an edge in the competition.
Will sits with Emma and Ken in the teacher's lounge. They tell him that their wedding will be the following Saturday, on the same day as sectionals. Sue walks in with a pair of black eyes, the result of having some work done prior to yearbook pictures. Sue tells Will she convinced Figgins not to allow Glee Club to have a yearbook picture this year. When Will complains to Figgins, the principal tells him his only option is to buy a quarter-page ad for Glee for $325.
While looking for his pocket square, Will finds one of Terri's old fake pregnancy bellies. Furious, he goes to the kitchen and demands she show him her belly. The discovery leads to a huge fight, with Terri explaining the origins of the lie and telling him about adopting Quinn's baby. "I loved you Terri," he says. "I really loved you." Will storms out of the apartment.
At school Will finds a stack of new mattresses given to Glee from the store owner. He opens one and puts it in his office, in order to spend the night there. As they appeared in a commercial and accepted payment their amateur status has been revoked, meaning they can't compete.
Will tells the Glee kids that he has fixed it so that they can still compete at Sectionals. Since he slept on the mattress, he is the one who accepted payment. As a result, only he is disqualified, but now cannot join them at competition.
Later during Sectionals, Will returns home, and inadvertently runs into Terri. Terri informs him that she is seeing a therapist of sorts for her issues, and Will tells her that while he hopes the best for her, after her betrayal, he just cannot feel the same way about her as he once did. As sectionals comes closer, Will is surprised when Emma decides to take the glee kids to sectionals on her wedding date (she decided to push the wedding back a few hours, allowing her to do both). During the competition, Will receives news that the other schools had the Glee Club's set list, and immediately realizes that he was right about Sue's intentions from before. After confronting Sue, he convinces Finn to return to the Glee Club as they need a leader. He listens to part of the club's performance through Emma's cell phone, smiling proudly with tears of joy in his eyes. After Sue's actions against the Glee Club come to light, Will is pleased to hear that Sue will be suspended for five months and he is reinstated as the coach of the club. Sue however is undeterred, swearing eternal vengeance against Will and the Glee Club. Meanwhile, Will discovers that Emma's fiancé Ken Tanaka left Emma at the altar, feeling that she had chosen Will over him yet again. Emma, feeling heartbroken because of Will and embarrassed because she took advantage of Ken as a runner-up boyfriend, decides to resign from the school. However, as she leaves the school, Will stops her and they share their first kiss.
It is revealed that Will and Emma have finally begun a relationship together. Later, while the two begin to kiss, Emma has to stop and becomes upset she tells Will she feels that he might leave her due to her severe phobias and OCD. Will assures her that is not the case and sings, Hello Again to her. When Will finds out that Vocal Adrenaline member Jesse St. James is flirting with Rachel, he confronts the coach of Vocal Adrenaline, Shelby Corcoran, and they quickly go back to his place and make out. Will then tells Shelby about his relationship problems to which Shelby replies that he has been in a relationship for so long, he doesn't know who he is on his own and needs to take some time to figure that out before he'll be ready for one again. When Emma finds out that "Hello Again" was the song that Will and his ex-wife, Terri danced to at prom, she realizes that he isn't really over her.
When Will overhears the girls of New Directions talking, he realizes they lack empowerment. In response, he makes the assignment of the week to do a Madonna song in hopes to instill some female empowerment within the girls as well as help the boys come to have more respect for women. When Sue tells Emma she doesn't have the confidence to take control of her body, she approaches Will and tells him that in order to take control of her body "just like Madonna," she will go to his place and "do the nasty"
with him, an offer Will gladly accepts. The two engage in foreplay while singing, Like a Virgin but it turns out Emma decided not to go through with losing her virginity to him. Will then realizes that it was wrong to agree to have her over his place when she was clearly not truly ready. He says they should wait to date again at least until his divorce with Terri is legally finalized.
Sue books the auditorium for cheer practice so Will has to find a new space for New Directions to practice. He visits a roller rink where he finds the owner is April, who is now a mistress to a rich tycoon. She immediately offers the rink, Rinky Dinks, for the Glee Club to practice. He then tells her that he's looking to lease his apartment and April jumps at the opportunity and says she will be over to look at the place. At first, Will insists she sleep on the couch, but while they sing One Less Bell to Answer/A House Is Not a Home, April makes her way to the bed and Will doesn't object. After this, Will decides he can't allow April to stay over again and tells her he thinks she's worth more than just being a mistress. Later, April returns and purchases the school auditorium for the Glee Club with $2 million in hush money she'd just received as a deal to keep her affair with the tycoon a secret.
Someone posts a "Glist" around the school which ranks the Glee Club members on sexual promiscuity and Figgins tells Will to find the creator or else he'll disband the club. He questions the members of the Glee Club, but no one comes clean, so for their assignment, they have to choose songs with bad reputations and uses Vanilla Ice's song Ice Ice Baby as an example. During the episode, Sue tells Emma of Will making
out with Shelby Corcoran and sleeping with April Rhodes and convinces her to confront Will and embarrass him in front of the staff. He apologizes to her, but she tells him that she can't continue a romantic relationship with him. While leaving her office, he notices a depressed Quinn and suspects that she's behind the Glitz and after questioning her, she confesses. However, Will lies to Figgins and said he found no culprit and that the Glists have stopped and drops the matter.
Will's high school rival Bryan Ryan arrives as an auditor to the school and threatens to cut Glee Club. He convinces Bryan to pursue his old dreams and that it's not too late. They both audition for a play singing the same song for the same part. Will wins the lead role and Bryan decides to cut the club. Will gives Bryan the part to save glee.
Will has the boys do a KISS assignment and the girls and Kurt do a Lady Gaga assignment. He finds out that Rachel found her birth mother and that it's Shelby Corcoran. He talks to her, concerned that she isn't into the relationship as Rachel is. Shelby confesses that she can't have more children and Rachel doesn't need her.
In Funk, Will and Terri finalize their divorce and he becomes distraught. He gives the members of the Glee Club an assignment to perform funk numbers. Tired of Sue's incessant bullying, he tries to seduce her and sings Tell Me Something Good. He asks her on a date, stands her up and humiliates her. When Sue withdraws from the cheerleading competition, Will realizes that many of the cheerleaders might lose scholarships and apologizes to Sue. Towards the end, he has the Glee Club perform Give up the Funk in front of Vocal Adrenaline when they find that they can't do a funk number.
Sue is the third judge at Regionals and this worries the members of the Glee Club. Will leads them to Regionals having them perform and pay tribute to Journey. Although getting a standing ovation, the Glee Club comes in last and Vocal Adrenaline takes first place. Figgins disbands the club and the members perform To Sir, With Love in appreciation for all that Will's done for them. Sue is touched by their performance and has Figgins give the Glee Club another year. She explains to Will that she may not like him, but respects him as a teacher. Will tells the club of the extension and performs Over the Rainbow with Puck in celebration.
Profile
Singing is what Will is all about. As a student at William McKinley High School, he helped the Glee Club win the 1993 National Show Choir Championship cup - it was one of the best moments of his life. But after graduation, he stopped performing, married his high school sweetheart, and left college with a safe degree in accounting. A few years later, Will found himself back at McKinley, this time as the school's Spanish teacher. And when choir director Sandy Ryerson is fired for inappropriately touching a student, Will offers his services as a replacement, hopeful that it will capture some of the joy from his youth. Of course, Will gets the job and New Directions is born! At home, Will tries to balance the needs of his demanding wife Terri (who says she is pregnant with his baby), the anxiety of fatherhood, and the close bond he's forming with fellow McKinley faculty member, Emma Pillsbury.
Personality/Appearance
Will Schuester can easily be described as the ultimate "Mister Nice Guy." Sweet, compassionate and even a bit naive, Will is always trying to do his best by not only his loved ones, but also his friends and students. He tries to see good in everyone, and wants to bring that good out of others, especially if it turns out to be musical talent. He is often willing to overlook obvious personality flaws and can at time be completely oblivious to the manipulative and malicious behavior of other people (such as his wife Terri, and at times the intents of Sue).
Unfortunately despite Will's inherent goodness, he's an extremely driven and at times obsessive individual when it comes to his personal desires. He pushes not only himself, but his students to their best, to the point that he overlooks or ignores their personal feelings. He is also willing to resort to dark methods in order to get what he wants, such as blackmailing Finn into joining Glee and failing the Cheerios to get back at Sue. Will can also be extremely paranoid, particularly towards Sue (although rarely without reason).
Will can also be hypocritical in his beliefs such as after telling Sue to be fair to people, but then becoming upset at Sue for not giving a handicapped girl special treatment. He also allows his 'liberal guilt' to be unfairly manipulated because although he wants to make everyone happy and desperately doesn't want to hurt anyone's feelings, others take advantage of that.
His female students have tendencies to fall in love with him and express their love with a gift. As Will said "It always starts, with a novelty gift."
Relationships
Emma Pillsbury is the school guidance counselor who suffers from mysophobia and OCD. She is one of Will's closest friends and he usually comes to her for all of his problems. She's been in love with him for some time now, despite him being married. He too has deep feelings for her, but never acted on it due to his marriage and supposedly expecting wife Terri. Emma, tired of pining after Will, became engaged to football coach Ken Tanaka, who is deeply in love with her, but his feelings are one sided.
In Sectionals, Emma moves back their wedding time to take the Glee Club to their sectionals competition as a favor to Will. Ken is very upset by this and declares their relationship over knowing that he could do nothing to prevent the fact that Emma truly loves Will and not he. Will arrives at the wedding and finds Emma sitting alone. She tells him that Ken has dumped her and she admits to Will that she was settling for Ken and if Will had shown any interest in her, she would've been with him in an instant. She tells him that she is resigning from the school because she is ashamed of her actions towards Ken, and heartbroken over Will. He tries to stop her by saying that he has just left his wife, but she feels it's too soon for him to move on.
Will and Emma dancing
On the day of her resignation, Will realizes that he can't let her leave. He runs to her office, but it's empty. He finally spots her across the hall with a box of her belongings as she is about to leave. He catches up to her, takes the box, shushes her as she is about to say something, and then kisses her for the first time. Afterwards they both look nervous, but are smiling.
In Hell-O, Emma stays and they go on a date, which gets very intimate. Emma breaks it off and reveals that she's never been intimate as it makes her uncomfortable and she hasn't found the right person. Will doesn't seem pleased by this news, but tells her its okay. In The Power of Madonna, Will and Emma attempt to sleep together because Emma wants to take power of her body. Will later files for a divorce and tells Emma to wait for him. In Bad Reputation, Emma finds out about Will kissing Shelby and sharing his bed with April Rhodes, although she thinks he actually slept with her, via Sue. Sue tells her she needs to stand up for herself and let Will know how he made her feel. Emma confronts Will, angrily calling out that he is a slut and she is through with him. He tries to apologize to her later, but she is indifferent. In Journey, Emma tells Will that she is seeing someone else now and he vows to fight for her. Despite any relationships Will has had, the actor who portrays him has said that Will's heart is truly with Emma.
In The Purple Piano Project he talks about starting a family with Emma and they seemed to have moved in together, for they are seen waking up in bed together/in bed together many times.
In Yes/No, Emma continues to mention her desire to be married. Expressing it by singing Wedding Bell Blues to which Will soon catches on to her desire. Will gets the New Directions to come up with multiple songs to help propose to Emma. Ending with Will choosing We Found Love. Having the New Directions perform We Found Love in the school's pool. Will proposes to Emma, to which she accepts.
In All or Nothing, Emma and Will finally get married in The Choir Room, after the unaccomplished wedding during I Do and the long wait. In Opening Night they welcome their first child, a son named Daniel, into the world.
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