Unique (Glee)

The character makes her debut in the third-season episode "Saturday Night Glee-ver" as a teenage boy named Wade, a student at Carmel High School and the new Vocal Adrenaline lead vocal, who idolizes both Mercedes Jones (Amber Riley) and Kurt Hummel (Chris Colfer) and comes to them for advice, despite being a competition rival. Wade is a young trans woman, who wants to perform in competition as Unique but lacks the confidence and is constantly pressured by Vocal Adrenaline's director Jesse St. James (Jonathan Groff). Mercedes and Kurt, under Sue Sylvester's (Jane Lynch) order, advises her to do so in order to sabotage the group. Mercedes and Kurt have a change of heart and when they are about to retract their advice, Unique turns out to be a huge success. During the Nationals, Unique pressed by the new publicity and pressure, considers backing down. Only after the encouragement from Kurt and Mercedes, she performs and received the MVP award at Nationals competition, not before telling the two that she might transfer school next year.

Unique transfers to McKinley and as the latest Nationals MVP last year, joins New Directions straight away without audition, which garnered less than enthusiastic welcome from seniors Tina Cohen-Chang (Jenna Ushkowitz), Blaine Anderson (Darren Criss), and Brittany Pierce (Heather Morris), as they are secretly competing for "The New Rachel" position in the group. Fiercely, she declares that she's in for the competition. The club, being at its peak popularity after the Nationals victory, forbids Unique to dress as a female at the beginning. They later allows her to do so offscreen and apologizes to Marley Rose (Melissa Benoist) for their behavior. The club's full acceptance of Unique and Marley effectively cuts the tie between them and the popular mean kids, led by new cheerleader Kitty Wilde (Becca Tobin). Unique strikes up a friendship with Marley and auditions for the school's production of Grease together, where she auditions as Rizzo. Sue is adamant because Unique is transgender, but director and New Directions alum Finn Hudson (Cory Monteith) insists that she is the right fit and gives her the role. Sue retaliates by calling Unique's parents and force her to pull out from the play because her parents are concerned about her safety, which disappoints her deeply. When the alumni return during Thanksgiving for Sectionals to coach the new members, she is delightfully partnered with Mercedes. Later in the season, she confronts Ryder Lynn (Blake Jenner) about kissing Marley, who is dating Jake Puckerman (Jacob Artist). This only ignites a feud with Ryder, because he calls her a "dude" and refuses to acknowledge her as a girl. He later apologizes to the three. In the season finale, Ryder confronts the club about who is catfishing him. After Marley covers for her, Unique finally admits that she is the catfish and that she has a crush on him. The exchange weren't meant to be that serious at first but it got way too deep for her to stop. Ryder, furious, tells her that he won't ever speak to her again and announces that he is quitting New Directions after Regionals. After the victory, overjoyed with happiness, the two share a hug, only to awkwardly stop seconds later.

Aside from a small remark from Kitty, there's no resolution on the catfish storyline cliffhanger, as Ryder is unexplainably still in the club. Unique goes to the female bathroom during class so no one would notice, but is caught by Bree (Erinn Westbrook), who promises not to tell anyone so she herself can start to use the boys bathroom to make out with Jake, creating "The Great McKinley Bathroom Gender Riot". When she goes to the men's bathroom, she is harassed by three jocks who pick on her and throw her wig. The current principal Sue creates a porta potty with a question mark for her, but Will Schuester (Matthew Morrison) secretly takes her to the teachers bathroom. Will decides to end the week's twerking lesson in exchange for Sue's granting Unique the access to the teachers bathroom. She congratulates Mercedes on her upcoming album and last appear in the season when Sue disbands the glee club because they did not win Nationals, where she shares one last group hug with Marley, Jake, Ryder, and Kitty before attending the senior class graduation.

Sue transferred her to another school after the glee club is disbanded. Her whereabouts during the season remain unknown. In “The Hurt Locker, Part Two”, Rachel Berry (Lea Michele) –unable to remember her name– refers her as “cross-dressing Mercedes”, and Kitty mentions that other old members stopped talking to her once they got transferred. She returns to the show in the "Transitioning" episode, having been summoned by Will, now the coach of Vocal Adrenaline, to teach the Vocal Adrenaline kids about tolerance, to no avail. She comes back to McKinley to console Coach Beiste (Dot-Marie Jones) after the latter's transition to a man, and gathered a transgender choir to perform for Beiste to help Will's act of intervention on Vocal Adrenaline kids after they vandalized Beiste's car. She last appears in the closing minutes of the series finale and takes a bow with the rest of the Glee cast.