I Am Unicorn

The director of New Directions, Will Schuester (Matthew Morrison) sets up a "booty camp" for the less capable dancers in the club, and auditions for the school musical, West Side Story, begin.

One of these was the adoption of Beth, and critics were especially happy with the scene where Puck meets her, but there was widespread disdain for the explanation behind Shelby's return, that of starting a rival glee club.

Glee club director Will Schuester (Matthew Morrison) institutes a "booty camp" to hone the dancing skills of New Directions members Finn (Cory Monteith), Mercedes (Amber Riley), Puck (Mark Salling), Kurt (Chris Colfer) and Blaine (Darren Criss), and has Mike (Harry Shum Jr.) instruct them.

Kurt is also running for class president, and accepts campaign help from Brittany (Heather Morris), who wants to highlight his unique character by comparing him to a unicorn.

Shelby Corcoran (Idina Menzel)—Rachel's biological mother, the adoptive mother of Quinn (Dianna Agron) and Puck's daughter Beth, and the former coach of rival glee club Vocal Adrenaline—is headhunted to coach a second glee club at McKinley High financed by Sugar Motta's (Vanessa Lengies) wealthy and doting father.

Cheerleading coach Sue Sylvester (Jane Lynch), who is running for Congress, convinces Quinn to feature in an anti-arts video for her campaign.

In it, Quinn confronts Will and blames him for her transformation into a bad girl, but Will reprimands her, reminds her of how the glee club and its members have always supported her in the past and tells her to grow up.

[1][2] Broadway star Idina Menzel returns for the first time since the first season finale "Journey to Regionals", when her character, Shelby Corcoran, adopted Quinn's newborn baby, named Beth.

[7] Recurring guest stars appearing in the episode include Principal Figgins (Iqbal Theba), Coach Beiste (Jones), cheerleader Becky Jackson (Lauren Potter), student Sugar Motta (Lengies) and Menzel as Shelby.

[11] It was beaten for the second week in a row in its timeslot by NCIS on CBS, which earned a 4.2/12 rating/share in the 18–49 demographic, and also by the second episode of New Girl, which follows Glee on Fox, and brought in a 4.5/11 rating/share and 9.28 million viewers.

"[22] The reappearance of storylines left dangling at the end of the first season was noted with approval by Samantha Urban of The Dallas Morning News and VanDerWerff, who both mentioned not only the big one about Quinn and Puck and baby Beth but also Artie's love of directing, and variously added Rachel and Shelby, and movement on the Will and Emma relationship.

[19][23] Reiter found the idea incomprehensible, and Vanity Fair's Brett Berk wrote, "Given Will's ongoing struggles to fill his own crooning baker's dozen, this is about as realistic a plan as Michele Bachmann starting a rival chapter of PFLAG at Liberty University.

"[18][24] Vicki Hyman of The Star-Ledger characterized the notion of "Shelby deciding to give up a burgeoning Broadway career because she was missing her daughter grow up" to take a part-time job in Lima as "ridiculous", and the whole scenario as "more than a little bizarre".

Kubicek expressed interest in seeing "where this goes", and VanDerWerff noted that Quinn has been "grieving giving up her child all this time and she didn't even know it", and characterized it as a "fairly powerful storyline".

VanDerWerff wrote that Blaine "seems to have simultaneously gotten younger and had a complete personality transplant over the summer", Votta noted "the continuity-bending plot point that he's somehow a Junior and not a Senior like his boyfriend", and Urban allowed her exasperation to show: "Oh really, Glee?

[32] Reiter enjoyed the "delicious dose of Brittany-isms", which she called "the best part" of the episode, and Kubicek said that there were "tons of wonderful" Brittany moments.

All three were Broadway songs, two from West Side Story and one from Funny Girl—the concentration on show tunes disappointed Reiter, and Canning felt they were all "too bland", but others were happy with the selections including Hankinson who said he was "loving the Broadway-bend to these first two episodes", and added, "all three of tonight's numbers were hands-down fantastic.

Both Benigno and Rae Votta of Billboard compared it favorably to their previous duet, Lady Gaga's "Poker Face", from season one.

[20][33] Rolling Stone's Erica Futterman was not impressed, and characterized it as "Lite FM snooze that does nothing to showcase these Broadway belters in a new and exciting way".

"[34][36] Lisa Respers France of CNN wrote that Kurt "was amazing singing Streisand, and for the first time I realized that he really is as big a star as Rachel.

[19][34] Both Slezak and Benigno gave it a "B+", and the former complimented Criss's "breathless charm and boyish enthusiasm", while the latter maintained that the actor is "at his best when he's doing goofy pop numbers with kind of an off-beat twist".