The episode featured the arrival of Irish foreign exchange student Rory Flanagan (Glee Project prizewinner Damian McGinty) at McKinley High, a new challenger to Sue Sylvester (Jane Lynch) in her congressional race, Quinn Fabray (Dianna Agron) tries to make Shelby Corcoran (Idina Menzel) look like an unfit mother so she can get her birth daughter back, and the ongoing fragmentation of the show's central glee club, New Directions.
The storyline involving Quinn, Puck and Shelby was extensively criticized, while the injection of Burt Hummel (Mike O'Malley) into the congressional race as Sue's opponent was greeted with enthusiasm.
Rory Flanagan (Damian McGinty), a foreign exchange student from Ireland, has begun attending McKinley High and is regularly being bullied.
Mercedes (Amber Riley) is recruiting for the new all-girl show choir directed by Shelby Corcoran (Idina Menzel), and asks Santana (Naya Rivera)—a member of the school's existing glee club, New Directions—to join.
Glee club director Will Schuester (Matthew Morrison) recruits the members to sell advertising space in the program book to raise money; when Kurt (Chris Colfer) asks his father Burt Hummel (Mike O'Malley) to purchase an ad, he instead gathers a group of businessmen to fund the musical.
At a meeting of Shelby's group, which is dubbed the Troubletones, a newly arrived Santana overawes Sugar Motta (Vanessa Lengies) into surrendering her central role.
Later, when Rory is being harassed by bullies, Finn comes to his rescue and invites him to join New Directions; he successfully auditions with the song "Take Care of Yourself".
[4] Murphy revealed that on McGinty's first day of filming "he was shoved into a locker 25 times", and that on "his first take in his first song, the crew gave him a huge ovation.
[7] Additional recurring guest stars appearing in this episode include Menzel as Shelby Corcoran, Principal Figgins (Iqbal Theba), Kurt's father Burt Hummel, Burt's wife and Finn's mother Carole Hudson-Hummel (Romy Rosemont), student Sugar Motta (Vanessa Lengies), and TV news co-anchors Rod Remington (Bill A. Jones) and Andrea Carmichael (Earlene Davis).
[8][9] This episode features five covers, all of which were made available for download as digital singles: Christina Aguilera's "Candyman" performed by Rivera, Morris, and Riley, Katy Perry's "Last Friday Night (T.G.I.F.)"
In the latter camp were Bobby Hankinson of The Houston Chronicle, who called it "a disaster", and Rolling Stone's Erica Futterman, who said it was "stale and unfunny" and "outright failed to keep up the momentum started by the season's first three episodes".
[18][19] Robert Canning of IGN took the opposite view from Futterman with regard to the show's progress: he gave it a "good" rating of 7.5 out of 10, and wrote that while it was not a "stunning return after four weeks off", it "kept the momentum and focus of the first few episodes of this season intact".
[21][22] AOLTV's Crystal Bell was "pleasantly surprised" and said the episode was "better than a majority" of those from the second season, and Abby West of Entertainment Weekly described it as a "pretty solid return" after the hiatus.
[24] Jen Chaney of The Washington Post characterized the tweaking of that solo to be about "Irish exchange students being bullied" as "forced", and VanDerWerff wrote that he was tired of "people just randomly getting shoved around for no real reason".
[25][29] Raymund Flandez of The Wall Street Journal pointed out that both Criss and McHale had major roles in Perry's video of the song, and the Glee performance "winks at [that] fact".
[30] West was annoyed by Finn's recent tendency to "succumb" to his less nice and less responsible side as exemplified in the episode by his failure to "stand up for Rory" and for blasting "Brittany's simple, goofy belief system", even if he does eventually do the right thing.
[20][22] Indeed, "Candyman" was a favorite of many reviewers: The Star-Ledger's Vicki Hyman called it "bouncy and fun", Futterman praised the "tight harmonies" and the "diva notes from Mercedes and Santana", and Slezak gave the number an "A" and said he loved the Troubletones "absolutely soaring" in their performance.
[19][27][31] Hankinson, Hyman, and Chaney singled out the production values of the number—Hyman to call them "amazing"; Chaney to note, as she gave the song an "A−", that the costuming cost for the number would have rivaled the $2,004 budget of West Side Story that had Sue so upset; and Hankinson, although he said it would have been his favorite in a "blind test", to call it "a classic example of the kind of inexplicably elaborate performance I hate the most on this show".
[18][28][31] Most of the reviewers had positive things to say about new character Rory Flanagan's singing voice, including Futterman, who said his was "quite lovely" and had "rich tones", and Rae Votta of Billboard, who called him a "smooth crooner".
[19][32] Hankinson, however, said he had never been "floored" by McGinty's voice, "so both of his numbers fell extremely flat to me", and Futterman maintained that both songs were a "weird fit" for the episode, while Votta thought having him perform two solos was "overkill on his character introduction".
[18][19][32] In general, "Bein' Green" was considered less impressive than "Take Care of Yourself", though it had its supporters: Votta and Bell both referred to it as "a nice introduction", and West declared that his "simple, clear-voiced ode to being an outsider rang true and was hauntingly beautiful", and gave it an "A−".
[29][30] West praised the "lovely little guitar solo" and gave the song a "B"; Chaney bestowed the same grade and called it a "cheesy moment" but a "nice job" by Salling.