Reception Much of the initial reaction to the character of Rory centered on the show's portrayal of his Irishness, rather than on McGinty himself. Anthony Benigno of The Faster Times called it "cheap stereotyping", and "juvenile" on the part of the show's writers, and Chaney characterized the tweaking of his opening solo to be about "Irish exchange students being bullied" as "forced". West, while she admitted that "it may have been a little heavy-handed" to have Rory in green, felt it "worked", especially for that solo and "his isolation" during it. IrishCentral's Patrick Roberts called the episode a "disgrace". He thought the character's representation was "downright insulting" to Irish Americans and wrote that executive producer Murphy, given his Irish heritage, "should be ashamed of himself". A few reviewers were pleased by the new friendship between Rory and Sam in "Extraordinary Merry Christmas". BuddyTV John Kubicek declared that it was his "favorite thing from the entire third season of Glee", and Bell approved, though she said "the writers don't know how to use" Rory, and was disappointed that his brotherly relationship with Finn had "fizzled". VanDerWerff wrote that "the show will just pick whichever characterization of Rory is most convenient for the episode in question", which made it "hard to care all that much about how he's alone for Christmas or how he's building a friendship with Sam". References Television characters introduced in 2011 Fictional Irish people Fictional singers Male characters in television Glee (TV series) characters Teenage characters in television