 While the sequence featuring Mercedes singing " I Will Always Love You " was very well received , Entertainment Weekly 's Joseph Brannigan Lynch was not happy about the state of Mercedes and Sam 's relationship : " If these two don 't get together soon , I 'm voting we just call the whole thing off , because I 'm tired of these false starts . " VanDerWerff , referring to the third member of that romantic triangle , wrote that one of the two " tertiary characters " he responded to most was " Shane , who didn ’ t say anything but gave good cry @-@ face " . VanDerWerff 's other character was Karofsky , and Michael Slezak of TVLine characterized his scene with Kurt as " electric , with Kurt tenderly giving the ' just friends ' speech to Dave " . Lynch thought the plot of having Karofsky be Kurt 's secret admirer was " vaguely stalker @-@ ish on Karofsky 's part , and contrived on the part of the show " , and Canning accurately predicted that after Karofsky had been seen by his classmate , it would " just be an episode or two before Karofsky gets bullied into thinking about suicide , if not actually taking his own life " . 
