 Michael Slezak of TVLine complimented " Max Adler 's surprisingly nuanced performance " as Karofsky in " Born This Way " : " The complex play of emotions in Karofsky 's eyes when Santana simultaneously came out to him , threatened to out him , predicted his sad future as a closeted state senator or deacon , and offered him a quick @-@ fix solution by pretending to be his beard , was tremendous . " He added , " Adler is bringing a terrific amount of depth to Karofsky . " VanDerWerff referred to Karofsky 's parallel journey with Santana , who is also closeted , in his comments about the episode and the next one where the character appears , " Prom Queen " . He said in his review of the latter , " the characters I 'm most interested in at this point are Karofsky and Santana . They 're both people trying to do the right thing , but they 're also both people who are defeated by their own weakest impulses . ... They 're both hemmed in by the decisions they 've made and their inability to be true to themselves " . Meghan Brown of The Atlantic praised Karofsky 's " tearful apology to Kurt " in that episode as being " painful and poignant " , and Slezak went further : 
