 Not all reviews were positive. IGN contributor Robert Canning gave the episode a 7.9 out of 10 rating, and said that Hooks'role as Jenna's mother "helped the half hour, but this Jenna-centric episode still didn 't blow me away." He noted that the main plot had funny moments but "there wasn't much else to invest in." Overall, Canning reasoned that this episode was very much a stand-alone one "built for some good jokes, and not exactly focused on storytelling. [...] An episode like 'Verna' can still bring a lot of laughs, but you can 't help but feel like it's missing that extra something." Television columnist Alan Sepinwall for The Star-Ledger disliked both stories from "Verna", and wrote that it was a disappointing episode, and that it was "pretty weak overall." Meredith Blake, a contributor from the Los Angeles Times, reported that despite Hooks'hilarious performance, the episode still felt a "little bit like filler", and that there "wasn't too much that was especially funny or memorable about it".
