“You never know what kind of day you’re going to have.” So says Abed Nadir in tonight’s episode. The sentence refers to the events that transpired during a three hour lunch, but with that sentence, Abed could have very well been talking about Community – the show where you never quite know what kind of episode you’re going to get. With that in mind, let’s dive into “Virtual Systems Analysis” and see what the Dreamatorium has to show us…

As usual, the group is cramming for their biology exam, with Britta hilariously poking fun at the group by asking why they always end up in this position despite the fact that they spend so much time in the study room. Troy amusingly suggests they never get any work done because they’re having too much fun. Did someone say fun? Cue the entrance of Dean Pelton and his crazy costume of the week. He has good news and bad news – the bad news is that Professor Kane has the flu. The good news is, the exam has been cancelled. While Britta celebrates not having to study, Jeff lights up at the prospect of a three-hour lunch. He tries to get the rest of the group on board, but Abed and Troy are content to use the extra time to play in the Dreamatorium, - that is, until Annie intervenes and slyly convinces Abed (after a bit of not-so-subtle nudging) that Britta and Troy should go to lunch together (hint, hint.)

Annie offers to play with Abed in his Dreamatorium in place of Troy, an offer Abed reluctantly agrees to. However, it soon becomes clear that while Annie is certainly game to cater make believe scenarios, she doesn’t quite have the same emotional intensity that’s required to deal with Abed’s imagination. Abed soon stops the Inspector Spacetime stimulation, while Annie calls him out for being mad about her plan to get Troy and Britta to spend more time together. Abed counters that Annie messed with the dynamic of the group – how did she know that Troy and Britta would even work out as a couple? He soon delves into a scenario that allows Annie to see what he thinks will happen between Troy and Britta at dinner (lovely work by Donald Glover and Gillian Jacobs with Danny Pudi seamlessly transferring between the two characters.) In the middle of all of this, Troy calls Annie to see how Abed is. He cautions her to the fact that Abed gets “slightly sensitive” in the Dreamatorium and tells Annie to take it easy on him, though Annie merely thinks Troy is overreacting (Britta, meanwhile, just thinks it’s sweet how much he cares about his best friend.)

Fed up with the fact she seemingly can’t get through to Abed, Annie angrily tells him to think about how the things he does affect the people around him – instead of how the actions of people around him affect himself. In response, Abed collapses (anyone else have “oh my god, they killed Abed!” moment?) When he comes to, he’s no longer Abed – he’s Jeff. Jeff the Doctor, no less, who works at Greendale. I really loved how this episode smartly managed to work the entire study group into the picture while primarily focusing on only two characters – the entire execution of this half hour was from the Dan Harmon School of Cracked Brilliance, and I want admission for enrollment.

A frustrated Annie plays along, asking about Abed. Jeff says he’s never heard of him and brings her to Troy and Britta, who also claim that no one’s ever heard of a patient named Abed. Annie attempts to play into Abed’s fantasy even more by pretending to shove truth serum into Troy’s arm, and what follows is a hysterically amusing sequence where Troy breaks down in a moment of panic and admits everything BUT where to find Abed. The two then come upon Shirley and Pierce, where Shirley again repeats that Abed doesn’t exist – and also that no one needs him. “I need him!” Annie proclaims desperately, which finally forces Jeff to get Abed’s file. He promises to take her to him, but instead takes Annie to a scene outside the school – a replication of the last week of the first school year, when the two shared their first kiss after the Transfer Dance. Annie is confused, but Abed won’t budge when she tries again to break through to him. Instead, as Jeff, he pretends to read his own file and rattles off more self-deprecating statements about himself - “Abed Nadir, control freak with no empathy, people bend over backwards to cater to him.” He point out Annie’s signed name, indicating she was the one who said these things, and then tries to convince Annie that they’re in this situation because this is her dream. He tries to kiss her (as Jeff) and Annie freaks out (it was probably nothing, but I did wonder if that was a slight nod to the kiss Abed and Annie shared at the end of last season’s paintball war.)

Abed asks where Annie wants to go next and then turns into Annie, forcing her to have a conversation with herself. Annie turns the tables, however, changing into Abed and forcing him to look himself and his insecurities in the face. Chang shows up, arrests Abed “for being Abed” and shoves him into a locker. When Annie comes to find him, he admits that this locker is where he spent a lot of time in junior high. He tells her that being alone is where he’ll end up when everyone is finally fed up with him, and that he knows he’s not special – he can’t do anything that sets him apart in the world, like invent things or be cool enough for people to want to get to know him. And without Troy, he’s just someone who makes up silly scenarios and never really fits in.

Annie finally seems to realize how Abed’s insecurities are manifesting themselves, and tells him that his stimulations are nothing more than anxiety. “You share that with all of us,” she says – ain’t that the truth. There’s not one member of this study group who isn’t insecure and even the ones with the most confidence – Jeff and Britta – are more insecure than they would ever let on. The trick is that if you’re good enough at pretending, no one knows how insecure you really are.

Annie’s talk seems to hit home, and Abed soon snaps back to his old self. He slips back into Inspector Spacetime mode, and this time, gives a little leeway to Annie when she plays along differently. It’s fun to see Annie getting out of her comfort zone and “committing” – it’s even more fun to see her do it with Abed.

With Abed feeling better about himself, Annie feeling satisfied that she’s helped her friend through his issues, and Britta and Troy having had a good lunch (Troy even set the waiter straight about his "Die Hard" feelings), it’s time to get back to the basics…but not before another interruption from the Dean, who claims that despite his worry that his outfit was too “over the top,” the bank loved it (I kind of wonder sometimes who Dean Pelton shared all his costumes and feelings with before the study group was formed. Probably Star Burns or Lenoard.)

The tag for the episode is Troy and Abed In the Morning (oh, how I’ve missed it!) with special guest Annie who has advice on how to spruce up living spaces for cheap. Unfortunately, Annie goes a little too far and rearranges Troy and Abed’s bedroom – can we say, Cougarton Abbey scream?

What did you think of tonight’s episode? Did you love the wackiness of the Dreamatorium?

Community 3.16 "Virtual Systems Analysis" Recap

Gear up, Community fans – only one episode remains before the show is taken off the air for an indefinite amount of time. Although we know for sure that our favorite study group will come back to complete their run of 22 episodes, it still doesn’t do much to ease our pain – especially when we get great episodes like this that remind us just how fun, witty and special this show really is.

It’s Friday at Greendale, and Annie wants to know what the study group is doing this weekend (or, “who” they’re doing, in Pierce’s case.) Britta tells everyone she’s volunteering at an animal hospital, while Abed shares his excitement over his newest pride and joy – the $299 Limited Edition “Extended Extended” Batman DVD (autographed by Christian Bale, of course) which he plans to watch with Troy. Meanwhile, Jeff becomes increasingly annoyed with a trio of rowdy European hipsters who have taken over the foosball table in the cafeteria. He interrupts them, feeding the group a classic Jeff Winger charm story but the boys don’t buy it. After losing one round, Jeff finds his inner competitor unleashed.

At la casa de Trobed, Annie is doing her daily chores for the boys and decides to clean off the television. Her good intentions are marred, however, when she mistakenly steps on – and crushes – the prized Batman DVD. Troy, who happens to be home at the time, sees the disaster happen and immediately freaks out. He tells Annie she has to confess which of course Annie is against as she thinks Abed will be too angry at her. Troy tells her that she can’t fool Abed - and besides, Abed is too smart and he’ll know if anyone tries to do so. Which means Annie’s only option is coming clean; something our favorite perfectionist has no intention of doing.

Meanwhile, during after hours at Greendale, a now-determined and competitive Jeff is playing with the foosball table. Shirley comes by and interrupts him and after Jeff spouts off some diatribe about how foosball is “a guy thing,” Shirley starts to play, impressing Jeff with her superior skills. Jeff asks her to help him with his technique and Shirley at first refuses - she doesn’t want her inner darkness to come out and she doesn’t want to be evil. She eventually relents, and while the two are practicing (Shirley becoming increasingly more violent as she slaughters Jeff), the hipsters show up and challenge the duo to play Monday morning. And it’s on.

Abed and Troy come back from being out of the apartment, only to find that they've been robbed – or rather, that Annie has staged a robbery. When the cops come to check on the situation, Annie tries to sell the robbery story by saying that in addition to the DVD, the thief has also stolen her necklace. But Abed isn’t so quick to believe that a robbery took place – as evidenced by the lack of forced entry and nothing else having gone missing. He very seriously surmises that it must have been the landlord, especially since he was dressed as the Joker for Halloween last year. While Troy continues to try to get Annie to confess, Abed disappears and reappears as Batman – Christian Bale voice and all. He starts talking about how he’s going to seek revenge on the person who committed the crime and as he goes to climb out the window, Annie finally breaks down and stops him by admitting she was the one who really broke his DVD. Abed doesn’t believe her, though, saying that if Annie’s words were true she would’ve come forth hours ago.

During dinner (at the presumed same Mexican restaurant that Dean Pelton took Jeff during their mall date) Jeff tries to get Shirley to talk about how she started playing foosball. Shirley admits that she had a lot of anger as a child, and foosball was a relief – she took her competitive aggression out by playing, and her greatest achievement was playing so hard that she made one of the young boys cry and pee in their pants. With a realization of horror, Jeff realizes that the young boy was him – it was Shirley who had made him pee his pants all those years ago and who tormented him afterwards by laughing about it. “You were Big Cheddar?” “You were Tinkle Town?” Jeff freaks out and storms out of the restaurant, leaving Shirley behind.

Trobed’s landlord is drinking on the couch, enjoying his evening when Batman!Abed crawls (rather clumsily) through the window. “Where is it?” he asks as Troy and Annie come after him. The landlord tells him whatever he has is in the closet and Annie opens it to reveal a massive pile of shoes (including her own) that the landlord has stolen. She seizes the opportunity to continue the lie, saying that the landlord also has the broken DVD. Back at Greendale, Shirley has texted asking him to come and talk because she feels bad about what she did to him. Jeff starts yelling about how he changed himself just because of what had happened during that game, which turns into an amazing moment of uber-competitive foosball. As the two argue, they morph into anime characters battling in epic conditions – a fun moment that only Community could pull off without being completely random. When they come to a rest in the game due to the fact they’ve placed the ball somewhere that neither of them can touch, they realize that foosball was important to them because at the time, it was all they had. It doesn't need to define them now that they know the type of people they are. Once Jeff and Shirley realize how they’ve been acting, they back off and apologize.

Back at casa de Trobed, Annie finally admits that “on behalf of all of us that are not perfect” she broke the DVD. Batman believes her – but says she has to tell Abed, who may not be as forgiving. In one of the more brilliant moments of the night, Batman disappears and we see the real Abed again, who seems to forgive Annie anyway. Shirley and Jeff show up as planned for the Monday foosball game, using their new found surprise strategy of getting the ball to the middle in an unplayable position to best the group of hipsters. “Since when are those two so close?” Pierce asks, as the two leave arm in arm to spend time together. Pierce speaks what we may all be thinking, given the amount of time we've seen Shirley and Jeff together in this show – but as we now are aware, the two have a closer bond than we ever could’ve imagined. The episode tag is a YouTube spot for Leonard’s frozen pizza recommendations.

What did you think? Did you enjoy the Jeff/Shirley interaction? Did you miss Britta? What was your favorite Abed!Batman moment?

Community 3.09 "Foosball and Nocturnal Vigilantism" Recap

“Documentary Filmmaking: Redux” was meant to be a “Heart of Darkness” parody, but is it a coincidence that an episode about showcasing how much Greendale means to its students aired just days after the announcement that NBC had benched the series following its winter hiatus? Just something to think about, fellow Communies.

We start off in the study room, where Dean Pelton shows the group Greendale’s horribly outdated current commercial. He then tells them that he’s been afforded a budget of $2,000 by the school board to update it – and of course, he wants the study group to star in the revamp. Annie and Shirley are ecstatic at the prospect of helping out, while Jeff and Pierce (who wants to know if he gets a trailer and a catered meal) are less than enthusiastic. Britta just wants to know why Abed gets to sit behind the camera even when they haven’t started filming yet, but I think we all know the answer to that. Despite a few reservations, the group is ultimately persuaded to join in the madness.

On the first day of production, we learn that Annie is a script supervisor (although by her logic, she’s the star) and as the group does a read-through of their script, Troy and Britta end up having to hug on camera. While both claim they’re comfortable with the sentiment, it’s pretty clear they’re still nervously avoiding their attraction to each other. Chang has been cast as an understudy for Dean Pelton, and since director Dean obviously can’t star as himself, he enlists Jeff to play the coveted role – bald cap and all. This might have been the single greatest thing I’ve been able to witness on television, only second to the “Kiss From A Rose” karaoke scene from last week's episode. Jeff decides to convince the Dean to film his scenes in front of Luis Guzmán's statue, because he knows that the Dean had no permission to create a statue of the celebrity alum's likeness – therefore, none of his shots will be useable and he’ll get out of the project. Jeff then calls Guzman’s lawyer to make sure he gets the message.

Of course, Jeff’s plan completely backfires in nearly every way possible. Not only does Luis call the Dean asking to be a part of the commercial once he finds out they need permission to use his face, but Dean Pelton proceeds to Jeff he’s so perfect for the role, the only thing he needs is more screen time. Armed with the idea of a real life celebrity staring in the commercial and realizing he can put Greendale on the map in an even more prominent way, the Dean becomes obsessed with everything being perfect. He decides that he needs to re-write his entire script, and that everything they’ve shot so far for the day is worthless – now that they have a celebrity on board, they needed to start fresh. The group doesn’t exactly agree, but goes along with his antics anyway.

In typical Greendale fashion, what should be a simple project suddenly ends up more complicated than anyone could imagine. Through Abed, we learn how the commercial has taken over the entire school and how the Dean has become officially crazed, imparting his insanity on his students by making them do the same scenes over and over again. After 12 hours of rehearing a simple hugging scene, Britta and Troy are almost ready to kill themselves and even Jeff is upset that he spent the entire day in costume with no time in front of the camera. Four days later, with the budget well over the $2,000 limit, the Dean is still on the crazy train, only he’s started to drag everyone down with him. Annie is on the verge of insanity having worked night and day on the Dean’s vision, while Jeff realizes (after Pierce mistakes him for the real Dean Pelton) that all the time he’s spent “bonding” with his bald cap has gone to his head. As they finally start film Jeff’s scene, the Dean becomes upset yet again and orders him to lose the bald cap because it’s “hokey and fake.” Jeff refuses while the Dean flips out and fires him in favor of Chang (who he considers to be a more realistic version of himself.) Britta of all people steps up, and as “a licensed psychology major” tries to tell him that he’s made them all prisoners by forcing them to be there. Dean Pelton gets defensive and says whoever doesn’t want to help him can leave, his anger eventually driving everyone away.

Luis Guzmán (playing himself) finally shows up, excited to film the commercial but confused that there seem to be no students at the school. Dean Pelton comes to meet him, bringing him into his uber messy office (complete with a loose possum) and introduces him to Abed, who, behind the camera, is pretty much the only person who hasn’t abandoned him. Dean Pelton shows him a copy of the commercial he’ll be starring in, which Luis hates due its over-the-top insanity. He tells Abed as much in the storage closet (a nice throwback to the scene of Shirley venting to Abed in “Intermediate Documentary Filmmaking”) and when Dean Pelton finds out what he’s doing, he gets upset that Luis doesn’t want to be in his film. Luis figures out that Dean Pelton is ashamed of his school, and gives him some of his own alumni wisdom - “worship this place...it changes people lives.” Realizing he failed the school because he thought that he was better than Greendale, he tells Abed he can’t finish the commercial after all and goes into a deep and dark depression, which Abed of course catches on film.

The school board shows up to view the commercial, and Dean Pelton prepares to show off his creation – which he’s assuming will be footage of his breakdown. To his surprise, it’s a beautiful montage of the documentary’s best and most heartfelt moments, all of which came from the fist day of shooting (when everything was real and true.) The school board loves it, even asking if there was more of the “crazy Chinese guy” (nice nod to the inclusion of Chang.) The Dean is confused, after finding out that Abed put the film together, he marches into the study room asking the group for forgiveness. In one of the more touching moments of the night, Jeff willingly hugs him, accepting his apology. “So I’m a good Dean?” Pelton asks, clearly still seeking validation. The study group assures him that he is (crazy costumes and all) while Abed manages to sneak in one last documentary shot – Troy and Britta hugging embarrassingly by themselves long after the group has disbanded. Any guesses as to what this means for future emotional moments between the two?

The tag for the episode is 3 days later in Hollywood, where we find Pierce the Diva arriving in Hollywood in his towed trailer (which really belongs to Jeff Garlin.) What did you think of this episode? Did you like it better than last year’s documentary feature? And how hard did you laugh at Jeff’s impression of the Dean? (I may have rewound a few times myself, and then refused to delete the episode.)

Community 3.08 "Documentary Filmmaking: Redux" Recap

"Studies In Modern Movement" starts with the packing up of Annie's ghetto apartment, where Britta tries to teach the 20-year-old the specifics of “roommate drama" since our sweet Annie can’t believe she'd ever get sick of her two friends. Troy and Abed show up not moments later, decked out in their “#AnniesMoves” shirt (they’re live tweeting the entire move, using that particular hashtag) while Pierce arrives with Shirley, asking where Jeff is. He had told the group he was apparently sick and an unbelieving Britta calls him up, attempting to catch him in a lie. She should know by now that Jeff is smarter than that – he’s trying on clothes at the GAP (just like she predicts) but by bribing a saleswoman to act like a doctor, he convincingly is able to lie to Britta about being in the hospital.

Annie realizes that she’s almost out of packing tape, and then finds out that Abed's used it all to tape Troy to the back of the bathroom door. It’s all a little too much for our favorite perfectionist, who very nearly cracks at the immaturity level she’s choosing to subject herself too until Britta drags her outside and tells her a hilarious story about when she lived in Amsterdam with a guy who did too many drugs. “Loosey goosey,” she says to Annie, telling her she should just go with the flow and try to be less uptight (love that Britta’s loosening up advice came from getting high.) Annie agrees, and when she comes back into the apartment and finds her bubble wrap gone (Troy wrapped Abed’s head in it) she manages to keep her cool – even when Troy breaks one of her outlets. She leaves with the boys to drive over to their apartment, while Pierce stays to try to fix up the apartment. Shirley is forced into driving with Britta when Pierce offers to drive her himself.

At the mall, Jeff is checking out when he comes across none other than Dean Pelton, sipping on a food court drink and looking rather un-Dean like in sunglasses and a casual shirt. “It’s Saturday, call me Craig,” Dean Pelton says, adding that he knows about #AnniesMove from Twitter. He also knows about the fact Jeff is supposed to be sick, and threatens to tell everyone where Jeff is unless he spends the day with him. Knowing he has no choice, Jeff agrees and the two end up at lunch at a Mexican restaurant – complete with a serenade from the mariachi band. I can’t be the only one who was happy to see these two guys finally getting a chance to share some much overdue screen time together – away of Greendale, no less.

Britta and Shirley drive over to the apartment while having their usual argument regarding Shirley’s intense Christian judging versus Britta’s amoral atheist beliefs (seems that this will be an ongoing theme of the season.) Out of anger and to prove her point, Britta immaturely decides to pick up a hitchhiker, who promptly gets in the car and starts spouting off sentences about Jesus (which makes Shirley incredibly uncomfortable.) Pierce, meanwhile, is helping to repaint Annie’s apartment but finds himself getting high off the fumes instead when he accidentally locks himself in the windowless room space.

Back at la casa de Trobed, the boys introduce Annie to the apartment and her new room. Thinking she was getting the one bedroom of a two-bedroom apartment, Annie’s less than thrilled to find out her room is nothing more than a blanket fort (albeit a very nice one.) But what did Britta tell her to do? Smile! Act loose! She pretends it doesn't bother her and Troy and Abed try to make her happier about the situation by telling her that they’re going to be spending a lot of time in the fort together (mainly watching television.)

Back at the mall, Dean Pelton (now similarly dressed to Jeff) takes our favorite non-laywer to karaoke where the two launch into a hilarious rendition of “Kiss From A Rose,” coupled with a montage that focuses on where all our characters are at this point in the episode - Britta and Shirley are still enduring their hitchhiking, Jesus-loving friend (who is now singing about marijuana and human blood) and Pierce has hallucinated from the paint and is imagining himself as a piano player with hula dancers. Meanwhile, Troy and Abed are still attempting to get Annie back into “fun” mode, this time by putting on a shadow puppet show about “Princess Annie who was saved from her bad neighborhood by Woodsman Troy.” The trick seems to work, and Annie finds herself smiling again by the time they’re done.

And then? Everyone loses it. Shirley and Britta finally kick their hitchhiker out of the car, Jeff finds out that Dean Pelton reads student emails (therefore knowing that Jeff would be shopping today) and Annie? Well, she’s fine until, in her happiness of realizing how fun living with Troy and Abed will really be, walks into the yet unseen “closed off” room and finds that it’s a space they’ve designed as a virtual adventure room. They call it a “dreamatorium,” but Annie, realizing that her real bedroom has been shafted for a blanket fort (or, “an asylum for half-witted children”) can’t see the humor of the situation. She finally breaks down, saying she’s sick of adapting to everyone and doesn't want to keep trying to fit in. She storms out and goes back to her old apartment, where she finds Pierce recovering from his hazardous fumes meltdown. Annie asks him to drive her back so she can move her stuff and go back to living alone, but when they arrive, they find that her stuff isn't there. It’s in Annie’s new, real room – the room that was formally Troy and Abed's (they've moved the dreamatorium to their old room and taken up residence in the blanket fort.) The study group has spent the time since Annie’s departure getting it all set up. Troy and Abed apologize for getting lost in their own little world, though it turns out they really have an ulterior motive for giving Annie her deserved space (think laundry, dishes, and nurse duties.) Yes, it may seem like Annie got the short end of the stick, but somehow, I think this will all work out – at least, for a few episodes.

Jeff finally shows up as the group finishes decorating, and to his embarrassment finds out that everyone knows about his shopping adventure with Dean Pelton since it was twittered earlier that day. The tag for the episode is Britta and Jeff watching the group perform another shadow puppet show in the blanket fort.

While a little slowed down compared to the past few weeks of fast-paced, expository heavy episodes, tonight might have been one of my favorite episodes to date. The scenes between McHale and Rash were absolute gold (here’s to hopefully more will be seen in the future) and of course, we got to see our favorite study group deal with what seems to be one of the major themes of season 3 – growing up.

What did you think?

Community 3.07 "Studies In Modern Movement" Recap

This week’s episode was an ode to the racist and brash Pierce Hawthorne…and what an episode it was.

We start with the group sitting down for their daily lunch, where everyone's favorite Janitor (Jerry Minor) finds Troy and again tries to recruit him to the ways of plumbing. Troy agrees to go see one toilet, mostly to get him off his back. Meanwhile, the group makes a surprising discovery – turns out that Pierce is the gay community's new icon, due to his popular Hawthorne Wipes. He unknowingly fuels this status by signing his product for two gay students, not realizing their orientation (side note – I loved the subtle wink that one of the boys threw to Jeff as they left.) Abed does some YouTube research, finding that the popularity of Pierce's product is so huge that a transsexual named Urbana Champaign (RuPaul’s Drag Race Shangela) has created a dance music video for it. Pierce at first is outraged, saying he wants to take Urbana Champaign to court for her actions.

As the study group finds out, he soon changes his tune, deciding to embrace his popularity and become a gay activist – in fact, since sales of his product have gone up 7%, he’s created a new line called Hawthorne Pride Wipes. He also announces he’s hosting Greendale’s first annual Gay Bash. Meanwhile, Britta goes on a tangent about the “Edible Complex" as Jeff tries to connect with Pierce and prove that he doesn't have father issues.

Troy fixes the toilet with the Janitor as he promises, and as he leaves the bathroom he gets “captured” by the Air Conditioning Repair Annex and brought to Dean Vice Laybourne. Laybourne tells him that he has a natural gift, and he deserves a chance to become the best of the best. He gives Troy and the other students a test to see who can fix an air conditioner the fastest while blindfolded, and Troy is the clear winner by a mile. Vice Dean Laybourne brings him into a secret room (where the air conditioning is so seamless no one can even tell it’s on) and attempts to bribe him into joining the school, promising a life of lucrative employment. There’s one catch, though – once you’re in, you’re in. Air conditioning repair will be your life, and a life that can’t be shared with outsiders. He gives Troy 24 hours to think his offer over.

As Pierce sets up for the dance, an old man shows up to talk to him and it turns out he's none other than Cornelius Hawthorne, Pierce’s father (nicely played by Deadwood’s Larry Cedar.) Pierce brings his father in to meet the group and they find his personality to be exactly like his son – if not worse. He showers them all with racist insults, prompting Jeff to take offense, Britta to get upset, and Shirley to call him, “the Abed of racism.” Pierce surprisingly admits that he’s canceling the Gay Bash and that Hawthorne Pride Wipes are no longer in business. Jeff sees what’s happening with Pierce trying to please his father and conform to his views, and tells Pierce not to cancel his party but he refuses to listen.

Jeff of course throws the party anyway, which Dean Pelton enjoys a little too much (I'm just happy we got another costume out of the night.) Pierce shows up upset, but Jeff convinces him to at least stay and have one drink. Pierce ends up enjoying himself, dancing and cavorting while Jeff and Britta continue to butt heads on Jeff's apparent father issues. When Dean Pelton finds a problem with the air conditioning, Troy offers to fix it and as he's doing so, the Janitor finds him, calling him out for wasting his talent with the “elitist” crowd. Troy gets upset, and not knowing what else to do, he goes to the one person he knows he can trust – his best friend. He asks Abed for advice, Abed and the two have a hilarious back-and-forth conversation (as they pretend to be each other) where Troy eventually admits to Abed what’s going on: he doesn’t know whether to pick air conditioning or plumbing. Abed, in his no-nonsense way, says to do what makes him the happiest and Troy realizes he already has the answer he's looking for.

Cornelius shows up right as special guest Urbana Champaign arrives on stage and attempts to show Pierce off as the guest of honor. Upon seeing his father in the audience, Pierce freaks and tells everyone that Hawthorne Pride Wipes are no longer representing the gay community, before collapsing of a pretend heart attack (the signature “Hawthorne” move.) Jeff goes to visit Pierce in the hospital and butts heads with Cornelius about the way he treats Pierce, where he ends up not only defending his friend, but unleashing a multitude of his own issues. As he finishes his rant, Cornelius drops to the floor of a heart attack, but this is no fake-out – he really does die.

At Cornelius’ funeral, Jeff tries to apologize to Pierce for unintentionally killing his father, although Pierce is surprisingly okay with the situation. When he delivers his eulogy, it’s in classic Pierce fashion – short, to the point and insulting, so much so that even the study group is appalled. As the funeral ends, Vice Dean Laybourne shows up and tells Troy that he must make a decision about whether or not he’s joining his school. Troy stands up for himself, telling him that he doesn't care about being elitist - he'd rather watch television with his friends, and that’s what will make him the happiest. Dean Laybourne is clearly upset with this decision, and insists that this battle isn’t over.

The end of the episode finds Troy and Abed playing Inspector Spacetime – complete with British accents – while Jeff studies and makes fun of them for acting like children.

Underneath all its humor, the heart of this episode was clearly Jeff’s ever-present daddy issues and his on-going battle with wanting to be a father figure to Pierce, despite the fact he would sometimes rather not have anything to do with him. Might this be a prelude to future situations that will cause Jeff to deal with his past? Additionally, although this episode was clearly a Pierce centered story, I loved the Abed and Troy moments that allowed us to see how much they appreciate each other's friendship.

What did you think of the episode? Did you enjoy seeing more of Pierce? Which racial comment was your favorite?

Community 3.06 "Advanced Gay" Recap

Trick or dean! Missed last week’s recap? Catch up here.

Our Halloween outing at Greendale begins with a pre-party thrown by Britta, before the group heads off to their “real” gathering. As Britta explains to Pierce her reasoning for throwing their own shindig (“it’s informal, it’s intimate and it’s just for us”) Troy and Abed arrive as - what else? - Inspector Spacetime and the Constable. While Annie scrolls through Britta’s playlist and laments the fact that she can’t find anything “Halloween appropriate,” Jeff shows up with his usual “three appearances to make” excuse.

Britta pulls Jeff aside, asking if he remembers last week when she made them fill out anonymous personality tests for her psychology class. She tells Jeff that she processed the tests and found that one of their group members could be classified as “deeply disturbed” – more specifically, that one of them has an extreme personality disorder also known as “homicidal tendencies.” Of course, the Dean chooses that moment to drop in (dressed as a witch) to promote their Halloween dance – come on, you knew we weren’t getting away without at least one classic Dean Pelton costume, especially in a Halloween episode...right? Jeff tells Britta not to worry, that they had probably just “Britta’d” the test results (Britta = to ruin and/or horribly mess up.)

Britta suggests that they tell some scary stories and begins with a familiar, rather predictable tale that many of us probably grew up with – an escaped killer with a hook for a hand who finds a couple (Jeff and Britta) in their car in the woods and kills them. Abed is horrified, telling Britta that her story was bad because he didn’t care about the characters, who were "making choices the audience wouldn’t make.” True to Abed’s personality, he has a very clear view of what horror stories should be like and he takes his Halloween tales very seriously – and rationally. His tale involves the couple (now Abed and Britta) taking refugee in a cabin. Abed manages to narrate to the audience every rational thought that the audience might think while watching, and as they kiss romantically, he suggests they listen to the radio. He proceeds to hum almost the whole song and when Pierce interrupts, Abed notes that rationally, they would never cut off the middle of the song just to have dialogue. He figures that they'll listen until an emergency radio broadcast comes up and then they'll use his cell phone to call 9-1-1.

Perfectionist Annie has a perfectionist story, involving Jeff rescuing her from her carriage and bringing her to the cabin after her frightened horses have acted up. While Annie waxes poetic about seeing the good in everyone, Jeff (who is really a vampire) tries to control his urge to bite her. He tells her he’s a true monster who needs to feed, opening the closet to reveal an emotionally unattached Britta who nonchalantly notes “I’m fine with this,” as Jeff bites her neck. As Annie runs for the door, Jeff has a change of heart and asks her to teach him to read so he can become less of a monster and more of a human. Out of her own good will, she agrees...until Jeff tells her that “some monsters cannot change.” He attempts to attack Annie right as she reveals her cunning upper hand - she's werewolf that feeds on vampires. As Annie attacks him, her story becomes more intense and more graphic, straight down to the “grossly damaged flesh" and descriptions of tearing into the body the way you would shred a Quaker Oats box.

Jeff is horrified by her tale, and Shirley is appropriately grossed out. Troy then offers his tale, where he and Abed are pilots who happen upon Pierce’s home in the woods. Pierce invites them in and drugs them with a drink offer, and when they wake up (in bed together, of course) Pierce tells them that the cabin is his lab where he does weird experiments on people. He tells Troy and Abed that he’s sewn them together, but while Pierce thinks he’s found a way to make them suffer (because he’s jealous that they’re best friends), Troy and Abed realize that being joined together has only made them stronger. They can share mind powers, they can move objects with their eyes, and they can even hear each others thoughts. They knock Pierce out, sew his butt onto his chest (nice homage to “Annie’s boobs”) and switch around his feet and his hands.

Pierce takes offense to the fact that they obviously saw him as the bad guy, while Troy argues that he didn’t say that the villain’s name was Pierce – just “a crazy, old, racist doctor.” He starts his story, portraying himself as a a Hugh Hefner-type living it up with his three Playboy-inspired bunnies (Annie, Britta and Shirley.) Troy and Abed (looking very ghetto in do-rags and dreadlocks) surprise him with a home invasion, and the three end up getting into a fight. Naturally, everyone is horrified at Pierce's tale, with Troy telling him that wasn’t even a ghost story as much as it was a horrific objectification of the group.

At this point, Annie believes the stories are getting too personal while Shirley thinks they’re getting too violent. She misses the old days, when ghost stories revolved around the basics of good vs. evil. As such, in Shirley’s story, the study group is spending time together in the cabin when the End of Days arrive – complete with the sky raining blood. As an announcer comes on the radio and tells them that the world over, Dean Pelton arrives in a (very girlish) devil suit. He attempts to stab and kill them (before telling them they’ll be buried next to the lesbians) before Angel Shirley intervenes, blowing Dean Pelton away with her heavenly powers. The group thanks her for saving them and asks if she can take them to heaven. Shirley refuses, though, and then disappears while Dean Pelton arrives again with a chainsaw, yelling about gay marriage.

“That wasn’t a horror story, that was a sermon,” Troy replies, adding that she “Britta’d” her tale. Annoyed, the group gets up to leave and Britta freaks out, saying that they can’t leave until they figure out who has the homicidal tendencies as evidenced by the rest results. When Annie calls her friend out for being stupid, Britta argues that it’s her duty to protect people from becoming murders. “Do you know what might happen if we leave here now?” she pleads. The show them segues into a series of montages where all the study members are killed in one manner or another by an unknown person wearing a hood.

The group is not swayed by Britta's plea, and notes that only crazy people would think up scenarios like that. They point out that Britta took the test, too - might the person who is in danger of becoming homicidal be one and the same? As the group starts arguing, Jeff chimes in with a story that he thinks might help, and proceeds to tell a tale which has the group is sitting around the cabin when Britta’s original killer (the escaped man with the hook for a hand) shows up. Jeff calmly stops him and asks why he kills people. The hooded man, revealed to be none other than Chang, admits sadly that he kills because he’s afraid – and could someone please give him a hug?

As the group is brought back to reality, tensions continue to mount with Troy yelling at Jeff about always trying to get them act warm and fuzzy. Jeff admits that he filled out his test randomly, while also noting that he’s the sanest person in the room because he always knows what he’s doing and he always knows when he's doing something wrong. Annie butts in and finally realizes that Britta had in fact “Britta’d” her own tests – she had run them through the machine backwards, rendering the results invalid.

Britta insists that she can prove herself by running the tests again, this time correctly. Cut to one hour later, where the new results apparently show that everyone in the group is insane – except for one. After debating whether or not they should attempt to figure out who the odd man out is, they decide they would rather not know. In a final snapshot of the table, we're treated to a Halloween message with the names of all the study group members appearing on their respective test sheets - and it's Abed who is revealed to be the most normal.

The tag for this episode is from Troy's story, with Pierce still immobilized on the operating table from Troy and Abed’s operation. The two sit on the couch (still sewn together) enjoying their new-found abilities and as they practice their telepathic mind powers, we’re left with one last “Troy and Abed sewn together” before the credits finish rolling.

While the past two Halloween outings on this show have been full of over-the-top insanity, "Horror Fiction In Seven Spooky Steps" managed to give us the same amount of craziness without zombies or Abba music. In its own creative way, Community turned a simple party and story-telling saga on its head...and it worked. I personally loved this episode and thought it was wonderfully ingenious, especially in the way it wove everyone's personalities into their storytelling. Coming off of the popular and well-received "Remedial Chaos Theory", it was a nice backtrack to both the study room setting and the quiet zaniness that makes Community, well, Community.

Happy Halloween, readers! What did you think of the episode? How do you think it compared to the previous years of Halloween episodes? And are you going to use the verb "Britta" in your daily vocabulary now?

Community 3.05 "Horror Fiction In Seven Spooky Steps" Recap

The episode begins with Annie and Britta arriving to charming grins and a chorus of “Troy and Abed’s new apartment!” They’re a little put off at how formal the entire affair seems to be, but Abed assures them that they’ve read everything about how to be a perfect party host. They also find out from Troy that Shirley has apparently been there all afternoon baking – something that hasn’t made either roommate extremely happy. Annie's concerned at the apparent "unsafe" building, while Abed shows off his Raiders Of The Lost Ark model, complete with a boulder and an Indiana Jones figure.

"Bienvenue de la casa de Trobed," says Troy as he brings up Pierce and Jeff. Pierce tries to make Troy feel bad about not living with him anymore, while Jeff tries to get out of the party by saying he can only stay so long because he has an invite to an opening of a new club. Abed says he tricked him by making fake flyers so he would save the date.

The group begins playing a rousing game of Yahztee when the buzzer rings with pizza delivery. Abed says that because they can’t let the guy in, therefore someone has to go downstairs. The group can’t decide, so Jeff volunteers that they all count off – whoever’s number comes up on the dice is the person who will go downstairs. Abed is quite upset by this, noting, "you’re creating six different timelines!”

Annie gets picked to go first. In her timeline, Pierce starts talking about Eartha Kitt while Britta attempts to sing along with "Roxanne" before Jeff shuts her up. She goes to the bathroom instead, leaving Troy to find a gun in Annie's purse. As Jeff gets up, he hits his head on the fan and Shirley presents the group with her pies as Abed accosts Britta in the bathroom. Annie brings the pizza back, leading a nonchalant Abed to muse, "I wonder what happened to those other timelines." Cue flashing to...

The timeline of Shirley. As she leaves, Jeff says no one should eat her pies. Annie says they should take to her and Jeff says they can't enable her baking. Britta still gets shut up, still goes to the bathroom, and Pierce still talks about Eartha Kitt. In this timeline, Pierce gives Troy a gift - a Norwegian troll that he had on display when Troy and him were living together as a token of what they shared. Shirley returns with the pizza, asking if anyone remembered to take out her pies which are now burned and ruined. Shirley gets upset with the group and when Jeff tells her that she's not allowed having baking things as an identity, Shirley runs off upset.

Pierce still manages to make an Eartha Kitt joke before he leaves in his timeline. Shirley checks on her pies while Jeff shuts Britta up from singing. Annie tells Troy he likes his place, and when Jeff makes a crack about their bunk beds, Troy leaves upset and finds Britta in the bathroom. The two bond over candy cigarettes and Troy asks why everyone is always picking on him - he is a man, after all. Britta tells Troy he doesn't have to be guarded to be a man, and they have a cute moment together over the pizza. Back in the kitchen, Jeff hits his head on the fan and a concerned Annie attempts to check him out which leads to slight flirting.

We flash to Britta's timeline. Pierce tells his Eartha Kitt story, Shirley goes to check her pies and Jeff goes to get a drink, hitting his head on the fan. Annie and Jeff go to the bathroom to look at Jeff's head, and Pierce gives Troy his housewarming gift. Jeff tells Annie she needs to get out of her unsafe apartment and Annie says he can't treat her like a kid anymore. Jeff says he can't help but worry about her because he cares about her. They almost kiss but are interrupted by Pierce terrorizing Troy with his Norwegian troll because he doesn't like that Troy has abandoned him to move in with Abed, who he sees as a threat. Britta brings up the pizza delivery boy and in true Britta fashion, announces that they're in love and getting married.

In Troy's timeline, he speeds downstairs so as not to miss anything important. Upon closing the door, the boulder from the Raiders Of The Lost Ark model falls to the floor where Annie trips on it after getting up to help Jeff. She falls onto the table and Pierce, trying to get up from his chair, knocks Annie's purse to the floor and gets shot in the leg with her gun. As Annie freaks out and tries to help Pierce, Britta comes out of the bathroom with her cigarette to see what's wrong. Seeing the chaos, she drops her cigarette to the ground by accident and ends up lighting the entire apartment on fire. Troy returns with the pizza, sees the chaos, and freaks out.

Abed's timeline starts with him asking everyone for money for the pizza. Pierce makes an Eartha Kitt joke, Shirley checks on her pies and Britta tries to sing to Roxanne. When she comes out of the bathroom, she says something smells amazing and Shirley offers her the pies that she's just cooked. Britta eats one happily before accidentally admitting to Shirley that they made a pact not to eat her cooking, leading them to argue. Pierce gives Troy his gift, and Troy thanks Pierce for allowing him to live at his house last year. He says that while it was fun, it's now time to make it on his own, which leads Pierce to get upset and they start fighting. Annie and Jeff, who have gone into the kitchen to check Jeff's head wound, start flirting which leads to an all-out, actual kiss between the two - go, Community! Annie breaks the kiss telling him he reminds her of her dad, effectively ruining the mood and leading them to begin an argument about Jeff worrying about her because she's a kid. When Abed returns with the pizza, he finds the entire group mad at each other.

As the group tries to create another timeline, Abed catches the dice and gives his friends a speech about how life throws many things their way. But as long as they remain together as friends and remain accepting of everyone's personalities and virtues, they can get through anything. Abed deduces that Jeff manipulated the game so that he never would have to go down and get the pizza, which makes him, in Abed's words, "a conniving son of bitch." As Pierce talks about Eartha Kitt and Jeff gets up (again hitting his head on the fan), Britta starts singing and dancing to "Roxanne" again. In this timeline, however, Jeff is the one that goes to get the pizza, thus leaving them alone to dance together. "I really love your place," Annie tells Abed as they dance together. Jeff is left to watch with as smile as he sees his friends dance around the apartment, being their crazy selves and wholly embracing their personalities.

In the last timeline, we finally see the group back in the study room. Of course, this is the "darkest, most terrible timeline." Shirley is a drunk, Annie's in a mental ward from going crazy, Troy has lost his larynx because he tried to destroy the troll doll by eating it, Pierce died from his leg wound, Jeff lost his arm in the apartment fire, and Britta put a streak in her hair (always evil, that Britta.) Abed makes everyone fake goatees because he's decided they're all evil, which of course leads to a chorus of "Evil Troy and Evil Abed!"

In this week's tag, Troy and Abed are watching Inspector Spacetime in their new apartment.

What did you think of the episode, which I personally feel was one of the show's strongest to date? Did you laugh as much as I did?

Community 3.04 "Remedial Chaos Theory" Recap

"Competitive Ecology" opens with Chang dreaming about being a real detective while Professor Kane gives his students their first biology assignment – construct a terrarium. He instructs everyone to partner up with different classmates, who they will work with for the entire year. Naturally, the study group - appalled at being split up - doesn’t like this idea. They take matters into their own hands by visiting Professor Kane and plead their case for partnering up on their own terms. I had to outwardly laugh at Professor Kane’s comment following their explanations - “what is happening at this school? I have so many conversations that make no sense!” Kudos to Harmon & Company for never failing in their ability to make fun of themselves - with class.

Professor Kane grants their request, and the group goes to tell their partners why they can’t be with them (the best excuse, by a long shot, was Jeff’s imitation of Abed – “Star Wars, Star Wars, Star Wars…cool, cool, cool.”) Afterwards, the group tries to figure out how they’re going to divide up. Pierce, of course, is left out, partnering with apparently easy-going Todd.

Chang goes to the Sgt. Nunez and tells him that he’s ready to be a real detective – a request that’s essentially laughed off. Sgt. Nunez tells him that Chang only been there a month and has barely done anything. “You want to detect something? Do it on your own time,” he tells Chang before leaving, after which Chang delves into a hysterical Film Noir montage in which he resolves to solve any crime at Greendale.

Over lunch, Annie learns that partnering with Jeff may not be the best way to uphold the “perfectionist Annie” criteria that she’s so used to. Troy and Abed are excited to be lab partners (along with roommates and study group members) but also realize they may spend too much time together. Shirley, meanwhile is getting on Britta’s nerves by showing her numerous pictures of her children. In an attempt to get away from their respective partners, Britta and Troy find each other outside and realize that they want to partner up (nice nod to the Britta/Troy relationship that budded last year but hasn’t really been touched on since.) The rest of the group finds out that they’re thinking of changing partners and flips out.

They meet in the study room to try to decide on a fair way to split up – Troy suggests the boy/girl/boy/girl scenario, while Shirley suggests they go by age. Annie finally puts her foot down, saying that they need to decide so they can get their project done so Jeff suggests they make a list of names, with a preferred order of who they would like to work with.

Back in Chang’s Film Noir fantasy, he finds a matchbook in the bathroom and tries to figure out who might have left it there. After a few phone calls, he attempts to solve the crime by putting together a crude evidence board that will help him solve his case. His work backfires when a ball of yarn catches fire, essentially destroying his room and all his work. Dean Pelton comes to check out the situation. He ends up backing up Chang’s conspiracy theory story when Sgt. Nunez comes to yell at him, and Sgt. Nunez becomes upset with Dean Pelton's for siding with Chang. He quits his position, leaving Dean Pelton to denote Chang as the new Head of Security.

In the study room, the group has used Jeff’s suggestion to divide up, leaving Troy with Britta, Annie with Shirley, Todd with Jeff, and Abed with Pierce. Abed makes the mistake of saying he put the least popular and most popular people together, which leads the group to begin fighting about who is more popular and who is more liked within their social circle. Annie says that Shirley is too religious, Britta won't dissect anything with a head, and Annie says that people don’t want to academically carry Jeff all year. The group fights over who’s more popular and Todd, becoming increasingly wigged out by the their behavior, tries to leave but Jeff won’t let him until they’ve decided something. When Britta lights the results list on fire and almost kills Todd’s turtle, Todd finally loses it. “What is wrong with you people? I thought you were supposed to be friends! I thought you were supposed to love each other!” He goes on to deliver the episode's speech about how all he’s seen is people fighting, not people who care about each other.

The group shows up to class, but without their terrariums as a result of not being able to resolve their issues (Annie does actually complete hers, calling Jeff to label her as pathological.) Troy says that obviously, their idea of working together didn’t work out and that they just have to go back to their original lab partners. Professor Kane calls them “the mean clique,” saying that Todd called him crying about the way he was treated. This seems to sober the group up enough to realize their actions…at least, enough for them to realize that their problems in the first place started with – who else? Todd. Poor Todd.

The tag for the episode is the study group filling out practice evaluations for Britta’s psychology class, where all she can she can see is awkward male organs instead of penciled-in bubbles. Freudian slip of the Community kind?

From the group’s teamwork conflicts to Chang’s Film Noir, this episode was not only enjoyable in all its plots but also in what it gave us as viewers. It was great to see some reminders that the Troy/Britta relationship is still alive and well (and maybe soon to be even more explored!) and to see the study group calling themselves out on some of their more apparent personality traits in a rather hilarious way that resonated with the audience.

What did you think of the episode? Did you catch the small and subtle remarks and flirtations (however unintentional) between Jeff and Annie? And do you, like me, want a Detective Chang spin-off starring Ken Jeong?

Community 3.03 "Competitive Ecology" Recap

Before you dive into this week’s zany episode of Community, be sure to read last week’s recap. Now that storylines have been set in motion, new characters have been introduced and plotlines from last season have been cleaned up, we can move forward and start having some real fun. And if this episode was any indication, we’re on just the tip of the iceberg where the word “fun” is concerned.

“Geography of Global Conflict” opens with Annie’s Poli Sci class, and new teacher Professor Cligoris (Party Down’s Martin Starr.) Professor Cligoris starts a class debate, in which Annie is quickly outwitted by Annie Kim – a competitive Asian perfectionist who clearly is out to give Annie a run for her money.

As Britta decides to show Shirley she’s getting serious about the new school year, she finds out via a flyer that a girl she used to know in high school has been taken hostage in Syria. Britta decides that this “imprisonment in an oppressive regime” needs to be fought for, while in another sense of fighting for rights, Chang goes overboard in his security position. “The badge says serve and protect!” Chang protests, as much to his chagrin he’s told that he’s not in charge of putting people in place – but rather, making sure people don’t knock over the school’s trash can.

Annie brings Annie Kim to the study group, proudly introducing her to her “ragtag group of cut-ups,” and what follows is a hilarious back-and-forth of competitive dialogue about founding Greendale’s Model UN Club that very much rivals an episode of Gilmore Girls. If one Annie wasn’t enough, two seems to be almost too much for the study group, prompting lots of amusing facial expressions and leading Pierce to declare “an Asian Annie. Obama’s America.” I have to admit, I’ve missed the antics of racist Pierce, as horrible as they sometimes are. Annie defends herself, saying she’s not competing with Asian Annie and that she’s just a friend. When the group doesn’t believe her, Jeff comes to her rescue, telling them “this is our Annie” and convincing them that they should trust her words.

Becoming increasingly riled up about her friend’s situation, Britta explodes with rage about her privileged lifestyle. As she storms out of the group, she runs into Chang and the two end up in a hilarious slo-mo fight set to the tune of Lionel Ritche’s “Hello.” Britta chews up Chang’s warning note, defiantly kicking the trash can for good measure, declaring “and that’s how we do that!”

Meanwhile, Annie Kim decides to go ahead and start the Model UN Club that Annie had originally thought of. Jeff busts into Professor Cligoris’ class with Annie in tow, defending the fact that the club was originally her idea. “My Annie gave this other Annie the idea,” Jeff protests, as Annie gets increasingly more upset. Professor Cligoris says there can only be one Model UN that officially represents this school. To settle this, the group takes part in a head-to-head Model UN Battle Royale to decide once and for all who gets to be the founder.

Over in Britta World, our favorite blonde has locked herself in a cage to protest in demonstration for her friend. Chang comes by to reprimand her, resulting in another “Hello” montage, and tells Britta he has no choice but to give her an arrest report. Britta freaks out, tearfully telling Chang that she’s finally getting a life here and that getting an arrest report will ruin her. Determined to fight for her cause, Britta attempts a distraction at the Model UN competition where Chang tasers her to take her down. “I knew you’d come,” Britta says, slightly woozy while Chang carries her out, reminding her “you’re still busted.”

At the Model UN Battle Royale, an unknown stench causes the group to fall apart despite their initial winning lead. Aware that they’re losing, Annie freaks out and throws a tantrum, screaming “I want to win!” Jeff calls her out for her actions, then later apologizes, admitting he pushed her into competing. He proceeds to give her a sweet speech about how great she is, how much she’s growing up, and how the world needs more women like her. And just like that, I’m sold on Jeff and Annie. Well done, Community.

Annie goes back to tell her friends she’s sorry, and the group decides they can still best Annie Kim by taking on Abed’s Earth Two idea. They put together a presentation from “Earth One” saying that they have achieved world peace, and offer an ultimatum – Annie Kim’s group wins a simple game, but the larger symbolic win will be theirs. Annie Kim rejects this, but Professor Cligoris sees that Annie has the right idea about how to truly solve a world problem, and the study group is declared the winner. Our second episode tag is Troy and Abed attempting to play Operation on Pierce as he sleeps.

In addition to setting up some fun relationships and giving us great chemistry (I may be lobbying for a Jacobs/Jeong side show), the episode served to remind us how brilliant Community can be when mixing humor with more emotional moments. And while I never would have imagined myself a full blown Jeff and Annie supporter, I have to admit their relationship is really growing on me - in a completely non-creepy way.

What did you think of tonight’s episode? What were your favorite moments?

Community 3.02 "Geography of Global Conflict" Recap

Community is back – and bigger than ever. I mean that literally. The season three premiere kicked off with a dramatic song and dance number that far surpassed the more subdued first and second season openers. Declaring “we’re gonna be more normal,” the entire cast dances through the school, stating that it’s going to be a fresh start for all of them.

Abed and Troy announce they have moved in together, although Abed’s happiness about the situation is cut short when he finds out that his beloved Cougar Town has been moved to mid-season. Meanwhile, Dean Pelton makes it quite clear that he’s decided to revamp the school, as they finally have the money to make some changes – “no more paintball, no more trampolines,” he says to the group, with some nice nods to high points of the past season. Jeff is simply glad that Pierce is gone after the events of last season’s finale.

But Pierce does come back, much to the happiness of the group and much to the chagrin of Jeff. Jeff claims that Pierce can’t rejoin because he’s not in biology, which they have all elected to take together. Coincidence, then, that in their very first class, Jeff gets kicked out by his new inmate-turned-PHD-professor, Professor Kane (brilliantly played by The Wire’s Michael K. Williams) for bad cell phone behavior? I think not.

While complaining to the security guards about the apparent “monkeys” living in the vents, Dean Pelton gets a rather intensive visit from the new Vice Dean Laybourne, head of the air conditioning repair school, who promises that if Dean Pelton visits him he’ll tell him “whassup.” In the cafeteria, Abed’s Cougar Town induced happiness quickly comes to a stop when Cougarton Abbey – the new show Britta found for him – ends with the entire cast dying. While Troy tries to reprimand Britta for the hurt she’s inflicted on his best friend, Britta simply states, “that’s the great thing about British tv – they give you closure.”

Jeff goes to apologize for getting kicked out of biology, but Professor Kane doesn’t want to hear it. Upon seeing a picture Pierce on the table and believing he has been set up, Jeff finally loses it. He goes off on the now-homeless Chang (who has been living in the vents of the school) and ends up getting attacked by monkey gas while following him through the vents, resulting in a dream-like trance where he sees himself and Pierce in an almost nightmarish way.

Britta, meanwhile, has found another show for Abed to obsess over – Inspector Spacetime (a nice parody on Doctor Who.) “This is the best show I've ever seen,” Abed says in a way that only Danny Pudi can articulate. Jeff storms into the study room, claiming Pierce got him kicked out of biology, while Pierce refutes his argument. Taking his rage to a new level, Jeff grabs an ax and begins to chop up the study table as the group watches in horror. Dean Pelton takes this moment to come by and tell them that things won’t be that different at Greendale after all, due to the fact that they don’t have the money that they thought they did.

The group goes to talk to Jeff, who has gone into a somewhat of a cationic state after his outburst. Jeff admits that he didn’t want the group to fall apart, he just didn’t want Pierce around. Once Annie says that she can’t be friends with Jeff anymore due to his behavior, Pierce breaks down and admits he paid Professor Kane a few thousand dollars to kick Jeff out of the study group so he could join. And before the study group can get upset enough to oust Pierce yet again, Jeff steps in with his classic Winger speech – they’re all friends no matter what, because they have something special. Why should they rush to get out of something that’s so good for them?

At the end of the episode, Britta admits that helping Abed helped her – to choose a major. Yes, our lovely self-absorbed Britta will be studying psychology. Did anyone see that coming?

Other notes:

Dean Pelton finds out that the “monkey” living in the vents is actually Chang, and offers him a job as a campus security cop. Putting Chang back into a power of authority? A genius move on Community’s part, and one that will hopefully give Ken Jeong a chance to really spread his acting chops more than he did last season.

The entire scene of Vice Dean Laybourne inviting Dean Pelton to this (very lavish) office, and then proceeding to terrorize our favorite Dalmatian-loving superior was a nice reminder of exactly the type of character Goodman will be during his time on the show. The characters are so opposite of each other that it's going to be really fun to see how they interact in scenes together.

Entertaining and humorous, the premiere was a great way to kick off the season and I'm really excited to see what's in store for the upcoming episodes. What did you think of John Goodman? And do you think the drama with Pierce is really over?

Community 3.01 "Biology 101" Recap

The cast of Community returned to set this week for season 3 and have been tweeting up a storm about guest star Michael K. Williams (The Wire, Boardwalk Empire). Williams will be playing the groups new intense biology teacher Professor Marshall Kane. Since this casting announcement was made there has been a further two names added to the guest star list; one a huge name and the other a fan favourite from two much beloved but 'cancelled too soon' shows.

John Goodman who is currently appearing in season 4 of Damages, has signed on for at least 6 episodes and will play the vice dean to the only successful program that Greendale runs; the air conditioning repair program. This means that we will be seeing Goodman facing up against Dean Pelton (Jim Rash- who has deservedly been bumped up to season regular). Showrunner Dan Harmon spoke to Vulture about this exciting prospect saying:

"When I heard we were going after Goodman, I got really excited about the idea of Jim Rash and Goodman on camera together."

TVLine has revealed that the other actor who has signed on as a guest star is Freaks and Geeks and Party Down hero Martin Starr. Starr is slated to appear in the second episode of season 3 as a poly-sci professor and project advisor who will show us into the world of Model United Nations simulations. This sounds like a class that will provide some very interesting and funny scenarios as some of these characters are anything but diplomatic. In another Community connection Starr has recently shot the film Save the Date with Allison Brie (Annie). Starr is only signed on for one episode but there is a chance that he will return at a later date. All three of these guest stars seem like superb choices and I'm very much looking forward to seeing them interact in the world of GCC.

Some other details about season 3 emerged from the Community Comic Con panel including;

• Troy (Donald Glover) and Abed (Danny Pudi) will be moving in together. Abed was reluctant to have this big commitment at the end of season 1; will his fears be correct or will they have endless fun with activities such as fake morning shows and blanket forts?
• Episodes that are in development include another Halloween adventure and one that involves multiple timelines.
• They will address why the group would still want to hang out with Pierce (Chevy Chase) despite his really awful behaviour.
• The Annie/Abed kiss was not given too much weight as it was just Abed's Han Solo moment.
• Chang (Ken Jeong) will get some of his power back in season 3 (Harmon told TV Guide that Chang would get to become a security guard this season). The idea is of Chang as this Gollum like figure and in this case it's as if Gollum got to keep the ring in The Lord of the Rings.

Dan Harmon also revealed some other interesting spoilers for season 3 to TV Guide including an overview of what each character will face this year. Britta (Gillian Jacobs) will finally figure what she wants to do with her life and pick a major. Annie will do battle with both a new rival and herself, will we be seeing 'Little Annie Adderall'? Pierce has to atone for his previous misdemeanors and this conflict will be addressed in the season premiere. Troy faces a personal battle as he is torn between his talent for plumbing and another not yet revealed occupation. After her reconciliation with her husband and new baby, Shirley (Yvette Nicole Brown) will evolve this year and like Britta, will make decisions about her life. Abed will see the downside to his disconnection, Harmon says that:

"We've seen lots of him being a superhero in his disconnection, and I want to see what the price of that disconnection is sometimes, in stories that challenge him more."

This will be a big year for Jeff (Joel McHale) as it looks like we might meet his father (dream casting?). As seen in "Intermediate Documentary Filmmaking" this is a very touchy subject for Jeff and a possible reason for his flippant attitude toward relationships. Harmon explains that this is a big season in the evolution of Jeff:

"The third chapter for him is going to be the toughest of all. When you love people, their pain is your pain. Nobody likes having to deal with hassles more than Jeff Winger, and nobody's going to have to deal with more this year."

With these guest stars and this insight from Harmon regarding the direction of season 3, I am more than ready to go back to Greendale. Roll on September and the new term.

Community season 3 premieres Thursday, September 22 on NBC. The DVD of season 2 is released September 6.

Community Season 3 Casting News and Spoilers

Last year, Community star Joel McHale was one of the announcers of the 2010 Emmy nominations.  This year, he generally agreed to give the 2011 co-announcer Melissa McCarthy (Mike & Molly and Bridesmaids) tips on how to be the best darn Emmy announcer she can be.

By "tips" I of course mean putting Melissa through a grueling training regimen that involves catching a chicken, becoming desensitized to the cuteness of puppies, and getting punched in the face.

In other words, Joel McHale and Melissa McCarthy bring on the hilarity.

Melissa will be joined by Fringe's Joshua Jackson on the morning of July 14 as the two announce the nominees for the 2011 Emmy Awards.  You can watch the amusing training video below.

clarissa @ tvovermind.com
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Emmy Training Video: Joel McHale Schools Melissa McCarthy

I’m actually not sure how much I have to say about “For A Few Paintballs More.” Clearly, it was a tremendously fun episode with a number of great gags and lines, but it had less stylistic and narrative depth than last week’s first part, which is most certainly fine. I’ve written about this series a lot this season and would prefer to think about the whole season for a bit before really diving into it. I really don’t want to take anything away from this episode because it was still fairly awesome. I laughed a lot, I smiled a lot and the ending was more than I could have ever expected.

That’s where we have to begin, right? For most of the season, Pierce has been an antagonist, someone who has disrupted the group dynamics and “togetherness” with his pettiness, his drug problem and his general Pierce-ness. Dan Harmon has been doing the usual post-season round of interviews and he’s said some really interesting things about the Pierce character and his role in the series. In the EW piece with Harmon, he mentions that he never officially planned more than six episodes ahead and that Pierce’s role in the season was perhaps more defined by the need for a weekly villain than anything else. But clearly Harmon paid attention to how he was using Pierce, which allowed him to craft the narratives of these last few episodes where those weekly build-ups now create a larger picture of awfulness as far as Pierce is concerned. I don’t need my sitcoms to have a season-long plan, but I like what Harmon said here.

In any event, I think we were all waiting for Pierce’s big redemptive moment, which actually altered the way we were viewing the story to begin with. Pierce was so terrible for so long that it seemed like there was absolutely no way that the series could redeem him in a satisfying and believable way. That’s where so much of the frustration came from. We knew what was coming, but couldn’t really fathom how the series would get there. Fortunately, it seems like Harmon and his team knew that from the beginning, as Pierce’s “redemption” in “For A Few Paintballs More” does not come in the way that I expected. Sure, Pierce ends up officially winning the paintball tournament for Greendale, saving the school and looking like something of a hero. But just as the group has finally realized all those things we already know — they’re miserable people who need one another, no matter how annoying they can each get — Pierce has had enough. Pierce has been such a sad-sack all season, but his speech about going to Greendale for 12 years and pushing people away was so tremendously honest (albeit a bit on the nose). Pierce apparently acts the way he does so that people will just go away before they can really reject him, but the study group didn’t do that, so their eventually rejection hurt really badly. He’s still an asshole and I’m not sure his speech can really forgive that at all, but at least there is some major rationale behind that. We’ve been wondering all season why the group would hang out with Pierce, but that street goes both ways. He’s had enough and now he’s left the group.

I have to be honest, I couldn’t believe how well that ending worked. As I wrote about in a piece for yesterday, this whole season has really been about the end of the honeymoon phase for the group and what it means when everyone realizes they don’t like the person sitting next to them as much as they thought. The group has been fractured from the very beginning (since that fight in the study room in the premiere) and instead of dealing with the group-wide problems, it feels like Jeff and company just blamed it all on Pierce. That was the easy thing to do. But now he’s gone and I wonder how quickly it will take the group to realize that he wasn’t the only problem. He might have been the loudest one, but things aren’t going to be smooth from here. I thought Chevy was very good last week, but he was even better in that final scene. I’ve seen a lot of Chevy Chase’s work over the years, but that might have been his best dramatic work ever. Pierce is still awful (Harmon even said that he isn’t interested in making him “better”), but in that scene, I totally understood his perspective. ALL of these people are awful, just in varying degrees. I want to watch the whole season again to see how right I am, but I think the Pierce arc ended up working fairly well. There were some spots that probably could have used some contextualization, but with this ending, I’m ultimately satisfied with how it was handled. We were skeptical of the series pulling us in with a happy ending to the arc and they did the exact opposite, that’s kind of impressive.

Moreover, Pierce out of the group could mean so many great things for the series next season. It would give Harmon and company even more of an excuse to make him a flat-out villain (which critics and fans might embrace as well). He could team up with Chang, StarBurns and any number of the group’s quasi-enemies to really try to make them all suffer. And again, having him out of the group also means interesting things for the group dynamics as well. Who becomes Jeff and Britta’s scapegoat now (Well, except the escape goat from season 1, obviously)? Do people have less patience for Abed, or even Troy now? What about Shirley, who will probably be spending less time with the group next season because of her baby? The possibilities are sort of endless, which makes this decision even more intelligent.

As for the rest of the episode, I really don’t have that much to say. The episode smartly touched on but didn’t hammer home the Star Wars parallels and basically just relied on the charm of the Greendale universe. From Leonard and Garrett to StarBurns and Magnitude, this series has quickly established a large stable of recurring characters who populate this zany, wacky world (not unlike The Simpsons) who are just as fantastic as the main cast. Magnitude’s “death sequence” was probably my favorite part of the episode, with Leonard’s speech about participating in “a few real wars” coming in a close second. Because of that deep bench, this episode could be less about plot or pop culture homages and more about hanging out with awesome characters. I fully approve. And I cannot wait for season three.

Other thoughts:

• Annie really has a problem with kissing study group members in finales. Poor Troy.
• I thought for a second there that Britta was going to win the game by herself, thus putting a nice button on the “YOU ARE THE WORST” stuff, but I’m still okay with Britta just being the worst.
• Troy and Jeff’s power struggle was a nice little nod to Troy’s development this season. Troy came into his own this season and is probably the series’ most “heroic” character. He tries so hard.
• Jeff’s speech about Denny’s and the subsequent “Denny’s is for winners” had me stitches, for really no apparent reason.
• Cougar Town crossover!

Community 2.24 "For A Few Paintballs More" Review

Sequels suck.

That’s not always true, but it’s at least usually true.* Whether due to poor planning on the producers’ part or a shockingly high level of expectations from the audiences, there’s just something empty about coming back for seconds. So when it was announced that the Community team was doing a follow-up to last season’s epic “Modern Warfare,” I can imagine that most of the series’ super-persnickety fans flinched a bit. And they had every right to do so. That episode is so perfect on almost every single level that trying to top it seems like an insane and misguide proposition.

*Recent exceptions: Spider-Man 2, The Dark Knight. Soon-to-be not exceptions: The Hangover Part II.

Which is of course why Dan Harmon and his team didn’t actually make a sequel to “Modern Warfare.” Yes, “A Fistful of Paintballs” does include an end-of-the-year paintball game that quickly gets out of hand in a way that only things can get out of hand at Greendale. And yes, there are not-so-subtle nods to how this awful thing is happening yet again. But from the outset, “Fistful” doesn’t really feel like it’s trying to top anything. It relies on a more narrow (and therefore deeper) group of popular culture codes and touchstones and mostly nails its coverage of the spaghetti western genre (at least from my moderately flimsy knowledge of the genre). The teaser sequence, the opening credits and the little nicknames for each character were very well done and I will never complain about an episode of this series that puts Troy in a yellow “cowboy” outfit that even Doc Brown wouldn’t buy for Marty McFly and Annie in whatever you want to call that glorious number.

Moreover, this is an episode that is extremely confident in its framework, so much so that it’s actually a more successful story on the character level than “Warfare” ever was or pretended to be. The Community team already knows how to do a paintball episode so they don’t have to show that off and I was surprised at the amount of interesting character stuff this first-half of a planned two-parter works in. The genre conventions actually benefit the story tremendously, perhaps even more so than those in “Warfare.”

I think we can all agree that even though last year’s paintball festivities told us a nice Jeff and Britta story, what’s displayed here with Annie and Pierce is much, much better. The series’ “Pierce Problem” has been talked to death over the last 10 episodes and even if the series doesn’t figure out a way to really make all those horrible things he did earlier in the season seem “OK,” I have to give them lots of props for actually trying to do so. His actions here are in stark contrast to how he operated during the first paintball game. There, he was willing to throw StarBurns under the bus so that he could join up with Abed, Jeff and Troy. This year? He builds his own crew and doesn’t stop there, as he takes over the cafeteria, stock piles paintballs and forces Garret and Fat Neal’s crush to dance for Twinkies. He’s in full-bore villain mode here, but much like the Dungeons & Dragons episode, this episode (or at least this half) needs him to be.

And yet, there’s still even more actually going on there. Pierce does all of this because he’s tired of the way the group has treated him this year, which they of course think he deserves. The frantic, lawless world of paintball is really the perfect place for this season’s biggest story to manifest and “Fistful” handles all of that masterfully. When it’s revealed that the group actually voted to kick Pierce out of the group and he subsequently fakes a heart attack to which they can’t even respond to, it crystallizes how far this relationship has fallen. Troy notes that they’re always nice to Pierce, but clearly they’re not. But he’s also been extremely terrible and petty in response to their “niceness.” Bringing in the Dark Rider (wonderfully embodied with the right mix of cool and straight-forward badassery by Lost‘s Josh Holloway) to respond with fear and shock to Pierce’s “heart attack” while the group stands around incredulous is just a fantastic touch. He’s horrible and they’re just barely less horrible. As Annie says, they’re family. They don’t get to pick.

Speaking of Annie, her place as the heroine of this story was a really smart move. She’s the youngest and most earnest, but also the one who hasn’t been out in the real world long enough to be as jaded as Jeff and Britta are about their lack of familial connections. She’s clearly got issues with her parents because of her pill addiction and she’s being completely honest when she says that the study group is her family. We saw her apartment back in “Mixology,” it’s truly awful. In that episode, we also saw how Annie doesn’t feel comfortable in her own skin yet, but the place where she feels the most comfortable is with the group.

In her loneliness, Annie can relate to Pierce the most. He talks about having nothing once summer rolls around and for the most part, Annie’s in the same boat. Troy and Abed have one another, Shirley has a new kid to take care of and Jeff and Britta don’t seem like the summer hang kind of people. All she has is that terrible apartment to go to and at 19 or 20, she can’t deal with it being it. In a way, she doesn’t want to become Pierce and when that’s combined with her inherent desire to do the right thing, she’s going to try her damnedest to keep Pierce in the group. No matter who it pisses off in the interim. Which of course makes Pierce’s in-game betrayal even worse.

I have to say, I think Alison Brie and Chevy Chase did their best work of the season here. Brie obviously gets to play the super-hot bad-ass version of her character that we’ve never really seen before, but I thought she played some of the quieter moments really well too. Chevy is Chevy, but the ways in which he toggled between Evil Pierce and Evil Because I’m Sad Pierce was impressive. I’ve been much more sympathetic to Pierce throughout the season for whatever reason, but I have to believe that even the most skeptical of the character and the story will find him much more appealing here (even in his awfulness) and that’s primarily because of Chase’s performance.

Of course, this is only part-one of a two-parter. After their final confrontation here, the group is presumably now going to have to work together to fight this mysterious evil coming for them. That’s the perfect way to strengthen the bonds between them, but I have to imagine it won’t be that easy. But I’m sure it will be very, very awesome.

Other thoughts:

• The episode sneaked in a few other season-long beats: Chang’s desire to find any group to bring him in (and his ability to screw over the past group) and to a lesser extent, Jeff and Abed’s relationship. Okay, I’m reaching with that one, but I loved that they were teaming up during the paintball game. I just need to know they’re hanging out.
• Pierce’s “Wanted: Gay and Alive” poster for Jeff was awesome.
• Very, very little for Britta and Troy to do in this episode. Understandable, but disappointing. Did Britta even say anything this week?
• Why hasn’t USA built a series around Josh Holloway yet? That dude is a TV star. Period.
• It’s worth mentioning Alison Brie’s outfit again. GOOD LORD.

Community 2.23 "A Fistful of Paintballs" Review

In light of last week’s very funny episode of Community, there’s been some discussion about the series’ desire to tell us about the emotional connectedness between these people instead of showing it. That’s a criticism I can totally see and if there’s one thing I would knock about this season it would be that sometimes amid all the amazing high-concepts, it’s hard to just let these people be real friends with real heart. I’m fully aware that this isn’t the comedy for everyone, it just happens to be the comedy for me. But I will be interested to see how some of those people critical of an episode like last week’s feel about “Applied Anthropology and Culinary Arts.” This isn’t an overly complicated episode, but it has a number of really solid, straightforward emotional beats, something we haven’t seen from the series for most of this season. I still have some issues with the places that those emotions are coming from, but we can discuss that further below.

So before we get to the two-part western paintball bonanza at the end of the season, the study group needs to have their Anthropology final and Shirley needs to have her baby. After Duncan tries to make the final all about drinking and easy questions, Dean Pelton comes in with a reporter from Dean Magazine, delaying the fun. Fortunately for the group, they don’t have to take a real final because Shirley kicks into labor and you can imagine and insanity that could ensue from that development. After pumping up “natural births” during the exam, Britta’s forced to head into action and actually help with one while Chang stands by Shirley’s side trying to convince her that the baby is most certainly his.

This is, without a doubt, Ken Jeong’s best work on the series. He’s only been asked to play a few notes on the series and even the sad-sack routine this season has been mostly been a dialed down version of his season one character. But in this episode, he’s actually very strong. At the beginning of the episode, his rants about Shirley’s baby being his and his various trivia nuggets about Chang babies — they love the sauce, meaning alcohol and duck — are typical, annoying Chang. But as the pregnancy unfolds and it’s clear that Andre might not show up in time, Chang is there to support Shirley. His endless footnotes about the terrible conditions in which Chang babies have been born becomes soothing and sort of charming. The episode allows for Shirley and Chang to share their first real moments, since well, ever and it’s actually very nice. We always know that Shirley has forgiveness in her heart, but it was great to see her embrace Chang and his eccentricities. Similarly, it was very nice to have Chang dial it down when it mattered and serve as something as a hero in a moment of crisis. Their interactions here had no ulterior motives or unnecessary references, they were straightforward and honest, which is totally welcome.

However, I have to ask: What was the point of all this? Shirley already has two kids so it’s not as if this is really a new development in her life. Andre wasn’t around enough to really develop that relationship to the degree that we totally care about how the child has brought them back together. He’s not going to become a regular. Shirley is still the same person now that she was pre-pregnancy and the only thing I can think of this doing is forcing her away from the group early next season, which could be an interesting development. And for Chang, the questions are sort of the same. At the beginning of the season, there was an obvious intent to tinker with the character, but that sort of got lost, whether because Ken Jeong had to go film The Hangover Part II or the writers realized it wasn’t a worthwhile plot point. Chang has certainly calmed a bit over the season and he’s most certainly a great guy in this episode, but it’s really unclear how the pregnancy will impact him. He’s no longer tethered to Shirley and the responsibility, so that won’t necessarily mean he’s going to stay this way. I don’t want to call the whole plotline a waste because I found certain episodes that discussed it to be very good (including this one), but it’s definitely a bit head-scratching. Sometimes I probably give the writers too much credit, so perhaps this was just a basic plot they wanted to do put in there because it would provide some solid laughs, and nothing more. I guess that’s fine.

Elsewhere in the episode, Jeff and Britta continued their antagonistic debating, this time over the value of natural birth. It was pretty obvious from the beginning of the story that Britta was going to have to actually help Shirley with her natural birth, but that didn’t make the story any less effective. The second half of the season has been much more Britta-heavy and that’s a welcome thing in the Barker household. I’ve talked about how she’s such a difficult character to work into plots, but I love how the series has just decided to smash her in and let her screw things up on a consistent basis. It’s sort of one-note, but in the best of ways. She fails, but not in catastrophic ways (most of the time), and I really loved that she actually got the job done here. Jeff and Britta are always going to fight and then realize they’re both mostly fraudulent, but that’s one of the series’ best qualities.

Finally, I have to say that the little runner with Troy, Abed and Pierce with the handshake was one of my favorite small plots of the season. Pierce is yet again the villain, but not in a terribly vicious way. His indecent proposal to Troy and Abed felt like something Pierce would have done in season one, which is I guess progress for a character/person who has been very, very terrible all season. And of course, all of Pierce’s actions come from a place of jealousy anyway, so this story was a nice little reminder of that.

Although I don’t quite understand the reasoning behind the plot to begin with, this was a really great conclusion to Shirley’s pregnancy and a nice platform for both Ken Jeong and Yvette Nicole Brown.

Other thoughts:

• The Dean’s struggles with the race kerfuffle was hilariously awesome. Can we go ahead and make Jim Rash a regular?
• I loved the small nods in this episode: Star Burns and others looking back fondly on the time the group took a field trip on St. Patrick’s Day (which we saw last week!), Fat Neal finding love with a young lady in the class.
• Ben Bennett is really a horrible name.

Community 2.22 "Applied Anthropology and Culinary Arts" Review

Note: I’m at a conference and running on a bit of wonky sleep schedule, so I’m going to cut this one a bit short. I could just write, “IT’S AMAZINGLY FUNNY.” and move on, but I’m a professional. I mean amateur. You get it.

I spend a lot of time in my Community reviews talking about the series’ ability to mix big parody episodes and popular culture references with some legitimate heart, and I still believe that is something the series can do. Without the emotional center, the series could look like mostly all structure and framework, which is off-putting to some and I can see why. But in the case of an episode like “Paradigms of Human Memory,” I’m not sure it matters if there’s any heartfelt moments at the center. In fact, I think I’d be willing to argue that this episode works best because it makes fun of the fact that the series is sometimes too-reliant on the patented Winger speech to pull in the obvious emotional bows. Because of that and so many other things, “Paradigms of Human Memory” is most certainly the most overtly hilarious episode of Community. There might be technically “better” episodes, episodes with some real heart and complicated character development somewhere in the middle, but this one is just flat-out, balls-to-the-wall funny. I watched this one with a group of people, feel like I missed a few small bits and still cannot stop thinking about it.

There’s really no reason for me to explain the gritty details of this episode. Chances are that if you’re reading this post, you’ve seen the episode. But in general, “Human Memory” is the much-anticipated “parody” of another one of television’s classic staples: the clip show. But instead of lazily showing us capital-H Hilarious moments from past episodes and seasons as a way to reflect, remember or whatever it was that The Office was trying to do last season with its clip show, Community went out and shot brand-new sequences and scenes, both from episodes/stories we’ve already seen and things we had never, ever heard about previously. So if you thought the study group being part of a legitimate zombie outbreak on Halloween was crazy, you’re not going to believe that they have done the following in their second year together at Greendale:

• Been to a ghost town where they met racist cowboys
• Stayed the night in a haunted house
• Taken part in some sort of steam engine festivities
• Partaken in Free Caesar Salad Day in the cafeteria
• Talked Pierce off library bookshelves
• Gone camping
• Been on a raft during St. Patrick’s Day
• Watched the Dean continuously wear one ridiculous costume after another
• Replaced the recently killed Glee club and won a trophy
• Taken a class on cutting men’s hair (at least Troy and Jeff)
• Been institutionalized

Throw in some glorious nods and commentary about the Jeff/Annie shippers (complete with a dueling Abed/Pierce shipping video montage), the realization that Jeff and Britta have sleeping with one another since at least Halloween and Troy has been abstaining from self-pleasure for the good of the group, and you have one amazing sequence after another about this group’s insanely wild year. But it gets better. Instead of trying to tie everything together with an uplifting Winger speech about how the group will always come back together in the end, this episode does exactly that, only inter-cuts it with 15 other uplifting Winger speeches that have ultimately changed nothing, thus pointing out how futile and temporary all of his speeches are.

We of course know that these people won’t suddenly hate one another and never talk again because of this series’ framework, but it is nice to see this sharper version of the series where things aren’t okay, but everyone’s just sort of fine with it because they have no other real options. These people do some really horrible things to one another and just because Jeff slept next to Pierce in the hospital in “Intermediate Documentary Filmmaking” or Shirley forgave Abed for turning the entire school into psycho religious zealots to point out the stupidity of religion doesn’t mean the initial actions weren’t misguided at best, very, very terrible at worst. I love the series’ heart and the Winger speeches as much as anyone, but sometimes it does ring a little false. Just be reminded that the series can do an episode like this, with such creativity and zeal, puts the biggest smile on my face.

And again, this episode IS HILARIOUS. I could spend tons of words and time writing out all of my favorite lines and bits, but it’s just not worth your time or mine. This episode is so good it must be experienced, not explained, in any detail. Fantastic.

Community 2.21 "Paradigms of Human Memory" Review

I’ll just go ahead and put this out there: “Competitive Wine Tasting” is probably my least favorite episode ofCommunity‘s second season and quite possibly my least favorite episode OF ALL TIME. Of course, it’s still better than a lot of television out there and if I were giving it a grade, it would still get a B-, but this ultimately fails because it has too many good ideas that it doesn’t really do anything with. In short, this episode is overstuffed, but undercooked.

While I often enjoy it when the cast of characters is separated into their own fun stories, I much prefer the version of the series where the whole group gets together to do something, or at least swirls around the outside of one major event. “Wine Tasting” has just a bit of that, but only insomuch that it requires all the characters to be in a room for a few riffs and reaction shots. For the most part, this episode is divided into three wholly interesting, but completely underdeveloped stories: One involves Pierce deciding to get married to a Chinese woman from he and Jeff’s wine tasting class and Jeff’s subsequent investigation; One involves Troy and Britta taking an acting class and Troy making up terrible stories in hopes of hooking up with Britta and the final one sees Abed take a Who’s The Boss class and butt heads with the professor.

If for some reason you haven’t the episode and you’re reading that series of threads, you’re probably thinking, “Hmm, that all sounds good” and you know what, I totally agree with you. I would watch an episode ofCommunity built around one of those stories, or maybe even just two of them, but smashing all three of them together in 21 minutes just doesn’t really work. Even in their truncated versions, all these stories have their high points and are certainly far from bad, but the potential is so obvious that discarding it ultimately means disappointment. If anything, I walked away from this episode disappointed that the writers wasted all three of these good ideas on this episode and presumably can’t really return to them in the same way. Of course, it’s very possible that all these ideas were major plots for an entire episode that the writers didn’t feel like they could really sustain for more. That’s why they produce television and I do not.

But again, I don’t want to sound too negative because really the only complaint I have is how short and underdeveloped everything appears to be. With season spending so much time breaking Pierce down, I’m totally ready for episodes that build him up and try to make him a bit more sympathetic. This episode’s plot, wherein he quickly decides to get married but Jeff ultimately discovers his bride-to-be is just using him to take over the Chinese moist towelette market, is one that I find to be very appealing. I want to see more Pierce, especially less-awful Pierce who actually makes Jeff look like a fool.

Despite Jeff “officially” doing the right thing by protecting Pierce, I like the episode allows Pierce to point out Jeff’s reasons for doing so (i.e. he was jealous that the woman had initially turned him down). The series wants us to recognize that Jeff and Pierce are cut from the same cloth and so it makes sense that Pierce would smartly see through Jeff’s motives and ultimately, be sad about it. The Pierce in this episode is more self-aware than we’ve seen him throughout most of this season and although I think the series could have done a better job of transitioning between his drug-addled phase and this version of the character, I really, really liked the way Chevy played that final moment. Pierce is alone, he’s been through the ringer lately and so of course he wants the attention of an attractive woman. This episode doesn’t come close to apologizing or proving the worth of the whole Evil Pierce arc, but it nicely points out that sometimes it really sucks to be him, even when the group is trying to help.

The B and C stories were even more undercooked, which is just really unfortunate. The series has been hinting at a possible Troy-Britta pairing for a good while now and it was nice for just the two of them to share time together for really the first time since their dance class days (which gets a nice shout-out here). As usual with Britta stories, I liked how the episode makes clear what her flaws are and how they’re going to impact this story. But instead of making her out to be a massive fool, like she has been in recent episodes, I appreciated that Abed quickly tried to cut Troy’s plan to bed Britta off early. Everyone, even Abed, knows that Britta loves headcase men and as soon as Troy makes up the story about his uncle touching his butt,* there’s really a quick-moving clock ticking down to when Britta is going to try to kiss him. Much like how Britta’s history always permeates in her stories, this thread did a fine job of reminding us about Troy’s desire to get more ladies this season. Again, it’s a small nod and the story is still not as good as it could be, but I like the little beat there.

*Based on our previous knowledge of Troy’s odd affinity for butts and “butt stuff,” are we sure that he is, in fact, making this story up? I’d imagine his affinity for “butt stuff” just spurred him to then make up a story about said stuff. Butts are always on his mind.

Finally, Abed and Who’s The Boss. This plot has been out there in the media for a while now and perhaps it’s just that or the fact that I’m a television studies graduate student and would absolutely take this class, but I was mostly disappointed with the thread. I did enjoy the slight commentary on the value (or lack thereof) of heavily analyzing television and it makes total sense that Abed would be so knowledgeable that he could break things down into a specific scientific formula that answers the age-old question of who is the boss, but there was literally not one beat in the story that surprised at all. There were just three short scenes and ultimately it’s a harmless runner, but the TV studies student/nerd in me would have preferred at least two more scenes. But again, I’m not sure what the real value would have been in that, outside of my personal desires.

I imagine this is the last “normal” episode before the final three episodes, all of which should be bigger and perhaps more “unique” or whatever and in a season of 24 episodes, you have to have 4-5 episodes like this. I’m fine with that, even if I do believe all three of these stories could have sustained more on their own. Oh well.

Community 2.20 "Competitive Wine Tasting" Review

When I knew that “Critical Film Studies” was reportedly going to include a lot of Pulp Fiction references I was a bit worried that my general ambivalence (and thus lack of real knowledge) towards that film would mean I wouldn’t enjoy this episode as much as I could have. I wasn’t necessarily concerned about not understanding the narrative, but perhaps I’d miss a few moments that would really make it. Or something. Of course, those fears were really, really stupid. First of all, I should have known that Community always figures out a way to hit my sweet spot and no matter my knowledge, I’d enjoy the episode. Secondly, it wouldn’t matter if Pulp Fiction was my most favorite movie of all-time because “Critical Film Studies” isn’t actually a parody or riff on that film at all. Instead, somehow this episode figures out how to produce perhaps it’s most overt and complete parody of one text even though that text is a moderately known film from 1981 that I’d imagine at least 79 percent of the series’ audience has never, ever seen. And you know what? It might just be the best episode of the season.

Even though Community is most well-known for its pop culture references and zany concept episodes, I and a lot of other people have been arguing that all those things work so well because the characters have such an interesting and wonderful connection. My favorite episodes are “Contemporary American Poultry” and “Mixology Certification” because they emphasize those connections, especially when it comes to Abed and his issues. This is a guy who might only relate to people on a popular culture reference level, but sometimes, that’s actually better than what he might think a “real” connection is. Not all connections are as real as they seem and sometimes, your best friends might be the people who share the most “basic” of connections with: The people you work with, people in a class, etc. So even if Jeff and Abed and Troy only get along because of their pop culture interests, that doesn’t make those connections any less “real.”

“Critical Film Studies” explores these ideas in substantial detail while keeping very close to the riffing of My Dinner with Andre and building an entire portion of that plot around a character’s love for another comedy currently on the air. In a lot of ways, this feels like a sequel to “Contemporary American Poultry.” That episode saw Jeff and Abed make a really great connection and pact to make sure to help one another become better versions of themselves, and really, better “normal” people. Because even though Abed is the most noticeably weird and “out there” character in the group, Jeff has his fair share of issues as well, ones that keep him from being a totally well-functioning human being. But even though that episode was so fantastically written, directed and acted, Jeff and Abed haven’t really hung out that much in season two, or at least haven’t done so on-screen. Abed’s been enjoying his time with Troy and Jeff is usually wasting his time arguing with Britta or flirting with Annie. This is absolutely fine, but I’ve kind of missed the Jeff-Abed relationship and I’m very happy that this episode made it a point to suggest the writers and the characters feel exactly the same way. Jeff’s initial voice-over discusses the events of “Abed’s Uncontrollable Christmas,” but it also subtly hints at the fact that Jeff hasn’t really lived up to his word from the end of “Poultry.” He promised that he’d help Abed through not only the big issues like losing touch with his mother, but the smaller day-to-day stuff that makes living manageable. Abed is one of the best people on the planet and I think Jeff recognizes that he’s let him down. And so, he tries to throw him a sizable and cool Pulp Fiction-themed birthday party.

Unfortunately for Jeff, Abed has other plans. He shows up in a Mr. Roger’s sweater, refuses to talk in pop culture references and then explains that after a glorious, yet traumatic experience on the set of one of his favorite series Cougar Town, Abed realizes that he can’t build his life around popular culture anymore. He needs real life, he needs real conversation. Shocked by this turn of events, Jeff tries to manage Abed’s expectations of real life with a pathetically honest story about how he calls sex hot lines and tells the women he’s fat just so they’ll make him feel good anyway and also divulges a terrible story about his mother dressing him up as a girl for Halloween when he was young.

For a few minutes there I thought Jeff was making all of this up as to show Abed that real life conversations aren’t fun, they aren’t honest and they aren’t really, well, real. It seemed like a somewhat mean, but effective Winger thing to do. But instead, the episode pulled the rug out from under my feet by having Abed be the one putting on a role the whole time. It turns out that he just really wanted to act out an homage to the somewhat obscure, but respected film My Dinner With Andre and also spend some quality time with Jeff while he was at it. As he mentions, Abed’s never going to take Jeff hanging out with other people personally. Abed knows who he is and understands that people will probably grow tired of him and ultimately (read:sadly) leave him. But that doesn’t mean he can’t come with super-elaborate riffs on random movies so that he spend one good night with someone he considers a really great friend. It’s weird and twisted and confusing, but that’s life and people come with all sorts of weird rationalizations for why or how they should hang out with their friends. Abed’s just happens to involve acting out pieces of his favorite films.

I’m not sure where this leaves Jeff and Abed exactly. Abed has accidentally called Jeff out on breaking his promise from the end of “Contemporary American Poultry,” but he’s not necessarily upset about it. I’d have to imagine that Jeff’s own guilt about the situation beforehand will only be exacerbated now, which means he might spend a lot more time trying to be the friend that Abed deserves. And really, Jeff deserves someone like Abed as well. He might not be able to share his own personal experiences in a normal way, but Abed’s proven time and time again that he’s a great listener. For whatever reason, he brings out the honesty in Jeff that really no one else does and Mr. Winger probably needs that if he’s going to continue to grow and change and maybe even mature — even if he thinks it’s overrated.

I’ll be interested to see how people respond to this episode. The fans were mixed on “Mixology” and this one feels similar in tone and subject matter. They might be especially angry because of how the episode subverts expectations in relation to the much discuss Pulp Fiction side of the story. In any event, I love how “Contemporary American Poultry” kind of opened the door for all the really fantastically sad and compelling episodes of season two. That one was more overtly appealing with the Goodfellas homages and even though “Critical Film Studies” is perhaps even more overt in its homage-ness, it’s less showy and probably interesting. I just love this series.

Other thoughts:

• Even though it wasn’t as integral as the promos and fluffy news stories suggested, the Pulp Fiction stuff was really great. Troy and Chang were required to carry a lot of the comedic weight and Donald Glover and Ken Jeong handled it well. The costumes were fitting and well put-together and the suitcase gag was about as well-executed as you could imagine. There were probably some little nods and moments that I did miss since I don’t really care for the film, but I liked it nonetheless.
• After a big plot last week, Britta has less to do and is almost as effective in this one. It’s always nice to find out little non-Greendale related things about the characters and I am unbelievably unsurprised that Britta works at a retro dinner. Also fantastic? Her 3-D vision comment and Annie’s realization that just about everyone hates Britta.
• Another light week for Chevy Chase and Pierce, but his dialogue in the teaser and the Gimp outfit were probably enough. He doesn’t really belong in an episode like this.
• I didn’t mention it up-top, but I have to point out how fantastic Danny Pudi was in this episode. His transformation to the “normal” Abed was very, very well done in such a way that it felt both 100 percent believable and completely and utterly weird. Great stuff.
• Thanks Community, I now just miss Cougar Town more.

Community 2.19 "Critical Film Studies" Review

I have been criticized, both online and in-person, for being totally in the tank for Community. Readers, friends, family, whomever they all just assume I adore every single episode of Community and perhaps I have lost all of my ability to review the series “objectively.” Of course, I hate to break it to everyone, but objectivity is a lie. Obviously, I’m going to praise episodes of Community that I like and really praise ones that I adore. If you don’t like them, that’s absolutely fine with me and I think I’ve been pretty open with the fact that this is a series that hits all of my comedy sweet-spots. Clearly I want you to keep reading the site as much as possible, but if you think my Community reviews are garbage and bias, that’s your right. Just like it’s my right to FREAKING LOVE EVERYTHING.

Anyway, I say all that to preface my fairly delayed review of “Custody Law and Eastern European Diplomacy,” an episode that I found fairly entertaining but not particularly fantastic or anything. This is probably my second least favorite episode of the season — “Celebrity Pharmacology” takes those honors — but that’s still like picking between all my theoretical children or something. I’ve seen various comments on Twitter about the scale of just how disappointing this episode was and I think at this point, some folks are expecting too much. There have been some all-time classics in season two of Community and whenever the series takes its foot off the gas just a bit like it has in a number of the recent episodes AND THEN critics and wannabe critics like me still like the episode, there’s an assumption we’re being too easy. I’m not trying to call anyone out, but maybe folks are actually being too harsh and having too high expectations that every episode of the series is going to be at the “Modern Warfare” or even “Mixology” levels. It’s just not, those are the realities of American broadcast television in the 21st century and I’m fine with that. I can see why some people might not have enjoyed “Custody Law,” especially the Jeff-Shirley-Chang plot, but I enjoyed the 21 minutes I spent with the series this week and even if I think this is a low-B kind of episode, that’s not the worst thing in the entire world.

Now that I’ve officially criticized the criticisms of both the fandom and the reviewers, let’s actually talk about the episode. Like I said in the last paragraph, I think it is really obvious where the strength of this episode was and that’s with the Britta-Troy-Abed story. She’s not the most popular character in online circles, but I kind of adore Britta and I think she’s been sidelined a bit this year because she doesn’t fit as easily into so many of the series’ plots. I think it was Todd Van Der Werff who noted that Britta’s desire to NOT be part of stuff hurts her when the series wants to do paintball or something, whereas Annie’s desire to DO ANYTHING makes her a more obviously likable and appealing lead or supporting player in the various hijinks. But I appreciate that instead of sacrificing the character’s best qualities, the writers have just decided to not use Britta as much this year and save her for really fun plots like the lesbian friend stuff from the Valentine’s Day episode or what we see here with her courting of Troy and Abed’s new friend Luka (played by the gloriously awesome Enver Gjokaj).

The story did a nice job emphasizing Britta’s most annoying qualities — her ability to ruin things, which in this case was Troy and Abed’s male friends — without making her seem like a terrible person. Britta has become more likable as the series has shown her less likable qualities, whereas early in season one when the writers were trying to push Jeff and Britta down our throats, she was infinitely less likable. I know all that took was having all the other characters point out how much Britta sucks and subsequently loving her for that, but it’s been such an effective and entertaining strategy. I would much rather watch a Britta plot like this one, where her desire to do the right thing completely bites her in the ass, instead of having her butt into the lives of the others. I think this is especially well-executed when Britta interacts with characters other than Jeff because there’s of a sense that she’s trying to “make him a better man” or whatever phrasing you want to use to describe the series’ “primary narrative.” With Jeff, it feels like somewhat forced character development (this has occurred a lot less in season two, though), but with Troy and Abed, it just feels like goofy ol’ Britta and her meddling. I hope this makes sense.

The Jeff-Shirley-Chang plot was less successful, and I’m not completely sure why. I think there’s been a weird handling of Shirley’s pregnancy in that we haven’t spent enough time on it for it to really feel like it’s a real thing that is happening so any random plotting by Chang to become a better father feels a bit forced. Early in the season it seemed like this season was going to be Shirley-heavy and then the pregnancy stuff skirted away so that Pierce could become an awful individual and even if I really, really like Yvette Nicole Brown’s work this season and have enjoyed Malcolm-Jamal Warner in his few guest appearances, it seems like maybe we missed an episode or beat with the whole story. I’m not exactly certain what that beat would be and am sure the end of the season is going to focus a lot on Shirley’s pregnancy, but it feels like the series’ writers are a bit worried about putting her completely at the front of the narrative so they wrote this moderately entertaining narrative with her and Jeff. Again, I like the two of those characters together and freaking adore Shirley’s ability to guilt Jeff into anything, but I think the story should have been more about Shirley than the shared weight between she and Jeff.

And Chang is Chang. I’m not sure what’s going on there, but much like Shirley, it appears as though the writers’ early-season intentions have been tinkered with for whatever reason — Jeong’s been off doing The Hangover Part II, for one — and now the character still works, but this isn’t perhaps the best version of him. Like I said, I’m not sure if an entire episode or primary story would work if it were just built around Shirley and Chang without the middle-man, but I think we might need an episode like that in the future to flesh out who these people are going to be when this baby comes and how it’s going to change their life. I mean theoretically, won’t Shirley have to take a semester off to tend to her baby? Is Chang really moving out of Jeff’s apartment? There’s still a lot of questions up in the air and again, that’s totally fine, but those things were nagging at me while I watched this episode.

Despite all that, this feels like a grower. There were a lot of great individually hilarious moments — most notably Britta’s version of what she assumes a Britney Spears song is, Chang spinning around in a circle and Shirley’s “You’re not going to make a pregnant woman…” bit — and this was just generally entertaining. It felt like a middle season one episode and that’s totally fine with me. Despite my issues with “Custody Law and Eastern European Diplomacy” I feel like it will be looked back upon as stronger once we see how the Chang and Shirley story plays out as the season comes to a close.

Community 2.18 "Custody Law and Eastern European Democracy" Review

After last week’s high-concept, high-profile and flat-out fantastic episode of television, it makes sense thatCommunity came back with an episode more in-tune with its basic framework. Well as “basic” as the series can get at this point. There appears to be rumblings of a minor backlash towards the series after the last handful of episodes, whether it’s in reference to the handling of Pierce (most of the rage) or how the series’ ability to tell wildly different stories on a structural level each week (some of the rage) and I have to imagine “Intro to Political Science” calms some of those concerns. Moreover, I can’t really imagine why anyone who really enjoys this series would find this episode disappointing outside of Pierce’s presence (which I’ll get to).* This feels like a classic season one episode in vibe and story, with an additional layer of season two’s structural escapades lathered on top.

*Of course I’ll be the first person to admit that I basically love every single episode of Community and thus am probably fully in the tank for anything it does. I’m less enraged by the handling of Pierce and certainly even less enraged by the fun the writers appear to be having with structure and framework.

In concept, this is a really simple and enjoyable episode. Joe Biden is making a random tour of community colleges and hopes to meet with Dean Pelton and Greendale’s Student Body President. The only problem is there is no student government at Greendale, so Dean Pelton decides to have an emergency debate and election for the position. Or it might all just be an excuse to put on his sister’s Uncle Sam outfit. It’s probably both, and I’m fine with that. In any event, obviously Annie wants to win the election because she’s young, determined and you know, president material. When Jeff mocks her dedicated interest in something so stupid and she gives him the guilt trip, he ultimately decides to face off with her — along with MAGNITUDE (Pop-Pop!), Leonard, Starburns, Garret, Pierce and a girl’s name I can’t remember but that’s certainly the point — to prove a point. Before long, both of them realize and embody the stupidity of politics, from Jeff’s faux-patriotism and ability to switch words around to Anna’s ability to narrow her campaign promises down to one simple phrase.

Listen, I’ll just say it: I kind of adore Jeff and Annie together. That’s probably just residual Alison Brie love, but it’s hard to deny the chemistry between the actors and the characters. The writers know this and so throwing the two of them together in some sort of competition is just too easy. There’s been some discussion about this episode’s similarity to “Debate 109″ and with good reason, but while that episode set the table for the great relationship between Jeff and Annie, this one showed how the two of them have grown much closer since that fateful debate competition. They still bicker and subsequently want to make the other a better person, but there’s more respect there now I think. Jeff wants to show Annie the stupidity of politics because that’s just who Jeff is, it’s nothing remotely personal towards Annie or her dreams. I’m not early S1 Jeff would have had similar feelings towards the whole thing. The plot doesn’t move their relationship forward as much as it reminds us of how awesome said relationship is, and I’m fine with that. I really don’t think Community is ever going to pull the trigger so far and have the two of them date one another exclusively, so it’s not as if I’m looking for rapid development on that front.

Abed’s really the only other character who gets a lot to do here, and his story is just as adorable as Jeff and Annie’s little battle. Because of Biden’s impending presence, the government has sent Secret Service agents to scope out Greendale’s layout, quality of character, number of fire exits, that kind of thing and Abed’s the only one who has noticed them. Once one of the female agents (played by the guesting Eliza Coupe), the two of them begin a little charming flirtation. The two of them bond over their inherent detached outlooks, which just makes me smile. After the miserable experience Abed had to endure when the group went out for drinks in “Mixology Certification,” it’s nice to see the series present him with some hope, even if it does come in the form of a woman who refuses to verbally acknowledge her attraction to him. I think I’d watch an entire series built around this romantic pairing, as she watched him from a surveillance van in the parking lot as he watched a movie. What a date. Again, this is a small, but effective reinforcement of the character’s qualities.

However, for those of us who do enjoy the structural fun that Community provides on a weekly basis, there’s some good stuff going on in “Political Science.” The aforementioned satirizing of the political campaign was fantastically played, as was Troy and Abed being able to act out their hosting dreams as the debate talking head commentators. The debate framework probably could have allowed the episode to push the commentary even further, but sometimes it’s fine to rely on the simple pleasures of Troy and Abed using a voter map with a 98 percent standard of error, Annie’s discovery of Jeff’s Real World: Seattle audition tape and the debate coming to a close with Leonard and MAGNITUDE facing off with dueling catchphrases. You could probably read a whole bunch of political statements into this episode, but it’s not really necessary. Sometimes, the simple pleasures of Community‘s inherent charms are enough for me.

Other thoughts:

• So Pierce. I noted last week that I assumed his “redemption” arc wasn’t over, but this episode kind of suggests otherwise. He’s apparently finished rehab and made some peace with the group, but he’s still having issues in that he only joined the debate so he could basically troll the Plain Jane whose name I cannot remember. Of course, he ended up getting a pencil in the face from that girl, but that still feels like a typical S1-esque Pierce plot. I still want to hold on to the belief that something else is going to happen with Pierce moving forward, but if it is “done” for now, I’m just slightly disappointed. Not as much as some, but still disappointed nonetheless.
• We’ve now reached the part of the review where I mention the things I already said on Twitter: First, I think it’s safe to say that if Jeff Winger were a member of the Real World: Seattle cast, he could have talked Stephen out of smacking Irene in the face. He would not, however, been able to stop David from sleeping with the casting agent. (Seattle is still my favorite Real World, by the way.)
• Other Twitter material: I feel like we should always type MAGNITUDE’s name in all capital letters. He deserves as much.
• Troy’s disappointment over Abed having random individual side adventures was fantastic. As was the teaser, with people carving notches into the desk (Abed: “Classic ‘Winger’s”; Jeff: “Ab Mentions” and Troy “Notches”).
• Light episode for both Britta and Shirley this week, but thankfully the episode found room to let Britta make an awful fool of herself in the election process. Apparently she is no longer the people’s champion.

Community 2.17 "Intro to Political Science" Review

Another week, another fantastic and innovative episode of Community. I feel like I’ve spent so much time writing about the series’ innovations and high-concept episodes and then the next week, Community does it again. I don’t think I was ever convinced that the series’ had a ceiling or a limit to the different kinds of things it could do or stories it could tell, but that doesn’t stop me from being overwhelmed with joy when Dan Harmon and his team pull out episodes like last night’s “Intermediate Documentary Filmmaking.”

In the pre-air discussion, there was a lot of buzz about the documentary/mockumentary style of this episode and for good reason. I don’t think Community is a series that could use that kind of aesthetic framework every week because the world is so expansive and wild that the shooting style wouldn’t work. You could never, ever do something like “Contemporary American Poultry” with an Office or Modern Family aesthetic, though I would have enjoyed to see how something like “Modern Warfare” would have worked as if it were a documentary news crew shooting the “war.” Of course, that would have totally undercut the reality of that episode even more than it already was.

In any event, using this framework, while not applicable for regular episodes, totally works for the narrative of this particular effort. Although we really didn’t recognize it at first, this season has been building to an episode like this. In a short period of time, Pierce has lost his mother, presumably had a fallen out with his cult, broken his legs, got addicted to pain killers and slowly watched himself become more detached from the rest of the group. A good amount of these beats have taken place in the background of episodes, but it’s been very clear that the writers have had an interesting plan for Pierce all season. And so, with the character in the hospital recovering from his overdose and hoping to make everyone in the group feel awful for abandoning him, it makes sense to bring in Abed and the documentary crew.

The normal world of Community wouldn’t really allow for the kind of raw emotions and issues that come up here. It’s not that other episodes avoid emotional moments, but the flow of the episodes don’t have within them the ability to really get inside the characters heads in the way that an edited documentary does. So when Jeff is destroying things in the hospital lobby because he’s freaking out about the possibility of having to see his father for the first time, it’s better that we see that from an edited, distant-but-intimate perspective. In usual Community episodes, Jeff would have just walked to his car to have that freak out and the action might not have followed him in the same way it does here. In short, this episode gives the series an excuse for making the emotions more real and less overtly comedic, which is perfect for an episode with this specific story to tell. And of course, it also allows for some cunning editing wherein Troy can go from flipping out in the dinning area to crying in the bathroom to staring directly in the face of LeVar Burton. Despite all their strengths, normal episodes of the series can blow through big moments like that within a few seconds.

But back to Pierce. Last week, I wondered about where the series was taking the character with the presumption that journey involved a fairly substantial moment of redemption. I didn’t have to wait too long, but I actually really appreciated that the series didn’t allow Pierce’s time in the hospital to serve as the end game. There is a sense at the end of this episode that the characters, especially Pierce and Jeff, have found some common ground, but I still don’t think this is over. That appears to be the biggest complaint about this episode and the season as a whole, but I fully trust the writers to make sure this doesn’t just go away. This episode had references to countless small moments that have developed throughout the season and that suggests to me that the writers have no interest in just tying this off and moving on. It might not be the focus of every episode moving forward, but the tensions with Pierce are not going away. And that’s fine, the group can’t be harmonious at all times.

Pierce’s actions here are arguably worse than anything he’s done before, even if he appears to be more sympathetic in this episode than he was in something like “Advanced Dungeons & Dragons,” which I think is more of a reflection what those two very different episodes needed from the character. Jace Lacob wrote a great piece this morning about why he’s okay with hating Pierce and I fully agree with his assessment. Pierce’s place as an outsider in this group of misfits allows the series to reflect the characters’ less flaws back to themselves and I think that’s a really interesting approach to take and most certainly is interesting from a viewer perspective. I think Pierce has some right to be upset with the group and they have a lot of reasons to be upset with him, but these are people who aren’t going to let someone drift off into the world alone, no matter how much they might be frustrated or angry with him.

Sure, it’s a bit forced and unearned that Jeff is able to come to an understanding with Pierce by the end of this episode, but at the same time, it’s not. If this is a story about Jeff Winger becoming a better person, that narrative requires Jeff to forgive a little bit and also think about what kind of impact his actions have had on people. The two of them have a weird relationship where they both think they’re mentoring or caring for the other and those signals are bound to get crossed, creating a whole bunch of drama. And while I think Pierce’s actions towards the others are still really awful — especially to Troy, Britta and Shirley — I think the group dynamics are so established that if those people can see Jeff attempting to work through his problems with Pierce, they can get on the same path as well.

From my perspective, this arc for Pierce is kind of ballsy. It takes some guts to make one of your lead characters so obviously awful and easily despised without fully trying to manipulate the audience back into thinking that character should be redeemed. I don’t think Pierce is ever going to be redeemed in the traditional sense. He’s always going to be on the outside, even if it’s just outside once the group realizes they have treated him wrongly for a while now. But this is a series about the connections between these seven people and how they need one another, no matter what. Pierce is still apart of that, even if he’s in a dark place and the group may or may not hate him. We’re still mid-way through the journey and I’m very excited to see how it pays off.

Other notes:

• Even though this was a legitimately heavy emotional episode, there were just too many hilarious moments to go right along with that. Donald Glover is rightfully being spotlighted for his work, but Gillian Jacobs was also tremendous here, in both her scenes with Joel McHale and the solo talking head testimonials.
• I love how the series never forgets these characters’ biggest flaws and hang-ups, whether it’s Shirley’s use of guilt as a weapon to Annie’s lofty determination to Britta’s false sense of superiority and humanitarianism.

Community 2.16 "Intermediate Documentary Filmmaking Review"

On the surface, “Early 21st Century Romanticism” doesn’t feel like a complex or ambitious episode. And for the most part, it’s not really. But even though this appears to be a season one-esque episode that is fairly low-key in its approach and execution, there is actually a lot going on. Not only episodes of the series have to be super high-concept or straight-forward like “Celebrity Pharmacology,” and this one has like four different versions of Community within it.

Britta and Troy and Abed’s stories are fairly straightforward, grounded threads that could have fit right alongside any of the great season one episodes. But Jeff off and away from the group with Duncan, Chang and a whole lot of other randoms Chang invited to Jeff’s apartment for a party is a bit more somber and contemplative like some of this season’s earlier efforts. And finally, Pierce’s drug-induced insanity is a completely absurd and creepy thing that the series never usually dives into, which is perhaps why it was the least successful thread of the episode. Added all together, “Early 21st Century Romanticism” is an episode that doesn’t rank near the series’ or the season’s top efforts, but it’s a fun, quality effort that has a lot to offer.

Let’s start with the bad first: Poor Pierce. I’m ambivalent towards Andy Dick as a human being, but his performance as the little drug fairy Pierce sees during his pain killer-induced hysteria and haze is actually pretty good. The problem is that watching Pierce talk to him — and thus no one, in the eyes of everyone else — just doesn’t work tonally with the rest of this episode or really any episode of that this series has done. I know zombie attacks and going into Abed’s claymation world are “out there” sort of things, but they still seemed to be grounded in a sense of truth as far as the characters are concerned. Sure, Pierce being too addicted to pain killers is a legitimate and realistic development, but the execution of it in this episode just didn’t really work for me at all. Every time the episode kicked over to Pierce, the episode’s momentum screeched to a halt.

However, despite my reluctance towards Pierce’s development in this episode, I’m actually very optimistic for how this will play out in future episodes. The season has slyly — well, not so much in the last two episodes — been destroying Pierce as a person this season. Things started off horribly with his mother’s death, the issues with the cult, the broken legs and now his recent behavior and a presumed drug problem. That’s actually a pretty dark path for a character on a major broadcast sitcom and I have to imagine that it’s going to pay off in a really interesting way. It’s not as if Pierce is going to be seeing Andy Dick for six more episodes, everyone, particularly Annie, have noticed that there is something seriously wrong with him and this group of people care too much about everyone not to do something about it.

Speaking of that, I found Jeff’s story to be a smidgen boring, but in a good way. He’s a little tense because of some suppressed loneliness on Valentine’s Day and that leads to a hilarious argument about the validity of the Barenaked Ladies* and ultimately, Jeff declaring a fight with the rest of the group. This leads to some soccer viewing with Duncan and Chang andthen a party thrown by Chang. But instead of blowing up at Chang or really anyone else at the party, Jeff finds himself having a good time, even with the likes of Starburns and Leonard. We’d expect old Jeff to kick everyone out and certainly not feel sympathy for Chang when he mentions that he needs a place to stay, but on some level, Jeff can relate to their loneliness and desire to just hang out. And even though he’s suddenly connecting to the weirdos at Greendale, the party still isn’t good enough because Jeff clearly misses the rest of the group.

*I love how the series can always find a moment for Britta to make an ass out of herself and referring to the ladies as BNL was just one of those classic instances. She’s so self-righteous and just tries so hard to be cool and edgy.

There’s always a danger with Jeff and how quickly the series wants to make him a better person, but I think this episode is a nice step for him. I actually thought the end of “Asian Population Studies” was a bit underhanded in terms of his development because it didn’t feel like Jeff would be as evil as he presumed to be in that moment with Rich, so I was fairly satisfied to see him send a loving text to everyone to let them know that he cares. Sure, it’s mushy and kind of Modern Family-like, but it felt really honest and natural for the circumstances for a lonely man on Valentine’s Day. He might go back on his words in the next episode, but I was willing to buy that the text was earned in the space of this episode.

As for the Greendale-specific stories, I have little to complain about. It feels like Britta hasn’t had much to do this season outside of the premiere and the Mean Girls episode and although that’s certainly not true, I welcome her back to the A-story with open arms, especially if it involves her trying so hard to be politically correct and open by having a cool lesbian friend that actually isn’t a lesbian at all. Just like the BNL joke, Britta’s main plot struck the write chord in making her look extremely stupid and naive even though she tries to present herself as wise and controversial. Moreover, the pay-off with an observing Annie almost giving in to the crowd’s chant for her to kiss Britta after she’s just kissed the non-lesbian lesbian was just fantastic. Oh Annie Edison and your confused sexuality, I love you so.

And Troy and Abed, what can I say, it was awesome. We all know that a lesser series would have had them fight over the librarian character, if even just at the last-minute when she makes the choice, but Dan Harmon and his team are smarter than that. But of course we knew that and we knew that the two of them would never disrupt their bromance for a possible romance. Plus, their story had so many great little lines and gags that had me in fits like Troy’s briefcase of tacos, Abed’s chant of “Go go go go” as Troy dances and finally, Abed’s deadpan response to Troy’s anger over the librarian’s “Abed is weird” comment: “I am weird.” For all his obvious ticks, Abed is perhaps the most self-aware of the whole group and it’s nice to be reminded of that.

Again, this wasn’t the most successful episode, but I found “Early 21st Century Romanticism” to be a fully enjoyable little episode that I’ll probably enjoy more on subsequent viewings.

Community 2.15 "Early 21st Century Romanticism" Review

I have never in my life played Dungeons & Dragons. Never came close to even thinking about playing. My knowledge of the game is slim, obtained only from that fantastic final episode of Freaks and Geeks and a few passing conversations with members of my co-hort who do enjoy the same and were rightfully excited for this episode of Community.

I think, however, it’s best that I don’t know much about the game because this episode isn’t about Dungeons & Dragons, it’s about doing the right thing and finding your place in a stressful, hateful world.

Okay, who am I kidding, this episode is clearly about Dungeons & Dragons. But it does a really nice job of keeping the references open enough for a non-fan like myself and still manages to mix in some of those “real” storytelling beats amid the greatness that is a live-action comic setpiece built around the study group playing a full game of Dungeons & Dragons.

Let’s talk about the setpiece first because well, it’s just freaking awesome. There was a good amount of discussion around “Abed’s Uncontrollable Christmas” about what the episode would have looked like with the study group just sitting in the library acting out what we were seeing in Claymation and on a basic level, that’s what “Advanced Dungeons & Dragons” is all about. For the most part, this could be identified as a bottle episode in which the characters never really leave the study room and most certainly don’t leave the library after the teaser. In any event, the group decides to play a full game of D&D in hopes of cheering up Fat Neil at the behest of (shockingly) Jeff and play they do. Abed serves as the gracious but fair Dungeon Master and after a few bumps in the road in terms of figuring out the rules and regulations of the game, things get clicking at an interesting rate. Well, until Pierce shows up. See, Pierce wasn’t invited and he’s unsurprisingly angry. Tired of being excluded from the rest of the group, Pierce makes it his goal to destroy the flow of the game and also take down Neil’s already fragile psyche. You know, because Pierce is a freaking bastard like that.

What I find so great about this episode is that it appears to stick to the logistics of playing a real game of D&D while still managing to find the humor and heart within that framework. Everyone at the table is fully engrossed in the game despite their initial confusion because they want to help Neil feel better about his life and things flow naturally from that. The non-diegetic music and sound effects wonderfully add to the imagination of it all and of course having Abed serve as the Dungeon Master is most surely going to make things feel authentic to the most basic D&D games. There are so many hilarious moments that stem directly from the D&D framework like Jeff being required to seduce Abed, Shirley continuously mentioning that her hate towards Pierce is only for his character within the game as to not come off hateful Troy’s general confusion as the guy who’s just hanging out but not really interested in the game.

But perhaps just as impressive is how great this episode is at nailing how wonderful/awful it can be to sit down and play a game with your friends, no matter what that game is. Suddenly everything becomes heightened and more important, even the littlest things like the ways in which certain people play the game to the bigger things like not being invited. And in those moments and circumstances, a lot of a person’s normal traits come to light, just as they do here with Britta’s sanctimonious rants about the inequalities between the various D&D races or with Annie’s shockingly detailed and inappropriate description of sexual relations.

And of course the most obvious example of this is Pierce’s moderately extreme reactions to not being invited to the game. I can see that some might find it a bit unbelievable that he turns on the hateful rage in such a quick fashion, but I’m willing to go with it in the context of this episode for a number of reasons. First of all, his actions fit right into the stereotype of the asshole player, which is something every long-form game needs. More importantly, the group has continued to push Pierce aside this season and although I think they’re probably justified in those decisions, we certainly can’t fully fault Pierce for being upset at the people who he thinks/wishes are his friends. At his age, Pierce is never going to change and he just suspects that people will bend to his will and since it hasn’t been happening with the study group, he’s pissed. He’s still wrong for a lot of things, especially the way he acts in his treatment towards Neil, but there is definitely some validity to his rage. I am a bit concerned about Pierce as a long-term character just because he’s been just so awful on a regular basis this season that it’s hard to understand why the group would keep him around at all except for to make fun of him — and I’m not sure they really want to do that anymore either.

Jeff’s story here is also a bit perplexing, though ultimately effective. I’m a believer that Jeff has undergone a realistic transition to awful person to only-okay person, but I think the series wants to have both ways just a bit. Jeff growing up is the larger arc and I understand that the process will be long and bumpy, but just two episodes ago he was begging Rich to teach him better ways to manipulate the good in people and even if we’re going off of his own guilt for coming up with the nickname of Fat Neil here, it’s just a bit of a stretch that Jeff would care this much about a stranger when he sometimes could care less about the study group members. However, I think the thread works because Joel McHale and the rest of the cast sell the moment so well. Obviously this is a heightened experience like I discussed earlier, but when Pierce reveals Jeff’s error to Neil, Annie’s tears, Britta’s disdain and Shirley’s confusion are all so real that I was sold. Furthermore, McHale makes sure to play Jeff as apologetic, but still not fully bothered with his backwards apology and that falls more in line with his prior actions than the initial decision to help Neil.

In the end, this episode skirts away from its few problems by being so damn charming. This is an episode where the chemistry between the actors really makes all the difference because without that, the experience wouldn’t be as believable or emotionally impacting. “Advanced Dungeons & Dragons” isn’t as high-concept as “Epidemiology” or full of much unabashed heart as “Abed’s Uncontrollable Christmas,” but the mix of both makes for a truly wonderful episode, D&D fan or not.

Community 2.14 "Advanced Dungeons & Dragons" Review

When a series is as lowly-rated as Community is, the internet-fueled hype about its greatness is a good thing. But as with anything, that hype comes with a price: expectations. When you’ve been anointed as the nextArrested Development by the internet commenter hive-mind, it’s a blessing and a curse.

After tonight’s “Celebrity Pharmacology,” I imagine it might be something of a curse.

I think I can say without much hesitation that this is my least favorite episode of the season. Of course, the previous 12 episodes have ranged from flipping fantastic to all-timers, so being the worst episode of the bunch still places it among good company. But even though I backhandedly criticized the internet commenters who believe this is the best program out there, I’m right there with them. Community was #2 on my Top 25 of 2010, I wrote a massive term paper about it and generally adore the program. So I’ll fully admit that my disappointment while watching this episode isn’t justified. I’m grading on too high of a scale and sometimes, especially at this point in the season, series have to depress a bit, churn out a solid, but not great episode and just move on. For me that’s what “Celebrity Pharmacology” is.

The biggest problem I had with this episode is that it was just a bit too broad. I don’t need every Community joke to be a passing meta reference that only a pop culture carnivore like myself can enjoy, but instead of starting with a rote sitcom plot and flipping it on its head intelligently, the group’s presentation of an anti-drug play to a group of at-risk teens unraveled more or less like a typical sitcom episode. A smart, funny typical sitcom, but one nonetheless.

And unfortunately, this is what tends to happen when Pierce is at the center of the A plot. I mean no disrespect to Chevy Chase because he’s a comedy legend and all that, but I can’t imagine that it’s not at least a small coincidence that through the first 12 episodes, he was often sidelined in a wheelchair that kept him from really getting involved in the good plots. Pierce is an interesting character who tends to quickly flip from miserably annoying to miserably sympathetic like he does here and it’s nice to see him and Annie get their own A story for the first time ever, but he still works better as part of funny runners like the endangered teen bits in “Messianic Myths and Ancient Peoples” or when he’s bouncing off the more jaded, sarcastic likes of Jeff and Britta. Annie’s a bit too sincere to create a comfortable comic pacing with Pierce and that’s not really the fault of either Chase or Alison Brie. It just is.

With that said, it’s no surprise that the actual production of the play (d)evolved like it did. Pierce slowly took over creative control because he cunningly loaned an increasingly poor Annie some money and it was broadly uncomfortable/funny. Cue Pierce being an ass, Annie pouting and slightly lying to the group and them finding out about it in a moment of rage. None of this is particularly bad, but there wasn’t enough between Annie and Pierce to begin with to make their supposed connection here worth much. In the end, Pierce just looks more miserable and Annie looks more naive. That’s not the worst thing in the world, but it doesn’t reach the kind of character moment highs Community tends to hit on a weekly basis.

Thankfully though, this episode featured a number of great sight-gags — the Dean also wearing a bee costume, the giant toilet, giving the at-risk teens baseballs, Jeff and Britta as the cool cats both looking miserable — and rock-solid moments to keep it afloat despite the weak center. I appreciated that the series isn’t shying away from the Chang and Shirley plot-line and Chang’s makeshift save of the play is most certainly his best moment of the season and even with my issues overall, it was great to see Pierce turn the kids onto drugs just so Chang’s inherent miserableness turned them off of them. I’m not sure exactly where things are headed with Chang, but he continues to bounce around from generally normal like last week to bat-shit crazy like he was in his final conversation with Shirley. I kind of like that, particularly if means he’ll continue to just morph around in the background.

And I can’t forget to mention my favorite moment of the episode, which saw Jeff continue to send creepy texts as Britta to Britta’s nephew while Abed just looked at him with such disappointment, to which Jeff continued to say “Screw you, Abed.” Small, but hilarious. I feel like we need a strong Jeff-Abed episode as soon as possible because the last two episodes have done a really great job of reminding us that despite their vast differences, the two of them are shockingly close. Not as close as Troy (who had little to do this week, unfortunately) and Abed, but still damn close.

It’s moments like that which keep me from complaining too much. I know that Pierce won’t be the center of too many episodes and he’ll just go back to being his inappropriate, but hilarious self in small doses and even if he was randomly given the A plots for the next five episodes, I know the Community team could stuff the rest of those efforts with hilarious bits like “Screw you, Abed” and all things would be good. Not every episode can be “Mixology Certification” or the zombie episode, and that’s okay.

Community 2.13 "Celebrity Pharmacology" Review

There’s been a lot of discussion about the two different kinds of Community. It’s not quite “3 Glees” worthy, but critics and fans can obviously see how this series can present us with high-concept, meta-driven episodes like “Epidemiology” and then follow it up with character-driven efforts like “Cooperative Calligraphy” or even  ”Mixology Certification.” What’s interesting is that up until now, the series has done a really good job of separating those different sides to the series — for the most part. Obviously episodes like “Epidemiology” work so well because they include character-driven moments and “Cooperative Calligraphy” still hammers home some upper-level stuff while exploring the tensions with the group.

But Shirley’s pregnancy and her relationship with Chang (and the events of the zombie episode as a whole) have carried over in a different way. It’s a weird development from a high-concept episode and now it’s been handled here in a completely straight-forward and emotionally honest way. This carry-over is new for the series, particularly when the thread itself and the tone it’s being executed in don’t really fit together on paper.

Dan Harmon apparently doesn’t care though, as it pops up here to drive a lot of the drama. Community is a series that isn’t afraid to embrace character progressions and various ongoing plot developments, but the pregnancy and Shirley/Chang is just so odd and specific that it has felt like this creepy thing hanging over other episodes. This isn’t a series built on secret-keeping or something like that, but Troy’s been holding on to this bombshell for eight weeks and the occasional mentions to it have continued to build Shirley’s pregnancy up as an important event. This is unlike Jeff’s hookup with Britta or his make-out session with Annie. Certain characters knew those things and certain did not, but there was never a sense that those people holding it in were really struggling with the information.

Troy, on the other hand, has clearly had some issues with this secret and it’s interesting that the reveal comes in the exact same way as the Jeff/Britta/Annie drama in “Anthropology 101.” Clearly a good number of the series’ biggest moments have happened and will continue to happen in the study room, but I think there is something really intriguing about the placement. The emotional drama is played at the same level in both episodes. Just as the group fell apart in “101″ appeared to be completely serious and intense, Pierce’s horrible decision to let it out that Shirley had sex with Chang and now might be pregnant with his child is played with the exact same stakes. But where the story in the premiere was fairly serious and straightforward from the beginning dating back to the pilot and “Debate 109,” the conception of Shirley/Chang has always felt offbeat and less humanistic than it’s played for here.

And yet, “Asian Population Studies” handles the revealing of the secret with a raw energy that’s still sort of funny, but ultimately unfortunate and sad. Troy should have never told Pierce and Pierce most certainly shouldn’t have blurted it out to Shirley, Chang and Shirley’s new-to-the-group ex-husband/current boyfriend just because he’s mad. But those are the mistakes that happen when emotions get heated, now matter how petty or how ridiculous. Oddly, the results are a lot like the results of “Anthropology” as well: Andre’s hurt, Shirley’s devastated, hell even Chang is confused, but by the time it’s over, Andre recognizes the error of his ways and he and Shirley plan to stick out no matter what. Therefore, something that started as a shocking gag and became a catalyst for emotional deconstruction, but still folds into a logical character development. Honestly, this story feels messier and tonally inconsistent as the moment in “Anthropology,” but it’s a hard tightrope to balance in the least. For the most part, “Asian Population Studies” pulls it off.

I’m going to guess that this might be something of a divisive episode and a lot of that will be entrenched in how you feel about the handling of Shirley and Chang. [UPDATE: Sepinwall discusses this exact thing in his review and doesn't seem to be as positive as I am.] I like it and it suggests that the series will be willing to mash these two different sides of itself together more often moving forward. And in general, it’s obviously just fantastic to have Community back on my television series.

Other notes:

• It’s weird that I talked almost exclusively about Chang, Shirley and Andre even though it really only took up a small section of the episode. The other thread here focused on Jeff and Annie’s possible romantic entanglements and how the glorious return of Rich throws a wrench in that. Annie’s charmed by Rich and clearly Jeff can’t deal with that and craziness ensues. Interestingly, Annie is less overtly competitive with Jeff than Britta would be and she instead just drops the games and comes out with the truth for Jeff: Either admit that he likes her or stop getting worked up over her possible feelings for other — and possibly older — men. I’m not sure what this means for their relationship, though this season is definitely more intrigued by Jeff and Annie than Jeff and Britta.
• Similarly, the final scene of this episode could be another divisive moment. It’s an apparent riff on the romantic comedy melodramatic ending, but it does feel a bit forced. At a certain point, Jeff running to Rich’s apartment in the rain after he turns down Annie in hopes of learning how to be more good/cool/nice so that he can exploit that persona feels hollow. I understand the desire to keep Jeff a bit on edge and not fully reformed considering we’re only at the mid-point of a second season, but it might have actually been more risky to completely embrace the romantic comedy cliché and see where a real attempt at Jeff and Annie would take the series. I think we’re still headed there, but sometimes the series tries too hard to subvert expectations that those subversions become expected.
• Quiet episode for Abed, but Danny Pudi’s really figured out how to make an impact when just lying low. He’s a master at physical comedy — most notably pointing and nodding — when someone’s making a fool of themselves or giving an impassioned speech. Plus, the conversation between he and Jeff right before he goes on his run is a nice reminder that the two of them are extremely close, despite their obvious differences.
• I said this on Twitter, but it’s a testament to the series that they let the Chang puns simmer during the first half of the season instead of introducing and running them into the ground in just one episode. It’s a nice execution of a small running gag becoming important to a goofy plot.

Community 2.12 "Asian Population Studies" Review

I imagine that “Mixology Certification” is the most divisive episode of Community‘s second season. It’s set outside of the safe Greendale walls, features little pop culture referencing and for the most part, isn’t funny in the same kind of way all the “great” episodes of Community are. Instead, it features a fairly boiler-plate sitcom plot and really doesn’t even play that plot in a traditional sitcom way and in more like a semi-serious dramedy kind of way that is just really compelling to watch unspool. But because the episode is so successful in its undertaking of this different kind of approach, it more or less proves that Community can do any sort of story with relative ease.

“Certification” is really not all that funny. Instead it does a lot of work in showing us how all the members of the study group have grown to rely on one another for their happiness. When Troy shockingly discovers that it’s actually his 21st birthday instead of his 20th (because his mom lied to him about having two 10th birthdays after he was held back), the group goes out to a bar. Troy is super ready for the “cool” people in the group, Jeff and Britta, to show him what it’s like to be an adult with taste and sophistication and everyone else is generally excited as well aside from a fearful and 19-year old Annie, but when things quickly take a turn for the worse, Troy’s left holding the ball for everyone else loneliness and moderate sadness.

Because, as this episode shows, the study group has it kind of good within the walls of Greendale. We only get to see them within that ecosystem, so it seems like Jeff and Britta are the coolest people in the world, that Abed is quirky, but pretty awesome, that Shirley is unbelievably nice and that Annie is high-strung, but in a cute way. Pierce, well, he’s more or less the same in any place, but he still fits in with the wild world of this fictitious community college. But once you take Leonard, Starburns and all that insanity away and put them out in the real world, there’s flailing and drowning and a whole lot of confusion.

For Shirley, stepping outside of Greendale means facing her past, which based on the jaunt to the bar seen here, wasn’t too good. She clearly had a major drinking problem that either came after her divorce or helped push it along and that whole side of her doesn’t really fit into the fairy god mother kind of facade she puts on. For Abed, stepping outside of Greendale means having to deal with a massive world that doesn’t “get” him or how he relates to the world. Hell, Abed can barely slip into the group dynamic in such a way that makes everyone understand him and so when he’s thrown out into the wild with no back-up, he’s more alone and isolated than ever. Even when he knows he’s being hit on by a man, he lets it happen just so he can talk about Farscape.

And for Annie, the outside world isn’t so much the challenge, but herself. When she puts on a major persona to go along with her fake id that quickly becomes this weird and great bit of performance art, she realizes that being driven, uptight and overly concerned about her future is exhausting. It’s a moment of self-awareness that Annie sometimes lacks, but just like Shirley and Abed’s stories, Annie’s little tale here is just as sad as it is funny.

But even with those three (and Pierce, who is basically sidelined for the entire episode) in depressing situations, Troy still should be fine because he’s hanging out with the two coolest people around in Jeff and Britta. He’s completely ready to “be a man” as Jeff tells him, which includes knowing about “cool” drinks, places to go, things to eat, etc., but before long, Troy realizes that Jeff and Britta aren’t really that cool at all and they probably aren’t the best people to take advice from.

Which brings me to perhaps my favorite part about this season that this episode again hits home: Troy has become the emotional center of the group. Amid Abed’s wackiness and the Jeff/Britta/Annie love triangle, he was kind of lost at times in season one, but the writers have done a great job of making him something of a heroic, maturing center. He can still be extremely goofy and zany with Abed like with the blanket fort, but he led the group in “Basic Rocket Science,” was the hero in “Epidemiology” and has slowly moved more to the forefront of the group. And it makes sense that he becomes something of the makeshift center because Abed is too zany, Shirley and Pierce are too old, Annie’s too high-strung and Jeff and Britta are too often caught up in their own egos that they do really stupid things. In reality, Troy is the most obviously normal guy in the group, but he’s young enough that he could be really shaped by the people he spends time with at Greendale. And this episode goes a long way in showing him that while he might think Jeff is the coolest person on earth, he’s not, because even though it was his idea to take Troy out in the first place, he quickly devolved into the usual nonsense with Britta — which is something Troy would never do. He’s a great, loyal friend, just a solid freaking guy and good for him for chewing Jeff and Britta out for not living up to his fair expectations of them.

Like usual, I could gush about this episode for dozens more paragraphs, but I’ll leave it here. Just another fine episode, and one that suggests Community can do just about anything.

Community 2.10 "Mixology Certification" Review