So by this point in a season Community has normally had at least one great episode. Not this season though. It hasn’t had a bad episode either, just average episodes. Episode four, “Queer Studies and Advanced Waxing”, is actually an interesting episode. There are some significant things that make this a unique episode of Community, and some very funny moments, it just doesn’t add up to a stellar whole.
This is actually the longest episode of Community ever, clocking in at over thirty minutes. As interesting as it is to see Dan Harmon explore the formatting freedoms afforded him by Yahoo screen, the episode does feel a little slack. It doesn’t ever feel padded, which is good. You’d have to go back to the script and rewrite it to shorten it; there aren’t a lot of superfluous moments to be found.
The group, after briefly sitting around the study table, quickly breaks off into three subplots. The episode sidelines Jeff, which is an unusual but interesting choice, and seems to be making an effort to establish some interesting new group dynamics. Abed and Elroy decide to work as the new IT department in order to fix the broken wi-fi. The set-up to this comes the closest to acknowledging Paget Brewster’s (now playing Frankie) IT lady from last season. Frankie says she tried to email the IT woman, but her emails just got returned in a different language, and when she tried to call the IT woman she just heard an oscillating whine that gave her a nose bleed. So Elroy and Abed find a bird’s nest where the router should be, and that sets up their subplot – protecting the nest. The Dean meanwhile is offered a position on the school board, with one major caveat, he has to come out as openly gay to get the job. The Dean is uncomfortable reducing his sexuality to such a straightforward label. The other subplot finally tries to bring Chang into the group, making him seem a little less insane. He and Annie end up in a theatre production of The Karate Kid, run by the new and abusive theatre guy played by Jason Mantzoukas.
Of these plot lines the least functional is probably the Dean’s. While entertaining at the start the whole scenario seems to be built around a paltry three jokes. The Dean’s strange sexual preferences, a “Gay Dean” song sung to the tune of “Jolene”, and the Dean’s speech about being openly political are all decent jokes (actually so is the Dean’s fake partner) but there’s not quite enough there to justify the screen time taken up. There’s something not quite properly dramatized about the whole thing. Maybe more time needed to be spent on the Dean’s initial trepidation, or even more stuff actually involving the school board? It never quite came together either way.
Elroy and Abed fair a little better, in part because they have the smallest subplot in the episode. Abed’s concern for the birds is sweet, as is the Dean’s incredibly understanding reaction. Abed talking Elroy down from his “baby bird murder monologue” is pretty funny too. I’m already growing fond of the current recurring gag exploiting Keith David’s face. There have been two notable moments during this season where we just watch Elroy silently react for an amount of time that would normally be awkward. They’re not quite normal reaction shots, instead they draw more attention to themselves, like there should be a joke there. They’ve both been pretty funny, but I’m generally partial to Community’s weird recurring jokes.
The best stuff this episode definitely comes with Chang and The Karate Kid play. Ken Jeong gets to do some of the most nuanced acting he’s done in seasons. The slightly less insane Chang makes for a compelling member of the group. Jason Mantzoukas is fabulous as the screaming and abusive director. He’s so impeccably angry and hurtful. Annie’s sudden obsession with the art of acting feels a little sudden, although I suppose the idea that Annie likes pretending to be other people has come up before. Still it never quite lands. The final performance of the play is engaging, although it maybe goes on a shade too long. There are only so many shots of the audience being REALLY INTO IT that are necessary.
Maybe the length and freedom is the problem with this episode? A lot of the best episodes and moments of Community have been fast. Carried by the compelling character work, but also by the density of jokes. Think about Jeff and Troy’s football/racists/homophobic exchange. Dan Harmon’s other show, Rick and Morty, gets a lot of mileage out of a faster pace. There are moments when the looser format does seem beneficial, but as a whole this episode feels a little slack.
Of course it’s hard to underestimate the issue of character writing. It’s been a while since the character dynamics clicked the way they used to. Or at least a while since they worked effectively with any regularity. A large part of that could just be the evolving cast. It’s hard to create character-based drama when you have to constantly introduce new characters and new character dynamics. Before there were preexisting dynamics and characters we knew through and through. We knew what they thought about other characters, and what they thought about themselves. This has all been uprooted by the cast changes, and unfortunately it shows.
Community is still good though. “Queer Studies and Advanced Waxing” isn’t a bad episode of the show, not by any means. Even at its most mediocre this season feels head and shoulders above the non-Dan-Harmon season. It’s just not yet hit any great moments. Hopefully we’re just an episode away from the new character dynamics hitting their stride. Hopefully there’s another great episode around the corner. Only time will tell but it certainly seems like there’s still lots of potential here. We need an episode where ALL the characters get to interact and bounce off one another – that might help.
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Harry Edmundson-Cornell is obsessed with comics and film and writing, and he fancies himself a bit of an artist. He's dabbled in freelance video production, writing, design, 3D modelling, and artistic commissions. He mainly uses Tumblr to keep track of what he's watching and reading and listening to. Occasionally he uses it to post original works. You can find his email and junk there too, if you want to hire him or send him hate-mail.
See more, including free online content, on Harry Edmundson-Cornell's author page.
Episode five of the sixth season of Community, “Laws of Robotics and Party Rights”, might be the best episode of the season yet.
I say “might” because it still has a few problems. Let’s get those out of the way first, shall we? The biggest problem with this episode is the new characters. The new additions to the group are pretty relegated to the background. We’ve still only had a cursory look at these characters, and as funny as Keith David’s Britta-hatred is, by this point they should have had more to do. Essentially the characters show up during the two(!) scenes where everyone sits round a table. It’s nice to see these scenes, and both Frankie and Elroy have some good jokes, but neither get character development, and they generally disappear when the main plot starts up. Five episodes in and past their introductory episodes these characters feel more like set-dressing at this point, which is disappointing. Both characters and actors are funny and they deserve more to do. Also relegated to the background – Chang. This is par for the course, but after a decent attempt at integrating him into the group he feels a little missed.
However the characters we’re more familiar with – Annie, Britta, Jeff, and Abed – all get a good episode. Now Jeff’s dilemma feels a little divorced from the other three, but that aside they all get a good treatment. Jeff talks the Dean into agreeing to help out a prison. They’re allowing a select few inmates to attend the school via remote-controlled iPads. Jeff convinces the Dean to do it because money, but begins to have doubts when a charismatic murderer starts to overshadow him. Also Garrett, of all people, gets a surprising number of lines. Maybe after last week’s realization that he was an extra. Britta, meanwhile, wants to throw a party. However because she’s sleeping on Annie and Abed’s couch, Annie is calling the shots. Annie has a strict cap on gatherings, limiting them to no more than eight people. Britta wants to throw a “rager” however. This starts a Machiavellian war-of-arms and manipulation between the two. Annie even leans in to Britta and whispers, “Before this is over you’ll beg for my forgiveness.” Abed gets caught in the middle of this manipulation, something I wish he were slightly more aware of. Instead he seems to be used rather cruelly by both parties with no say in the matter.
It’s pretty fun to see the characters bouncing off each other like this again. Jeff gets really serious about his dilemma, which ends with him storming into a wedding-like ceremony (via iPad) to explain his feelings and actions to the Dean. It’s nice to see Dean Craig Pelton get so much more to do this season. He felt a little bit absent from season five, and he really does deserve to be part of the group at this point. His relationship with Jeff has led to some of this season’s best jokes, and it’s nice to see this episode explore their dynamic in a little more depth. This episode also helped win me over on this season’s iteration of Britta. Her framing wanting to throw a party as an impassioned political struggle was great. The idea that her trying to break this house rule is the closest she can get to overthrowing a government makes her inevitable failure even funnier. When she eventually does beg Annie for help she goes so far as to say “Hail Annie.” It feels like Britta’s political rebellion has been getting increasingly less effective throughout the seasons, and this episode feels like a natural progression of that.
Again though these plots barely interconnect. There’s one scene that sort of manages to connect these disparate elements. When Britta actually throws her party, Jeff is there and continues to feel taunted and opposed by the charming murderer slowly turning everyone against him. The group also collectively discusses Jeff’s issue at one point, which does lead to his making up with the Dean. Still it would have been nice to see a little more interweaving of the plots. Jeff has almost no involvement in the Annie vs Britta scenario. Other than Keith David high-fiving Alison Brie for breaking Britta’s spirit, it’s a pretty isolated plot.
It’s one of the funnier episodes yet. The scene where one of the prisoners tries to push Jeff down a flight of stair with the iPad on a stick is hilarious. This episode uses Dan Harmon’s extra time well too. The handful of jokes that involve more prominent pauses are more consistently effective. Unlike some of the previous episodes there’s no joke this episode that I thought went on for too long. As nice as it is to see the group dealing with some more internal issues, and as funny as parts of this episode are, this is the fifth episode and the complete isolation of the show’s new characters is really starting to be bothersome. Keith David and Paget Brewster are RIGHT THERE. They’ve already hired them, yet they’ve had shockingly minor roles in almost every episode. I’m sure it’s only a matter of time before they become main players in an episode, and hopefully it’s such a good episode that I eat these words, but in the meantime it’s absolutely bizarre how absent these characters are. Buzz Hickey had way more to do last season. It’s especially frustrating because both actors, and their characters, seem to have a lot of potential that the show just seems to be refusing to tap.
That frustration aside I think this is quite a good episode. It’s not the classic I was hoping for. I really hope this season can get one truly great episode off the ground. It wasn’t a bad episode either; in fact it was one of the more functional episodes this season. If we continue with this trend of average episode I’ll be pleased – an average episode of Community is still a good sitcom episode – but I hope there are superior episodes around the corner.
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RSS feed for Harry Edmundson-Cornell
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Harry Edmundson-Cornell is obsessed with comics and film and writing, and he fancies himself a bit of an artist. He's dabbled in freelance video production, writing, design, 3D modelling, and artistic commissions. He mainly uses Tumblr to keep track of what he's watching and reading and listening to. Occasionally he uses it to post original works. You can find his email and junk there too, if you want to hire him or send him hate-mail.
See more, including free online content, on Harry Edmundson-Cornell's author page.
Community episode 6, “Basic Email Security,” self-identifies as the third entry in a trilogy consisting of “Cooperative Calligraphy” and “Cooperative Polygraphy.” Apparently they couldn’t match the “cooperative” moniker to this episode, which is pretty funny. Any episode that associates itself with such seminal episodes of Community automatically invites increased inspection. “Cooperative Calligraphy” remains a series highlight, and “Cooperative Polygraphy” is one of, if not the, best episode of the show’s fifth season. This episode eschews one of the key features of those past episodes however. Instead of confining the entire episode to the study room, “Basic Email Security” softens the bottle structure a bit, moving the group between two key locations. (Does Greendale have two stages, or was this the same set from the Karate Kid performance?) Instead of keeping the study-room-bottle-episode-thing like the other two entries in this trilogy (Abed describes the first entry as part of a “golden era”), it focuses on the revelation of hidden secrets.
It does that by harkening to the Sony leaks from earlier in the year. The school books a notoriously racist comedian and starts receiving ominous notes that hijack the school’s computers. The first note comes with a deluge of data; all the emails from one of the school’s lunch ladies. The hacker threatens to release the Greendale Activities Committee’s emails next, if the show goes on. To their surprise our characters learn that the Activities Committee is actually their official name. After a surprisingly rousing speech by Britta (with some snippets, like “if voting was powerful it would be illegal” actually taken from Dan Harmon rants) the group makes a pact to let the comedian perform. They promise not to look at the leaked emails. They all look.
This leads us to a scene where the group stands around in the auditorium/theatre area angrily confronting each other about the discovered secrets. The show’s key returning members don’t actually suffer that badly, instead the episode finally grants us more information about Frankie and Elroy. This is generally pretty funny. Turns out Elroy keeps in touch with a family he’s grown to love, but who mistakenly thinks he’s their cousin. He’s also been taking masses of photos of the group’s female members in order to make accurate nude 3D models of them for a video game about time travelling women. Chang meanwhile mocks Frankie for writing to a sister who never replies. It turns out her sister is dead, and she uses it as a journalling device. She’s much more distressed by the group’s ongoing bet about her sexuality. Jeff’s bet is that she’s a “chap-stick lesbian”, and he stands to win $300 if he’s right. Frankie is especially offended by Annie’s guess. Annie looks pretty upset about it too, whimpering that she had to pick last.
A bit of an aside, but it seems Buzz Hickey, Jonathan Bank’s character from season five, is dead. Bank’s was really funny as the character, who served as a sort of Pierce replacement, and the show has killed him off in an incredibly unceremonious and trivialized way. So trivialized that you have to pause and read the screenshot of the lunch lady’s emails to spot one that reads “Buzz Hickey Memorial.” Buzz was a nice addition to the show, and while it seems that a reappearance would have been unlikely, such a casual end seems unnecessary.
One of my favourite things about this episode was actually just Elroy and Frankie getting weird snippets of backstory about the group. Frankie describes the last bottle episode as the time “a friend mysteriously vanished after another friend masturbated to death” which is pretty great. Keith David, who continues to be the best recent addition to the show, realizes our main characters were once a study group. “Wait, this was a study group?” Chang replies, “Yeah and I was their teacher,” which makes Frankie and Elroy gasp in shock. “And frankly I haven’t been well-utilized since.” It’s a nice reference to an extremely common complaint about Ken Jeong’s character.
Eventually the group really makes their stand, as their racist comedian arrives. He’s kind of tragic at first, thanking the group for sticking by him. This is the first gig that hasn’t cancelled on him in months. His gratitude shifts quickly when only one character, Neil, arrives to watch. It’s nice to see Neil again after his brief appearances earlier. The group forces the performance to go on despite the poor attendance, leading to a pretty great scene where Neil gets mocked for being black and Jewish (“It’s hard to be a fat black guy because your community steals all your food”) while the group literally bars the doors to hold back an angry mob.
Another aside, but is it me or is it becoming increasingly clear that Garrett is on his way to becoming some sort of big villain, probably as part of the season’s climatic stretch. One of the first episodes of this season saw him mysteriously recruiting other minor background characters while threateningly watching the group. Another saw him realizing his role as an extra. This episode he has some sort of emotional breakdown while other students drag him away. I’m pretty curious to see if this joke coalesces into an actual plot line or if Garrett’s realizations will merely stay a running joke relegated to the background.
This episode also sees the fifth appearance of local cop Officer Cackowski. He’s always pretty awesome, and in this episode he’s shocked the group doesn’t recognize him, which does seem a little cruel on their part. He did teach them about gun safety after all! He chats about the new Avengers movie (“I hear Marvel really penned Joss Whedon in, and that always goes so well”). He also gets a True Detective parody with a child taking the Matthew McConaughey role, a nice addition to this later era’s weird ending gags. Over all it’s a pretty good episode, probably the season’s second best at this point. It’s not perfect but there’s a lot to love, and the show’s newer characters are finally starting to feel like legitimate additions to the roster.
I want to say something right away about the latest episode of Community. Yahoo did not work as advertised for the first time. Maybe it wasn’t their fault, maybe it was Chrome, maybe it was my MacBook, maybe it was the wireless signal. Whatever it was the show was stuttering like a puppy that suffers from chronic anxiety seizing out in earthquake country. Nothing kills a joke’s momentum like having to restart your browser halfway through the punchline. I’m pretty good at looking past that and assessing the episode, but this could very well be the least accurate review yet.
Enjoy!
The seventh episode of Community, “Advanced Safety Features”, basically features two plot lines..…you know, like most shows. Shuddup. One of these plots is product placement run wild and exaggerated and stretched into a story about Britta and her boyfriend. The title of the episode is a reference to Honda, Community’s new Subway. The other story is Keith David heavy! The group wishes they were better friends with Elroy, and then discovers he actually quite likes everyone in the group. Everyone in the group but Jeff. Jeff’s not-so-hidden insecurities prompt him to aggressively attempt to befriend Elroy.
Other than the stuttering forcing the episode to take up a Minor Kalpa’s worth of my time I quite liked this episode.
The Britta story is a weirder one for me. It’s the main story of the episode, and it’s actually getting really nice to see Britta be such a major player this season. She’s often relegated to more of a supporting position, but lately she’s been focused on and explored in neat ways. This episode sees the return of her brief past-romantic-interest – Subway. That is the anthropomorphic personification of the sandwich shop that sponsored the show in seasons past. They never refer to Subway this time around, marking it a word that must be avoided. Subway no longer goes by that particular moniker, his name is now “Rick” and he’s an aggressive guerrilla marketer for Honda. Car companies have been responsible for some of the most obnoxious advertising in TV shows lately, so it’s not surprising they’d fund Community. What is nice is the insane way Dan Harmon barrels into a story built around the very idea of guerrilla marketing, transforming advertising for Honda into jokes and character moments. It’s pretty clever, and while sometimes the extensive descriptors about Honda vehicles start to wear thin it makes up for it in other ways, like the depiction of the guerrilla marketer’s boss.
Britta decides to pursue a relationship with Rick, which means she has to sign up to help Rick sell Honda to Greendale. Mainly the Dean, who, as a Level Seven Susceptible (which Rick describes manipulating as a “once-in-a-lifetime feeling”) starts to fill his office with Honda paraphernalia he can’t afford. Britta and Rick get along well at first, until Rick meets Britta’s parents and can’t stop marketing to them. The line is crossed when Britta’s told she has to support anything popular as part of her new job, like Avatar. They split up, but Rick dramatically confronts Britta, declaring his love and his intention to quit Honda. However Rick gets caught by the school when the Dean and Frankie set a trap for him, he can’t resist, and gets banned from school grounds forever.
Best part of this might be the end-tag, simply because of how furious Britta gets while playing a silly game with her parents.
Meanwhile the group speculates about why Elroy doesn’t ever hang out with them. They’re worried he might not like them as much as they like him. It’s just so nice, to see a plot line focus on one of the new cast members. Next time we see this plot line everyone but Jeff is playing a rousing game based around guessing what ears you’re wearing. Jeff arrives and Elroy immediately excuses himself. This gets under Jeff’s skin and he starts striving to gain Elroy’s friendship.
Finally getting a plot point that so directly incorporates the show’s new members is awesome. We learn a little bit about Elroy’s life, see him have a moment of personal growth, and he’s pretty entertaining. There are some good comments on the group dynamic, and some discussion of Troy. Frankie points out that, despite the group’s claims that they don’t like talking about Troy, they seem to talk about him a lot. She asks just what was so great about this guy. Jeff tells her, “He was really good at steel drums.” When she leaves he claims that “that won’t pay off right away, but when it does, it’ll be worth it.” Truth be told we then assume we’ll see Frankie playing the steel drums at that point, so the inevitable punchline isn’t that funny, although it is tied into a nice moment in the episode.
Frankie also gets one of the episode’s best moments when she chides the Dean on his frivolous Honda spending spree. The way Paget Brewster goes from shouting at the Dean to apologizing to shouting again is really funny. “I only say constructive things and every question I want to ask you is rhetorical and ends with idiot. Do you know what a rhetorical question is?” It’s probably the best thing about the Britta plot line, to be honest. The show also sees Britta’s parents making another appearance, which is a nice bit of continuity, as well as the return of the musical styling of Natalie Is Freezing. We even meet the band (“Why would anyone in the band be Natalie? We’re artists.”) which actually ties in nicely with Elroy’s story.
This isn’t the best episode of the season or anything. The Honda jokes start to grate a little, but there are highlights too, like Britta’s performance, Frankie, and Chang’s slideshow. It’s also one of the season’s first truly sentimental episodes. Community’s serious core has always been a defining characteristic of the show, and it’s nice to see it coming back.
The sixth season of Community seems to be shying away from some of the high concept event episodes of seasons past. The latest episode, “Intro to Recycled Cinema” probably comes closest. The episode blends scenes from a movie that Abed is directing with scenes of the production. It’s an episode with lots of good stuff, and maybe some not so good stuff.
The concept is pretty simple – Chang gets famous. He brings his blend of alien wackiness to a commercial for ham and becomes a cultural phenomenon; Steven Spielberg is even knocking at his door for the upcoming movie based off Play-Doh. The twist is that Abed has a few minutes of video starring Chang from an abandoned movie project. The school can stand to make some actual money from cashing in on Chang’s new fame, so long as they produce a crappy film incredibly quickly. This seems to upset Abed, who believes in the craft and doesn’t want to create a bad film. In another weird callback to Buzz Hickey, the few minutes of Chang’s video actually comes from a script Abed was working with Hickey on in season five. You can tell by the character’s name of Police Justice. And by the fact that Abed specifically says an ex-cop helped him write it. “It turns out ex-cops aren’t good at dialogue.” This is another weirdly unceremonious reference to Hickey. The episode where he and Abed decided to collaborate was actually a pretty touching one, and he gave Abed a couple of pretty cool lines. It’s almost starting to seem like there’s some legal reason they can’t properly acknowledge a character that was pretty major for a whole year.
Despite the episode coming across as being Abed heavy, in some ways this is more of a Jeff episode. In that Jeff gets some character moments tied to the events sandwiched into the beginning and end of the episode. It’s a bit of a rocky transition, although in retrospect it makes a little more sense. It just seems like Jeff’s dilemma could’ve cropped up a bit more during the production scenes, where character development is largely relegated to the sidelines for wacky antics involving animated gingivitis characters, bad acting, and silly costumes. Don’t get me wrong, I like this stuff, and the gang taking an improvisational approach to plotting the film can be pretty funny, it just feels a little separate from the character stuff. Especially given that Abed’s trepidation at making the film is resolved without any major moments really. Abed’s nervousness is pretty much ignored by everyone, and eventually Jeff pulls Abed aside and compares making the movie to working out. This also introduces Jeff’s Chris Pratt fascination, which actually does sort of reach a resolution. It’s also something that sounds like a slightly more fitness-focused version of a recurring Harmontown rant.
Jeff and Abed are pretty much the only players this episode. Everyone else is backgrounded and maybe given a moment or two. Chang’s reacceptance to the group is nice. Frankie gets to still know steel drums, which was a nice callback. Annie and Britta get some back and forth about gender, which is hardly new ground, but still true to their characters. Keith David gets to be a futuristic minotaur. For an episode so focused on Jeff and Abed, and the dynamic between them, it’s strange how little of the episode is actually character focused. Especially given how extreme the character stuff gets at the end. Jeff actually starts strangling Abed. In an episode with only a handful of character moments scattered throughout it feels like an unearned extreme.
Also the Big Bang Theory reference wasn’t anywhere near as prevalent as I was hoping. Given my established feelings about that focus-grouped anti-nerd show that so many nerds love, I was perversely looking forward to my favourite show tearing into them. However that “bazinga” moment from the season’s trailer is literally the extent of it. Which is totally fine and probably a good call, Dan Harmon hardly needs to piss more people off. I just wanted to go on record about that.
There is legitimately funny stuff this episode. Jeff’s bitter fixation on Chris Pratt is both character-driven and entertaining. Steven Guttenberg’s producer character is pretty funny. He’s so goofily enthusiastic about Abed’s crappy film. It’s a nice change from the jaded archetype one might expect.
Of course they never actually get to do much with the film when Guttenberg’s company collapses. “Wait what’s chapter eleven? Wait what’s YouTube? What’s Internet? What’s broadband.”
The other thing that makes the slightly clunky character beats all the more disappointing is that they feel like legitimately important developments, at least for Jeff’s character. This season has seen a Jeff who’s generally admitting to caring about Greendale, and who’s committed to sticking by the school and helping out. He admits he considers the Dean a friend, etc. It’s a Jeff who’s a little more upbeat beneath the typical cynicism. However this episode is based around a bit of a shocking event. Chang gets out. He escapes Greendale and moves on to bigger and better things. Jeff is suddenly stricken by the realization that he’s never going to leave Greendale. He’s the oldest of the group, he has a job there, he’s long since given up on returning to the legal world. He sees everyone else in the group as having all this potential that he lacks. Which, nominally, is why he suddenly gets so worried about a scene in Abed’s movie we don’t even see until it’s important to the plot. The whole thing feels like a smart character beat for Jeff that’s handled a little badly.
I like the ideas in the episode on paper, and it was funny, but it all feels a little clumsily stitched together. It’s an episode focused on Jeff and Abed that gives neither character satisfying conclusions. It comes close, with Jeff’s confrontation with Abed and Abed’s acceptance of the film, but both are too sudden to feel earned. Like the ending of this article.
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RSS feed for Harry Edmundson-Cornell
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Harry Edmundson-Cornell is obsessed with comics and film and writing, and he fancies himself a bit of an artist. He's dabbled in freelance video production, writing, design, 3D modelling, and artistic commissions. He mainly uses Tumblr to keep track of what he's watching and reading and listening to. Occasionally he uses it to post original works. You can find his email and junk there too, if you want to hire him or send him hate-mail.
See more, including free online content, on Harry Edmundson-Cornell's author page.
So episode nine of Community is a bit…muddled. In my humble opinion. When the film started I was pretty instantly thrilled by an animated old west inspired opening shot. It immediately proved to be set dressing, but that was okay, it still clearly marked “Grifting 101” as a higher concept episode. The first scene saw the whole group in its new form sitting around and chatting about classes. Fans of the show have been pining about the days when the group used to take wacky classes together for a while, so the scene got interesting when they all started talking about taking a class called Grifting 101.
Jeff cautions them, pointing out the class is almost certainly a grift. The fact that to participate you have to buy grifting-certified suitcases from the teacher instantly confirms this suspicion. The rest of the group mocks Jeff for what they perceive as jealousy from someone who once grifted his way to being a lawyer. They literally point and laugh at Jeff. This scene gets props for using Chang well once again, as a dizzying conversation about his diabetes diagnoses takes place. The theme song kicks in and the music is changed, suggesting a concept episode too.
So these facts were piling up the excitement, and boy by the next scene did it ever seem like this was going to pay off. The guest star who played the grifting professor was Matt Berry, an insane comedic actor from shows like The IT Crowd and The Mighty Boosh. His involvement seemed to spell greatness. Upon closer examination however greatness may have been spelled a little folksily, like the title of some inspirational Will Smith vehicle. Matt Berry just sort of sits down and makes the class pass briefcases back and forth, telling them eventually they’ll graduate to using a second briefcase. Which they’ll need to purchase.
So the gang goes to Jeff for help. Jeff is content with I-told-you-sos and refuses to help them grift the grifting professor. So here I thought, “OK, Jeff gets some reason to get involved, they start grifting the grifting professor, but it fails, but it all turns out to be part of a larger grift.” In the very next scene Jeff ends up in his office, now shared with Matt Berry, who’s helped himself to Jeff’s scotch. Jeff tries to bond over their shared love of grifting, at which point Matt explains that what Jeff did wasn’t grifting. Saying what Jeff did was grifting is like saying a “bunch of paint and a paintbrush is the same thing as the Sistine Chapel.” Matt Berry views himself as God’s paintbrush. Then as God. “I’m basically God, which means I’m better than you.” Jeff is unsurprisingly offended and trots off to drown his sorrows by partying with Chang. Actually that’s a lie, he trots off to find everyone and explain he’s down for grifting the professor. At which point everyone jumps up and down, shouting, “Grift!” while the cafeteria awkwardly watches.
So then we get a rambling series of attempted grifts. These scenes really feel like they’re lacking forward momentum, although the fact that everyone commits to antiquated techniques is a nice gimmick. The first attempted grift is a telegram from Africa involving an inherited fortune. Matt Berry doesn’t fall for it. Then there’s a lottery ticket thing. Matt Berry doesn’t fall for that either. Then Jeff goes back to the group and explains that this is perfect and the professor has taken the bait by not taking the bait. This conversation continues on in a circular manner before the group realizes Jeff has no plan.
Except he does, and all this is part of it! Matt Berry comes in and mocks him, at which point Britta punches him in the face and chases him down the stairs. He trips, falls, and hurts himself. Rather than deal with a court case the school decides to pay him off. He walks away with a briefcase full of money and meets Britta in a back room, giving her some of the money. The show flashes back to reveal the injuries were faked and Britta was in on the plan from the beginning. Matt Berry leaves, and gets part way down the hall when he realizes his briefcase has been filled with the newspaper he was using in the grifting class. Britta leaves, carrying his briefcase, at which point Matt pursues her. Leonard and the rest of the school all interrupt Berry’s flight, carrying identical grifting briefcases of their own. Leonard’s dressed in an old-fashioned bellhop uniform, which is a nice touch. Matt Berry eventually leaves the confines of his wheelchair and chases Britta up the stairs to the rest of the group, the Dean, Franky, and the returning Officer Cackowski.
This is probably the best scene in the episode, as the group explains the situation and why Berry can’t do anything about it. It was all part of the plan all along, because of course it was. That’s the trouble with this episode; it’s a little too predictable. Not only that but the show already did an Ocean’s 11 spoof in season three, and managed the reversal of stakes joke and concept way better then. Despite the faint old west theme this episode doesn’t feel nearly different enough, except that it’s smaller scale and substantially less funny.
The end credits joke did have a nice Ryan Ridley cameo, and I’m always happy to see Cackowski again. He’s taking a macramé class at the school on the weekends. Still this feels like a bit of a subpar episode to me. It’s definitely possible, like a lot of season five, that subsequent viewings will alleviate this feeling. The depth of references and callbacks sometimes legitimately becomes more apparent later. Still I feel like this episode had a lot of good ideas, and some good moments, but that they were sort of like clusters of space debris that never quite formed a planet.
Tagged Community, Dan Harmon. Bookmark the permalink.
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Harry Edmundson-Cornell is obsessed with comics and film and writing, and he fancies himself a bit of an artist. He's dabbled in freelance video production, writing, design, 3D modelling, and artistic commissions. He mainly uses Tumblr to keep track of what he's watching and reading and listening to. Occasionally he uses it to post original works. You can find his email and junk there too, if you want to hire him or send him hate-mail.
See more, including free online content, on Harry Edmundson-Cornell's author page.
Well what do you know! It may have taken ten episodes but “Basic RV Repair and Palmistry” might just be the best episode of Community in a long time. Or at least in ten episodes. The story this time round has a bit more concept mixed in than some of this season’s past episodes, but it’s well utilized. This episode gives all the cast, including the new players, something to do. Just by not short changing any of the characters…actually make that short Chang-ing because truthfully he’s nowhere to be seen. But that’s okay, as Chang makes a better occasional member.
“Basic RV Repair and Palmistry” sees the whole cast confined to an RV again. This time it’s no spaceship simulator, instead it’s Elroy’s home, and the Committee is travelling cross-country willingly. The show opens with the RV driving along a mountain path with a giant hand tied to the roof. Everyone is inside the RV, and Abed points out that now would be a perfect time to do a “Three Weeks Earlier” flashback to explain the wacky situation. The show stays firmly in the present however, which starts to establish Abed’s dilemma this episode. Elroy is a little put out that everyone is in his home, but is even more concerned with the lack of gas in the RV. He confides in the Dean, who immediately panics and tells everyone else. They panic and immediately take the preventative measure of charging their phones. This instantly kills the RV battery.
After the opening credits we do get a “Three Weeks Later” title screen, at which point we get a flashback that clocks in at under a minute and establishes nothing other than the group’s plan to drive the hand. In the present we get a pretty funny scene where Elroy attempts to explain the technical situation regarding the RV, and Jeff stands next to him and nods and finishes his sentences like he understands how cars work. It’s one of those season six gags that goes on a little long, but it’s funny enough that I feel it can be forgiven. Elroy chuckling says that the back-up battery he plans to use to start the engine should be fine, so long as no one is still charging a phone. There’s a tense standoff as everyone immediately stops meeting Elroy’s eye contact. The battery is dead.
In the back room of the RV Abed sits on Elroy’s bed and concentrates, trying to force a flash-back. Over time, as he tries to flashback, the flashback scene changes a little, but Abed always gets cut off. It seems to be really concerning him. In the present we slowly find out the situation, such as it is. The Dean bought the giant hand with money the school didn’t have, and no one knows why. Frankie found “some freak, excuse me, some bigger freak” to buy the hand for cash. Elroy apologizes for freaking out at the group. Jeff apologizes for Elroy’s crappy RV, then apologizes for his crappy apology. Britta reveals the “skunk” they drove over was actually her getting high, but it turns out the whole group knew that anyway. Annie apologizes for not letting anyone pick the snacks they want. She’s been killing it she says, and has nothing else to apologize for. Frankie agrees and apologizes for the whole situation, at which point the group all look at the Dean expectantly. He meets their gaze and forgives them. Everyone freaks out and Dean Craig Pelton has a pretty funny meltdown. “No! I’m an adult and you cannot make me stop crying!”
They kick the Dean out of the RV and seem perfectly content to let him freeze to death. Abed goes out to see the Dean and explains why he’s concerned about the flashback. A normal road trip structure, he explains, starts with everyone needing to go on a road trip. The first act ends with them leaving, the second act ends with a disaster, and the third act sees them overcoming it. By ending the first act with a disaster, Abed is sure the second act will have an even worse disaster. Sure enough he and the Dean sit on the giant hand just as the straps give away.
Abed forces the Dean to flashback with him to a scene with them suggesting the group use stronger cords. They do, but naturally this doesn’t change the present. From inside the RV the group hears a tremendous sound. Annie asks, “Did something just fall off the roof?” Britta gets a pretty great moment when she replies with, “That’s a dumb question, obviously something fell off the roof, the question is what fell off the roof?” The whole group just quietly looks at her.
They go outside, and believing the hand to have crushed the Dean they lift it up. The Dean then darts in from behind the RV and locks them out. Realizing that Abed bonded with the Dean they try to get him to reason with Craig. Abed is stuck in a flashback loop however. Jeff panics and slaps him before Frankie splits them up and reasons with Abed. Explaining that the present is actually Abed flashing back from the future to help us. Abed than has a flash-forward to space-elder Abed who agrees to travel through time and help diffuse the situation. It’s a nice ending that actually ties in all the episodes threads.
So everyone gets something to do this episode, and Abed gets a nice arc and focus after being shafted in the “Recycled Cinema” episode. The jokes all land, and I quite liked the running jokes at Britta’s expense, which is starting to seem a little easy but generally was funny and is therefore forgiven. This episode also had one of the funniest stings the show has ever had. We meet the man who was planning on buying the giant hand and basically watch his life fall apart for a scene. Overall, definitely one of the season’s best. It seems like generally this season is improving. I hope that continues.
Tagged Community, Dan Harmon. Bookmark the permalink.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Last season Community decided to return to one of its better concept episodes – Dungeons and Dragons. The results were mixed, feeling like a slightly fruitless attempt at recapturing the glory days. When I heard that this season was going to have a new paintball episode I was suddenly struck by a nauseating sense of deja vu. The first season’s paintball episode was an instant classic, a thrilling and hilarious homage to action movies that melted into the fabric of the show like crayons left in the dryer. It was so good they did it again next season. The returns were instantly diminished. The new paintball episodes were hardly bad, in fact they were pretty good, shifting the action movie motif over into more specific western and Star Wars inspired territory. It may have felt like a bit of a retread in a season with several groundbreaking new episode ideas, but it was still effective, and made for a nicely climactic finale. Then some utter twats took over for a season. Season four was pretty much shite, and its finale was also paintball, and felt rather like a inebriated monkey doing an impression of Dan Harmon. It simply didn’t work, for a plethora of reasons. Still though, paintball was over. In a season three episode, Abed even says they should never do paintball again (they did, but the gas leak year doesn’t count).
So returning to that particular conceptual starting point was a pretty ballsy move. I sat down ready to have a pleasant, inoffensive television experience that occasionally would remind me of better times. Here’s the thing though, Dan Harmon kind of pulls this off. That’s not to say this is better than past paintball episodes, but those episodes were the show at its best. Instead we get an above average episode, maybe even when compared to other seasons.
The clear improvement is the concept’s adjustment. This episode doesn’t reference Die Hard, or westerns, or Star Wars, instead it sets its sights on a different action genre – the spy thriller. Yes this episode owes more to Mission Impossible and James Bond than it does George Lucas. The set up is clever, there’s a good guest star, the jokes land, the new length is well used. It’s a very well rounded episode of the show.
The premise of “Modern Espionage” is that Franky has banned paintball on campus. It makes a mess of the school and she wants to tidy the school up. This is also why she’s decided to honour one of the school’s best custodians, which gives the show a chance to bring a previous character played by Kumail Najiani back. Now that paintball has been banned, a mysterious secret paintball game begins to take the school by storm. The episode actually opens in media res with an awesome sequence that starts at Vicki’s one-man show, follows Starburns as he leaves, and concludes with a gunfight between Starburns and Todd. I’m no longer sure Garret is to be this season’s big villain, however, maybe because of some of the unfamiliar cast members, I really like this season’s commitment to incorporating bit characters. Starburns and Todd both get shot by a mysterious figure using silver paintballs. Cue the genre-specific version of the opening credits. The next scene is Jeff talking with Franky about her anti-paintball agenda. He’s onboard with it, saying they’ve outgrown the game. He then sits in the library with the rest of the group, which almost immediately devolves into a shoot-out and drags Jeff into the paintball game.
Also that ear game makes a return.
The group confers and begins to uncover the shady secret at the heart of the game. Essentially an anonymous website backed by real tech knowledge and money, two things that couldn’t have come from Greendale, organized the game. They also seem to be the ones behind the mysterious user named Silver_Ballz. Further investigation almost immediately reveals the figure’s backer. Yes City College has started yet another paintball game in order to spite Greendale. The nefarious school gets relegated to the background however in favour for the central mystery surrounding the identity and chief target Silver_Ballz.
Unfortunately this plot line gets a twist that only kind of makes sense. Basically they find this clue that leads them to suspect one character is a target, and then there’s a twist (it’s a spy movie homage, you should expect a twist) and the target is revealed as the perp. The problem is the clue is never adequately justified. And while I’m nitpicking lets talk about this episode’s character stuff. Jeff gets some nice characterization, and a bit of an arc. The Dean gets…what I’ll call an external arc, he gets to go from quivering to badass but it’s not really founded on his development so much as it is the situation’s. There’s some hinted at stuff between Annie and Abed (again, seems to be a thing this season, one that will surely never go anywhere, but I’d rather that than the nonsensical alternative). It’s more genre heavy than character heavy, although generally Jeff’s stuff feels like enough of a backbone.
The backbone leads to some great stuff too. Like the series of great environment gimmicks in a Custodial Museum, including a wonderful mannequin joke reversal that has to be seen. Mitchell Hurwitz, the creator of Arrested Development, gets to return to a character he played in a past cameo, which is not only a nice callback but actually funny. The spy stuff is really nicely done too, although if I was the nitpicking type, and I am, then I would wonder why there wasn’t any kind of gadget-based scene. It seems to me a spy movie without a little tech fetishization is an unusual one, probably a pretentious one too. For every nitpick one could levy at this episode however there’s a scene where Todd flips off a car and shoots at Starburns’ decoy, or Annie and Abed dance while shooting. It’s an episode that feels more vibrant than some this season, and that energy pays off.
Tagged Community, Dan Harmon, Modern Espionage. Bookmark the permalink.
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RSS feed for Harry Edmundson-Cornell
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Harry Edmundson-Cornell is obsessed with comics and film and writing, and he fancies himself a bit of an artist. He's dabbled in freelance video production, writing, design, 3D modelling, and artistic commissions. He mainly uses Tumblr to keep track of what he's watching and reading and listening to. Occasionally he uses it to post original works. You can find his email and junk there too, if you want to hire him or send him hate-mail.
See more, including free online content, on Harry Edmundson-Cornell's author page.
This season of Community has been utilizing very minor characters a lot more than ever before. The show has always had a cast of glorified extras that would pop into scenes when a random student outside of the group was needed. Garrett, Vicky, Magnitude, Todd, Fat Neil and Leonard are all prime examples. They’ve all had their moments in the spotlight, if by “moment in the spotlight” you mean a funny line or two. Vicky dancing for Twix? Pop-Tarts? (something like that) in the old west paintball episode. Garrett screeching various things over the years. Magnitude revealing his secret British origins. Todd pretty much gets to be a major character in his debut episode, as does Fat Neil, who gets one of the show’s better episodes ever centred around him. Leonard has been one of the show’s longest running jokes. “Shut up Leonard, I know about your crooked wang.” “Shut up Leonard, those girls playing ping-pong with you are doing it ironically.” “Shut up, Leonard! I talked to your son on Family Day. I know all about your gambling.” Seriously he even got an end credits bit reviewing pizza. With this season’s diminished core cast the writers have been drawing on these minor but recognizable figures.
This season is the first to really capitalize on this idea by setting one of these minor characters at the centre of the story. This episode sort of focuses on Garrett, whose funny voice and appearance have constituted a running joke on the show since the fourth episode. The show has never been kind to Garrett. Troy described him marvellously once, “That guy’s just a mess, it’s like God spilled a person.” He’s been popping up at odd intervals this season, generally harkening back to a joke from the season two episode “Applied Anthropology and Culinary Arts.” I think it’s Fat Neil in that episode, who, as the plot begins, quietly says something along the lines of “great, we almost had a whole day that wasn’t about them.” Yes the side effect of being the main characters on a TV show is that you tend to make things about you. The group tends to be the centre of every event at Greendale, and this episode, “Wedding Videography,” uses this as the main character arc. It’s a clever idea that gets dropped on the group at the halfway point of the episode.
This episode actually aligns with the concept of another season two episode, “Intermediate Filmmaking.” This is another great season two episode that revolved around the now deceased Pierce Hawthorne. (Just a note, this episode sort of predicts Jeff’s interaction with hologram Pierce that makes that scene a hilarious callback I didn’t notice until a recent viewing.) The episode was about Pierce in the hospital after passing out on painkillers he’d become addicted to throughout the course of the season. He tells the group he’s dying and brings them into his hospital room to grant them gifts before his passing. It’s quickly revealed to the audience that he’s not actually dying; instead he’s psychologically torturing the group. As Jeff puts it when he accuses Pierce, “It’s starting to seem, from observing the others, that you’re using the social leverage afforded you by your alleged deathbed to exact complicated acts of psychological vengeance on those closest to you.” It’s not the content of this episode that’s referenced, instead it’s the style. “Intermediate Filmmaking” was entirely presented as a documentary made by Abed about the events, allowing him to communicate complex ideas using talking heads. It all added up to a great episode.
This episode is all presented as being filmed by Abed, but it’s not a documentary. Or it is, but it’s only for Abed’s sake? It feels more like Community going found footage than it does a documentary, even with the talking heads. “Intermediate Filmmaking” was clearly an edited work. Abed did a voice-over, he cut montages, he talked about his process, that sort of thing. It’s a documentary not just a series of video clips strung together, and some of the episode’s best jokes came from the format. Abed’s personality and meta commentary came through via the structure. This episode doesn’t do that, and the result is a bit odd. I’m just speculating here but if you told me the structure was an incredibly last minute choice (and Dan Harmon and last minute scripts go together like fish and water) created to excuse Danny Pudi’s absence I would believe you. Abed doesn’t feel present like he did in “Intermediate Filmmaking.” “Documentary Filmmaking: Redux”, another great Community episode, had onscreen titles, newspaper clips, and other stylistic trappings referencing the documentary genre. Maybe the key to this episode is the title; this isn’t so much an Abed documentary as it is wedding videography.
It’s true that the talking heads almost lend the episode enough to actually justify the format, even if it never reaches the sublime heights of the show’s other forays into the docu-style. Maybe that doesn’t matter though because, between this, “Modern Espionage”, and “Basic RV Repair and Palmistry”, it seems that season six of Community might have finally settled into it’s stride. It’s not exactly the colossal jaw-dropping stride of season two, or the over-the-top silly-walk stride of season three, but it’s closer to season’s five’s competent stride than it was before. And it’s still miles ahead of the sobbing-ass-dragging-stride of season four, as if there was any question on that front. Between the cleverly conceived character arcs, some good jokes, and another super weird end-credits joke this episode stands out a bit. It’s not perfect, and it’s not quite as good as the last two episodes, but I’ll be damned if it isn’t funny and unexpected.
The episode revolves around Garrett’s wedding, which Abed has been hired to film. Except that’s not true, he was hired to document the proposal. The rest he does to relax, because “it’s like knitting, but with less discipline.” The wedding sees Garrett marrying a new female character played by Dan Harmon’s real-life wife Erin McGathy. Honestly I’m surprised it’s taken this long to see her cameo in the show but, given that this season has actually lifted dialogue from her appearances on Harmontown, it’s only natural this would be the season she finally fills a small role. She was perfectly serviceable and, while a character that better reflected her sense of humour might have been nice, she does a fine job as Garrett’s fiancée.
After Garrett’s proposal, the gang gathers at Annie’s house and plays games and shoots talking heads footage. Prior to this we get the episode’s sole use of the documentary format, which is pretty hilarious. It involves Annie shooting footage her friends could watch on a loop to remember her by if she was ever kidnapped or murdered. Everyone then realizes they’re late, race to Garrett’s wedding arriving halfway through the ceremony and stumble through bushes to take their seats. Chang falls off his chair a few times and the group laughs and stays oblivious to the discomfort they’re causing. After, Garrett’s mother pulls them aside and asks them to stop making the day about them.
The group, despondent, decides to separate and become the best wedding guests possible. Britta dances awkwardly. Franky and Annie talk about their personal dragon “the dragon of helping people.” This is pretty funny until it devolves into another thing about Annie’s infatuation with Jeff, which feels like the show’s personal dead horse trotted out on regular occasions to test the quality of their newly woven whips and katanas. If I had to give advice it would be to either commit to this plot thread or give it the fuck up.
Wheel spinning aside there’s a pretty funny bit where Elroy relapses and starts using his charismatic voice and non-white complexion to encourage white people. It’s a delightfully hilarious concept that builds to a stupendous one-liner. Jeff meanwhile inserts his way into the ceremony, using the groups’ gathered knowledge to craft the perfect best man speech. This all leads to a great twist, and an almost touching moment with Chang of all people. Basically Chang helps the group come to the conclusion that they’re maybe not as toxic and destructive and codependent as they seem. It’s a nice little bow on the climax’s jacket.
It’s kind of a weird episode in that my biggest complaint would be how loose and unstructured it feels. This is weird for me because on closer inspection this is just a feeling; the actual content of the episode consists of some pretty tight set-up and pay-off. If anything, the format detracts from the actually story instead of adding to it. The home-movie look just sort of distracts and muddies the water of a fine piece of TV writing. That’s not a minor complaint, but it doesn’t hamper this episode enough to completely stop it from feeling like a standout.
Lets talk about Community’s propensity for series finales. While it’s true that the continually reincarnated Futurama might actually have more finales if you factor in episodes designed to serve as finales in the event of premature cancellation…well than you’d actually have a tie at this point. Both shows have a whopping four potential series finales (all two-part episodes are counted as one in this estimation, because obviously they are). The difference is that Futurama has had nine seasons to Community’s six. Harmon certainly wins as far as density goes. If you begrudgingly counted the gas leak year finale as well, he’d win outright, but we won’t do that. Community has always been on the verge of cancellation, from season two on. Consequently episode after episode was designated as a potential finale. The last episode of season six, “Emotional Consequences of Broadcast Television” is another last episode, with all the sentimentality that entails.
Community’s first ever series finale was the last episode of the second season. The show wasn’t cancelled, but renewal was up in the air. The show was, potentially, sent off with a two-part paintball episode. The first half was “A Fistful of Paintballs” and was followed by “For a Few Paintballs More”, which abandoned the Western motif for a Star Wars themed finale. The gang saves the school, serving as a nice final moment. Pierce left the group, revealing for the first time how long he’d been at the school. All in all it’s an exciting send-off, probably the third best finale the show’s had. Not that there’s a bad finale to be found, really, just if I was hypothetically to rank them two of the four would go above this one. Sorry paintball, I really like you, it’s not personal.
The show’s best finale was season three. “Introduction to Finality” was, for a while, Dan Harmon’s last episode of Community. It was another bubble episode, one not quite sure if it was the final episode. There’s even a tag with Leonard giving the show a slightly hidden goodbye. The episode was the culmination of a lot of stuff going on that season. Star Burns faking his death, Abed’s emotional troubles and Evil Abed, some stuff with Jeff’s Dad, Troy and the air conditioning repair school, and Pierce and Shirley’s sandwich shop. It was more of an emotional climax to a season that had already had an episode with the gang orchestrating an elaborate heist to save the school from the megalomaniacal Chang who had straight-up kidnapped and replaced the Dean. It’s hard to follow that without seeming like anticlimax, and focusing just on the characters was a really good choice. The episode’s great last montage nicely deals with several major character arcs in a really satisfying way. This all coupled with Dan Harmon’s firing makes this episode feel like more of a finale than any of the others, in a really good way. It’s the send-off the show deserves.
“Basic Sandwich” might be the least satisfying of the show’s finales. The second part of a two-episode finale that started with “Basic Story.” The sandwich in the title is a reference to Subway, who at this point had bought the school. These last two episodes involved buried treasure and robots and missing millionaires. It’s good high stakes stuff, but the emotional notes it tried to strike fell really short with the truncated cast. Not only that but the big emotional beat, Jeff looking at all the group and remembering something about why he cares for them, sees Shirley in a completely different room not taking part. But I said before that all these episodes are good, and where this finale shines is in its anger and weirdness. The weirdness comes when a recurring character is revealed to maybe be capable of reading minds. This was a true finale. The show had been cancelled, and this allowed Dan Harmon to fire some angry shots at NBC. The absolute highlight is Abed turning to camera and explaining that if they don’t return next year the canonical explanation will be a meteor strike. That single joke is even better with context, in a scene where Annie apologizes to Abed that they couldn’t celebrate any calendar events this year (due to NBC’s vague scheduling). Then there’s the ending tag, a giant middle finger with NBC’s logo plastered on it. It’s a series of guest stars in fake NBC ads for terrible new TV shows the studio is trying to launch. Much is made of the studio’s tendency to delay shows airing and cancelling things at random. It’s truly the action of a Dan Harmon who knew he wasn’t coming back and had some things to get off his chest.
Which brings us to the season six finale and the show’s fourth (countable) series finale. The episode is a quiet and contemplative one with a gimmick slightly reminiscent of “Remedial Chaos Theory.” The episode starts with Elroy leaving, saying he’ll “maybe be back.” As much as I liked Elroy’s addition to the show he was never the member of the group that Hickey was, and in the end his presence wasn’t really missed. This episode wouldn’t have worked as well with a character who had stayed so relatively unfamiliar with the rest of the group present. It was well handled, and immediately established the slightly wistful melancholy tone of this show. This episode in the end, as much as it’s about satisfying one really major character arc, is about what a return to Community would look like at this point. With so many missing faces and so few reasons to get the group together a seventh season would be a weird beast. Obviously the best variation would be one that reunited the original cast to some degree. Maybe the shorter time commitment of TV movie special thing would allow for that, but it seems likely the show would have to hobble around without its knees some more.
So in order to address this, Abed basically gets the group to sit around at Britta’s bar and each pitch their version of the show, complete with truncated opening sequences. It’s the sort of concept I’m honestly surprised took the show this long to try out. Getting each member of the group’s perspective on the group dynamics, TV, and each other is legitimately funny and clever. This is a more poignant episode than it is funny though, however the narrative device ports over nicely to the tone. Plus Chang’s is a Rick and Morty reference sort of. The episode’s big reveals are Annie and Abed. Annie has gotten an internship at the FBI over the summer, and seems to be moving on with her life. Abed is going to L.A. to work on the set of a show he describes as “30 Rock meets The IT Crowd.” The group is parting ways, done with Greendale, only “maybe” coming back and this makes Jeff spiral a bit. We’ve gotten glimpses of Jeff’s fears regarding his stagnant future, and this episode melds that nicely with the news of the changes summer is bringing. It’s also a nice chance to get more and more scenes that make Jeff’s slow transformation into Pierce pretty obvious.
Several of Jeff’s pitches look more like Pierce’s sexually charged Halloween story than anything Jeff’s done before. It’s kind of a nice character development, one that the show played a lot of lip service to earlier but seems to just now be showing evidence of it. Mainly though this is an episode about Jeff and Annie, the will-they-won’t they tension that wouldn’t die. Of all the show’s character dynamics this was the most stubborn, one that never seemed to change, even after episodes that seemed specifically designed around changing it.
This first becomes apparent when Jeff reacts to the news that Annie is leaving for the summer. He suddenly whole-heartedly joins the pitching game, desperate to convince the group a new season would work. Then he pitches a show that sees him and Annie married. This one he doesn’t narrate aloud though. They’re living together in his pitch, with a kid. Jeff’s mental version of Annie asks him if this is what he really wants. “Sure, although I’d be fine with a dog.” Then she asks him if he has any idea what she wants. Jeff’s reaction speaks damning volumes, all the more damning for its origins in Jeff’s subconscious. Then the two talk in real life. It’s nice to see the show finally try putting this to bed, and the fact that it’s effectively sad and sweet makes it that much better.
Then the show slid into the best possible ending tag for a series finale. The tag is a fake ad for a Community board game complete with advertising narrator. The goal of the game seems to be establishing what level of reality the game is happening on. The characters get depressed when they realize they only exist in a commercial, as the the narrator, Dan Harmon himself, starts ranting long and passionately. Then the episode ends. Then the sixth season ends with the hopeful #andamovie. So maybe the show will come back. Or maybe this is the last episode ever.
Tagged Community, Dan Harmon. Bookmark the permalink.
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RSS feed for Harry Edmundson-Cornell
@the3rdwall
on Google+
Harry Edmundson-Cornell is obsessed with comics and film and writing, and he fancies himself a bit of an artist. He's dabbled in freelance video production, writing, design, 3D modelling, and artistic commissions. He mainly uses Tumblr to keep track of what he's watching and reading and listening to. Occasionally he uses it to post original works. You can find his email and junk there too, if you want to hire him or send him hate-mail.
See more, including free online content, on Harry Edmundson-Cornell's author page.
