Jmunney's Blog

“Why can’t you ever make a documentary about the thing you plan to make a documentary about?”

The subjects of Abed Nadir’s documentaries – his relationship with his parents in “Introduction to Film,” Pierce’s hospital stay in “Intermediate Documentary Filmmaking,” and the shooting of Greendale’s commercial in “Documentary Filmmaking: Redux” – have never been fully clear until the end of each episode.  In the advanced stage of Abed’s documentaries, with the seemingly nonsensical “Changnesia” as the nominal subject, that uncertainty seems to be the whole point.  Abed gives the first indication of this, when Jeff declaring his plan leads him to note his film just took a completely unexpected turn à la Capturing the Friedmans.  Then there’s the moment when he opts to show himself reacting to overly intense footage instead of the footage itself – a reference to Grizzly Man, a documentary by Werner Herzog based on somebody else’s footage.  Overall, this episode was giving me an Exit Through the Gift Shop vibe – as in, whose documentary was this really?  More on that later…

For now, the funny: Ken Jeong was the best he’s been in a good long while.  His attempt at re-learning How to Wear a Hat was delightful, and his word-for-word repetition of the conversation Jeff and Shirley had in front of him was a comedic tour de force.  Annie and Troy’s detective partner routine was also satisfactory, with Troy really committing to doing the opposite of everything Annie did.  Sighing and then turning his head the opposite way that Annie turned hers while sighing was a prime example of this gag.

The real meat of this episode was once again a dramatic breakthrough for Jeff, and bizarrely enough this moment came via his relationship with Chang, or Kevin … Chang.  Jeff has momentarily become a pariah because of his skepticism about the legitimacy of a man who attempted to destroy the school and kill him and his friends, which bizarrely nobody else seems to care about.  I never bought that “Kevin” might actually be suffering from Changnesia, and I don’t think Jeff did either, but he and I were both led into thinking that he might be pretending for the sake of being granted a second chance.  It was positively touching that Jeff was able to marry his (reasonable) skepticism with forgiveness.

But then that tag happened, and it seemed crystal clear that Chang was not really trying to make a fresh start.  I am generally of the mind that a bad ending does not necessarily undercut all the good that came before it.  The ending isn’t the whole thing – the journey does not depend on its destination to be meaningful.  But this particular ending must have been planned from the beginning, so it is not unfair to say that it throws everything that came before it in a new light.  So Chang’s appeal for a fresh start wasn’t genuine, and he fooled everyone.  But in a weird way, I actually think this reveal made this episode’s meaning even more profound.  Yes, everyone was fooled, but the fact that they allowed themselves to be fooled in this situation proved just how kindhearted they really are.  As for what this tag bodes for the future, I understand that people are wary of another Chang takes down Greendale arc, and I’m not excited about it either.  But let’s see this play out.  Maybe Chang will be affected by how he’s been embraced by those who have every reason to hate him.  Maybe it wasn’t actually City College on the other end of the phone.  It probably was, but my point is, let’s see what this is all about before throwing up our hands. A-