communityEoMB

“Magnitude, you’re not to say ‘pop pop’ ever again.”

One criticism that people (including myself a few times) have been making about Community Season 4 is how overly busy the episodes have been. “Economics of Marine Biology” was among the busiest, but that wasn’t really a problem, as most of the plot sprang from the same point. Only Troy and Shirley’s storyline stood out as its own thing, but it was small-scale enough for its relatively little screen time to not cause it to suffer.

The only significant problem with the a-plot was that the “whale” (a rich potential student with plenty of money to spend freely while at Greendale) that the Dean was after didn’t make much of an impression. In fact, I had to look up his name (Archie), even after watching the episode twice. His description started out promisingly enough: SAT score of “0,” “high lack of ambition.” But he ended up not having much of a personality beyond “entitled” and “likes snowboarding.” And he didn’t provide much of a conflict either, as he didn’t require much convincing when the Dean insisted that he accommodate himself to Greendale. Luckily, though, this storyline did not hinge on Archie as much as the Dean and Annie’s reactions to him. While I was happy to see Annie actually have something significant to do, I would have liked if she had actually been given more to say, though her expressions were great, particularly when she and the Dean made pleading faces to Jeff (who couldn’t bear them for various reasons) and when she had to whisk Magnitude away. Speaking of Magnitude, it was brilliant that Archie stealing his catchphrase was the point at which things had gotten out of hand, and it was a great way to keep “Pop! Pop!” relevant.

The Delta Cubes business was amusing enough and certainly felt like something Abed would do. Actually, it felt like something Season 1 Abed would do, specifically, something he would do in “The Art of Discourse,” when he was trying to experience everything that movies told him were essential aspects of college. Maybe he just didn’t get a chance to pull a frat vs. dean stunt freshman year, and he jumped at the opportunity when it happened to arrive.

I have been hearing a lot that this season feels like Season 1 for some viewers, and that can be seen with Troy and Shirley’s Physical Education Education (P.E.E.) subplot, in that it focused on a class that doesn’t necessarily have much bearing on a season-long storyline. It managed to make Chang useful AND funny, with an inspired montage of Shirley teaching Troy to teach Chang. The golf swing sequence was the quite the sight gag. “I was supposed to teach you two to teach others, but instead, you ended up teaching me” was a nicely ridiculous tweaking of the often cliché story of teachers and students inspiring each other.

For those of you who have been getting worked up about Pierce reverting to a racist monster, this episode shows that it is best not to overreact to any one particular episode. And we have got to just keep praising Joel McHale. Jeff’s reaction to Pierce telling him that he’s proud of him for standing up to his father was reminiscent of the talk the two had in “The Politics of Human Sexuality.” But this time, Jeff saw no reason to say, “I was waiting for that to become inappropriate or racist.” His chiding to Annie and the Dean to not “talk about Pierce like that” conveyed in one sentence how much Jeff has matured. Annie’s expression of not being quite sure how to react was also telling. If Season 5 happens, I’m really going to miss Pierce. B+