Jmunney's Blog

The Save Greendale Committee has saved Greendale!

…

This is Greendale saved?

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The work of the SGC has apparently actually made a difference, even though we haven’t really seen them in action that much this season.  In fact, episodes that have focused on improving Greendale seemed to emphasize the futility of that endeavor. “Analysis of Cork-Based Networking” portrayed the circuitous route of glad-handing that it apparently took to get a simple job done.  “VCR Maintenance and Educational Publishing” presented a Save Greendale task interrupted by a scheme on the side that ultimately amounted to nothing.  But I think it actually works to say that most of the committee’s duties were completed in the background.  The point is conveyed that most of the tasks must have been uneventful and become just a part of the committee’s routine.  It is not like this is the first season that these characters have cared about Greendale, but this year has represented the most practical – and least-story filled – manifestation of that care.

So, this episode begins in a way befitting its title.  It is a “basic story,” if it is even a story at all.  The most urgent matter on the board of to do stars is “Make more to do stars.”  The Save Greendale Committee spends a good portion of the first act playing games on their phones.  The Dean comes on over the P.A. system, but it turns out he just hit the button by accident, so he uses this opportunity to see how everyone is doing.

Abed doesn’t like all this contentment, because he thrives on a good story, and in a good story, people aren’t content all the time.  I feel that typically in this type of situation, Abed would just go off and start his own side adventure, but here the circumstances are a little different, thanks to the incoming visit from the insurance appraiser.  While that is supposedly the narrative reason why Abed should avoid making Greendale as shenanigan-filled as usual, thematically there is something more going on.  I don’t think what Abed is worried about here is contentment so much as the end of an era.  Even though everyone’s time at Greendale seems more or less indefinite at this point, there is a definite sense that the success of the Save Greendale Committee means it is time to move on, and moving on is not Abed’s forte.

In the face of adversity, Abed is not one to shut down; instead, he is one to go even crazier.  For a while, it is his crazy sensibility that seems to be driving the directing and editorial choices of the episode, especially with the cut to the teacher’s lounge, followed by the cut back to Abed running through the hallway, with the camera struggling to find him at first.  The close-up on the guy having some soup after Abed trails off with “Let the lack of story…” is one of the most brilliantly experimental tricks the very experimental Community has ever done.  I saw a comment of someone suggesting that the rest of this episode should have just followed Soup Guy, which I would have found incredible, but this may not have been the best time to go avant-garde, as this could be Community‘s penultimate episode, and it might be a good idea to tie up some narrative loose ends.  Also, it turns out that there ultimately is a story to be told here, because now that Greendale is actually functioning properly and thus has value as a property, Carl and Richie (the always welcome Jeremy Scott Johnson and Brady Novak) are ready to sell out to the first bidder.

The return of Subway isn’t as insidiously threatening as when it was employing corpo-humanoids.  The villain here that might be bringing about the demise of Greendale as we know it is really greed and opportunism, while Subway’s presence is more about delightfully goofy gags.  School locations are renamed with unimaginative Subway-based puns, Jared Fogle cameos, and Annie at her most badass zings to the Subway rep, “Great, thanks for making my joke accurate.  Now it’s hilarious.”  And the most brilliant goofy gag of them all is Abed asking for clarification of how Subway refers to its units of bread, a moment of genuine curiosity amidst the antagonism.

In my review of “G.I. Jeff” last week, I bemoaned the fact that Jeff’s troubles seem to have come out of nowhere.  This episode seems to imply that he is scared of how is life is as good as it is right now, or the way in which it is good.  He has settled down, and when Annie points this out to him and suggests that he loves Greendale, or Shirley tells him that his heart is his strength, he deflects these compliments, by insisting that all he loves are Scotch and himself or by telling Shirley she has something in her teeth.

This state of mind leads to his rash proposal to Britta.  I knew ahead of time that this scene was coming, and as a Jeff/Annie fan, I obviously wasn’t looking forward to it.  But, even though I thought it was a terrible decision for Jeff to propose at that moment, the scene worked for me.  Unlike a lot of Jeff/Annie shippers, I don’t think Jeff and Britta are that terrible for each other.  And I’ve been thinking lately about how I used to be a Jeff/Britta shipper.  When I start watching a new show, I tend to pull for the protagonist to end up with the love interest that he is nominally pursuing (so long as it is clear that they are not completely wrong for each other).  Community began with Jeff chasing Britta, so naturally, I wanted them to end up together.  Jeff’s motives were superficial at first, so I wanted him to have to work for her.  And he did.  They became friends, without any expectation on Jeff’s part that she would inevitably fall for him.  When Jeff started dating Slater, Britta was clearly jealous, whether or not she wanted to admit it.  When they hooked up during the paintball game, their sexual tension was resolved much sooner than that of any classic sitcom will they/won’t they relationship.  Community treated romance differently than other sitcoms, and it felt like it would be more satisfying, or at least satisfying in a different way, if Jeff and Britta eventually ended up together.  But then “Pascal’s Triangle Revisited” happened, and with it came my favorite kiss in television history, and I suddenly became a Jeff/Annie shipper with no looking back.

The sudden emergence of Jeff and Annie wasn’t the only thing that made me stop cheering on Jeff and Britta.  In season 2, the latter pair were fuckbuddies, but nothing happened beyond that, and they have both made it clear that the sex wasn’t all that great for either of them.  By Season 3, they were old friends, but the kind of friends who are kind of mean to each other, and not in the pleasantly teasing sort of way.  By this point, I was like, “Yeah, no way,” regarding Jeff/Britta.  And, really, I felt that way up through most of this season.  But looking back, in Season 4, Britta did help Jeff get back in touch with his dad.  And this season, they really haven’t been as combative as they used to be.  This whole series kicked into gear because Jeff was trying to sleep with the hot blonde in Spanish class.  It would actually be kind of cool if they could manage to successfully bring it all the way back around to the beginning and make them a legitimate couple … except for the fact that there is someone else who is much more compatible with Jeff.

I have seen Jeff/Britta shippers make their case by saying that Jeff can just be himself when he’s with Britta.  And you know what?  They’re right.  But he can also be himself when he’s with Annie.  Annie accepts Jeff for who he is, but also pushes him to be his best self.  It all comes back to “Pascal’s Triangle Revisited” again.  Jeff at that moment wished that part of him – the part that wanted to evolve – could be with Slater and that another part of him – the part that wanted to be himself – could be with Britta.  The implication was that with Annie, he could be both of those parts, and I have always found that that remains to be true.  I wouldn’t hate it if Jeff and Britta ultimately ended up together (and I never thought I would have said that just a few weeks ago).  But the difference is, while I think Jeff and Britta could work, I think Jeff and Annie already have been working.  They’ve never officially been a couple, but they already act like one in so many ways.  Even though Jeff and Britta had a great intimate moment in the proposal scene, I was more struck by this episode’s subtle Jeff/Annie moments.  When Shirley told Jeff, “you got something in your chest,” I immediately thought of this.  During the conversation about settling down, Annie’s eye roll at Jeff struck me as meaning, “I know you care more than you’re willing to admit, but I’ll let you come to realize that on your own time.”  Admittedly, I have conditioned myself to see things this way more than most Community fans, but these little moments with Jeff and Annie happen a lot, whether or not you interpret them romantically.

Ultimately, though, Jeff and Britta probably aren’t going to actually go through with getting married, at least not any time soon.  They have a history of spontaneously deciding to get hitched, and they didn’t actually go through with it those other times either.  There are clearly some new wrinkles that the second part will add to this next week.  There was a reason they were interrupted as they were about to christen the new table.  The buried treasure plot will also have plenty more to do before any thing can be said about it definitively.  The Dean, Annie, and Abed were infectious in their enthusiasm, but buried treasure sounds almost too much like a deus ex machina solution at this point.  We shall see how this all wraps up next week, but wow, we are left hanging more than any other Community episode has left us hanging before.

And now, the bullet-point portion of the review:
–So, uh, Alison Brie danced in this episode.  Apparently Danny Pudi and Jim Rash danced as well, but it’s hard to be sure, because my eyes were otherwise occupied.
-On the whiteboard: “This may be your last chance for a screen capture.”
-“The information you requested- is on the Internet.”
-“I wrote a paper on those dogs.” (A few seconds of silence)
-Insurance appraiser Ronald Muhammed was played by Michael McDonald, and that me laugh.  His routine about the city’s definitions may have been the funniest part of the episode. “The city defines a dog as any living entity with four legs and a tail.”
-Leonard chooses to “unsubscribe” from Abed, and it is hilarious because it is said by Leonard.
-TOMATO

I would not call Season 5 Community‘s best, but I would call it its most consistent.  Seasons 1-3 didn’t really have any duds, but they did have a few instances of treading water or going a little too insane.  Season 5 has basically avoided those missteps, but I think this year could have benefited from at least a few more episodes.  This is all a prelude to saying all the elements of “G.I. Jeff” were very good to excellent, but because there wasn’t room to set those elements up earlier in the season, the episode itself may have been no more than merely good.

The earlier Community episode that “G.I. Jeff” calls to mind – and specifically invokes – is “Abed’s Uncontrollable Christmas.”  Jeff’s shock at seeing himself stuck as a community college professor as he turns 40 apparently provokes a psychotic break in the style of Abed discovering that his mother won’t be a part of future Christmas celebrations.  While the crises are similar, the fantasies manifest in significantly different ways.  Abed actually saw the world as stop-motion animation.  In “Geothermal Escapism,” the floor actually was lava for him.  We have seen inside Jeff’s head before, and this time is consistent with those past occasions.  While his friends are present in his imagination, he does not project those visions out upon the world.  In the season 3 opening song and dance number of “Biology 101,” he created a (too-)perfect (Pierce-less) future.  In “Advanced Introduction to Finality,” he considered the crossroads of graduation as a fight between his good and evil selves.

The key difference between Jeff and Abed is that, even though Jeff’s interior life is quite strong, the separation between that interior and his exterior remains clear.  Jeff may not have wanted to face where his life was at, but it required mind-altering substances and a break from a fully conscious state for him to get stuck in a part of his head where he isn’t facing reality at all.  Like Abed, Jeff’s psychotic break takes the form of a cherished piece of entertainment from his childhood.  (Jeff and Abed are a lot alike, don’t you know.  They were both raised by television, weren’t they.)

I have never watched the G.I. Joe cartoon, but I have watched plenty of cartoons from the 90’s, which is close enough to the 80’s, which is when Joe is from, so I think I know something close enough to the style that this episode was going for.  The attention to detail was typical of Community, which is to say, AS EXACTING AS POSSIBLE.  I especially appreciated the tiny film strip scratches constantly popping up throughout the frame.  There were a few gags at the expense of G.I. Joe that were a little on the nose (the lip sync mistake comes to mind), but most of the takedowns were astute and even the cheap jokes were funny.  The Joe’s and Cobra totally having their mind blown by the instance of someone actually being killed was particularly cutting.

While I have never seen G.I. Joe, the commercials for the toys lasted into the 90’s, so I can say that the ad breaks that were part of Jeff’s fantasy were completely accurate.  I never realized until now just how strange it was to have this group of boys narrating their toy playing in the backyard while interacting with the commands of the narrator.  Weaving Jeff’s storyline into the commercials made them even more surreal.

The one episode of television that “G.I. Jeff” most reminded me of was actually “The Sting,” my favorite half hour ever of Futurama.  Annie’s plea of “Jeff, please, I don’t want you to die. Can you hear me?” in the former sounded a lot like Fry imploring Leela that she needs to wake up in the latter.  The predicaments that Jeff Winger and Turanga Leela faced were both prompted by life-threatening circumstances.  While Leela’s journey was a real mind-bender in which she couldn’t figure out what realm of reality she was in, Jeff – or “Wingman” – understood rather quickly what was going on.  And thanks to Abed as “Fourth Wall,” a clear route of escape back to reality (the animated realm up to the live action commercial interstitial realm and then up to the live action real world) was presented to him.  But Jeff took some convincing that it was worth it to wake up.  He was scared that because his life is still stuck at Greendale, he won’t ever be where he really wants to be, so he would rather retreat into the pleasures of his boyhood.  Tellingly, and appropriately, he changed his mind when he was reminded of the pleasures that are a part of adulthood, like boobs and Scotch.  In his heart-to-heart with Duke and Cobra Commander, I think he began to realize that he needs to enjoy those pleasures with as much enthusiasm as he enjoyed G.I. Joe.

One last note about the portrayal of Greendale in the G.I. Joe world: Jeff cast the Dean, Chang, Duncan, and Hickey as members of Cobra and noted that “it’s as if there’s something about [Greendale] that feeds on ambition.”  While he is friendly with all four of these guys to various degrees, it is clear that he does not want to remain at this place for as long as any of them have been there.

I want to fully embrace “G.I. Jeff,” because it does have that patented Community blend of biting humor and heartrending pathos, but Jeff’s troubles seem to have come out of nowhere, and this is why I began this review by contending that this season could have benefited from the breathing room of a few more episodes.  I suppose the crisis of this episode is the sort that strikes with little or no warning, but it would have made sense if Jeff’s inner demons had been seen more earlier in the season.  Also, the ending of the episode felt a little rushed.  Nobody looked all that visibly distraught once Jeff woke up.  This may have been meant to capture the spirit of hugs and lessons learned at the end of an 80’s cartoon, but I think that still could have been pulled off with everyone looking more worried.  There was a chance he could have died!  Or, at least, that was what was implied while he was still in G.I. Joe world.  It feels so harsh to criticize these details, but they were important.  With a little tightening up, this could have been a damn near perfect episode.

And now, the bullet-point portion of the review:
-“Your idea was doing the exact same thing we did to those other guards back at headquarters?”
-“We’ve been shooting at each other and missing for 20 years.”
-I loved Britta imitating a whirring saw.
-“I swear to God, I feel Korean.”  You see, it’s funny, because Ken Jeong actually is Korean.  On the subject of Chang, the moment when he, as Overkill, split up into multiple copies and asked, “Which me is the real me?” sounded like a subtle reference to the various personae that Chang has taken on throughout the years.
-“You’re still 18-49 for almost a decade.”
-“Milk sold separately.”
-“Innocence not included. Comes with reversible ethics.”

It may seem like a risky decision for a fifth-season show to focus an episode around a character who was just introduced that season.  But luckily, Buzz Hickey is a great character.  And just as luckily – well, this part might not be so much a matter of luck – his son Hank is played by David Cross, who in addition to being one of the most important people in American comedy, is also just a really great actor.  When he trusts the material, he has a simple presence of just being in the narrative.  He is basically being himself, so his skill doesn’t really show itself off, but that serves the scene effectively.

Because Buzz Hickey is emotionally rough, it is unsurprising that he is at odds with his son.  (Sidebar: it was a nice moment when it was pointed out that this son wasn’t the gay one.  That one, Buzz gets.  I mean, I expect Community to be progressive, but it’s still worth pointing out.)  Since Dan Harmon loves Dungeons & Dragons, he has decided that Hank Hickey is a D&D player.  That explanation may sound a little flip on my part, but I actually meant for it to be matter-of-fact.  Apparently D&D is a major nerdy pursuit, but I don’t personally know anybody who plays it, or if I do, I don’t know that they play it.  I think it might be a generational thing.  Dan Harmon is a bona fide Gen-X’er, and Gen-X nerds are probably more likely to be D&D’ers than other generations.  Fittingly, David Cross is also a Gen-X’er.

This is in part a roundabout way of saying that I am okay with the fact that Community is doing a second Dungeons & Dragons episode more or less just for the hell of it.  The first D&D outing is one of the best the show has ever done; it was unlikely that this episode was ever going to match it, and it wasn’t trying to do the same things anyway.  The original came at a major turning point in the intra-group conflict between Pierce and everyone else, and Neil’s crisis was much more urgent than that of the Hickeys.  (I was a little surprised that Jeff mentioned how they may have prevented a suicide last time.  I mean, I always assumed that was the implication, but I don’t think the show has ever directly acknowledged that, so it was a little heavy to hear it.)

I might actually consider “Advanced Advanced D&D” to be one of – to use Harmon’s terminology – Community‘s “pizza” episodes.  That is to say, an episode that like pizza is not trying anything too fancy or unusual but can still be successful.  Pizza episodes tend to be reliable, as even bad pizza is still pizza.  Dungeons & Dragons, though perhaps not a frequent occurrence, is enough of a part of these people’s lives such that the whole structure of the show does not need to be re-organized to have this episode make sense.  There were some flourishes to make this outing feel like an entry in the fantasy genre, but of course every Community episode has references and they were all very much still in Abed and Annie’s apartment the whole time.

It was interesting how the study group tried to use the fact that they are all in a much better place than they were in Season 2 to help the Hickeys solve their impasse.  Jeff almost immediately offered his experience with daddy issues to nip this conflict away.  The fact that everyone was so eager to help Buzz and Hank speaks to the fact that there wasn’t any legitimate animosity with anyone else besides the Hickeys.  There was some playful animosity, but nothing worse than Jeff shoving Britta’s face in a puddle as one of his game moves.  The Hickey drama was sufficiently detailed, but it was also kind of its own thing.  Unlike Neil, Hank probably will not be showing up again.  I would be happy to see him, but there is no obvious reason why he should be hanging out around Greendale.

As for the lack of development among the regular Greendalians, there actually was some characterization present in, weirdly enough, the tag.  Abed practicing Dungeon Mastering with Annie’s “stuffies” was an inspired peek into the time that he must have spent working on that huge book of game scenarios he pulled out during the main action.  But, more tellingly, this scene also established what places Abed’s need for play take him without a partner like Troy always around.  Annie may be up for an occasional romp in the Dreamatorium, but not as often as Abed is.

Speaking of Annie, I love how attached she is to her stuffed animals.  Hitfix‘s Alan Sepinwall recently had a lengthy interview with Harmon, which covered, among other topics, Annie’s recent maturation.  Now, I am happy that this season has given her plenty to do, but I resent the implication that her dressing in skirts and bright colors, and her purple pens, and her feelings for Jeff have been signs of immaturity in past seasons.  These elements have always struck me as parts of Annie’s personality and never mutually exclusive with her maturity.  So I hope all those colorful aspects of her do not disappear, but if some of them must, at least she is still allowed to have her “stuffies.”

All in all, I enjoyed this episode more than I didn’t.  It may seem like I spent most of this review talking about what I didn’t like, but it’s not like I hated what I didn’t like.  It’s just that it needed to be talked about, while the good stuff wasn’t insisting that it be dissected.

And now, the bullet-point portion of the review:
-The Dean’s behavior towards Jeff got a little too close to harassment territory, but at least a good portion of that was acting as his D&D character.  Also, the father-son angle was a little poignant in light of his moment with Duncan in the “Bondage and Beta Male Sexuality” tag.
-The sound mix was really on fire.
-The “Times Square” joke could have been really hacky, but the editing was perfect, and Ken Jeong’s delivery was spot-on.
-Annie wonders aloud if Hickey’s problem with his son is an “emergency collage situation.”
-“Dingleberry” was Chang’s mom’s nickname for him.
-“If we lose, I’m going to punch each of you in the heart.”  Hickey then continued to discuss his heart-punching experience.
-“I’ll imaginary sleep when I’m imaginary dead.”
-DINGLEBERRY SMASH!

Brie Larson’s Rachel appears to be the anti-Frank Grimes, that is, the one-time Simpsons character who has come to represent the idea of a person seemingly transported from the real world to be totally put off by TV characters’ craziness.  Rachel, on the other hand, sees the craziness of the Greendale crew and says, “Yes, I like that.”  And she actively contributes to it by being the one who gives Abed the interactive VCR game “Pile of Bullets,” a game that is really crazy, even by Community standards.  But, like someone who seems to have come in from the real world, her craziness or attraction to it is tempered and self-aware, putting her foot down as she does when the craziness gets too manipulative.

So anyway, I’m happy that Brie Larson is finally back for more than just the last two minutes of an episode.  “VCR Maintenance” only further cemented my belief that she should be a regular or semi-regular.  (Apparently, her film career is taking off, so she might have trouble fitting it into her schedule, but she better make time for at least a few episodes should there be a Season 6, because Rachel is simply not a character that should fall victim to Chuck Cunningham Syndrome.)  Did it bother me that Abed and Rachel had suddenly become the “Aww” Couple since the last time we saw them?  No, because their courtship was convincing and extensive enough in “Herstory of Dance” and all the lost time between then and “Analysis of Cork-Based Networking” was brushed off with a “Let’s just forget that and start dating.”

Rachel finds herself in the cross-hairs of an Annie-Abed plot that puts Alison Brie’s and Danny Pudi’s boisterous chemistry to ideal use.  If you’ve ever watched interviews with the Community cast, you know that these two tend to goof off together with boundless energy.  So getting them rolling dice, collecting tokens, finger-banging, and tornado-ing in tune with an especially nonsensical piece of interactive technology was the perfect method of corralling all that enthusiasm.  Plus, it fit their characters exactly, appealing to Annie’s intense perfectionism and Abed’s commitment to the bit.

Somehow the game of Pile of Bullets was the method of Annie and Abed choosing a new roommate, and somehow that made perfect sense in the context of the episode.  Rachel moving in may not have been the best idea, but it did make sense that Abed would want her to move in, beyond just the typical reasons of someone trying to move things too quickly in a relationship (more on that later), and actually, her moving in could work (more on that later also).  Annie’s brother moving in might make sense because he’s family and they’ve lived together before, but also, this appearance is the first time that Anthony has ever even been mentioned on the show.

Coming into this episode, I was concerned that this brother who was hitherto unknown would be a problem, and it still kind of was, but it wasn’t as bad as it could have been.  As he mentions, he was 13 when Annie become addicted to Adderall, so it makes sense that he wasn’t in a position to independently stay in touch with her after their parents cut her off.  And Annie has never really divulged that much information about her family, so I can believe that she never happened to be inclined to bring up his name.  Ultimately, I can believe that he would never be mentioned over the course of five years; I think the only thing that was missing was some in-show acknowledgement of his previous total absence.

Played by Spencer Crittenden (who Harmontown listeners know as the podcast’s Dungeons & Dungeons Dungeon Master) basically as his monotone self, Anthony confused me a little at first, thinking he was supposed to be slow in wild contrast to the quick-witted Annie.  As the episode progressed, though, he ultimately projected a sort of Zen wisdom with his flat affect.  They didn’t exactly have a whole lot of sibling similarities, but I did get a sense of Anthony having resigned himself to being bossed around by a controlling older sister.

In trying to find a replacement for Troy, Annie and Abed drive both Anthony and Rachel away and therein demonstrate how much they need someone like Troy to counterbalance their intensity.  Anthony departs a little annoyed at Annie, but not so annoyed as to preclude the possibility of a return appearance, which I would be happy to see.  Spencer really seems like he’s going places.  Meanwhile, Rachel is understandably upset at Abed at his most manipulative, and I’m momentarily experiencing the same abandonment issues as Abed, worried that Brie Larson is going to disappear from Community yet again.  Luckily, Abed remembers that he has found the perfect girl for him and knows that she will forgive him if he offers a “third act apology.”  And here is evidence for why Rachel would be a solid roommate choice.  I’ve compared her to Troy in the past, and that is exactly it – she happily goes along with Abed’s homages but not quite as intensely as he does, but she is able to rein him in from his worst tendencies, much better than Troy ever was able to (though, to be fair to Troy, Rachel may have benefited from Troy’s influence on Abed before she met him).

The “third act apology” really is an incredible moment.  It works according to the same principle as Abed’s big, public declaration of love at the end of “Herstory of Dance” – he takes a fictional trope and shows that it does have meaning when applied to real life, but he tweaks it a little bit for his own purposes.  Abed and Rachel could have just kissed as Pavel poured down the rainwater, and Rachel would have been fine with that, and she was right to think that that would have been adorable.  But Abed also wants to explain himself, and it is beautiful when he says, “Just because it’s adorable doesn’t mean it’s not important.”  This is a cool gesture, but it is also how Abed knows best how to communicate, and even without the two of them kissing in that scene, it is incredibly romantic, and I am left thinking how much I need to find a girl who would appreciate a gesture like that just as much as Rachel does.

In the “Educational Publishing” half of this episode, Jeff, Shirley, and Hickey stumble across a cache of hidden textbooks that they scheme to sell on the black market (or whatever the Greendale equivalent of the black market is).  But things get complicated when they need to bring Britta into the fold for her connections and then when Chang stumbles across them.  This storyline is basically A Simple Plan (everything goes wrong for amateur criminals because they’re amateurs) crossed with Community characters having a penchant for taking things way too far.

This subplot had its moments.  It’s always fun to see Shirley quickly switch gears from moralistic to take-charge.  Chang was well-utilized, not only just for dependably delivering bizarre lines (“I stole all these books so I could come kiss them”) but also providing a bit of characterization in that he is concerned about breaking the terms of his parole.  Also, Britta shouting “EvErYbOdY!” was a great callback to Annie shouting “EVERYTHING!” and Chang shouting “Everywhere!”  I guess they were all referencing Léon: The Professional, so my theory is that the Save Greendale Committee watched that movie together and they are all now finding moments to show off their Gary Oldman impressions.

Ultimately, I don’t think the textbook story amounted to all that much special.  These are bad habits we’ve seen these characters fall into before, and it is not the most cathartic to see them fall into them again.  It is believable, sure, preventing it from being a failure, but it would have been more satisfying to see more development.

Now I want to go back to the opening of this episode, to focus on the Dean’s peanut costume rapping, which is my choice for funniest Dean moment since the costume montage in “Paradigms of Human Memory” back in Season 2.  It is also probably the most elaborate Dean costume thus far for this season.  Last season, there was criticism that the Dean had been reduced to a series of cheap costume gags.  At the time, I contended that it made sense that he would keep dressing the way he was dressing because that was just a part of his character.  I stand by that defense, but this moment demonstrates that for the costumes to really be memorable, there has to be something about the joke beyond the costume itself.  Dean Pelton didn’t need to be wearing a peanut costume to do a rap that got out of his control, but the two elements did feed into each other, making them better than either would have been on its own.

And now, the bullet-point portion of the review:
-For the second week in a row, there was a gonzo guest appearance from the creator of one of the best shows of all time – this time, Breaking Bad‘s Vince Gilligan, who played the actor in Pile of Bullets.  As far as I know, neither Gilligan nor Mitch Hurwitz has had much previous acting experience, but they both gave such natural performances, so they must have learned a thing or two from writing great material for great actors and spending time with those great actors.  Also like Hurwitz, Gilligan got his own tag, which also featured Gina Gershon, because why the hell not?
-I would have liked it if Paul Williams had more to do.  I suppose most TV viewers, and even most Community viewers, aren’t as likely to recognize the writer of “The Rainbow Connection” as I am.  But he’s the type of person that people who do recognize him will want to see something memorable out of.  At least let him sing a note!
–Britta stroking her hair…
-“Why do you have all those muscles if you’re gonna bitch about moving boxes?” – Important pointed question from Hickey to Jeff
-“Just a little Protestant humor”
-“Are we sure this isn’t some art film?”
-Pavel!  It’s been mad long, bros.
-There were urinals in the women’s room.
-“Is this a real conversation or are we being bugged by the Feds?” – Uh-oh, does Rachel know about Agent Vohlers?
-“Well, more food for the buzzards.”

In several of my reviews, I have discussed how an episode has worked or not worked in relation to the templates Community has set in previous episodes.  But it seems appropriate with “App Development and Condiments” to mix it up a little bit and frame my analysis in relation to another show.  This episode is the first one credited to former American Dad! writers Jordan Blum and Parker Deay.  (Their AD! credits include the Avatar-riffing “Virtual In-Stanity,” my choice for the best episode of that season.)  “AD&C” had the tone and structure of a typically excellent AD! episode, which begins unassumingly but then gradually, though ultimately completely, transforms into a new normal.  The best example of this is the best American Dad! episode of all time – “Rapture’s Delight” – and it is surely no coincidence that that episode was written by Chris McKenna and that McKenna is now back on the writing staff and an executive producer of Community.

Now, indeed, it is not like Community has not had plenty of episodes in which Greendale morphed into something else.  But “App Development” felt different than your Modern Warfare’s, or your 2-part Season 2 paintball finales, or your Pillows & Blankets’, or your Geothermal Escapism’s, and thus the extratextual comparison.  In American Dad!, the total restructuring of the show’s universe is essentially ignored in subsequent episodes, whereas in Community, it is made clear that the campus needs to be cleaned up.  This episode is still recognizably Greendale, but there is a jump that leaves the origin of some major elements unexplained.  Greendalians taking something new way too seriously didn’t need an explanation, but everyone dressing like they were in a dystopian future could have used one.  I suppose there was some foreshadowing in that regard with Abed explaining that 3’s and 2’s wore neutral colors to make it look like they didn’t care.  But, overall, there was a sense of “we’re not even going try to come up with a bizarre explanation, because we’re just THAT confident in this concept.”

“App Development” wants to talk about manipulation, and that theme is set up with the seemingly innocuous tiff of Jeff neglecting to invite Shirley to a group dinner that he knows she will not be able to attend anyway.  Shirley responds with typical passive-aggression, but Jeff, being just as much of a master manipulator, shoots her down immediately.  Then it is this battle of wills that runs through the dystopian version of Greendale.  I can get along with the idea that dystopias are failed utopias formed by leaders whose manipulation went unabated, but I am not sure a fight over common courtesy could legitimately lead to all that manipulation.

Of course, that is not what really caused the segregated school environment.  Instead, it was the on-site beta testing of the “MeowMeowBeenz” app that allows everyone to rate everyone basically on the basis of just how good a person they are, and Jeff and Shirley’s conflict just happened to be running through this testing ground.  It is clear to anyone who spends a good portion of their time on the Internet – which presumably includes most of Community’s audience – that “MeowMeowBeenz” is inspired by Reddit and comment systems that have the capacity to make the evaluation of people devolve into simple upvotes and downvotes.

Once again, though, I am not entirely sure that MeowMeowBeenz would lead to a Brave New World.  Sure, everyone on Greendale would take things too far, but there is a big jump from public shaming in the cafeteria to flowing white robes and futuristic, sterile dance parties.  (I do buy that Starburns would wear Sean Connery’s red leather diaper from Zardoz, but I would have believed that possibility before this episode.)  Ultimately, however, I don’t care too much about logic, because this homage to Logan’s Run and the like was just too awesome.  I initially kind of got a Season 4 vibe of, “concept episodes are just what we do, so we might as well do this concept,” but unlike Season 4, there was the appropriate amount of follow-through in realizing this concept.  (I don’t want to knock Season 4 too much, because homages are so ingrained in the DNA of Community at this point.  If the show is being honest with itself, then homages simply cannot be completely avoided.  I guess I’m a little wistful for the days when we could be truly surprised by the boldness of the homages.)

Among the great moments afforded by the dystopian milieu was the mere presence of Tim Heideceker and Eric Wareheim, who seem like the kind of people who would just spontaneously come into existence in a situation like this.  But the best moment had to be Jeff’s stand-up.  I’ve never seen Joel McHale perform live, but that was clearly the performance of someone who knows what to do with a microphone.  Comedy that makes fun of comedy is a well that never runs dry, and this standup routine specifically hit on overly esoteric comedy that is inexplicably successful.  In doing so, this scene further built up the world of this episode, establishing in no uncertain terms that 3’s “sure do love dem apples,” allowing for this dystopia to be much more lighthearted than the typical cinematic version.

Jeff and Shirley’s tension is resolved a little neatly, though there certainly was plenty of truth in the two of them realizing how alike they are.  I feel like they have made that realization before, but when you are as self-involved as these people sometimes tend to be, you may need to have that realization more than once.

There are some great character moments for just about everybody in this episode, with Abed loving the objectivity of this new order and Annie loving the very order of it all.  Meanwhile, Hickey is beautifully constipated in his frustration (so he just gives up and pretends it’s his birthday).

And I haven’t even talked about Britta and her own subplot.  As embarrassing as being forced to wear mustard on her face could have been, it was actually empowering for her.  Perhaps it is unfair that a soft image makes a difficult message go down easier, but there are certainly more painful ways of being softened than having a condiment smeared on one’s face.  And Britta could stand to learn that she could sound more elegant than she does when insisting that “we don’t have to worship a calculator.”  Also, Annie was right to admonish any invocation of Hitler, though giving Britta 2 MeowMeowBeenz for it was a bit harsh.

As much as I enjoyed this episode, and as much as I have enjoyed every episode lately, I am still wary about this season overall.  What I’m wondering is, Is Season 5 building towards anything?  Because all previous seasons had some guiding structure that was for the most part beneficial.  Season 1 had the backbone of Jeff and Britta’s will they/won’t they and the simple nature of everyone getting to know each other.  Season 2 had Abed losing touch with reality and Pierce becoming a villain.  Season 3 had Chang taking over the school (as controversial as that storyline was, it did provide structure) and everything in general becoming dark.  Season 4 had Jeff graduating and … a couple other things that were more or less dropped completely.  Now, in Season 5, everyone is back in Greendale, for an indefinite amount of time.  Jeff is teaching, and the implication is that he could be there for a while.  Everyone else is re-enrolled, and a timeline for their graduating for good has not been established.  Maybe this season is lacking a clear destination on purpose, which could be fine, but that hasn’t been what Community is all about up to this point.  It’s taking some re-calibration on my part as a viewer to get used to that, which could work out eventually, but right now, it’s weird being in limbo in which I love this season, but also I don’t?  Maybe it’s also a matter of high standards.

Other funny moments I didn’t get to:
-The MeowMeowBeenz sound effects were incredible.
-The Save Greendale Committee is working on adding grass to the soccer field.
-The way Abed saying “Ohhh” in response to Shirley being upset over not getting invited was much flatter than everyone else’s Ohhh’s.
-I loved the way Chang tapped Hickey’s arm during the MeowMeowBeenz pitch.
-“I should go Number 2 soon.”  (What was that line supposed to mean, by the way?  Did Bixel – played by Brian Posehn, who killed it – have an app that told him when to use the bathroom?)
-Garrett controlling Starburns is like “toast bossing crackers around.”
-“As long as you’re happy, I’m unsettled.”
-Britta: “You’re punishing me for being alive!” Leonard, with one of his all-time best retorts: “That’s the general idea, baby.”
-How about that tag?  Mitch Hurwitz, everybody!  I especially loved the way Annie said “Koogler.”

“In other ways than I thought, there is a distinct, chemical lack of chemistry between Jeff and Britta.” – That’s Mr. Dan Harmon in this interview published in IGN right before the start of this season.  So if this is how Community‘s showrunner sees this pair’s relationship, what was going on in this episode?

Let’s back up for a second and establish how we got here.  Professor Duncan has a thing for Britta – hinted at back in “Basic Intergluteal Numismatics” (and maybe in earlier seasons?) – because he suspects she may be one of the few women he actually has a chance with.  So, based on Jeff’s advice – with the two of them looking the most genuinely friendly they have ever looked – he announces that he is going to one of those events advertised in “one of the free papers for hippies on the quad.”  And this ultimately leads into a rivalrous romantic storyline, or rather, a rivalrous seduction storyline, and that is not exactly what I was hoping for, because a Britta-Duncan might be enjoyably goofy, but it is not exactly promising.  And as for Jeff-Britta, I agree with what Dan Harmon said, perhaps to an even greater extent.

Before I get to my final judgment on that element, let me focus on Britta’s reunion with Michael (pronounced “Mike-Hale”) and her other old activist friends.  This proved to be a much more satisfying peek into Britta’s past than we saw in last season’s “Heroic Origins.”  Where then all we got was a weird joke about vegetarianism, this time we actually got characters who were decently fleshed out for a one-episode appearance.  These people are clearly a lot like Britta, and it is also clear that they have had similar crises that we have seen Britta have about coming to terms with her activism and where her life is right now.  This is a well-pitched scene, because Britta is right to be offended by the implication that her opinion is less valid than those with a greater financial ability to help causes, but her friends are not exactly wrong in demonstrating the importance of a steady income and declining to “Banksy that mother.”

Britta’s existential crisis leads her into the arms of Duncan, who is all set to take advantage of her vulnerability, but ultimately he has the decency to decide that now is the best time.  Oddly enough, I think this selfless decision can be attributed in part to Jeff’s words to Duncan.  While Jeff wasn’t exactly selfless, he did show that he cared for Britta, and reminded Duncan that she is an actual person who isn’t anybody’s to own.  Also, Britta handling herself well in that situation is attributable to her being in a more secure emotional place than where she was at the beginning of the series.  This is really true of all the characters, and the point that this plot made is that even though life crises aren’t going away for anyone, they are more or less able to handle them on their own.

But what of Jeff’s feelings towards Britta in this episode, feelings that haven’t really been stirred significantly since Season 1 (even including when they were sleeping together in Season 2)?  At first, I thought he was just pretending to get all worked up over here for the sake of egging on Duncan, but that’s not what his eyes were saying.  Jeff claimed that he wanted to go after Britta again because he wants what everyone else wants, but I don’t think that was it, at least not exactly.  Seeing her in her element and at her best, he remembered what made him chase after her all those years ago in the first place.

As much as I think Jeff and Annie belong together, and as much as I think Jeff would realize that if he just thought about it, the fact is, they’re not together, at least not right now.  There is a girl in my own life who I think is perfect for me, but we’re not together either, and there’s nothing serious going on between us.  Sometimes I’m talking with other girls and I really hit it off with them and have intense fantasies about them, which feel great but also don’t feel exactly right, because that doesn’t seem to jibe with my belief that I’ve already found the perfect girl.  Jeff is in a similar position.  He may have stopped chasing after Britta, but when you’ve liked someone that much, your feelings never go away completely.  When Jeff saw Britta thriving in her element, he thought, “What if?”  By tomorrow, or maybe the next day, those feelings will have probably mellowed out.

Ultimately this was a storyline about a successful relationship, with that relationship being Jeff and Duncan.  Britta rightly points out to Duncan that she always forgets that he and Jeff have known each other longer than anyone else in their group of friends because they never really act like friends.  This sort of realization is a precarious, but important, moment when it comes to friendship.  Duncan and Jeff both confront what they mean to each other and decide that they actually do want to be friends.

Abed’s storyline is weird, because we have never really seen him this alone.  The loss of Troy has been profoundly felt, and the camerawork makes sure we know that.  (I wonder why he didn’t ask Rachel to the Kickpuncher premiere; I’m guessing that Brie Larson’s schedule has forced him to take that relationship slow for the time being.)  Anyway, this loneliness leads Abed to attempt bonding with Hickey before heading to the movie, which goes awry in a manner I’m not sure I buy completely (I don’t think Abed would be that careless with those foam ballistics) but which I’m willing to overlook.

Hickey overreacts to Abed’s mess by handcuffing him to a filing cabinet, which he claims is meant to teach him a lesson since everyone else is always coddling Abed.  While his friends do coddle him a bit, people go along with him because it is fun.  Traveling in time because Abed sees a hamburger understandably sounds awesome to a lot of people.  But apparently the real reason Hickey was so upset was creative frustration, which is an odd, but potentially fruitful, direction to go with a new character.  It has already been established how devoted Hickey is to “Jim the Duck,” but apparently he is also jealous, or something like that, about Abed’s effortlessness when it comes to creation.

This storyline had a solid tone and great emotional nuance, but it also had several moments in which Abed acted in ways slightly different than how I would expect him to act.  I guess part of that is because we have never really seen him interact with someone as antagonistically straightforward as Hickey.  But I am also thinking of his naming the main character of his screenplay “Police Justice.”  Abed may have trouble reading people, but his understanding of the world isn’t character-less.  Although, as established in “Advanced Dungeons & Dragons,” he is bad with names, so maybe he couldn’t think of any good normal names, so he decided to just name him after what he represented.  I enjoyed a lot about this storyline, but it was also slightly insane so I am not entirely sure how I feel about it.

Chang has had several great moments this season, but it has been a while since he had his own storyline that worked as well as this episode’s did.  It is ultimately unclear if someone was joking around with Chang (perhaps, but not enough details to say for sure), or if the janitor or the crowd were actually ghosts (almost definitely not), or if Chang is going insane (probably at least partially true).  In any case, it looks like he did actually take a picture with the “Old Timey Photo Club.”  It is unfortunate that Key & Peele already had the funniest Shining homage ever only a few months ago, but there is room in the comedy world for more than one Shining homage, and this one worked well enough at what it was doing.

Funny moments I didn’t get to in the main body of the review:
-Duncan illustrating his point by referencing “those three movies [Dane Cook] was in about Dane Cook getting laid by accident” was a thing of beauty.  That’s Community at his best of deconstructing pop culture to illustrate a point about its characters.
-Chang’s fist pump in response to Annie mentioning that all the bones have been removed from the football field
-“Everyone likes music.  What are you, a fish?”
-Duncan’s trademark Britishisms: Rimples and Splikket – the (unintelligible to American ears) British Laurel and hardy; Duncan insisting that he is banging on the steering wheel because it is on the wrong side of the car

“Introduction to Statistics,” “Pascal’s Triangle Revisited,” “Early 21st Century Romanticism,” “Herstory of Dance,” meet the newest member of your family – “Analysis of Cork-Based Networking.”  If there is one storytelling well that has not run dry for Community (and probably never will run dry), it’s school dances.  Even the otherwise shaky Season 4 got it right.  And perhaps that’s what the otherwise brilliant, but rather dark, Season 3 was missing.  Community has a tricky history with romance, but dance episodes have an essentially flawless record when it comes to love and relationships.  “Statistics” covered Jeff and Slater (and teased Jeff and Annie way ahead of schedule); “Pascal’s” dealt with the Jeff-Britta-Slater triangle and then snuck Annie in; “Romanticism” covered Abed and Troy with the librarian (“Books!”) as well as Jeff and the whole group; and “Herstory” teamed up Abed and coat check girl Rachel.  Interestingly, this episode only covers the romance in the C-plot, so we’ll get to that discussion a little later.

To start off, the Save Greendale committee storyline is finally picked back up, after a few weeks off to take care of saying goodbye to Pierce and Troy.  It begins with that old Community standby: the cold opening study table powwow (or, “prelimawow”).  The roster is a little different, but the dynamic is as strong as ever.  The departed may be gone, and that still hurts, but wisely, the new normal has been established.  And then there is an excellent cut-to-the-credits moment, as Annie punctures wall with a star meant to commemorate accomplishing a task.

The bulletin board A-plot with Annie and Hickey seemed a little lightweight due to a storyline that will probably not be picked up on further from here on out.  Lightweight or not, it was appropriately fun in a byzantine manner – or rather, a labyrinthine manner (it was enjoyable even without puppets or androgynous rock stars).  To get a bulletin board back up somehow involves getting approval from the custodian crew, who must be smoothed over with a favor from Paget Brewster in the I.T. department, who is happy to hear head of parking Robert Patrick might be able to help her out, who makes a demand that requires turning to Dean Pelton.  Hickey makes a big fuss about how all this backdoor deal-making is forcing Annie to compromise her principles, and she does display a worrisome tendency therein as she sets out to prove that “Annie Edison doesn’t get nothing done.”  But this storyline is really more about cutting through Greendale’s red tape, and this plot may not be significant plotwise, but it does have plenty significant to say about long-term characterization.  Annie continues to bust balls this season, and in Buzz Hickey, she has inspired another ally to fight alongside her.

As Annie leaves Jeff, Shirley, Duncan, and Chang to put together the midterm dance, this B-plot ends up being one of the funniest ever Chang-centric plots.  Seriously, his insisting on the “Bear Down on Midterms” theme may have been the funniest scene of the season, and it was quickly topped by the “Fat Dog” dance (“It’s not made up“).  The others are frustrated by Chang’s insistence, perhaps a bit too much, as “bear down” is an actual phrase and it does make sense when applied to midterms.  But Chang really needed to expound how that phrase could apply to a dance, as Duncan made clear (“you can’t just repeat it, you need to explain yourself”).

Ultimately, the midterm dance plot worked as well as it did because it was so thoroughly detailed in a way that was specific to the universe of the show itself: it turns out that Chang was inadvertently inspired by a story of a bear attack in Wisconsin, so to avoid the sensitive topic, the bears are re-fashioned into fat dogs.  And in beautiful, ass-covering fashion, Shirley and Duncan create a fat dog entry on Wikipedia, while Chang composes a fat dog song and dance.  And it all falls apart in the most hilarious way imaginable: Garret yelling “IT’S A BEAR DANCE!”

Finally, we get to the romance, which does NOT focus on Jeff and Annie, despite (or because of?) the fact that they have already had so much screen time together this season.  Instead, Abed stumbles into a day-long affair with a deaf girl, thanks to his wearing noise-cancelling headphones to avoid a spoiler-happy Britta.  Speaking of Britta, geez, did she go a bit too far?  I could understand, though not approve, her getting back at Abed for spoiling her, but how could she justify ruining his time with the cute deaf girl played by Katie Leclerc?  At least it was clear that she wasn’t the right girl for Abed if she was willing to spoil him for cash, and Britta did realize the error of her ways fairly quickly, but still – whoa.  The tension between her and Abed was inexplicably fraught.

The ultimate silver lining here was the return of Brie Larson, which we all know I’ve been anxiously awaiting.  I’ve been wondering how things went on the date that Abed and Rachel decided to have at the end of “Herstory of Dance.”  Apparently, that date never happened!  Or, it did, but they never contacted each other again until now.  That’s a little disheartening after how well they hit it off initially, but at least they were both mature about this second chance, not spending any time getting angry with each other, instead admitting they both should have been more proactive, and then deciding right then and there to get dinner (and apparently watch Rick and Morty – the best new show of 2014!).  I loved that Rachel started a coat check at this dance without any permission – I’m assuming she did so in the hopes of running into Abed again, a tactic reminiscent of Matt Damon pursuing Emily Blunt in The Adjustment Bureau.  As someone who was awaiting this moment with bated breath, I must now ask: that’s not it, right?!  They didn’t get Brie Larson back just for 2 minutes, did they?!  Based on the last shot of the two of them (during the Roxy Music-scored montage – add “More Than This” to the pantheon that also includes “Somewhere Out There” and “Kiss From a Rose”), it looks like she’ll be around a bit longer.  I mean, she was sitting in Troy’s seat.

Speaking of guest stars, this episode sure had a lot of them.  Was it too much?  Or did they satisfy?  Part of that, at least on an initial view, depends on whether or not you knew ahead of time that they were going to appear.  Since I hang out in areas where that sort of thing is revealed ahead of time, and also I can’t help but look it up myself anyway, I already knew about almost all of them.  It was fine knowing that Jerry Minor was going to be there, since he’s already appeared multiple times and this storyline more or less required his presence.  Eddie Pepitone wasn’t announced, but I figured he would show up.  I actually think it was better that I knew about Kumail Nanjiani, because I might have gotten too excited if he showed up unexpectedly and I wouldn’t have been able to settle into his rhythm; he basically played one of his overly officious characters from Portlandia.  Nathan Fillion’s appearance was a little disappointing, but that was more to do with it being so short, and Nathan Fillion is bigger than that, so it would have been a disappointment whether or not I knew he was going to be there.  Maybe he and Kumail could show up again at random points in the future, the way Jerry Minor and Eddie Pepitone have.  Paget Brewster’s appearance was fine for me either way, as I don’t know her that well.  It would have been cool if I didn’t know about Robert Patrick’s appearance, because he’s the sort of guy that I would go, “Oh, wow, Robert Patrick” to if it were a surprise, but it wasn’t that big of a deal.  With Katie Leclerc, it didn’t matter either way, because I’ve never seen her in anything else.  It was probably the most problematic knowing about Brie Larson, seeing as knowing about her made it obvious how Abed’s plot was going to end.  But everyone played their part well – I can’t in good conscience knock the episode for what I knew or didn’t know ahead of time.

This really was one of the most consistently hilarious episodes in a while, so I’ll end my review by listing some great funny moments I haven’t gotten to yet:
-“Is deforestation on the list?”
-“They really get the incest right.”
-“That was gibberish. You’re good.”
-“Yes, that is a Whitney original” – great line thanks to Kumail’s delivery
-Annie yelling “EVVEERRYTHING!” (which seems to have been a reference to Gary Oldman yelling “EVVEERRYONE!” in Léon: The Professional)
-“There was plenty of space to park in dinosaur times.”
-“Whatever you’ve got in your butt, can we get it out later?”
-“But you learned a lesson, and I gave a differently-abled person a job! … Let’s be fat dogs about this!”
-“This got Sorkin-y.”
-The bad sign language was great, and endearing, since Abed was actually making an effort to learn.
-The Dean thinks David Bowie is macho, which, of course he would.  And hey, even though Bowie may be androgynous, he’s got plenty of testosterone, perhaps too much, as his one multi-colored eye is due to a fight in which he was punched in the face.