Jmunney's Blog

“Geothermal Escapism” started out as a paintball episode in every way except paintball.  But “The Floor is Lava” was close enough to paintball anyway, as it also proved to have the capacity to destroy the entire campus, with thanks also once again to a disproportionately enticing prize.  The possibility that something like this could happen on Community was never in doubt.  Of course Abed would want to give Troy an appropriately massive, campus-wide send-off.  And no surprise that it would call back to their past great adventures.  But for the first half of this episode, I was a little wary.  It wasn’t just that Lava was so similar to paintball (the post-apocalyptic angle was new, but really just a subgenre of the action genre so fully covered in “Modern Warfare”), it was that the character stakes didn’t seem that high.  “Modern Warfare” took place in light of Jeff and Britta’s sexual tension boiling over, and the Season 2  2-part finale was precipitated by the possibility of Pierce being kicked out of the group.  It feels like at this point in the show’s run, these people are too comfortable with each other to have conflicts on those scales.

This is why I kept my eye on Britta, who insisted on everyone having a chance to grieve.  This really seemed unnecessary; nobody wanted Troy to go, sure, but not everyone needs to go through the same grieving process when a friend leaves.  Jeff, Shirley, and Annie at least all seemed perfectly capable of seeing Troy off without too much fuss.  But there was somebody missing from that opening study room scene.  Abed’s absence served both a narrative and a thematic purpose, and this was ultimately all brought together by the end.

It wasn’t just that the creators of Community wanted to re-capture the glory of the paintball episodes.  Abed was the one who orchestrated The Floor is Lava.  He was the one who really wanted to go back to those good times.  Britta may have applied her grief psychology too broadly at first, but she was right to have that mindset.  If genre-savvy Abed – who knows to be wary of sequels – was so focused on making something like a sequel (a spinoff, perhaps), then something had to have been be up.  When the game comes down to Troy, Britta, and Abed, everything is brought into perspective.  Abed knows intellectually that Troy won’t be here forever, but his unique emotional state affects his perception so strongly that he can’t help but see the floor as lava.  This episode had to be so similar to what had come before so that the change of the status quo that came at the end could be felt so strongly.

So I had no trouble feeling the ending of this episode, but it took me some mental aerobics that I more or less just explained to really get on the first half’s wavelength.  Ultimately, I do think it succeeded from start to finish.  It helped that the action was so well-directed.  You really got a sense of how painful some of those falls were.  Annie’s drop especially looked like it hurt.  There was also no shortage of laughs, with highlights including Duncan’s complaint that everyone besides the British cheats, Garrett’s storytelling about Shirley Island, “the reverse Danny Thomas” (whatever the hell that is), Gillian Jacobs’ delivery of “I understand. I lived in New York”, and “Cirque Du so long, you high-stepping acro-bastards,” which was perhaps as funny as it was only because Leonard said it.

For Troy’s last episode, “Geothermal Escapism” didn’t focus as much as one might have expected on Mr. Barnes.  But as I talked about in my review of “Cooperative Polygraphy,” Troy has clearly matured enough to take on this next stage of his life.  It wasn’t necessary to show him preparing, as it was clear that it was time for him to move on.  And so this episode focused more on those saying goodbye, particularly Abed, and here was just the latest example of how much of a classic all-time TV character he is.  It has never been confirmed one way or the other that Abed has Asperger syndrome, or something similar, and I think that has been for the best.  He understands his limitations, and he consistently attempts to work around him, so it is fascinating to see him actually debilitated by his condition.  It is a fitting cap to one of the great friendships in TV history to see Abed be able to be so honest with Troy in that moment.

As Troy is about to set sail, he gets the perfect goodbye from each of his friends.  His moment with Britta interestingly – and poignantly – calls back to their relationship from last season.  Annie eloquently expresses her amazement that someone she could barely talk to at first is now the easiest person for her to open up to.  Shirley is rightly denoted as the badass of the group.  Jeff, who in previous seasons looked to have been threatened by Troy’s heroic rise, is now genuinely impressed by how his protégée of sorts is now more awesome than he is.  And Troy and Abed – Clone Troy and Clone Abed, that is – don’t shake hands.  They hug.

“Cooperative Polygraphy” is an epic episode of Community, insofar as it is chock full of references to past episodes.  Many thanks to other Community fans on the Internet for pointing out the ones I did not pick up on right away.  A LOT of people noted that part of the freeze-frame epilogue from “The Art of Discourse” came true, as Britta became the (presumably proud) owner of a used iPod nano.  (Others noted that if this means this episode takes place in 2014, then that 3-year-gap that has been cited existing between Seasons 4 and 5 is making less and less sense.)  The reveal that Annie drugged the whole group in preparation for the Anthropology final is especially hilarious if that is in reference to the final from “Applied Anthropology and Culinary Arts,” the most farcical moment from a patently farcical class.  Going even deeper, Troy’s attempt to inhale Pierce’s life vapor perhaps fulfills his wish to “eat a ghost,” which he made in “The Psychology of Letting Go” – the episode that introduced the post-death rituals of Pierce’s religion.

But the episodes that “Cooperative Polygraphy” responds to the most are “Cooperative Calligraphy,” “Intermediate Documentary Filmmaking,” and “Intro to Felt Surrogacy.”  “Calligraphy” is the obvious antecedent here, what with the rhyming titles and shared study room setting.  But “Polygraphy” is more low-key (or less high-key, as it were).  It doesn’t call attention to itself as a bottle episode, unlike the former “Cooperative” episode.  For my money, a pure bottle episode is one that not only takes place in one location, but also one in which the characters are trapped.  In “Polygraphy,” the study group was bound by circumstance to remain in the study room, but not to the degree that they were in “Calligraphy” – one character leaves and then comes back, after all.  The tensions do run high in “Polygraphy” (as they typically do typical Community), but not to the ripping-off-clothes degree of “Calligraphy,” perhaps the most tension-filled episode of the series.

“Intermediate Documentary Filmmaking” is the closest narrative parallel, as that Season 2 classic also saw Pierce playing head games with the specter of his death hanging over.  Between these two, there is a clear progression of significant difference.  Pierce’s premature bequeathals were mostly meant to punish his friends.  His actual bequeathals were genuine and thoughtful, though preceded by head games that he still could not resist.  Pierce never became the kindest friend to any of these people, but he did become a friend whose friendship ultimately could never be in doubt.

The closest thematic parallel is “Intro to Felt Surrogacy,” an episode I enjoyed more than most fans; I even declared it the best of the season – though I have since backed off that opinion.  The major problem with “Felt Surrogacy” was its sense of incompleteness.  Because the study group’s secrets from that episode were all revealed in the final act, there was no chance to resolve the problems presented by them or come to terms with them in any meaningful way.  It feels like Dan Harmon had a similar reaction upon watching this Season 4 episode.

I do not know what Harmon’s exact thought process about Season 4 has been, but I know he has not dismissed it outright, and watching “Cooperative Polygraphy” makes me feel like I kind of do know what he was thinking in this case, because it episode basically directly solves the problem of “Felt Surrogacy.”  The revelation of secrets is the whole narrative thrust of “Polygraphy.”  Community demonstrates the wisdom of caution by showing friends that even when they are perfectly comfortable in their friendship, it is important to consider that there still might be secrets lurking that could deeply hurt their friends.  This is not to say that they might as well end their friendships, but rather, something along the lines of, perfect is the enemy of the good.  That is, if you have already accepted your friends with all their imperfections, you should be able to also accept any previously unknown imperfections.

And oh my God, Troy is leaving.  The circumstances that are drawing him away are random, but also ultimately perfectly appropriate.  Once again, I must extend credit to the rest of the Community fandom for providing examples of how Troy does indeed have the heart of a hero: he was the one who took charge in “For a Few Paintballs More,” and he risked his life by going back among the infected in “Epidemiology.”  Troy’s life did not look as bad as everyone else’s in “Repilot,” so he would be spinning his wheels more than anyone else if he were to remain at Greendale.  No doubt there will be something missing in the heart of the show after the next episode, but at least there will be a way to check up on him occasionally, now that we know about Abed’s tracking devices.

By my estimation, the best analogue to “Basic Intergluteal Numismatics” is “Basic Lupine Urology” – an intricately well-done, but unnecessary, homage.  (Also, the titles follow the same format: with BLU, it’s “ha-ha, fancy way of saying ‘Dick Wolf'” and with BIN, – it’s “ha-ha, fancy way of saying ‘dropping coins into butts.'”)  I responded better to “Intergluteal,” not necessarily because it was better, but because I am more familiar with David Fincher’s filmography than I am with Law & Order.  I don’t think I’ve ever seen an episode of L&O straight through, whereas I have seen every Fincher-directed film besides Alien Cubed and Panic Room, and I’ve liked them all (well, Benjamin Button was okay, but kind of weird – but I don’t think it was referenced here anyway).  There were some touches on TV crime procedurals as well, a genre I did not think I was that big a fan of, but I guess I am watching the right ones, because I appreciated the nods to Hannibal (right down to Duncan’s Lecter-esque wardrobe) as well as Abed pointing out the overdone trope of a “special” investigator with the ability to recreate the crime in his head (even though that trope is done perfectly on Hannibal).  Typically, Abed will jump at any chance to recreate fictional tropes in real life, so it was an entertaining change of pace to see him start to act out the Dean’s patronizing request, but ultimately point out how disgusted he was by it, by means of just leaving the room.

Generally, I prefer it when Community‘s homages arise naturally out of the plot machinations and the character dynamics, as opposed to being imposed from the outside.  Now, if it is the latter, I can enjoy it if it is well-done, though it probably will not quite be at the top tier of episodes.  And so it goes for “Intergluteal.”  The dark green tint was fine either way, and I was perfectly happy with it because I loved seeing an episode of Community that looked like Se7en.  Annie and Jeff have teamed up together plenty of times before, so it was certainly believable that they would do so again, and the fact that they so easily slipped into roles typical of Fincher-ian investigators – a mix between the opposing styles of Se7en and the sexual tension of The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo – was more a function of the editing than either of the two of them acting out of character.  And it certainly was not atypical of Abed to give Troy warm beverages and blankets, just like how trauma victims are treated in movies.  Troy committing to the trauma victim bit may have been silly, but it is also something he would do.  Then there was the Dean snapping at Rhonda to trace the call – my pick for biggest laugh of the night (give or take Jeff’s moment with Leonard) – which is something the Dean would absolutely do: emulating a trope in a way that doesn’t quite work.  So, really, it wasn’t so much that this homage felt imposed from above, as much as this whole episode just came out of nowhere.  It was hard to get your bearings regarding what it was trying to do, but that also seemed to be the point – so I guess what I’m saying is, the the justification for this homage was the homage itself.

One element that did not come out of nowhere but felt oddly unattached to continuity was the Jeff and Annie of it all.  I was actually surprised to see these two team up again right after last episode, considering this show has rarely been sure exactly how it wants to treat these two.  It wasn’t exactly sure here, either, though it did seem to start to be saying something, but that something got cut off (like everything else at the end of this episode).  When there has been a mystery to be solved at Greendale in the past – “Conspiracy Theories and Interior Design,” “Basic Lupine Urology” – Jeff and Annie have always teamed up for the investigation, so it made sense that they would do so again.  And it made sense that they have now teamed up often enough that people would start noticing and point it out.  I’m not sure why the Dean referred to it as creepy, though.  I’m not even sure what exactly was “this creepiness” was referring to.  Their age difference wasn’t brought up; it seemed more like the point was that it was weird that the two of them apparently feel the need to justify their spending time together by getting involved with a caper.

The state of their relationship seems to be that they are fine with referring to themselves as just friends.  They are still attracted to each other, but not necessarily enough that they feel a burning desire to act on it.  But that doesn’t quite add up, because in Season 4, their attraction still was clearly present.  There was never really a decisive moment when they said to each other or themselves that they were just friends.  How much time passed between the end of Season 4 and the start of Season 5, again?  Long enough for all the changes in the group dynamic to make sense?  Okay, that sounds about right.  (Looking over comments from around the Internet, it seems like the tension may have been played up and called attention to for the sake of emulating the sexual tension in TV and movie mystery-solving duos – I’ve already mentioned Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, and of course there’s Mulder and Scully, and also probably The Killing [which I’ve never watched].)

Oh, and Pierce died.  This may have struck some as rushed, or not dealt with properly.  The latter should not be too much of a concern, because the next episode will be dealing with it directly.  As for the former, unexpected deaths tend to feel like that.  Did it feel oddly shoehorned into an homage episode, which was also – homage or no homage – exceedingly silly?  Yes.  Was that necessarily a bad thing?  It may have rubbed some the wrong way; for me, it was weird, but in a way that I thought weirdly fit with the weirdness of the whole episode.  The case was closed, but never fully solved, because there are more important things to focus on, but there is still a lingering feeling of “Could it be…”

Oh, and I’ve barely been able to talk about the return of Ian Duncan.  It felt a little strange to have to explain his return, instead of just letting him be there.  Ultimately, though, by episode’s end, he was essentially just there, back in the Greendale swing of things.  His interactions with Britta were charmingly creepy.  There might have been a bit of overkill with the fake Britishisms, but his delivery was spot-on (“Oh, American high-five” was probably my favorite of the bunch).  The scene with him and Annie in his office also delivered the tension, and apparently it was a perfect homage to a scene in Zodiac that I don’t remember all the details of, but people who have seen Zodiac more recently than I have sound confident that it hit the mark.

I know I liked this episode, but

“Repilot”
“Francis Ford Repo Man” – so this is the first joke of Dan Harmon Community 2.0.  It’s irrelevant to everything else going on in that scene, and it’s not even a very good pun (unless I’m missing something).  But it works – because it is not lingered upon.  I constantly argued that the major problem with Season 4 wasn’t the What, but the How.  There were plenty of good ideas, but too many of them were not executed well.  This falls to the editing, an area that Dan Harmon-run Community was strong in, and Harmon-less Community so clearly was not.  Last season, shots were cut away from too fast, there were awkward lingering stretches, and overall episodes (and the whole season) just weren’t that well-constructed.  It is immediately clear that that has been rectified, and that makes jokes that aren’t very good actually kind of work.

I have a bone to pick with a few TV critics (but maybe it’s not their fault, because there appears to be some confusion): in some of the pre-show reviews, they said this season was taking place three years later.  I assumed that that meant there was a time jump between the end of Season 4 and the beginning of 5, but that is clearly not the case.  Jeff mentions that the rest of the study group “just” got sprung from Greendale, and last year is referred to as the “gas leak” year.  I guess the “three years after” actually refers to three years after the beginning of the show – but that doesn’t work either, because then it would be four years.  This three-year figure just doesn’t seem to work at all, and I don’t know where it came from.  It does seem like a lot has happened to everybody, more than would be expected over the course of just a few months, but all references to events of Season 4 make it seem fairly recent.  Umm… I guess it’s not that important.

To continue this review on a technical standpoint, this episode was dark – one of the most dimly lit of the series.  It was hard to get comfortable with, but it was on purpose.  The past four seasons have seen these people bettering themselves, but apparently it has not been enough.  Jeff is able to be manipulated by his skeevy former partner, and the study group is still able to be manipulated by Jeff at his most manipulative.  But, there is a sense of righteousness to the destructive decisions everyone is making.  In the pilot, we saw a Jeff Winger making the right choices for the wrong reasons, and in “Repilot,” we see him making the wrong choices for the right reasons – but he ultimately comes around to the right choices for the right reasons thanks to the support group he has cultivated.  When he confronts Dean Pelton about his indecency, what he is so angry about is that the people he cares most about could be so easily taken advantage of.  He does not really want to destroy Greendale; he is just screaming about how unfair it is that he and his friends aren’t succeeding.

It was wise for this season to be a revamping year, not just because last year was a relative disappointment, but also because it is a general rule of thumb that sitcoms need a major shakeup here and there to remain worthwhile as they get older.  With its multiple callbacks to the pilot, “Repilot” made it clear that it was a new beginning but also not as much of a clean break as I thought it was going to be.  Is Greendale like the Lost island in that the study groupers cannot leave it (until they are truly ready)?  Or maybe it is a Möbius strip, in that every exit is also an entrance.  This is all to say, Abed repeating “I see your value now” and Jeff repeating “It’s the coolest” underscored how much this episode did not have the shiny newness of the very first episode.  The repeated lines were said by changed people, though.  So there was a changed tint to it all.  I need help reacting to it because it is a just bit uncanny – so familiar, yet so not the same.

Ultimately, “Repilot” portends greatness to come but struggles with dusting off stray plot points that were left dangling unresolved last season.  It was the right decision to make Season 4 canon, but that led to some awkward moments here.  When Annie asked, straight-faced, “Chang was faking Changnesia?”, was that supposed to be a joke?  And if so, what was the joke?  Anyway, a big Season 4 issue was that, even though it had plenty of great individual moments, it was never clear that the writers knew where they were heading towards.  Right now, I only have a vague sense of where this season is headed, but that is fine because I feel like the creative team has figured out where it is headed.

I also feel compelled to mention the surprise cameos: first off, a recycled J.D. voice-over from Scrubs takes the place of a wrap-up Winger speech, and it was looped in so perfectly that I almost thought Joel McHale was doing a Zach Braff impression.  Also, it added to Troy’s slam on Zach and made that crack funnier retroactively.  Also … Pierce appeared?  While watching, I was thinking, “Okay, sure, Pierce left Greendale, but he can still appear as a hologram.”  It didn’t hit me until later that Chevy Chase – you know, the actor who plays Pierce – had left the show, and thus no appearances should have been expected, and certainly not in the first episode.

“Introduction to Teaching”
When friends become lovers, the dynamic of the relationship changes in some ways, but my gut instinct tells me that the way they interact stays a great deal the same and that it is a less awkward transition than some movies and TV would have us believe.  Why am I bringing this up while discussing an episode in which no romantic relationship is begun, ended, or really addressed in any way?  Because should Jeff Winger and Annie Edison ever make the transition from friends to lovers, then their interactions with each other should remain as they are in an episode like this one.  This was not a romantic storyline (at least not directly), but I have seen positive reactions to it from everybody – shippers, non-shippers, and neutrals alike.  This is the Annie Edison that so many Community fans fell in love with – the go-getter who admires Jeff Winger but won’t put up with any of his bullshit.  And this is why Jeff is such good friends with Annie: she challenges him when just about everyone else lets him slide by, and he throws those challenges right back at her.  The scene in which Jeff causes Annie to lose an argument with herself is a thing of beauty.  It is a prime example of how they are such a dynamic duo: they constantly criticize each other, but not to put each other down – they are both so right, and they are both doing it because they know the other can be better.  It can hurt a little bit, and they both hurt each other enough to lead to the other storming out of the classroom, but it hurts so good.  So, let me get a little personal with this analysis, and mention that I am rooting for Jeff and Annie to end up together, and this episode affirmed my faith in their relationship, despite the lack of romance (but certainly not lack of chemistry).  Let me be clear that if they do happen, I want formidable Annie to survive.  (And really, friends or more, that’s what Jeff wants, too: that much was clear by his smile when he saw the newspaper in the trophy case for the debate championship, probably my favorite moment of these two episodes.)

As for the rest of the teaching plot, Jonathan Banks is a rare breed among the Greendale faculty as criminology professor Buzz Hickey.  I mean, who’s mean to Leonard?  Sure, everybody makes fun of him, but that’s always after he gets a dig in at them, and he’s never been embarrassed by it.  But Hickey not only wants to humiliate Leonard, he wants there to be no confusion as to his intentions.  I saw some reactions from people who were profoundly disturbed that Leonard was treated so harshly.  And, true, it was a little rough to watch, but it made it clear that Professor Hickey is for real, like him or not.  And then he settled down at the study room table as a member of the student-teacher Save Greendale Alliance, and he fit right in, despite not being like Pierce at all, except for the oldness part.  I suppose he also plays a similar mentor-to-Jeff role, in which he gives good advice mixed with words that should definitely be avoided.  But this is a personality this crew is not used to, and it looks exciting.

As for the B-story, there were plenty of wonderful words of wisdom, as there tends to be with discussions of Nicolas Cage.  Highlights included Shirley hypothesizing that she might also “accidentally win an Oscar” if she were in 70 movies in 30 years and spoke at random volumes, Shirley, again, figuring out that it is Nic Cage’s role in life to work in mysterious ways, and Abed’s explanation of the different kinds of good and bad regarding Robert Downey, Jr., Jim Belushi (man, that guy is still taking a beating), JCVD, and Johnny Depp.  Danny Pudi’s Nic Cage impression was also excellent (especially “I’m a sexy cat”), but I’m not sure this storyline said that much about Nic Cage that the Internet hasn’t already figured out.  Call me crazy (please do), but I think this storyline could have been an entire episode.  It would have had more room to truly be inspired by Cage at his Cagiest.  Like a Nic Cage movie at his best, it could have made no sense and the most sense.

It is always nice to see Kevin Corrigan.  His appearance here certainly was not as memorable as “Conspiracy Theories and Interior Design,” but it didn’t need to be to work.  With his encouragement to just let the craziness play out – but also his warning to be careful – he may just be the best Greendale professor of them all.  With Jeff’s status as a teacher apparently making the faculty a stronger emphasis, it would be nice if we saw Garrity (and others) just hanging out occasionally.

As this new era moves forward, let’s take stock of where these characters are.  Jeff and Abed both look great, but they’ve never had more than minor problems.  Annie looks more promising than she has since Season 2 (and I thought she was pretty damn good in Season 3).  Britta hasn’t done much yet, but her defiance and her overeagerness (which sometimes resembles ditziness) have been harmonized quite nicely.  Shirley hasn’t had a major plot of her own yet, though she did play an interesting key part in the Nic Cage storyline.  Craig not quite fitting into the student world or the teacher world is being intriguingly emphasized.  Most worrisome, though, is Troy, who probably did the least of anybody these two episodes, and will only be appearing in three more!  I won’t get overly worried, though, because there is a strong sense of directionality, so I don’t think the short shrift will be dealt to anyone for too long.

“Remedial Chaos Theory” – still the high water mark of the series for me and many others – presented a series of alternate timelines that diverged from one seemingly minuscule moment.  Though the potential reality of alternate timelines may appeal to theoretical physicists, the argument has been made that the alternate timelines actually all only took place in Abed’s head.  At least as far back as “Debate 109” (Season 1, Episode 9), Abed has displayed such a deep understanding of the group as to practically be able to predict the future.  So it is a little odd that the timeline that has been revisited on occasion – the one in which Troy got the pizza, i.e., “the darkest timeline” – has become so decidedly unrealistic.  And each time it has been revisited – the tag of “RCT,” the Season 3 finale, the tag of “Intro to Knots” – it has been clear that it was in Abed’s head.  As demonstrated in “Virtual Systems Analysis,” Abed has become so close to his friends and therefore too emotionally invested to be able to always have the wherewithal to make the accurate predictions he has made before.

But the return of the darkest timeline in “Advanced Introduction to Finality” is not a look into the head of Abed Nadir, but that of Jeff Winger, he who has constantly repeated, “Abed, there are no other timelines.”  Jeff is finally set to graduate, he’s ready to get back to his old life, and his friends are supportive of him – but something doesn’t feel right.  The “It Was All Just a Dream” trope is one that should be used with great care, as it can come off as little more than a “get out of a jail free” card.  The just a dream reveal in this episode gets away with that by making it immediately clear that the darkest timeline plot is a dream, or, more specifically, a daydream (and therefore Jeff has more control over how the fantasy goes than he would if he were asleep).  Jeff indicates as much when he declares, “I just need to give Abed a chance” – for his own sake, he needs to examine his role within the group by considering an alternate timeline, the way Abed does so so readily.  Jeff has a nagging fear that going back to his old life will lead him to also go back to his old jerkass ways.  Thus, the alternate timeline that Jeff uses to work through this issue in his head is the darkest timeline.

Since Jeff is not as practiced as Abed at considering alternate timelines, the Evil versions of everyone in Jeff’s head are wildly cartoonish and huge exaggerations of each character’s trademark characteristics.  This would be a problem if this were all supposed to actually be taking place in reality (or the reality of Community, that is, a reality which is … not most of this episode).  Luckily, it is a fantasy, and we are allowed to laugh at it.  The repartee between Evil Jeff and Evil Annie – as previewed in the “Intro to Knots” tag – wins my vote for the funniest element of Season 4.  Their passion for each other is thrilling, while their deviousness towards everyone else is entertaining – it’s like a more insane version of “Conspiracy Theories and Interior Design.”  Actually, scratch that, “Conspiracy Theories” was already plenty insane – “less grounded” is a better description.  Evil Jeff wishing that Evil Annie were even younger really seems to get some people’s goats – too bad that their prudishness gets in the way of appreciating something so hilarious.  Seeing Evil Abed – who is not evil anymore – as a sci-fi shaman was also a treat.  True, Abed is already a shaman anyway, but it was nice to see him in the shamanistic beard and robe.  Unfortunately, all the other evil iterations of the study group amounted to little more than a few quick gags.  And Abed’s declaration that they finally made paintball cool again was a bit premature – if something is truly cool, it should not have to be announced so baldly.

As for reality, Jeff’s graduation ceremony was nicely understated but also a little oddly extravagant.  With the theme of “marriage,” Jeff being wed to the Human Being was certainly a memorable sight gag. The presence of Leonard, Quendra, Neil, Vicki, Todd, and Magnitude was a little strange, and strangely heartwarming.  And of course, the use of the “Greendale Is Where I Belong” musical cue is guaranteed to always tug at my heartstrings.  And finally, Pierce also graduates, which was was probably the most decent way possible to finish up Chevy Chase’s run on Community. B+