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.”
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