Jmunney's Blog

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

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

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

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

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

If you’ve regularly been reading my Community reviews for this season thus far, you might think – based on my grades at least (B+, B+, A-, B) – that I’ve been happy with the way things have been going.  But I’ve actually been a little worried.  The show has been all right, but it has yet to produce any masterpieces that in past seasons were always only a few weeks away.  “Cooperative Escapism in Familial Relations” wasn’t quite a masterpiece, but it had enough masterpiece-level elements  to be itself strongly satisfying and leave me optimistic for the future.

Let’s save the best for last, and let’s start with discussing the B-plot.  Abed, Annie, Pierce, and Troy end up at Shirley’s with her in-laws for Thanksgiving.  Andre’s family is apparently so unbearable that the study group-ers have to resort to spending nearly the entirety of the episode in Shirley’s garage.  Some other reviews have already mentioned the one thing I really didn’t like about this storyline – it hardly ever showed how awful the Bennetts supposedly were.  It felt like one or two scenes must have been missing.  Maybe they were – perhaps there were cuts for time?  Abed’s attempts to narrate the situation into a Shawshank Redemption (and then Prison Break) scenario did not feel forced, because that is something that Abed would do.  But it did feel kind of half-hearted; in fact, the whole situation felt half-hearted: they never really had it in them to abandon Shirley. So, considering that, it was actually a good thing that it was half-hearted.  Interestingly enough, while this episode provided further evidence that Chevy Chase had checked out during filming of this season, he actually provided some of the funniest moments, particularly his “reference” and “meta” humor that he insists “Ay-bed” will get.

Now for the moment we’ve all been waiting for: Jeff meets Daddy William Winger … and Britta insists on being there to see her psychology project through.  Also, Jeff has a “soft” half-brother, Willy, Jr., who was played decently by Adam Devine.  He had some memorable moments with Britta particularly the dinner roll session.  But the real meat of this plot was, obviously, Jeff and his dad.  Things start out well, but then William has the gall to imply that his abandonment was responsible for building Jeff’s character.  This ultimately leads Jeff to put his father in his place with a speech that is even weirder and more revealing than his confessions to Abed in “Critical Film Studies.”  Giving himself a fake appendix scar just so that he could be sympathized: wow, we really did not how broken Jeff was, or is.  But one thing that has been known – Jeff’s constant texting – was confirmed as a manifestation of his insecurity, even among those closest to him.  Jeff’s question to Britta about if she felt a desire to sleep with him has apparently been interpreted by some as flirting, but let’s be clear: he was teasing her by using her misplaced psychology against her after she had suggested that Jeff and his dad must be feeling an urge to sleep with each other.  Jeff is not trying to break up Britta and Troy.

Speaking of Jeff, a recurring line for this season popped up a couple times this episode, when Shirley and the Dean both ended a thought with “Jeff, or whoever” (meaning “I’m fine with anyone, but actually I really want Jeff to be there more than anyone else”) just as Annie had done in the season premiere when talking about who might join her in senior pranking.  In Season 1, even though Jeff initially wasn’t all that committed to friendship with his study groupmates, he was still the cool guy that everyone was drawn towards.  By Season 3, things got dark, Jeff at times seemed a little crazy, and there were some moments when his friends were left to wonder if they would be just fine without him.  But by the end of the season, though, he declared his commitment to his fellow Greendale human beings, and now his friends’ desire to hang out with him appears to be stronger than ever.  Accordingly, Joel McHale is the best lead actor in any sitcom on television right now, and (with the exception of Louis C.K.), it’s not even close. A-