Jmunney's Blog

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

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

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

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

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

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

“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-