The second episode of The Great Community Return aired last night with a jarring cold open of the group coming back from winter break. It’s hard to say if this was simply part of the storyline or another Dan Harmon jab at NBC for screwing him. That’s part of what makes this show so awesome: are they just following a script bible, are they drunk/lazy, or is Dan Harmon just continuously trolling us all? I hope it’s a little bit of everything.
This episode was considerably better than last week’s drunken marriage rehearsal episode/basic feminism straw argument/anticlimax-fest. Every character—except poor Annie, who was reduced to a scared, worrying mess and Pierce, who’s increasingly useless—was given something interesting to do: Troy and Abed got in a fight, Jeff got sexier and sexier until he Hulked out, Shirley did an amazing Oprah impression, Chang shot tranquilizers and gave kids guns, and Britta looks WAY TOO MUCH like white Michael Jackson.
Troy and Abed’s storyline is the central plot, and for reasons I’ll get in to later, I like these episodes the best. Abed has taken to hiring celebrity impersonators to re-enact movie scenes with him, and it’s introduced with such out-of-nowhere awesomeness (anytime you can get a half-Polish, half-Pakistani who looks like an innocent Rajon Rondo to impersonate Harrison Ford in a library, you have to do it) that you actually feel a little tension. Abed’s had a pregnancy scare before, who’s to say he doesn’t have a wife stashed somewhere and he’s been framed for her murder? Then Troy explains the situation, and the conflict is set up: Annie, Shirley, and Britta want to have an intervention to make Abed normal, Troy thinks Abed is perfect, and Jeff doesn’t give a shit. Then Chang shoots a tranquilizer dart through a window and it’s awesome.
Troy absolutely makes this episode: his first speech in the study group talks about how Abed is better than normal; that Abed’s quirky weirdness and not-exactly-mild Aspergers’ (haha, AssBurgers) is good for the group; that Abed, for all of his self-absorption, knows how to make them feel appreciated as friends better than anyone. Then, Act Two has Troy desperately trying to make the party go well so that Abed doesn’t get his legs broken over a debt he refuses to acknowledge. Act Three has Troy angry at Abed for failing to recognize the fact that he owes his legs to Troy, and we see an argument that is as intense and real as Community gets (and trust me, that shit is real).
The nature of friendship is rarely addressed as seriously on television or in film. In romantic comedies, people expect the protagonists to clash: that’s how relationships become dramatic, and you always run back to your lover. No one ever talks about friendships—those conversations are couched in ridiculed euphemisms like “bro-mance” and “guy love.” Close male friendship is demeaned by being called homoerotic, and, you know, gay is bad. Women don’t necessarily have this issue, because their only goal in film is to get hitched and make babies. So when Troy and Abed are talking after Troy kicks the Patch Adams/Popeye the Sailor Man impersonators out, it felt painfully real. Troy doesn’t tell Abed he’s mad at him and refuses to go into the Dreamatorium. Abed is genuinely shocked to find out Troy lied to him. Then they reconcile, but Abed doesn’t do the handshake and goes to play Inspector Spacetime by himself.
I wouldn’t be surprised if they don’t address this for a few more episodes and let that conflict simmer in the back of everyone’s minds. That’s how friendships end. There’s almost never one big thing that kills it. It’s more like something to “Jenga”; it gets pulled at and subtracted from until there's almost nothing left. And it sucks watching it on Community. Troy and Abed are easily the most likable characters, and they’re supposed to be pure comic relief. They’re not supposed to have tension. They’re Jim and Pam, Lutz/Twofer/Frank, Hawkeye and Trapper/B.J. Dan Harmon knows this, and kids, Dan Harmon does not care about your feelings. Unless the writers employ a Troy-like “Better than reality” card and let it drop, this Troy and Abed thing isn’t over, and it’s going to be excellently unpleasant.
A few quick notes:
Community has spent most of its time imitating other TV shows, genres, and tropes. Seriously, you can’t read a TV Tropes page on this show in under twenty minutes. It was nice to see the characters impersonating people while dealing with real issues, rather than the show impersonating other shows and the characters dealing with trope issues.
Immediately after Troy and Abed’s intensely emotional moment, Jeff and Britta have a quazi-one. It was difficult to understand why I cared so much less about them than Troy and Abed, but then I realized: the show has never decided whether it’s about Jeff and Britta or Jeff and Annie. Sure, Jeff started this messy study group because he wanted in Britta’s pants (“why can’t you see that for the compliment it is?”), but he made out with Annie at the end of season one, the most favorable timeline in “Remedial Chaos Theory” has him and Annie nearly making out, and they have a very clear and established chemistry. I think that “at the end of it all,” Jeff and Britta will “end up together,” but by gesturing to Jeff/Annie (again, is it lazy gesturing towards a shocker, deliberate trolling, or part of something bigger?), the writers make it much harder to care about Jeff/Britta.
The graphics have got to go. Jeff’s ego as an exploding apple, Chang’s power-hungry thought bubbles—just awful. Inexcusable. That is lazy—lazy writing, acting, and directing. Either show the characters’ thoughts and emotions or have them say something witty or wittily cliché, but cut the graphics out. It’s unbearable.
All in all, great episode.
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