I am now convinced Community is completely about television. Last season, they obviated it by parodying every genre trope possible. In the Glorious Restoration, they’re doing it by making every plot point a metaphor for how weird and awesome their show is. Last night’s episode begins with the Dean introducing a “Subway sandwichery in our cafetorium,” followed by the revelation that “Subway” has become a person. He’s tall, handsome, and not allowed to discuss his past despite a deep love for 1984—right up Britta’s alley.
Subway being a brain-dead, emotionless humanoid is a comment on TV audiences. Television isn’t typically a thinking person’s medium—it’s an easy distraction from a more complicated life, and hardly ever a thought-out commentary on life. That’s why every new TV show has a ringing familiarity: they’re just copying one another. Community isn’t interested in doing that. It’s trying to be different, but that makes it weird and kills its ratings.
Pierce and Shirley, the spurned business investors whose sandwhichery was originally supposed to go in the cafetorium, quickly manipulate Britta into spying on Subway. The idea is to force Subway into screwing up somehow and betraying his corporate rules. This would force the Subway (the actual sandwichery, not the person) to close and allow Pierce and Shirley to open their business. They end up recording the two having sex by planting a bug on Britta. When the Subway corporate rep hears the tape, Subway is carted off by guards while Britta powerlessly pines for him. It’s probably the most Britta end to a relationship ever.
Before diving into the Troy/Abed subplot, allow me to introduce a new segment: Pierce Watch. Each week, we’ll examine if Pierce does anything worthwhile in the episode. He’s funnier this episode, but going completely insane. He’s taken to drinking ink (“pens are mini-flasks”) and calling 10 AM “this time of night”—all hilarious. But it doesn’t bode well for his character to become much more than a caricature.
Abed and Troy’s apartment building is being dusted for termites, so they’re displaced and decide to build a huge pillow fort at Greendale. Britta asks them, hey, didn’t they do that last year and aren’t they just repeating themselves (get it?), to which Abed replies “A pillow fort is way more difficult and way better,” (get it?) and Troy says “More difficult is always better.” So yes, Community is literally advocating that your fantastical artifices be as difficult as possible because it’s more satisfying. It’s not something I necessarily disagree with—Community and shows like it (Arrested Development comes to mind) are more satisfying because they force you to think about the jokes, don’t forcibly tell you what’s funny by relying on a laugh track, and keep you on your toes even with the cinematography (“that’s totally a Sergio Leone reference!”) It’s fun…you know, for film and TV nerds.
It soon comes to light that they could break the Guinness World Record for largest pillow/blanket fort, but thanks to some Iago-like manipulating from John Goodman’s character (the air-conditioning repair school dean who wants Troy to enroll because of his Will Hunting-like talent), Troy has started building his own fort. Abed refuses to compromise the pillow fort (“I won’t sacrifice quality for square footage…we don’t need a world record to tell ourselves we did something cool”) but Troy is trying to avoid being the Constable Reggie to Abed’s Inspector Spacetime. Troy gets it in his head that Abed is using him, and Abed returns to his Messianic complex, saying “It’s hard making something perfect, but it’s worth it,” and “I’d rather see my work destroyed than compromise it.” As with most tragic conflicts, neither is wrong: Abed is being arrogant and emotionally uncompromising, Troy is being selfish and selling out.
This is the central conflict of Community as a show. Dan Harmon clearly has a vision of something more than just a Two and a Half Men/Everybody Loves Raymond cheap laugh track-filled crapfest. Before Abed can destroy the pillow fort, John Goodman appears again to say he’s “someone who understands dedication to craftsmanship in the face of mediocrity. This world is run by the unremarkables…what if I stopped worrying about their acceptance of me?” It’s the tension of all art—are you a misunderstood genius, or just a pretentious dick with a greenlighted show? No one in television straddles that line quite like Dan Harmon. In a world of good television, last night’s episode would be ridiculed for flamboyant navel-gazing. In the real world, last night’s episode is among Community’s best.
Jeff, whom I’ve always thought of as a Harmon stand-in because Harmon derived the premise of the show from enrolling in a community college Spanish class to save a relationship, spends the whole episode coming to terms with the fact that he’s an inconsiderate jerk. A woman named Kim left a hate letter in his heretofore-unknown locker, and now she’s dead. At the end of the episode, we find out Kim is a dude who Jeff never remembers and has introduced himself to no less than ten times. So Jeff repents, things are cool with and Kim, and then…he forgets Kim’s name again.
I’ve said before that I’m fine with Community being about little more than making a TV show. It’s smart and funny and fun and obviously respects its audience, which is refreshing. The best quote on craft from the episode is when Subway talks about “Love’s ability to surface within the cracks and cogs of inhuman systems.” — Community obviously loves the work. No other show so clearly telegraphs how much fun all of the actors are having. But Hollywood producers are completely money-driven and they’ve already been at the brink of cancellation. So yeah, throw in a few extra jabs at producers, just remember to keep things fresh, interesting, and funny. It’s a fine line they walk.
Quick Notes:
Annie needs something real to do and soon. She was practically invisible last week and spent this week trying to make Jeff apologize to what she thought was a dead girl’s locker. She did, however, have an awesome speech about the girls Jeff “dominates and then forgets about,” which is pretty much what Jeff’s been doing to her since they made out in the first season. Is Alison Brie winking and nodding about that other show she stars in that premiered this week?
The show proved once again that it is the master of getting past the censors. When Britta and Subway are recorded having sex, we don’t hear anything except Britta’s mood-killing “only the physical remains” line. But the Subway corporate rep, well, can’t get up from the table at the end. Very similar to the D & D sex scene from season two.
Can we all start talking about how awesome the way Shirley says Britta’s name is? Bri-ttah. It’s almost British, but still sweet, motherly-type. As pure of poetry as Bubbles calling McNulty “McNutty” on The Wire.
Abed actually says To Be Continued to cap the episode off! Yeah, this show rules.
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