Last week, Community made compelling arguments for both sides of the art vs commercialism debate while ripping its two most likable characters and most functional relationship apart. It seemed like the feud, while childish and dumb, would never end—a terrifying prospect. But they wrapped it up quickly, and thank God. I guess sometimes, you realize that your battles carry as much weight as, say, a community college paintball match. Or the battle for artistic integrity on the consistently lowest-ranked network on television. Or maybe as much as a feud between an extremely dickish show runner and an extremely dickish past-his-prime comedian.
This week’s episode was decidedly less explosive than a paintball episode. More…soft and downy, if you will. While there are references to pretty every war ever—it’s a giant metaphor for the Civil War; no territory changes hands, like WWI; it’s completely pointless, like almost every war ever—it feels less like a war and more like twenty minutes of taking the piss out of Ken Burns. All due respect to Burnsy, but it’s high comedy.
The documentary takes itself way too seriously, Burns-style, by reading aloud text messages (emoticons included), facebook status updates with subsequent likes, bad college poetry, and describing a reality show that’s no fun to watch on time delay because then you’d be the last to know what happens. There are few action shots—the episode relies on plodding voiceover, camera stills, and talking heads.
The documentary’s humor comes from taking all of the characters at face value: Troy and Abed are viewed as great tacticians. Jeff finds a “leading role” and delivers a rousing speech (to both sides), but is humanized by being completely unable to mediate Troy and Abed’s conflict until the end. Annie opens a care center. Shirley is the kind of ass-kicker into which you can only develop if you’re the mother of two, but again, you feel sorry that she’s kept at school and away from her husband and children for another meaningless, barely-remembered community college conflict. Only two characters are really viewed with contempt: Britta, a much-maligned war photographer (“unfortunately for Britta and millions of photographers like her, just because something is black and white does not make it good) and…
Pierce Watch: Pierce is initially described as “the dried-up heir to a moist towelette empire who would prove to be the dried-up heir to a moist towelete empire.” He initially joins Troy’s forces because Abed is weirder and more foreign, but switches sides because Shirley is given a higher rank by Troy. He suffers from erectile dysfunction. Then he designs a super-destructive secret weapon, which just him as a giant white pillowy blob of inhuman mess destroying everything in his path. It’s a physical manifestation of Pierce himself since The Great Community Return.
The episode’s biggest strength, as with all of Community’s classics, is how well it treats its characters. Will the show rely on cliché stereotypes and become little more than a Mad TV sketch, or will it explore who these people are as human beings and make the viewer give a shit? Well, Fat Neil reinvents himself as Real Neil With Pipes of Steel, a nighttime radio DJ. Leonard’s nickname “Bucket of Guts” is awesome. Chang (“rumored to be literally psychotic”) finally gets to unleash his Kiddie Corps, or “Changlourious Basterds.” Dean Pelton is typically dean-y, saying that the fact that the Guinness World Records rep isn’t coming is a “colossal waste of two and a half days,” never once mentioning the actual pillow fight leading to mass truancy. I wonder what it’s like being a professor at Greendale (when you’re not banging Jeff Winger, that is)? So the answer is yes, the show loved its characters here. Except for Pierce and Britta.
The climax is even better. Troy and Abed can’t stop pillow fighting…because they’ve declared their friendship dead and hitting each other with pillows will be the last thing they ever do together. It’s adorable. Jeff tries to bring up the magical friendship hats he made in the dean’s office earlier in the episode. Troy and Abed refuse, but only because Jeff doesn’t have the hats with him. Their friendship means so much that they actually remember where Jeff left the magical friendship hats two and a half days ago. Jeff leaves, and Annie relates to the camera that he stayed outside long enough to make them believe that he went to the dean’s office. But Jeff really walks back to the office. He imagines Troy’s hat to be a bit crumpled and Abed’s to be a little dusty. He fixes both before bringing them back, even though he’s alone. This most un-Winger of gestures shows how important Troy and Abed’s friendship is to everyone.
The resulting Troy and Abed Secret Handshake (TASH) is so awesome you want to stand up and cheer. Britta is given her redemption by immortalizing the moment on film (“accidentally, while trying to capture the light on a stack of nearby waffles”). Everyone is happy again. It was a satisfying episode displaying everything Community does right: subverting genre not because Dan Harmon went to film school, but because it’s funny, while keeping the characters at the forefront and the navel-gazing artistic arguments under the surface.
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