We knew we were getting a Law and Order episode ever since the trailer for the Great Community Return, but it took them so long to get to it that I’d forgotten about it entirely. I’d guessed it was going to be a subplot of an episode, not an entire episode. But Dan Harmon wanted to get his Dick Wolf on, and the result was the most Community of Community episodes ever, even though it wasn’t a Community episode (get it?).
The case against Law and Order is pretty easy to make. It’s a show that uses pop psychology, ripped-from-the-textbook straw characters, and a trivialized depiction of the criminal justice system where murderers, rapists, child molesters, and murdering child rapists are indentified, arrested, and tried within 40 minutes. Sort of makes those assholes on The Wire seem really bad at their jobs, right?
Speaking of The Wire, Omar! Omar, muthafuckas, OMAR! Michael K. Williams returned this week as Professor Kane, the dude learned got a PhD in biology while in prison. I mentioned last week how him having the flu was a major fan disservice. I should’ve known that Harmon and crew were foreshadowing his return this week.
As is befitting a Law and Order episode, all of the characters quickly fall into stereotypes: Jeff and Annie as the lawyers (one hotshot, one super motivated), Shirley becomes the sassy Danny Glover “I’m too old for this shit” character, Britta as the in-lab technology nerd (which, for Britta, just means using Instagram), Pierce as the old snitch running a cop-tolerated gambling ring, and Troy and Abed as cop partners quasi-fighting over who’s turn it is to say the zinger.
A great thing this episode does is bring back a whole slew of peripheral characters, who also fall into stereotypes. The two janitors appear at the beginning of the episode in the “working class stiffs who discover the body and then are never seen or heard from again.” Gary (the fat guy who isn’t Neil) is the guy who runs shitty hot dog stand. Real Neil With Pipes of Steel (nee Fat Neil) is the administrative person who somehow knows about the case but isn’t a real suspect. Starburns is the guy who you think has done it all along but really isn’t the culprit. Magnitude! is another early suspect. Todd, whom Pierce ditched as a biology partner early in the season, has a large role, and even Vicki returns.
You could write a lot on hilarious things Troy and Abed do in this episode, but I’ll keep it brief: Troy wears a Spiderman tie throughout (Donald for Spiderman!), Abed actually says “he’s a bad cop. I’m a good cop,” and when they discover the dead yam late at night, Abed shows up in a T-shirt, hoodie, and boxers. Classic stuff.
Anyway, at the end of the episode, you’re reminded exactly how ridiculous all of this is. Professor Kane is not amused by the group’s “investigation,” but he plays along because he knows it’s the only way to get Annie Adderall to shut the hell up. Professor Kane, who spent twenty-five years in prison, even says, “Need I remind you that this is not a courtroom?” Kane is played by Michael K. Williams, who actually got that giant scar across his face on his 25th birthday. He also portrayed the President of the United States’ favorite character on the best, most realistic cop show of all time. Omar even gets misquoted in this episode—Kane and Jeff both say “Man gotta have a code” (after which Dean Pelton says “Awesome!”) at separate times. But the Omar quote is the less ebonic “A man must have a code.”
The episode is a mockery of the criminal justice system, and it gestures towards that fact. L&O is a mockery of the criminal justice system, and Community is making a mockery of that mockery. Honestly, even if we follow the internal logic of the episode, it doesn’t even hold up as a crime drama. We never knew that yam existed before, and it’s a yam, for crissakes, so who really cares if it’s been murdered?
It’s also impossible to watch this episode without thinking of the recent dustup between Grantland’s Wire character bracket and Wire creator David Simon. Simon made some tone-deaf comments to the media, and Bill Simmons called him a “condescending, humorless blowhard.” Then Simon got a blog to clarify his comments, basically saying that The Wire raised too many important questions to be “[hacked]…into pop culture nuggets.”
Neither is wrong, of course. Simon is a bit of a dick (but he’s not the only TV show creator I wouldn’t necessarily like to have a beer with), but he’s right that The Wire is about more than just the best character (obviously it’s between Omar, Avon, Stringer, and McNulty, and it’s probably Stringer, but whatevs). All of this is a necessary and uncannily timely background to Community’s Law and Order episode. If The Wire (or, you know, walking around some rough-looking city streets and speaking to members of your community) tells us anything, it’s that moral relativism is the law of the land. America isn’t a fair country, and when you consider everything, there aren’t really any good guys or bad guys. What L&O tells us is that cops always want to catch bad guys, and bad people are just bad, end of sentence. Community, in its self-possessed, hyper-referential way, made an episode about how dangerous and artistically stupid that is. I don’t know if this episode would seem as relevant without the Simmons/Simon dustup, but hey, maybe Dan Harmon can see the future.
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