So How Long Have You Needed a Crazy Amount of Help?

Well, everyone, Dan Harmon is perfectly aware of what everyone’s been saying, and the average community college student goes to school for an average of 5-7 years and many schools offer four-year degrees, thank you very much. While you’re questioning his majestic vision, he’s going to take digs at Shutter Island, Robin Williams, One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, Minority Report, Antiques Roadshow, and worst person in Hollywood Brett Ratner. Never mind how much these are funny and deserved. It seems like Harmon is really feeling backed into a corner, and he's being nasty (hilariously nasty).

And why shouldn’t he? NBC doesn’t care about his show, and he has to continually fight for its life. His contract might not even get renewed next year. How petulant that will make the tone of the show is limitless.

But who cares about the future? This episode was incredible! It was basically “Paradigms of Human Memory”: Redux, but it furthered the overall plot. The group, so shell-shocked and self-pitying after their expulsion, came to terms with how progressively more crazy they’re getting: Abed films Annie when she’s asleep (but not sexually), Britta takes Peyote, Troy spends all of his money on an ATV and then drives it into the school, and Jeff mistakes a dead battery (why does he have that?) for a pack of Lifesavers. They then refocus when they realize that Chang has kidnapped the dean, which is perhaps the best part of the episode. Dean Pelton, who was settling into a comfortable role doing 30-second bits every episode, has finally gained the group’s respect and love (maybe). They even used his name a few times! Amazing.

The subtle genius of doing a clip show of things that never happened has been mentioned before. It shows Harmon and crew’s ambition and talent. Think about it: these are ideas they threw away. A noir paintball episode would’ve been cool, but after previously parodying action thrillers, westerns, and Star Wars, did we need a full noir episode? No. Not even if Abed imagined everything in black and white, which would’ve been cool, but contrived. Britta’s unhinged peyote trip didn’t need any more than five seconds. We didn’t need to see Greendale on fire, just the dean warning the study group first. It’s part of how much Harmon, for all his well-documented dickishness, respects his audience. What other TV show has ever employed the Iceberg Principle better? Hell, it wasn’t that long ago that every TV show actually told you when to laugh. Now, only shows that don’t want to get canceled do that.

Community continued its run of perfect guest stars (Patton Oswalt, Rob Corddry Anthony Michael Hall, LeVar Burton, Jack Black, John Oliver, Theo from The Cosby Show, Sawyer from Lost…) with John Hodgman basically doing his “You’re Welcome” segment from The Daily Show. The setting of leather-chaired psychiatrist’s office (perhaps inspiring Troy and Abed to opt for chocolate milk-filled cognac glasses and a Troy and Abed in the Morning: Nights segment?) seemed exactly like something Chang would dream up, gave us some great “Britta’s trying way too hard at this psychology thing” jokes, allowed Jeff to do a Groucho Marx impression, and is perfect for a clip show. The Greendale Asylum section was hilariously dark—between the weird sephia filter and ghastly sight of Annie maniacally laughing while strapped to a sheetless bed, it was legitimately horrifying. Then they overdubbed Garrett to sound like a smoke-throated doctor from the Mad Men era. Just perfect.

The future looks weird for Community, and by weird, I mean Dan Harmon might not be back and we might get some lame Chevy Chase physical comedy next year. But they seem to be amping up for another strong finish, and that’s what everyone needs to realize: three (maybe four) seasons of this level of high-quality programming is worth enjoying in the present. Maybe ten years from now, after enough internet bitching, Netflix will finance a movie for the Greendale Seven (probably six, there’s no way Pierce has ten more years in him). Just remember that if next season is Community’s last, at least it never lost its power or became a stumbling, phoned-in shadow of itself. Whining about cancellation, like Jeff Winger says, "is a completely unnecessary process...we could just admit the simple fact that one day, something is in your life, and one day, it's not." This is a great, envelope-pushing show, and the world television is better for its existence. Just enjoy it.