It’s March 15, the day that every weirdo, nerd and not-so-secret geek has been waiting for.
It’s the day that Community comes back.
For those who are “streets behind,” Community is an oddball TV show about six community college students who are so vastly different and weird in their own way that they make up the perfect group of friends and the funniest collection of TV characters I have ever seen (although Liz Lemon takes the prize for funniest individual character, easily). It’s certainly a cult TV show due to its amazing plot lines that some people find a little too strange (characters making blanket forts that extends throughout the school? An entire episode about a paintball war taking place in the college? What’s weird about that?).
But that’s why Community works, because of its strangeness. That’s also why I was a little disappointed with this week’s episode, because it wasn’t weird enough. Sure, there were a few moments that had my stomach shaking with laughter, such as:
“My 9th grade English teacher used to say ‘There will always be a reason not to follow your dreams.’ At the time, he meant I was under the age of consent, but his words still apply.” —Britta
“Great. Flowers look great in a pot. There are people dying in Uganda.” —Britta
“This is who I aaaaam” —Britta whispering when she realizes that, despite her feminist philosophies, she is amazing at planning weddings.
“What about babies?” —Jeff
“What about them?” —Britta
“How many?” —Jeff
“Pick a number dick; like it’s up to me!” —Britta during Jeff and Britta’s almost marriage. Thank god that didn’t happen. We had enough “will they, won’t they?” tension in season 1 and it was awful.
In fact, the only part I liked about this episode was Britta’s subplot, which made me feel like I was in the darkest alternative timeline, because normally I hate Britta and I love everyone else. Yes, there are whole episodes when I sit there and wish that the writers/director would just cut Britta out of the show already, preferably by an ironic death in which Britta dies while fighting with a homeless man over money.
But in this episode, Britta is hilarious! Even though I guessed the minute she started working with the flowers that she would be some sort of genius at it, I still love the irony and sheer brilliance of the writers for making Britta wonderful at planning weddings, and I love how she switches from hating marriages to reluctantly thinking that she has to love marriages because she has “come from a long line of wives and mothers.”
However, besides that and Dean Pelton’s few appearances, I did not enjoy the rest of the episode—namely Shirley’s marriage. This is because I felt like it came too fast, and that the writers didn’t build up to it more. Yes, we knew that they were dating and we knew that they were married before the show started, but we rarely saw the two of them together. I think the writers of the show should have had André in the show for a few more episodes and then sprung the whole marriage thing on us. Actually, the only parts I liked about this was André’s reaction to Troy and Abed when they were trying to be normal and the fact that André has been trying to get his stereo business going for 10 years now (parallel to 30 rock’s Dennis Duffy the Beeper King anyone?)
I also wish that I could have seen Troy and Abed purging their weirdness more and seen them acting “normal” less. Although I did love Troy and Abed’s weird smile when they try to be normal and Shirley’s ex-husband/new husband André just thinks that they’re being sarcastic, I felt really strange when I saw them wearing suits and speaking, well, normally. That’s why I breathed a sigh of relief in the end when they converted back to their weirdly wonderful selves.
However, by the end of the episode, I felt like there had to be more. I didn’t feel satisfied, didn’t feel like the three long, cold months of waiting was worth this one episode. There were only two main moments when I laughed at loud, and both of them were Britta moments. I did smile at the very end when Pierce was having trouble with the chocolate ice cream machine, but it wasn’t enough to make up for the lackluster episode.
Despite the disappointment though, I hope there are more seasons to come. I know that Community isn’t always amazing, but there are a few gems of episodes that make it all worth while. There are episodes when I don’t even smile once, and there are episodes when I am rolling on the floor laughing (Señor Chang in the Dungeons and Dragons episode always gets me laughing. No, I take that back. That whole episode can have me laughing as fast as you can say baagels.) So I hope that this episode was just one of the worse episodes of the season, and I look forward to seeing next week’s episode with just as much enthusiasm as this week’s episode.
Six season and a movie!
poetrybytheclueless 