COMMUNITY | A Complete Retrospective

disclaimer this video contains spoilers for all six seasons of Community there are time codes in the description if you want to jump around are we all on the same page fantastic time to go to class the year is 2009 and NBC is once again looking to fill out their fall TV schedule for decades Now NBC has dominated the ratings in part because in the early 1980s they locked into a formula for the most popular night of the week Thursdays during the prime time hours of 8:00 p.m. to 11:00 p.m. Eastern NBC would fill the airwaves with four half hour comedies followed by a 1-hour drama at 10 in 1982 NBC even coined their Thursday night slate as the best night of television on television and let me tell you these shows were enormous almost always at the top of the ratings charts for their time slot the 80s gave NBC a ton of success with with stuff like The Cosby Show Family Ties cheers and night court with Hill Street Blues and eventually La law taking over the 10 pm slot and when the clock turned to the 1990s NBC continued to find success in what they now called musty TV through the 90s they had friends and Seinfeld which were constantly in the top rating spots every year and the long running drama ER followed at 1000 p.m. but that success wasn't going to last forever Seinfeld came to an end in 199 98 and Friends ended its 10-year run in 2004 and while NBC did try their hands at a friends spin-off with Joey it was cancelled after its second season the early to mid 2000s saw a big shift in NBC's Thursday night lineup even with shows like the office 30 Rock and My Name is Earl popping onto their schedule they still weren't hitting the same record high as they were in the 80s and '90s and eventually in the spring of 2009 My Name is Earl was cancelled after its fourth season meaning there was now an open slot in the fall 2009 slate for a new show to jump into the ring NBC wanted to recapture the magic formula of four half hour comedies followed by a 1-hour drama that had proved so successful in the 80s and '90s which meant their eyes were open for a new comedy show to join the office 30 Rock and the Springs newcomer Parks and Recreation on Thursday nights this is where writer Dan Harmon comes into play Dan Harmon got his start as a member of Comedy Sports in Milwaukee Wisconsin before beginning his very own nonprofit short film festival Channel 101 founding it with fellow comedy writer Rob shrap Channel 101 is a platform that allows people to submit a pilot short film under 5 minutes in length allowing them to get their foot into the comedy world and express their own unique voices but perhaps most notably during his Channel 101 years is that Dan Harmon used this longlasting writing experience to form his very own method of structuring and writing stories Dan Harmon created the story Circle it's a variation on Plenty of monom myths that have been established across story writing for like centuries but there was a very particular method to the story Circle that made Dan Harmon unique the circle is broken into eight sections the protagonist will go on a journey from the top section and make their way clockwise around the circle the sections are as follows you start the character in a familiar place but something is missing they want something different so they enter an unfamiliar situation they adapt to that situation and ultimately get what they want but they pay a heavy price for it and ultimately return to their familiar situation having changed but the circle is not just split into the eight sections it's also split top to bottom the top half of the circle which encompasses the beginning and the end of the story is labeled order and the bottom half of the circle which encompasses the journey into the unknown is labeled as chaos Dan Harmon would write every single one of his stories with this structure in mind everything would abide by the story Circle and that's where the pilot script for a sitcom came about a sitcom inspired by Dan Harmon's experiences at Glendale Community College most specifically his experiences with a Spanish study group a study group that he would grow a surprising amount of attachment to despite the fact that they all had very little in common but this experience became the basis for Dan Harmon's sitcom story the story of a disgraced lawyer who enrolls in community college to get a legitimate degree a lawyer who would wind up being roped into a Spanish study group and learn to love them like a second family in due time this pilot was picked up by NBC confirmed to join their Thursday night lineup in the fall of 2009 Dan Harmon and NBC had joined forces they done the handshake from predator and they were ready to dive in this is where we begin a most unusual Journey a journey of one TV show so weird and funny that it always managed to stay a flat a TV show that would Garner its own cult following that would love and cherish the show unlike anything else this is where we begin a complete retrospective on community [Music] [Applause] they if you're enjoying the video so far subscribe to the channel it helps out a lot all right I'm almost late for class so we got to keep this moving the pilot was now under way which meant it was time for the single hardest and most crucial part of putting the show together casting casting is important for any TV show or movie project but that is especially true when it comes to an ensemble comedy like this not only do you have to find a fair amount of people but you have to find a fair amount of funny people people who are not only funny on their own but funny when put together with the other funny people on the show it's no small feat things started with the casting of the leading man Joel mcale a deeply sarcastic comic who fit the bill for the lead character in plenty of ways and had proven his comedy chops in various roles most famously being the host of the E channel talk show the soup and also a brief cameo in Spider-Man 2 following him were a group of relative unknowns you had IET Nicole Brown who had been on a few episodes of Drake and Josh and also a brief role in Michael Bay the island Allison Brie had made her Mark as Trudy Campell on Mad Men and was now going to take on a character-based heavily on Tracy flick from election Gillian Jacobs and Danny py both had guest roles in various TV shows making this their first TV show as series regulars Donald Glover had not only acted in but written several episodes of 30 Rock as well as a whole series of Comedy short films across the mid to late 2000s John Oliver also joined the pilot he was most famous for being part of The Daily Show with John Stewart starting in 2007 Ken Jong had also recently made his Mark in The Hangover which storm formed into the box office in June 2009 but on top of all of them there was one regular cast member who would take up more press than any other and that was Chevy Chase Chevy Chase was a comedy Legend throughout the 80s and 90s I mean you got stuff like Caddy Shack National Lampoon Vacation and its various spin-offs and sequels Three Amigos funny farm he was even on SNL for its first season Chevy Chase was easily the biggest name to join the CTIC Community despite the fact that he hadn't been that big of a name for quite a while at this point but in the Years leading up to this Chevy Chase was resurging into the industry he was reappearing in more and more things and now for the very first time he'd be a regular on a prime time television show the cast had been assembled some of them had worked with Dan Harmon before some of them Dan Harmon was a fan of and wanted to work with but universally across the entire cast they joined because of the writing the script for community's pilot stuck out to them it was fun funny it was clever it was different and for that reason this entire cast would come together to bring it to life filming of the pilot got underway with super speed directed by Jo and Anthony Russo who had some background in comedy already having worked on Arrested Development only a few years earlier filming was conducted at the Los Angeles City College for exteriors and the Paramount Studios lot in Hollywood for virtually everything else and in no time the clock eventually turned to June 2nd 2009 where audien is eager to see what the fall TV season would bring would get their first look at NBC's newest Thursday night comedy uh I I am in a bit of a jam the the State Bar has suspended my license uh they found out my college degree was less than legitimate well I thought you had a bachelor from Columbia and now I have to get one from America across a pretty sizable 5 minutes this trailer presents an Abridged version of the pilot Story how this group will come together the humor setting they will all find themselves in and how Community College is the place for anyone to start over although watching this trailer it was very easy to draw connections between this show and several other movies that had come before before this press statements described the show as Stripes but in a community college and this trailer highlighted a very direct comparison to The Breakfast Club I mean a bunch of Misfits in a school it's easy to draw that line the question was would this be a detriment to the show or a benefit in due time Community officially made its way onto NBC's schedule slated to begin on September 17th at 9:30 p.m. well it' be at 9:30 until 30 Rock came back in the middle of October at that point Community would be bumped up to 8:00 p.m. kicking off NBC's Thursday night lineup as the first of its four half hour comedies and as the summer Drew to a close and September began to roll around further promos for the show hit the airwaves cementing Community as the latest mustsee comedy alongside the sixth season of the office the fourth season of 30 Rock and the second season of Parks and Recreation for the first time in years NBC had a complete Thursday night lineup that they hoped would dominate ratings just like it did back in the 80s and '90s but what if you wanted to get a taste of community a bit earlier what if you wanted to know more before the show officially debuted in September well the pilot was screened for limited audiences over the summer but beyond that if you were paying attention to Channel 101 in the weeks leading up to community debut you'd be greeted with a series of webisodes that would introduce you to the setting of the show Greendale Community College hosted by Dr Pat Isaacson the dean of admissions played by none other than the show's Creator Dan Harmon these webisodes were essentially in Universe advertisements for Greendale to get you to enroll in the classes take on extracurricular activities and experience everything that the school had to offer what did the school have to offer well that's listed in greendale's list of Straight a days accessibility affordability air conditioning awesome new friends and a lot of classes not to mention the school slogan is you're already accepted I mean what more can you ask for so you want a higher education at a lower cost you know other universities might wonder who do you think you are at Greendale we think you are these shorts got across one single idea this show was going to have a very unique sense of of humor it was going to be unlike anything else on TV which made it an instant watch for many people but this was only a brief Taste of the sensibilities of the show a mere glimpse of what audiences could expect these shorts didn't feature any of the primary cast or any of the cast at all actually but they did sell the bizarre and potentially insane setting of Greendale and audiences didn't have to wait that much longer to see the school in full because without any further time to waste the fall TV season finally began audiences had seen the promos they'd seen the posters they had definitely sent in their applications to enroll at Greendale and lucky for them they were already accepted which meant it was now time to step foot on campus the clock had now turned to September 17th 2009 the bells were ringing the students were gathering it was now time for the first day of school this Show's sense of humor is established with in seconds of the pilot getting underway I mean all you need to understand what the show is going for is to see the dean of Greendale Craig Pelton explain the common sentiment around Community College you've heard it's loser college for remedial team 20 something dropouts middle-age divorcees and old people keeping their minds active as they Circle the Drain of Eternity that's what you heard however I wish you luck I mean we're already 60 seconds into the pilot and I'm sold this show centers on disgraced lawyer Jeff Winger who in an attempt to get with the hot girl from a Spanish class brida winds up faking a study group to spend more time with her but that inevitably explodes in his face when brida winds up calling his bluff ultimately leading to Jeff inadvertently creating a real Spanish study group the purpose of the pilot is to establish our primary characters and bring them together to set the stage for the rest of the season and boy howdy do we have a diverse and crazy variety of characters in this Ensemble the show is very deliberate about putting together a group of characters that have virtually nothing in common and seeing those very different perspectives Clash over the course of the episodes you got Jeff Winger a sarcastic and selfish guy who will do and say anything to get what he wants you have brda Perry an activist and maybe an anarchist who can see through Jeff's BS from a mile away Troy Barnes formerly a high school football Superstar but now he's been put on the same playing field as everyone else Annie Edison is the go-getter straight A student who also went to the same high school as Troy and is revealed to have gone through an Aderall addiction before going clean prior to the show's debut surely Bennett is a divorced mother of two trying to balance home life whilst also trying to elevate her education Pierce Hawthorne is the washed up air to a moist towet Empire and he will not let you forget it my name is Pierce Hawthorne and yes that is Hawthorne as pathor wipes the award-winning moist hullet I was just going to ask but perhaps the Pilot's greatest Revelation is the character of Abed Nader it was a common sentiment before the show began that there were similarities between this show and other movies that had come before Stripes Breakfast Club and this episode reveals that yes those comparisons are easy to make but the show also completely owns them through the character of AED AED was based on the real life person Abed geith who Dan Harmon met and worked with at Channel 101 and AED here is a pop culture afficionado I mean he has an encyclopedic knowledge of all things television but also he's on the Autism Spectrum which manifests in the idea that his primary means of connecting to other people is through tropes and cliches prominent in movies and TV so not only is community immediately owning the fact that it is similar to other things but it is using that as a very deliberate character trait through AED the audience is also able to connect to this show it's not just reference humor for the sake of making references it immediately becomes a genuine part of the show's DNA not to mention the episode ends with a cover of don't you forget about me which famously played at the end of The Breakfast Club couple that with plenty of funny lines a big old Winger speech to try and bring the group together and you have a pilot that perfectly establishes the tone and characters for the show going forward and it's no secret that this pilot was incredibly well reviewed Community very quickly became many critics favorite new shows of the season and as the show continued into its second episode and on it started to introduce recurring elements that it orbit around this main Ensemble specifically the Spanish study group needs a Spanish teacher so here comes senior Chang played by Ken Jong and he immediately sells himself as the antagonist to the study group mostly because he's kind of a lunatic senor chang why do you teach Spanish say it just like that why do you teach Spanish why you there are a few screws loose in that guy's head let me tell [Music] you oh was it going forward the show also introduced produces a naming convention for every single episode each episode would be titled as if it were the name of a college course you got the likes of Spanish 101 Advanced criminal law introduction to statistics every episode was titled something along those lines but what's scarier for Community is that this is the maker break period for any television show writing a pilot is incredibly difficult but something that's even more difficult is the first few episodes that follow the pilot those episodes have to justify why this needs to last longer than its first 22 minutes these episodes have to justify why this is a TV show why an audience has to keep coming back every week and while Community goes through the calm and Growing Pains of a new show on the air battling between being marketable whilst also finding out its own identity there is one point that sold the show for plenty of audience members including me that moment comes in the third episode introduction to film it's here that AED starts taking a film class at Green de d a class paid for not by his father because he doesn't really believe in any of that but by brida but as the episode goes Abed starts going off script he's not doing his assignments he's off filming another project unrelated to the class has brida completely messed up she's certainly in hot water with aed's Dad and maybe she needs to pull the plug on this since AED isn't utilizing the money properly but it all builds to the moment where AED reveals the short film he's been working on it's a short and bizarre little movie that tells aed's life story and conveys his relationship with his parents it's absurd it's kind of melancholic it's not something you laugh out loud at it's more just something you stare at slack jawed because of how strange it is what do you think Dad I think you are weird Abed and I think the wrong person just left but while Jeff and brida take it similarly to how the audience takes it that abed's father is genuinely moved by it he's in tears because he just figured out why movies and movie making is so important to AED movies will allow Abed to be able to communicate with other people and more importantly they will allow Abed to be understood so abed's father decides to pay for the film class allowing Abed to live out his dream that's the core of the show established right at the Start Community is funny absurd and weirdly melancholic and underneath all of that there's a beating heart at its Center which is why after only a few weeks on the air NBC officially ordered a full 22 episode season that would bring the show all the way to May Community was getting its full season and as audiences started to get attached they couldn't be happier to journey to Greendale every week and another large part of that is thanks to the tags as community's first season got underway NBC changed their approach to credit sequences on their shows for a while now now they had commercials Play Over the credits you know advertising what was coming next but early in community's run they changed their minds to instead have an actual part of the show Play Over the credits this was a revelation that came about as the crew was filming the sixth episode so suddenly they needed to play a bit of catch up to create some tags for episodes 2 through five so in comes one of the greatest aspects of the show the dynamic of Troy and AED the tags would almost universally focus on them doing some crazy stuff completely unrelated to the episode before it and the most infamous of these examples came in the very first tag the tag that played after the second episode where Troy and AED rap in [Music] Spanish not only are these tags funny but they also show a natural Chemistry Between Danny py and Donald glove they're having a lot of fun and you could be rest assured that every week you tuned into Community you'd be met with their fun Antics at the end of every episode and because of how strong this stuff was it would eventually be able to grow Beyond just being in the tags soon enough the Troy and AED friendship would become a significant part of the actual show all of which builds to a climactic moment where both Troy and AED sing Somewhere Out There to get a runaway rat back to its cage it's fun stuff not to mention other characters would get some time to shine in the tags too it wouldn't just be the Troy and AED show it' be a place for every character to have a bit of fun right at the end but this show isn't just about our main Ensemble well it kind of is but as Community continues it begins to introduce a whole swath of supporting characters to fill out Greendale every week the pilot introduces Professor Ian Duncan who not only gets some fun moments there but there's an episode later where he conducts an experiment with Annie about how everyone has a Breaking Point well everyone except AED which causes Duncan to reach his Breaking Point Garrett would pop up from time to time having a couple fun bits here and there Leonard probably the oldest student at Greendale makes a couple appearances which begins a running bit about how everyone tells Leonard to shut up oh come on Leonard if you're going to argue with me put on a bathing suit busted vaugh an old flame of brittas shows up a couple times largely as a foil for Jeff but also Pierce for a little bit and you don't want to get on Pierce's bad side let me tell you cuz he will write a brutal rap song that will destroy your entire spirit and will to live East Side West Side North Side South Bond's breath is so bad his butt's mad at his mouth this rap is by Pier B is dumb he wears diapers the bed and sucks his mother's thumb officer kakowski would appear from time to time at least when things were going so bad at Greendale that a cop needed to show up like when Annie broke into the Dean's office to look look at a model penis she wanted to know what it looked like what in the reverse porkis is going on here and then you have starburns no his name is not actually starburns his name is Alex but he has shaved Stars into his sideburns so everyone calls him starburns but of course The Supporting Cast wouldn't be complete without Dean Pelton and the dean's great the dean's a lot of fun [Music] this better not awaken anything in me it's impossible to place his sexual orientation he's trying so desperately to prove that Greendale is a real school like all of its much larger competing schools at one point the dean commissions the creation of a theme song for the school to coincide with the unveiling of a statue of actor Louise Guzman who was apparently a graduate of Greendale and who's going to create this theme song who else but Pierce Hawthorne who winds up just making a complete ripoff of Bruce Hornsby the way it is which is just great dancing in your underwear taking air conditioner is this does he know he stole it I think so enjoy it can we get sued not sure gre's away it goes yeah they got us the dean even oversees the creation of the school mascot every school is either the Grizzlies or the Rhinos or something but Greendale Greendale has the human being for the simple reason of a lot of these students have been called Animals their whole lives and since human beings are naturally diverse the dean works with Pierce to create a mascot that isn't racist whatsoever so in Comes This horrifying mannequin man go human beings ultimately as much as the dean might want Greendale to be a real and important school for the masses the show makes it no secret that Greendale is kind of just a wacky place with a bunch of wacky stuff this has the potential to be a uniquely green Dale experience as the season continues each episode shuffles the main cast and provides a whole bunch of different stories and interactions each week this week brida and Shirley might get some time to shine but next week Bri's paired with Pierce this week it might be a Troy and Annie Duo but it also might be a bit more about Troy and Jeff I'm saying you're a football player it's in your blood that's racist your soul that's racist your eyes that's gay that's homophobic that's black that's racist damn it allows the characters to be able to develop in different ways to see different sides to them and it allows each of them to slowly be fleshed out in sync with each other as the first half of the Season plays out I was so unpopular in high school the crossing guard used to lure me into traffic perhaps the most shocking Duo comes in the ninth episode debate 109 because it's here that Annie joins forces with Jeff in a debate league against competing schools City College it's an episode that kind of sort of hints at a romantic storyline between Jeff and Annie the impetus of the show was that Jeff wanted to sleep with brda but now Jeff and Annie could be a thing despite the age Gap at the very least it leads to the moment where they finally defeat City College in their debate about whether man is good or [Applause] evil he was horny so he dropped him man is evil that episode also sees AED create a bunch of scripted videos about the study group videos that highlight how well defined the characters are becoming because each video winds up being prophetic in one way or another this is wrinkling my brain this is wrinkling my brain that's wrinkling my brain I mean AED even guessed that Jeff and Annie were going to make out before it happened at the debate I mean it's crazy why am I crying would I accidentally listen to come sa Away by Sticks again at the same time like all standard seasons of Television that run from September to May Community also tries its hand at holiday themed episodes the show's seventh episode goes spooky for its Halloween Spooktacular featuring moments like Pierce going through a bad trip and making a big fort out of desks hallucinating skeletons and hallucinating his own gravestone but by far the highlight of the episode is aed's turn as the Caped Crusader himself Batman Batman of course was huge in the pop culture conversation right now with the Dark Knight still in recent memory and Danny py as AED delivers a fantastic impression of Christian bal's Batman and he plays it completely straight delivering a bunch of lines that are complete nonsense but sound really cool when you say them as Batman am I a bird no I'm a bat I am Batman or am I yes I am Batman happy Halloween and then you have the Christmas episode comparative religion which sees all of the main cast reveal their religious upbringings surely is Christian Annie is Jewish Abed is Muslim Troy is Jehovah's Witness Pierce is part of a cult that gets paid in ener johon cubes Brit is an atheist and Jeff well I'm agnostic it's an episode that uses the holiday season and the last day of the semester to show what makes everyone in the group so different from each other TV shows rarely tackle the concept of religion But Here Comes Community taking on the topic headon and using it as a heartfelt message it essentially says that this group grows closer because of their differences not in spite of them also the whole episode centers on a fight between Jeff and this bully character Mike who's actually played by Anthony Michael Hall who was also in The Breakfast Club just great stuff all around oh you're funny you're a funny man want to hear something funny funny man knock knock my fist up your balls who's there this episode ultimately proves that the show has managed to find its footing in a relatively short amount of time TV shows usually take a bit to figure out what works and what doesn't and Community was no different but by the holiday break Community had evolved and become far more nuanced as it went on audiences and critics were excited back when the pilot aired but now now they had truly seen the potential of the show and they were ready to follow it into the new year as 2010 got off and running there was a bit of a schedule shakeup at NBC early in the year in part thanks to the ongoing conflicts between Conan O'Brien's The Tonight Show and The Jay Leno show as a result the whole swath of NBC shows got additional episodes to fill out the second half of the season and among those shows was of course Community which which got an order for three additional episodes to bring the season's total from 22 to 25 a few more weeks at Greendale Count Me In the second half of the Season got started in no time once the holiday season had come and gone audiences returned to TV screens on January 14th for their second semester at Greendale this time featuring Jack Black starring as the character buddy the eighth member of the study group yep he slots right in as an additional member and I know it's you're thinking that might ruin the whole vibe of the show and you know what the show was thinking the exact same thing I'm sure you guys have a natural Rapport and timing and you know you're scared that adding a new member might throw everything off of its natural I [Music] count Rhythm but I feel like I know you guys already ultimately Buddy's only around for one episode but it does allow the group to come to grips with potentially adding new people just not yet instead buddy winds up being let into the actual cool group featuring you guessed it Owen Wilson it's fun seeing Owen Wilson and things it's almost like it's me up there you know now it can be said that TV is a writer's game you get a bunch of creative and in this case funny people in a room together and they're able to block out and create a whole slew of stories that will sweep up audiences anywhere and everywhere Community is no exception and a lot of credit should be given to the season's writers season 1 features episodes written by Dan Harmon of course as well as Tim hober John paac Liz kakowski Andrew guest Hillary Winston Zack pays Lauren pomerance Jesse Miller Carrie dornetto Emily Cutler and Chris McKenna with episodes directed by Seth Gordon Adam Davidson Ken Whittingham Gail manuso Tristram Shapiro hell Justin Lynn even directed a handful of episodes yes the guy who had directed Two Fast and Furious movies up to this point with another on the way for 2011 and of course most of the episodes are directed by either Joe Russo or Anthony Russo who also act as executive producers for the show these are the voices that help bring the show to the level that it's at they are able to elevate the Fantastic cast and give them tons and tons of Great Moments let's also not forget some top tier jokes like the mid-season return revealing that senior Chang died no like he actually died apparently he fell off off his moped and slammed into the side of an Arby's whoop never mind Jang is still alive all part of an elaborate first lesson of the new semester got to make sure to keep the Spanish class on their toes I amill this is the one and I can't be killed all in your CER without a chaser not another teacher with this much flavor saw that coming but it's also worth noting that the writing of the show gives it a very unique sense of humor a very unique Vibe and this is thanks in large part to Dan Harmon who wound up vetting every script for every episode for one thing each script abides by the Dan Harmon story Circle every single story in the show can be blocked out with this structure but also Dan Harmon has a very specific voice that is all over this show and part of that manifests in the fact that some of the show's humor is a little petty when the show comes back after Christmas it kind of seems like Jeff is going through a bit of a character shift very explicitly and that's because some of the higher-ups at Sony and NBC were a little critical of who Jeff was in the first half of the season so for the first episode back Jeff becomes a caricature of what they want him to be brida was one of the most criticized aspects of The Season's first half even though plenty of audience members liked her So eventually she winds up Dawning the personality of being the worst in fact she begins to be referred to as the worst and it all kicks off with how she pronounces the word Bagel how do you pronounce bagel I don't come on Bagel you're the worst there's even a whole episode about how brda tries to pull off an April Fool's joke and winds up ruining April fools for the entire school it goes so bad that April 1st is wiped from the calendar and replaced with March 32nd there's also a bit of a petty attitude towards competing shows on other networks specifically the show Glee which was another school set TV show that was far more popular than community I hate Glee I'm not crazy about GLE either I hate it I don't understand the appeal at all but probably the funniest bit of petty humor from Dan Harmon comes in the phrase streets ahead if you're in the UK you've probably heard that phrase a lot more than anyone in North America so it was a particular surprise for Dan Harmon when someone tweeted at him saying Glee and Modern Family are streets ahead of your metab BS this was in response to a best TV V show poll in which Community managed to beat out both Glee and Modern Family Dan Harmon then took the phrase streets ahead and ran with it tweeting it day in and day out and eventually in due time he worked it into the show itself and who would try and coin the phrase except Pierce Hawthorne he just thinks it's the best thing in the world streets ahead is verbal Wildfire does it just mean cool or is it supposed to be like Miles Ahead you have to ask your Street's behind one could even credit this show for bringing the phrase streets ahead to North America thanks Pierce Hawthorne I can also thank Pierce Hawthorne for being one of the funniest parts of the show for one thing he's horribly insensitive racist and completely out of touch but that's not the only Dimension given to this character as a testament to the show's more nuanced approach as it goes on Pierce has also given the occasional moment of wisdom you know he has lived quite the life before this and he's learned things along the way things that he passes on and his own unique Pierce way that thing some men call failure I call living breakfast and I'm not leaving till I've cleaned out the buffet all the while as the season continued we got an introduction to all new classes and stories there's a whole episode about how Jeff takes a billiard's class and learns to play pool and shorts which of course leads to a massive sports movie like climax where Jeff and the PE teacher stri down naked in the final stretch of their all Ultimate [Music] [Applause] Game there's another episode where Jeff takes a pottery class and winds up in a rivalry with the seemingly ultimate perfect guy Rich that's fun Jeff's competitive side had come out before he had even displayed Envy but on that first day of pottery class he discovered that yeah what did we discuss no voice over I'm sorry that episode also features a guest appearance from Tony hail and a guest appearance from Lee major as a sailing teacher he leads the B plot where some of the characters take a sailing class in the school's parking lot which as ridiculous as that might sound it actually provides some pretty neat moments let's not forget we have more seasonal episodes there's that aformentioned episode about how April Fool's Day gets cancell schoolwide forever it also features Annie and Shirley fighting for who is the badass one in their buddy cop pairing and it also features a groundbreaking end tag a tag that introduces us to Troy and aed's fake talk show and 3 2 1 Troy anded in the morning but perhaps the episode most indicative of the first season's aims is the Valentine's Day episode because while the show is episodic in nature there are some serialized elements that keep cropping up through the season's run the major through line is the will they won't they dynamic between Jeff and brda it's a standard sitcom Trope you have the two main characters of the show and you kind of think they're destined to get together but it can't happen just yet you got to build up to it first so in the meantime Jeff is dating Professor Slater which winds up creating a whole love triangle add on to that the fact that Annie starts dating Britt's ex vau and you have a whole tangled web of romantic stories when you guys first came in we were as wholesome and healthy as the family in The Brady Bunch and now we're as dysfunctional incestuous as the cast of The Brady Bunch this romantic through line extends pretty much through the entire season and it's your standard sitcom stuff you can almost predict Jeff and brida getting together towards the end of season 2 maybe even getting married sometime in season 5 but that's if the show is interested in being a more standard sitcom and while there are several episodes of the Show's first season that would have you believe that's what the show wants there were two episodes at the end of the season that said very proudly we aren't a traditional sitcom first up is Contemporary American poultry this episode sees the entire School of Greendale overtaken by its love of chicken fingers the school's cafeteria apparently makes the greatest chicken fingers of all time but they keep running out before the study group can get them so the study group winds up gaming the system a little bit to control the chicken finger Supply and become top of the food chain now that already sounds fun but it's bolstered once this happens it's like a mafia movie as far back as I can remember I always wanted to be in a mafia movie cool abed's penchant for references and homages comes through in full force with an entire episode that is an homage to Good Fellas there's narration there's more complex camera moves the music by lwig Ganson Apes the tone at every turn the episode ditches a lot of the long running arcs of the season to instead just focus on the high Jinx of the group and how this sudden increase in power went straight to their heads they have control of the chicken which essentially means they have bargaining power with the entire school they get a TV in the study room a hot guy with dreadlock starts paying attention to Shirley and Troy gets a monkey that he names Annie's boobs not only is the episode funny but it uses the format to tell a far more ambitious story than anything the rest of the show had done we see character arcs for each character we see a shift in leadership from Jeff to AED and how control ultimately has to wind up back in Jeff's hands it's a 22-minute movie at 8:00 p.m. on NBC I mean you can't get better than this except 2 weeks later Community itself did get better than this with what many would consider to be the greatest episode of the entire series Modern Warfare directed by Justin Lynn this episode starts like any other you reintroduce the study group some humorous stuff they're getting up to and this one especially highlights the sexual tension between Jeff and brida but before long the episode takes a sharp left turn because the dean reveals that the school will enter a game game of paintball assassin and the last man standing will get priority registration you know the ability to choose and schedule any classes for the next school year and wouldn't you know it the desire to claim it takes over the entire School in only an hour Modern Warfare takes Greendale and turns it into an apocalyptic Battle Zone we have troops clicks different clubs uniting the debate team fell to infighting the Glee Club is luring people with Renditions of hit songs and the study group decides to work work together to beat them all and come out on top with the prize for 22 minutes Community becomes an action movie a full-fledged incredibly well-directed action movie I wouldn't even blink if this was a theatrical feature it's that good a lot of that comes from Justin Lynn's Direction the shot choices the music choices everything comes together to make this look like an action movie but then you add jokes on top of that and suddenly the action visuals create jokes in and of themselves I'm going home BR I know Shirley I know no uh seriously I'm going home can you help me out oh yeah sure we also got references for days I mean we have a little bit of 28 Days Later we got a little bit of predator and we have some Terminator come with me if you don't want paint on your clothes not to mention a big climactic moment where senior Chang becomes Chia Yun fat and absolutely decimates the study group with a paintball machine gun the episode also works if you've never seen any of community before this it's just able to wrap you up in the stakes and excitement of the action but if you have been following the show the whole time it also provides a huge development in the single longest ongoing thread of the season because this is the episode where Jeff and brda finally have sex that's right they nail each other on the study room table all that tension is relieved and by the time all is said and done there is suddenly some unspoken difference in the group's chemistry no one saw an episode like this coming even though Dan Harmon teased an action episode several weeks earlier no one could have really expected this from a 30-minute comedy which is why it stands out so much Community just dropped in with an action episode out of nowhere no other show on TV would do that ain't that right Glee you could probably sit here for an hour and break down all the stuff this episode does well but let me just put it simply Modern Warfare is kind of goated with the sauce but those two episodes are not how the season ends the season instead Ends by bringing together its longest running threads in its final two episodes the penultimate episode centers on The Season's antagonist senior Chang who as it turns out is bogus bogus yes thank thank you Bill and Ted Chang is bogus what does that mean it means he was never actually a qualified teacher the dean just never did a backup check so Chang was able to teach students Spanish for all this time without ever being caught so I did what anyone would do I faked my way into a job as a Spanish teacher at a community college relying on phrases from Sesame Street oh my god of course this winds up getting revealed schoolwide and Chang is fired that's right the Spanish teacher gets the boot and he has to become a student to get an actual teaching degree what a Twist to cap off the Chang storyline this season there's drama about how Annie was the one who revealed the secret drama about how the replacement Spanish teacher is actually competent and then unrelated to any of that there's a whole subplot about how Troy might be really really good at Plumbing like dude's got the gift of a handyman and of course tearing Chang away from his position of power creates a bunch of funny moments you're twoo fa Jack you're wearing protect of goggles to destroy my car safety first stop good luck passing your exam Winger at one point I F you cling on and all of this leads to the season finale a season finale that centers around a transfer dance well that's the long version of the name the dean winds up shortening it in the episode to something that I guess rolls off the tongue better some folks say transfer formal isn't really rolling off the tongue so we're just going to call it the [ __ ] dance much more Greendale and this finale has a sense of being a finale thanks in part due to AED knowing that this is the last day of classes and trying to find the perfect way to give the whole day a finale Vibe but also this finale juggles the pieces a little bit Troy wants to move out of his parents' house so he ultimately decides to move in with Pierce meanwhile Annie's boyfriend vau is up for some hacky sack championship in Delaware which means Annie is going to follow him and leave green Dale for good the dean's long running bit about having a dalmati fetish is given a payoff John Oliver as back as Professor Ian Duncan who gets to do a quick rap for a bit my name is Ian Duncan and I'm here to say I'm going to rap to the beat in a rapping way I got a real big penis and I drink lots of pea but easily the most integral thread to the finale is the love triangle the standard will they won't they battle between two love interests that Jeff has been fighting for the whole season Professor Slater comes back and even confesses her love to Jeff in front of everyone who will Jeff choose who will Jeff get together with ultimately Jeff chooses neither and he just walks out of the dance only to run into Annie who decided not to follow vau to Delaware and the episode ends with Jeff and Annie kissing so when presented with two options Jeff wound up shooting for option number three there had been a couple hints and nods through the season of Jeff and Annie potentially being a thing thing and now the finale laid that out to be the big hook to take things into season 2 what will happen next I don't know all I know is at the end tag of this episode features a yearbook video by AED highlighting all of the major student characters from the year in one cheesy little montage and perhaps one of the funniest punch lines in the show you can't believe I spent 10 bucks on this I don't know any of these people and that is season 1 of community like a lot of shows it had Growing Pains early on but the season managed to really home in on the characters and their Dynamics Troy and AED quickly became a favorite pairing especially with their trademarked handshake and the longer the season went the more it managed to find its footing not just with funnier episodes and funnier bits but also going far more ambitious with the chicken fingers episode and especially the paintball episode and critical reception to the season was top tier Community was often hailed as one of if not the best new show of the season with some of the best episodes of the whole year but despite the fact that the show was a critical darling ratings were not quite as glowing for the freshman year things started solid with 7.1 million people watching the pilot but most of the show would hover somewhere around 5 million viewers per episode Contemporary American poultry would unfortunately be the lowest on the neelson ratings with just shy of 3.7 million viewers in comparison Glee and modern family both new shows from competing networks managed to rake in around 10 million viewers per episode but despite the less than Stellar ratings from across the season NBC hoped that the show's critical favoring would give it legs long term you know maybe it would follow the trajectory of something like the office and only get more popular with time which meant that yes Community was granted a second season community and its cast were going to be back for their sophomore year at Greendale I guess we are going to see where the Jeff Annie British later stuff's going to go until then however fans of the show were going to have to wait over the summer until Community would be back in the fall it wasn't like they were completely starved however during the Spring months there had been a paleyfest panel with the cast and producers of the show and in partnership with Xfinity a couple Community shorts were released showing the study group actually studying or more accurately what they did in the designated 90-second breaks during study sessions eventually the press for the show finally picked up in July because Community made an appearance at ComicCon with their very own panel throughout the hourlong panel the cast teased what fans could expect in season 2 like how the premiere would feature a guest appearance from Betty White and John Oliver was going to become a bit more of a regular being the anthropology teacher for the season and the hour also featured plenty of reminising over the first season which dovetailed nicely into the announcement of the Season 1 DVD box set a box set that featured every episode of the Season coupled with 20 minutes of bloopers some behind the scenes looks and some cast evaluations conducted by Dan Harmon that last one allowed Dan Harmon and the cast to have a lot of fun it also taunted Everyone by having the less than Stellar ratings on display throughout the whole thing so that's fun eventually when the clock turned to August 2010 the prime time Emmy Awards came around and Community was nominated for absolutely nothing yeah despite the critical praise and supposed shoe in for a best directing award for Justin Lynn's work on Modern Warfare Community didn't see any rewards during the EMS Joel mcale did present an award during the ceremony and three different promos were made specifically for the award show promos that saw the cast of Community in character on their way to the show there's even a chang Cameo and a product tieing with the infinti QX56 got to love those product tie-ins but while the show came out empty-handed after the prime time Emmy Awards there was still plenty of excitement for the show's second season there were more guest star announcements and a lot of press centered on the appearance of Betty White in the season premiere as the study group's new teacher Betty White even did a promotional ad to sell the season start date in the fall hi I'm Betty White watch me on the season premiere of Glee no this isn't Glee It's Community what community that's right what is that but the promos weren't all fans were seeing prior to season 2's debut as Community had made itself known online in the days before the season began on one side of this was a 30 minute live streamed virtual set tour hosted by Ken Jong who would go around some of the sets and departments tease the upcoming episodes of the season and have a lot of fun along the way but on the other side Community took to Twitter for a very creative and interactive marketing idea the Show's first season was no stranger to the latest and greatest technology I mean Jeff is on a black Blackberry pretty much all the time but on the day of season 2's debut several Community themed Twitter accounts each personifying one of the main characters of the show would start tweeting about their excitement for the first day of classes all as a direct lead into the season premiere each tweet would feed to the next from another person they'd be having a conversation live on the internet just before the premiere aired it's fun stuff eventually the excitement and anticipation among fans reached a fever pitch The Fall TV season had come around again and Community was back every week at 8:00 p.m. Community would kick off NBC's Thursday night lineup with an all new batch of episodes The Clock had now turned to September 23rd 2010 it's now time to get out your pens and get out your books because we're about to begin our second year at Greendale [Music] [Applause] away season 2 is on a mission it is on a mission to change what the show can be in fact the entire goal of the season is stated Out Loud by AET in the first episode I'm hoping we can move away from the Soapy relationshipy stuff and into bigger fast-paced self-contained escapades season 1 focused a lot of time on your standard sitcom Romance subplots the whole Jeff Britt Slater of it all complicated at the very end with Annie but the first episode of season 2 essentially says we're going to get rid of all of that and do much more interesting things the first episode back reveals to the group that Jeff and brida had sex during paintball it reveals that Jeff and Annie kissed after the transfer dance it sees the group nearly destroyed before a classic Winger speech brings it home all to tie up every loose thread from season 1 and leave that era of the show behind hell Professor Slater doesn't even appear and she will never appear again so what does the show do instead well season 2 decides to follow in the footsteps of cont temporary American poultry and Modern Warfare as AED said season 2 is going to move into bigger fast-paced self-contained escapades while you're not going to get the same budget and ambition every week you can be rest assured that every episode of season 2 is going to be very unique you're going to get something different every time you tune in things really kick off with an episode that is an elaborate homage to Apollo 13 and various other space movies we have the study group trapped in a KFC space simulator Winnebago and they have to work together to find their way back to Greendale and once they return they're hounded by the Press there's heroic music playing and in celebration the dean waves the new green Dale flag the creation of which is the impetus for the entire episode the study group made a flag that looked like a butthole no it's not the crossroads of ideas that's a butt flag and the best part it becomes the Greendale flag for the entire rest of the show join me and salute to e plural bbus anus this has always been one of my favorite episodes I love a good space movie I love Apollo 13 so this hits all the right buttons for me specifically hell AED even gets to play the same role that Gary s's character did in Apollo 13 not to mention since the episode is mostly set inside of a defunct KFC space simulator it also doubles as product placement for KFC a fact that the show actively pokes fun at Dean the Press is here I try to buy some time with these double sandwiches but they thought I was doing product integration for KFC following that we have a whole episode where AED tries to make a movie about Jesus a movie where the movie is actually about making the movie which means everything both is and isn't part of the movie maybe some places will show the movie In Reverse maybe the movie is the exact same backwards and forwards ultimately this level of creative genius turns Abed into a messiah for the school AED becomes Jesus even the music reflects aed's turn to some kind of ethereal figure that's not all this season does with AED though because during another episode AED can be seen in the background delivering a baby yeah he's comforting the mother through Labor and everything this is never referred to within the episode by the way it is purely a background gag and as an added layer of metan to the whole thing it kind of sort in some ways calls back to a season 1 episode about an STD Fair an STD fair that was giving out condoms that just so happened to leak so AED ran to the loudspeaker to tell people to not use the leaking condoms in his own AED way attention Greendale students don't use the condoms if you're going to have sex tonight don't use condoms and this episode where AET is seen delivering a baby in the background was aired a little over 9 months after the STD episode now ain't that a trip one of the best episodes of the Season sees Troy and Jeff find a mystical trampoline on school grounds a trampoline that gives them just the greatest sense of peace and Tranquility that is until Pierce shows up and does what Pierce does he ruins [Applause] it and of course there's a hilarious punchline that Joshua the guy that takes care of the Mr trampoline is actually a huge racist like he's comically racist a place free from darkness and some are just natural jumpers it's going to be a maze following in the footsteps of season 1 this year also has a Halloween episode titled epidemiology not only is Rich back from the pottery episode last year but there's some narration from George Decay the dean is dressed like Lady Gaga and it's set to a constant playlist of ABBA songs but it also sees Greendale get hit with a zombie apocalypse no I am not joking the show is not joking either this isn't a dream sequence or a member of the group telling the others a cool story this actually happens within the cannon of the show there is an actual schoolwide zombie takeover it's all sparked by a batch of army surplus food that apparently just turns people into zombies it's ambitious it's scary it uses the tropes of the genre and adds a bunch to it with a whole slew of Comedy bits on top jeez it was just a cat let's keep moving holy crap what is up with that cat is someone throwing it and the episode ends with a pretty big moment for Troy over the course of the show the writers have slowly been stripping away the jock Persona they gave Troy at the beginning you know he was the star football player of his high school but now in order to save the day he fully Embraces his nerd Side by taking on the costume of the robot suit Ripley Dawns in aliens all to get past the zombies get to the thermostat and lower the temperature across the school to counteract the fever that everyone's experiencing as a zombie thus making them no longer zombies of course though once the Army Pops in they erase everyone's memory of the night so no one knows there was nearly a zombie apocalypse it's such a fun episode that puts all of the characters into a horrifying scenario and utilizes their strengths to make something funny and scary at the same time although there is one piece of information that manages to survive despite the memory wipe Troy received a voicemail during the night revealing to him that Shirley and Chang had sex what an insane pairing Shirley and I totally did it Chang what are you doing nothing go why did he call me another top tier episode has to be conspiracy theories and interior design just like real conspiracies this one goes all the way to the top the whole episode is a tangled web of double crosses and twist reveals it's wearing a hat on top of a hat on top of a hat on top of a hat Jeff fakes a class with a fake Professor but the professor is actually real no the professor isn't real he's a teacher for greendale's night school but greendale's night school isn't real it's all a ruse he doesn't actually teach night school he's the drama Professor sha gity and he's been hired by the dean all of which leads to this incredible scene where Jeff Annie the dean and Professor sha G Corner each other in the study room the scene layers twists upon twists upon twists everyone was conspiring against everyone else and they reveal it by shooting each other with prop guns Annie Annie oh my God you you shot him of course I shot him he was being dishonest every time there's a new reveal another person gets shot and it's funnier every time when they get back up it's especially bolstered by the dean's increasingly outrageous reactions you have got to be kidding me of course with an episode like this you got to be able to stick the landing the only problem was the writers didn't know how how do you put the last hat on all these hats well a message came down from someone at NBC Andor Sony saying they were concerned about all the gun use so ultimately the final button on the episode is that officer kakowski shows up to tell everyone that this is wrong and that people should practice gun safety fact in 100% of all fake gun related shootings the victim is always the one with the fake gun it's easily one of the most fun episodes of the show and you add on to it by including Troy and aed's blanket fort that takes over almost the entire school I mean yeah it's a blanket fort but it has districts and permits and an actual functioning ecosystem working under it what the hell is this Lan Independence parade don't look at me they had the proper permits that joke is made even better when you learn that this episode aired on the lvan Independence Day but the episodes don't have to be big and ambitious to stand out as highlighted by an episode like Cooperative calligraphy which makes an explicit point that this is a bottle episode you know an episode featuring a limited cast usually in one location to save money in this case Annie's lost her pen someone has stolen it and every single person in the study group is a suspect what follows is a 22-minute episode that plays all of the show's strengths specifically the strengths of its main Ensemble it's been said many times that this show has one of the best casts on television and and here they get to show it off they're just able to play off of each other in a wall-to-wall series of endless jokes secrets are revealed aspects of the characters are shown in the spotlight as each of their bags are searched for the missing pen each joke is funnier than the last each joke builds off of the last but at the end there's also a fair amount of sincerity to bring the whole thing together this episode is probably emblematic of everything Community does well it's funny it's creative it's meta and it always has a beating heart of sincerity and like all great TV shows it has a monkey because it's revealed that the monkey from season 1 Annie's boobs was the one responsible for stealing the pen you can even see the pen get taken at the start of the episode it's crazy the sincerity element though is what shines through the most after the destructive series of events of the bottle episode the cast of characters are closer now than they have ever been before you thought they were an Unstoppable Force before now they're even more Unstoppable ER and that level of sincerity is also felt in the episode Mixology certification where the study group realizes that Troy has turned 21 years old and they take him to the bar for the very first time the episode takes the characters to unfamiliar territory I mean sure Jeff and brda go to bars all the time and surely spends the episode covering up her past with this particular bar but it brings the characters out of their comfort zone in an episode that's kind of melancholy in places it's about Troy growing up a little bit and everyone figuring out a part of who they are especially Annie who has to get into the bar with a fake ID and winds up taking on that identity with full force because she didn't want to be Annie that night it's one of the best episodes because it's understated the show can at one point have a tangled web of conspiracies and a schoolwide blanket for it and then by the same token it can also just show the human ity of these characters it's not just the main cast that gets to stand out though even the growing list of recurring characters get moments to shine starburns is wearing a hat now which is huge for him Ian Duncan has a slightly bigger role this season taking over anthropology after Betty White tried to murder Jeff Winger and then subsequently got suspended Ian Duncan is no master of anthropology though and the season really plays into the fact that this is now probably the easiest class of the entire semester especially when they take the study of humanity aspect to just watch internet videos all class all life ends in death which we as a species are cursed with knowing resulting in something again this is really not my field Chang as a student is a big part of the Season as he's trying to make his way into the study group there's a whole bit where he mimics the gollum and smeagle dynamic from Lord of the Rings he tries to get into the group by participating in a pop and lockon for 5 hours on his own and let's not forget one of the single most quoted Chang lines in the entire show the most important tool is respect gay I mean that line has been repeated for years Chang being a student however does mean that he is no longer The Season's antagonist now it's not to say that the season needs an antagonist but it does have one it has multiple really s college is a consistent foil for Greendale with Dean spr showing up occasionally to rub it into Dean pelton's face that Greendale sucks and City College is awesome but Pierce is by far the season's most active antagonist he's part of the study group he's part of the main cast but he's consistently an outsider he's grumpy he's old he makes bad remarks to people all the time and a divide grows between him and the others over the course of the season one episode even sees him acting like the rebellious teenager disrespecting the group's surrogate parents Jeff and brida what I'm not your father I never said you were where are you going out uh when did Pierce become awesome on top of all of that we have some guest stars Drew Cary shows up as Jeff's old boss Rob cordry appears as another lawyer who is also revealed to be the one who got Jeff disbar in the first place Hillary Duff shows up in an episode that pays a lot of homage to mean girls and it also sees AED Go full RoboCop [ __ ] mode no that is not an exaggeration nor a lie that is a subplot in an episode on top of that there's a whole bit where Troy AED and Annie are sneaking around where they shouldn't be and the janitor winds up catching them leading to Annie chloroforming the janitor we're in big trouble we have to do something I don't know what to do my whole brain is crying it's clear that the show is firing on all cylinders at this point it's going far more ambitious with some plots but it's also diving far deeper into the characters in others and perhaps the perfect melding of these two sides is in season 2's Christmas episode aptly titled aed's uncontrollable Christmas an episode that is entirely stopmotion animated for 22 minutes Community tries its hand at one of the most timeconsuming yet incredible animation Styles out there I mean it's not a stretch to say that this episode had the longest production schedule of any episode in the season and it looks incredible there's hardly a seam across the whole thing which is in part thanks to the director Duke Johnson who has a background in stopmotion animation and was able to bring that expertise to the episode but the writing by Dan Harmon and Dino stamatopoulos the lad of whom plays starburns is what really brings it together it's both an episode that celebrates the meaning of Christmas and yet hearkens back to animated Christmas specials of old it's a musical and it's also very melancholic it's sad the episode is in stop motion because right now that's how AED sees the world it's a coping mechanism for him because his mother will not make it out to see him this year despite that being a yearly tradition but in the process of trying to find the literal meaning of Christmas Obed learns that spending time with this study group is just as special and can be the new tradition for Christmas going forward it's got catchy songs it's got fun animation some crazy ideas the show can run with because of the medium and since this is still a half hour comedy there are jokes like how when abbit finally discovers the meaning of Christmas in a box it's revealed to be the first season of lost on DVD it's the first season of lost on DVD that's the meaning of Christmas no it's a metaphor it represents lack of payoff for the second year in a row Community came through with a heartfelt episode celebrating the joys and tears of the holiday season I mean what more can you ask for than that and with this episode's airing Community would take a Hiatus before return ret turning in the new year that didn't mean there was nothing for fans to chew on in the interim a couple more webisodes were released online this time featuring The Dean in his office doing a handful of miscellaneous things and it was confirmed that the season would get two extra episodes in its second half bringing The Season's total episodes from 22 to 24 and that we love to see as 2011 kicked off and the second half of season 2 got underway there was one thing clear to fans of the show Community was pretty good I mean it seemed that every week there was a new best episode of the show and a lot of that can be credited to the writers and directors of each episode season 2 features a bunch of returning directors like Joe Russo Anthony Russo Tristram Shapiro and Adam Davidson as well as returning writers Chris McKenna Carrie dornetto Emily Cutler Hillary Winston and Andrew guest but season 2 also provides a whole bunch of new voices in the writing and directing chairs which helps give season 2 a very different feel than season 1 we got new directors Anthony Hemingway Jay Chandra seikar Fred Goss and Steven sprung as well as new writers Andy Bobo Adam County Megan Gans and Sona Panos just an all-around top tier crew of writers and directors to bring the show's increasingly ambitious and insane ideas to life in funny ways while at the same time indulging in smaller scale episodes as well like the episode 21st century Romanticism which is season 2's Valentine's Day episode featuring a bunch of romantic hij Jinks some deeper character work a further cementing of the Troy and AED Bromance but it also introduces us to the latest and greatest recurring character magnitude who has a catchphrase that will echo through all of time and all of space for eternity yo yo yo yo yo pop pop pop aha pop pop you see what he did there he went all pop pop it was nuts but interspersed between the smaller scale episodes there some more High concept stories which continues to be the shining example of what makes this show stand out from the crowd you have an episode like critical film studies where the B plot features most of the study group setting up a Pulp Fiction themed birthday party for AED and the a plot features AED and Jeff talking in a restaurant as an homage to My Dinner with Andre a movie about two people who have a surprisingly grossing conversation it's perhaps one of the more obscure references the show goes into full on but it's also funny part of that is thanks to this episode's director Richard iote and it's thanks to the story AET tells Jeff about how he was on the set of fellow TV show Cougar Town a show he's a big fan of the whole story is over the-top and a little ridiculous but also there's a whole added layer to it when you find out that there is in fact an episode of Cougar Town where Danny py as AED appears in the background it's just a whole tangled web that's really fun to uncover not to mention there are plenty of moments here that are funny both in and out of context I pooped my pants beyond that you have an episode like intro to political science where a handful of students including Jeff and Annie run for student body president there's some conflict between the main characters but the real showstopper is the final debate a debate between two Side characters l and magnitude and I got to say it might be the political debate of this Century take a look this episode even introduces Vicki who makes her Mark by stabbing a pencil into Pierce's face so that's cool the other funny part about this episode though is the news reports that Troy and Abed do to cover the events of the debates not only is there dialogue funny the bios for each candidate funny but there's a little ticker at the bottom of the screen with plenty of blinking you miss it jokes like the dean promising there will be no Paintball this spring to a tease about a western themed picnic and a personal favorite of mine a message that says that Professor Slater is still missing she will be missing for the rest of the show but while Community is definitely an episodic show and you can jump into virtually any episode and have a good time there are still some overarching elements that are increasing in ly rewarding to those who keep up with the show every week for one thing continuing from the first half of the Season Pierce Hawthorne is still the villain of the group the show has kind of dropped any notion of the wiser Pierce that was seen in season 1 to instead go all in on his worst qualities he's a lonely old man who's angry at everyone and the continuing divide between him and the study group only makes that worse all you need to prove that is the episode intermediate documentary film making an episode that is ex exactly what it sounds like on the 10 it's a whole episode framed and shot like a documentary and even in Universe it's a documentary made by AED of course a documentary that shows Pierce Hawthorne hospitalized after a painkiller overdose and how he uses that leverage to enact psychological Vengeance against every member of the study group he gives shirely a CD which has a recording of the rest of the group talking smack about her behind her back he gives brida a check for $10,000 that she can give to any charity of choosing or she can be selfish and give it to herself he gives Annie a tiara which actually has no double meaning to it she's actually just my favorite the most intense one has to be how he makes Jeff believe that his absentee father might pay a visit to the hospital which sends Jeff into a bit of a stir and don't you dare intercut this with footage of me freaking out all of these gifts wind up being a ruse of some kind the CD doesn't actually feature the group talking smack about Shirley it just proved how much Shirley loves to Guilt Trip Jeff's father never did show up which causes Jeff to nearly murder Pierce when he discovers the ruse but by far the funniest one is Pierce's gift for Troy Troy has admitted to being a fan of the actor Lavar Burton so Pierce decides to invite the real life actor Lavar Burton to the party yeah the real guy the only issue is Troy only want wanted a signed picture because you can't disappoint a picture so while it might seem on the surface that this is an awesome gift it is once again another example of psychological warfare read but that's not the only episode where Pierce's villainous side comes out because it is also the focus in season 2's crowning achievement advanced Dungeons and dragons a whole episode where the study group plays a game of Dungeons and Dragons now you might think that that concept can be really boring I mean the episode is 99% dialogue none of the visuals of the game are recreated with visual effects it all exists within the collective imagination which is why it is perhaps a spot-on representation of Dungeons and Dragons and also why it manages to be really really fun I mean you got bits like the group walking a really long distance you have Pierce on a throne you have a whole scene where Annie role plays a sex scene with AED with tons of great reaction shots and moments a personal favorite is Troy taking notes I stroke her hair lovingly and Spoon her for the appropriate amount of time before leaving how long is that but it also has a nice amount of heart to it as the whole episode centers on recurring character fat Neil and how he doesn't exactly like being called fat Neil so from now on he's real Neil it shows the group's compassion it highlights Jeff's guil because he's the one who coined the name fat Neil and it pits them against Pierce in a fun way not to mention all the homages to Lord of the Rings specifically with a full-on prologue and Howard shes music to bring out the fantasy side oh also there's blackface you really get it all with this episode let me tell you so we just going to ignore that hate crime huh but Pierce is the villain of the group is not the only long running subplot this season because the other centers on Shirley as it turns out she's started to get back together with her ex-husband Andre who makes a couple guest appearances played by Malcolm Jamal Warner which is fun and as it turns out shly is pregnant in fact she's been pregnant since around Halloween uh-oh sure there's a possibility that Andre is the father of this child but let's not forget that voicemail Troy got after the zombie Halloween no one can remember the voicemail that revealed that Shirley and Chang had sex so Chang might be the kid's father for several episodes the show plays up the drama of who the father might be as neither Andre nor Chang are going to know for sure until the baby shows up and this whole Arc comes to a head in the episode applied anthropology and culinary arts an episode that can almost be viewed as a season finale it brings everything back to the main class we've seen throughout the season anthropology and brings together the entire Chang Andre Shirley plotline because this is where Shirley heads into labor it's a small scale episode but it's honestly the perfect conclusion to the whole anthropology side of the Season anthropology is the study of humanity so it makes total sense that that thread comes to a close with the birth of an all new human a baby that is in fact not Changs this episode reveals that the father is Andre but the baby is named Ben after Chang now that's nice and in an inspired moment AED gets to show off how good he is at delivering babies whilst also calling back to the background gag from earlier in the season I delivered a baby earlier this year in the back of an SUV what mm where was that with that happen I don't know off in the background that's good stuff right there but despite how this episode can be viewed as a potential season finale it is ultimately not the season finale because before the season comes to an end this show brings out the big guns in its final few weeks first up is the episode paradigms of human memory where Community once again tries its hand at a common TV staple we've seen community's version of a bottle episode of a Christmas episode and now we see community's version of a clip show clip shows of course are episodes that primarily feature clips from previous episodes as a way of saving money for a week so how does community approach that well it makes a clip show where absolutely none of the clips have been seen before it completely defeats the purpose of a clip show but it's so funny it's almost like another entire season of Television happens separate from the season of Television we already saw there's got to be like 150 scenes in here or something it's so jam-packed with bits it's a 22-minute episode that has the material of a 90-minute episode and yet it never feels rushed in any way and there are so many lines in here that are endlessly quotable you can yell at me all you want I've seen enough movies to know that popping the back of a raft makes it Go FAS it also shines a spotlight on the Dean's increasingly frequent appearances where he's wearing a new elaborate costume there have been a few outfits up until now but this is where the show stops and says yeah this is a thing the dean does regularly which is great not to mention perhaps one of the funniest bits which is a couple of musical montages showing two characters slightly showing that they are in love with each other it's obviously based on the trend of YouTube videos that would show clips from the TV show with some emotional music to make it really seem like two characters were in love even if that wasn't necessarily in the show itself in fact right down to the Music Choice here that being Gravity by Sarah burelis this particular bit is a direct Riff on a video that was made during season 1 by a fan about Jeff and Annie from around when the debate episode first aired Dan Harmon really took a fanm made video and gave it some official weight whilst also making fun of it hell even Pearson AED get a go but there is one bit above all the others that has had a longlasting impact both on this show and on its fans because one of the gags in this episode sees AED become a big fan of the shortlived TV show The Cape a show that was doomed to fail but AED hoped would succeed which gave way to this [Applause] moment Show's going to last 3 weeks six seasons and a movie six seasons and a movie man I wonder if Community will last that long and of course you can't have an episode like this and not end it with the the Winger speech to end all Winger speeches it's a speech that cuts across every thread so it makes absolutely no sense but also it makes perfect sense the cap still might find a second life on cable and I'll tell you why elone Del AA as for that that water is a lie Harrison Ford is radiating her testicles with microwave satellite Transmissions it's perhaps the perfect episode for Community to tackle it takes a format that's been done time and time again does something insane with it that hasn't been done before and makes it into a hilariously good time how could they top that for the season finale I'll tell you how they bring back paintball and this time it comes in two full episodes two 22-minute pieces of Hardcore Community paintball action where Modern Warfare from season 1 was directed by Justin Lynn the two-parter this year is directed by Joe Russo but even though it's a two-parter both halves are very distinct to one another the first half a fist full of paintballs is a big old spoof of westerns everyone's dressed up the lighting Stark it's full of color and contrast the music by lwig Ganson is filled with Western motifs and little riffs and there are plenty of little editing moments that accentuate the tone and feel for the episode the study group even find themselves facing off against the Black Rider a professional paintball player played by the man the myth the legend Josh Holloway he's really goodlooking like Network TV good-looking then you have the second half for a few paintballs more which sees the whole battle taken over by city college instead of an All or Nothing brawl this finale becomes a battle between greendale's rebellion and City College's Empire that's right the second half goes all out on a Star Wars homage city colleges armies of Stormtroopers AED becomes Han Solo for a bit there's even an opening crawl but it's not just the full commitment to the bit that makes community's gimmick episodes so good even though that is a big factor part of what makes the gimmick episodes good is that they still manage to tell a story about these characters Modern Warfare in season 1 was about Jeff and Britt having sex the conspiracy episode was about Jeff and Annie working together and working through some of their unspoken feelings and this two-parter is no different as it brings together the single longest running thread of the entire season Pierce as the villain you've kind of acted like a villain this year I have you guys Pierce Hawthorne partly based on Chevy Chase's onset Persona is the antagonist of this season I mean these episodes even highlight that the group is voting to potentially kick him out of the study group next year this whole thing is ultimately about Pierce and that comes through especially during the last few minutes in a huge Showcase of Blockbuster Buster action on a network TV scale the final stretch of action here is top tier I mean we got paint raining from sprinklers AED and Annie make out for a bit Troy even gets a big hero [Music] moment I had a dream it would end this way and slowly but surely each student at Greendale gets knocked off the board leaving only brda and Shirley as survivors the music the direction the pace of is awesome it's a real heroic moment seeing them drive around in a golf cart shooting at Stormtroopers which makes it immensely heartbreaking when both of them get shot the Stormtroopers of City College manage to win it's a sad day for Greendale indeed who are you your mother's lover what man I win but just like that Pierce Hawthorne winds up being the last man standing he wins 100,00 ,000 as a result and makes the check out to Greendale to repair the damage the paintball match had done right at the very end The Season's villain became its unlikely hero in his own Pierce way he saved the school he won the paintball game and the group even decides to ask him back for their third year it's the first step in Pierce's Redemption so what does he say no thanks I'm done with you guys I like the school but I'm done with whatever you call adios he doesn't stick around in a story that could very well be the last we see of Pierce he decides to leave the study group on his own and Venture into unknown territory and that right there is the end of season 2 what a season you want to talk about ambition season 2 of community has it in Spades virtually every episode did something different there was a new spoof a new homage a new world for these characters to inhabit season 2 might just be the high point of the entire show where the entire cast and crew were firing on all cylinders reviews for The Season's episodes were quite positive especially when it came to the two-parter finale each episode stunned and surprised audiences and critics if you weren't in love with the show after season 1 you were in love with it now Community had proven itself as a critical darling it still wasn't a ratings darling though despite NBC wanting the show to soar higher and higher and gain more popularity as it went on that wasn't the fate of Season 2 Season 2 largely continued on the same track as season 1 hovering around 4 or5 million viewers an episode although the clip Show episode wound up being a series low with 3.17 million viewers watching that week the lowest for any episode up to that point Community was still struggling despite its critical success and I'm sure it was hurting the bottom line at NBC what with all the money being spent on big paintball episodes that destroy destroy every single set that was made but the audience that the show had acquired was passionate they loved the show they wanted to see it continue in fact they now wanted to see it continue for six seasons and a movie a seemingly throwaway line suddenly became a bit of a ring cry for fans ultimately Community was renewed for a third season it would be back in the fall of 2011 with all new episodes there was one thing that would make season 3 a bit different than seasons 1 and two though and and that was that Jim Rash who plays Dean Pelton in the show was now going to be a regular cast member he was only a recurring role before but now he was part of the central cast and this was great news I mean the dean's consistently been one of the funniest parts of the show why not give him a bit of an upgrade promotion for season 3 really got off the ground at ComicCon where the cast along with some of the writers and directors United for their own panel to both promote the season 2 DVD box set and help s the upcoming season to fans there were plenty of stories from season 2 plenty of anecdotes and jokes and teasing where the third season was going to go and how the character Dynamics were going to change on top of that there were a couple of casting announcements for season 3 firstly Michael K Williams was cast as the biology teacher the latest recurring role who would teach the study group's latest class and on top of that John Goodman was cast as greendale's Vice Dean who in fact ran the school's air conditioning repair hair Annex both of these names would help spark season 3 in new ways and bring a whole new side to the show's junior year but on top of all of the anecdotes and casting announcements around ComicCon the panel also kicked off with a nice little video taking Snippets from season 2 and smashed them together in a catchy and fun song that sold the season 2 DVD I mean it's just a great time is a sick Place full of people is a really cool only probably are insane I can explain inside TR promise SI I could watch that all day honestly it's weirdly catchy all of this led to the start of filming for season 3 of the show which began on July 25th with one slight difference seasons 1 and two were filmed at the Paramount lot in Hollywood for interiors while exteriors were filmed at the Los Angeles City College but exteriors were starting to fizzle out during season 2's run and season 3 was going to continue that Trend by not going outside at all this time around the entirety of season 3 would be filmed at the Paramount lot in Hollywood only inside hours for the community crew this time but fans of the show still had plenty to look forward to as the season 2 DVD box set released on September 6th which included of course every single episode each with a commentary track it also includes 20 minutes of bloopers from AC acoss the year there's another series of cast evaluations with Dan Harmon interviewing each cast member even including bits where the cast all tried their hand at playing one of the other characters how would Danny py work as Pierce how would Joel mcale work as Shirley these interviews reveal that on top of that there were behind the scenes featurettes for the Christmas episode and the paintball finale showing just how difficult and ambitious all of those episodes were and how crazy it is that they made it into a 30-minute comedy series but despite the ambition of the show and how critically successful season 2 of community was by the time the Emmys came around again in September Community didn't get many nods during the award show but not many is more than zero because this year Community won the award for outstanding individual achievement in animation for the episode aed's uncontrollable Christmas finally just a little bit of awards recognition for the show maybe next year it can go even even further eventually in due time the fall TV season approached once again and NBC got the promotion game started advertising the return of community mostly by selling it on the fact that John Goodman was going to be a recurring guest star this year with a handful of funny bits and clips to sell his role in the third season story you wanted to feel real power this year now you're going to feel my power straight through you from nostril to rectum now and to the end of time and that's was up fans of the show were ecstatic and they all tuned in NBC on Thursday nights at 8:00 p.m. starting on September 22nd 2011 it was now time to get the pens papers and textbooks all out again for our third year at Greendale Community College by one they are just fade [Music] away after season 2's dwindling ratings NBC gave the showrunners a mandate going into season 3 make the show less weird sure the show had accumulated its own audience but it was having a hard time reaching beyond that and actually going mainstream like some of their other shows which is why the very first scene of season 3 is a big old musical number about how this time everything's going to be far more normal and chill and as Chang says appealing to all mankind appealing to all man I mean we got lyrics in here like we're going to have more fun and be less weird than the first two years combined so the question is with this mandate listed out for the show how does it actually approach that well for one thing the dean has grown a goatee and he wants Greendale to be taken seriously no more wacky hij Jinks this is a serious school at the same time Pierce suddenly returns to the study group which inadvertently Ki kicks Jeff out and makes him the group's new villain he then gets hit with monkey knockout gas because he was chasing Chang who lives in the school's vents Jeff then hallucinates a sequence a lot like the ending of 2001 you know where he turns old and looks like Pierce and then reaches out towards the monolith in this case the study room table then he comes back to the study room and attacks the table with a fire axe so to summarize Community took the Mandate of be less weird and they decided to be weirder than ever even the dean's Arc ultimately comes to this conclusion he came face to face with Vice dean lurn of the air conditioning repair Annex and his sudden wish to have green Dale be taken seriously is swiftly dashed even shave his goatee I just came by to tell everyone this year isn't going to be that different with the notable exception we really won't have any money have a nice night so in a lot of ways season 3 is going to be very similar to season 2 it's going to be as ambitious as it can be just with less money the group is still going to take some classes though this year the study group is taking biology taught by Professor Marshall Kae played by Michael K Williams who's a nice change of pace from the previous teachers in the fact that he is both competent and playing it completely stay he was in prison for years and spent his time educating himself to become a teacher once he got out there's a whole monologue he does about how Lego has changed it's both really funny and also a little intense because of how he plays it which makes it funny then you have the running storyline about Chang the first season he was the Spanish teacher the second season he was a student just kind of floating around and appearing in various bits but now Chang is greendale's security guard the reaction to which by the group is priceless oh interesting so this is the year we all die this is our last year Chang being the security guard not only gives him something to do throughout the season something different from what we've seen before but it also provides plenty of funny moments I mean he's living in the Boiler Room of the school and he's fallen in love with a mannequin leg there's an episode where he's going after brida in her lame attempts at protest there's an episode where Chang's whole subplot is framed like a Noir story he's a detective investigating the weird going on at Greendale the only thing is the whole plot is concocted by nothing but his own Insanity you thought Chang was crazy before things get to a whole other level here complete with saxophone music and absurd narration Arizona Arizona backwards is still Arizona it's a pamino the other major running storyline involves Vice Dean lurn as he attempts to recruit Troy Barnes into the air conditioning repair school this is because Troy's super Plumbing skills can also translate to super air conditioning repair skills which leads to tons of great bits about how the air conditioning repair Annex is kind of a huge cult within Greendale I mean to join the school you have to sever all ties to friends and family air conditioning repair becomes your whole life not to mention they even have the room temperature room yeah the room that room temperature is based on can't feel my pants but on top of all of that Community still goes Full Tilt into some con ctual episodes while they might not have the same budget as previous Seasons they're still extremely ambitious on a storytelling level I mean look no further than the fourth episode of the Season remedial Chaos Theory which centers on a housewarming party for Troy and aed's new apartment while this episode might start like a simple housewarming party complete with pizza coming to the building's front door it quickly turns into something so much more because to decide who is going to get the pizza from the front door Jeff rolls a die just so you know Jee you were not creating six different timelines of course I am mad and boy does he because this episode sees us explore six different alternate realities where each member of the group goes downstairs to get the pizza the efficiency in these 22 minutes is insane I mean so much is set up so quickly it lays down all of the necessary pieces in fun ways and does it all with no time to spare a lot of the setup comes in the timeline where Annie leaves to get the pizza it not only establishes the fact that Jeff will always stop brda from singing Rock Sand by the police but it also establishes that Annie has a gun in her bag uh guys what does a pregnancy test look like it's like a thin piece of plastic with a thing on the end of it okay so this is definitely a gun whoa but perhaps the strongest aspect of this episode is its focus on the characters by sending one member down at a time we're able to see the same scenario play out differently purely because that member of the group is absent if Shirley's the one who goes down everyone forgets to take her pies out of the oven and she gets mad when she finds out when brda leaves she winds up falling in love with the pizza delivery guy when Pierce leaves everyone grows a tiny bit more connected with each other especially Troy and brda who maybe begin a bit of a romantic subplot here or at least they lay down those seeds and then you have the timeline where AED leaves which proves just how integral he is to the group because while he's not around the various pairings of the the group wind up being broken down without AED the group turns on each other and not in the funny argumentative way that we've seen before but in a sadder I don't know how we're going to come back from this kind of way and then of course you have the funniest timeline which is where Troy goes down for the pizza and he leaves in such a hurry that it sets an entire cascading series of Errors into motion Annie trips dropping her purse setting off her gun shooting Pierce in the leg meanwhile a fire breaks out in the middle of the the room and Jeff and brda try their damn dis to stop it while Troy returns to a sight of utter chaos everything went wrong all at once and it's glorious to see then of course you have the main timeline the seventh reality where the die isn't rolled at all and instead Jeff is sent down to get the pizza for the first time Jeff doesn't stop brida from singing Rock Sand by the police it highlights Jeff's impact on the group because while he's out the rest of them start to have a whole hell of a lot of fun this is an episode that takes a very fun concept and runs with it both for extremely insane and absurd circumstances but to also make critical statements about the characters specifically how they impact the others when they're not around now that would make it one of community's best episodes on its own but then you get to the tag where we revisit one of the timelines and see the aftermath specifically we revisit the Troy timeline where he went down and everything went to hell immediately it is now ominously called the The Darkest Timeline I mean Jeff lost an arm Pierce is dead Shirley's an alcoholic and he's in a mental institute Troy can't talk and worst of all brda put a Blue Streak in her hair now The Darkest Timeline will only be a recurring bit going forward if that but this is such a fun button to an already fun episode that shows that such a simple change can have an irreversible effect on these characters lives The Darkest Timeline is real folks and they're coming for the prime time timeline evil Troy and evil studies in modern movement is another great episode that sees the group leave the campus of Greendale this time it's all about how Annie's moving in with Troy and AED an event they commemorate by live tweeting the entire day's events with the hash Annie's move and if you were looking at those Twitter accounts that were made for each character they were actually tweeting about Annie's move as this episode aired once again this episode focuses on the changing dynamics of the group how they've kind of grown grown Beyond just being a study group and her instead just a bunch of friends Annie's now moving in with Troy and AED and she has some fears about how the two of them might be a little too awesome I mean they love a show called inspector SpaceTime which is a loving homage to Doctor Who and they have a dreamatorium a room where they can go and imagine anything to their heart's content but the episode really hits when Jeff runs into the dean while shopping which all builds into this crazy fun sequence where the two of them sing kiss from marose by Seal it's not only a catchy tune but it also Bridges together every plotline in the episode in this incredibly fun musical montage and it sees Jeff initially hating the idea before eventually really getting into it by the end it's good stuff compare you a kiss from the in a lot of ways season 3 is hitting even harder with the jokes and larger bits than anything in the show before I mean there's one bit that took all three seasons to pay off no I am not kidding take a look at this moment from season 1's communication studies what's the blonde's name bitter butter Beetle Juice now check out this bit in season 2's Cooperative calligraphy don't you usually wear the stripey turquoise Beetle Juice numbers what does she mean usually and now one last bit from season 3's horror fiction in seven spooky steps there's nothing in your playlist but spooky party the Beetlejuice soundtrack and NPR Podcast and would you look at that right in the background as Beetlejuice is uttered a third time Beetle Juice walks in the background I mean that's good stuff right there it's a blink and you miss it gag but once you know it's there the whole show just gets a little bit better but while these gags are a lot of fun it's also worth noting That season 3 is a tiny bit darker for one thing you have an episode where the study group is at each other's throats trying to pick a lab partner for their semester of biology which winds up roping Todd into the mix no offense Todd none taken but then you also have an episode like Advanced gay which sees the introduction of Pierce's even more racist father he's so racist he thinks some white people aren't white enough also he's wearing this weird wig on his head that's apparently made out of dead elephant bones I can excuse racism but I draw the line at animal cruelty you can excuse racism so what brings you but the episode also into Jeff's unspoken hatred towards his own father which was tackled a bit last year but it really bubbles to the surface as he lets it all out towards Pierce's dad and that Outburst winds up killing Pierce's dad but that's not where the show's slightly darker instincts this year stop because we also have the episode documentary film making Redux obed's back to make a documentary this time not about how Pierce is torturing everyone but how the dean wants to make a new commercial for the school and in an attempt to make it the greatest commercial of all time he and the entire school at large wind up going insane Annie develops Stockholm syndrome Jeff winds up being cast as the dean and eventually spends so much time in a bald cap that he actually believes he's bald now Chang is Jeff's understudy wearing a bald cap over a Jeff wig over his real hair I'm literally dying but you'll never hear my story I mean now you heard it but that was close not to mention the dean's own self-destructive spiral which features some of the funniest lines of the Season okay you get this wrong one more time I'm segregating the school but it does lead to a moment where AED swoops in to save the day with an actual solid commercial with footage from the documentary itself also Louise Guzman is here he had his statue built for him in season 1 and now he's here for real then you have this year's Halloween episode where each member of the group tells their own version of a scary story some of them are very disturbing particularly Annie's where she goes to great detail when describing the brutal dismembering of a vampire but the funniest bit here has to be aed's horror movie which is essentially the answer to every piece of criticism that's ever been levied at the horror genre should we go check it out no we should call 911 on my fully charged cell phone lock the doors and then stand back to back in the middle of the room holding knives but by far the dark aspect of the season is that brda wants to be a psych major she wants to be a therapist which highlights a major shift in this character's portrayal when compared to seasons 1 and two when the show began brida was the ultimate foil for Jeff she could see through his BS at every turn but those weren't really the moments that caught on with that character the moments that caught on were the moments like when she couldn't pronounce Bagel you know where she was the butt of the joke and that is dialed up to 11 this year I mean the characters have even coined a term for when someone makes a small mistake drop coffee on the floor man you really Britt at that one there are many ways to take this shift in characterization on one hand you can mourn how Brit is devolved in some ways but on the other hand you can enjoy the fact that this new characterization is still very funny and provides the show with tons of Great Moments they really Britt this one you're using it wrong wow you Britt Britt and all of the elements of the season so so far come together for the Christmas episode titled Regional holiday music which is another episode where Community takes some pot shots at competing show Glee this time it sees greendale's Glee Club get disbanded leaving the study group to take over they had of course taken over before which was shown in last year's clip show why did they take over last time oh because the last Glee Club died in a bus crash so this episode sees the study group once again get inducted into Glee Club to sing their hearts out for a Christmas Pageant despite the fact that they don't want to which means it turns into a horror movie where one by one each member of the study group gets taken by their inner Glee it even goes full Invasion of the Body Snatchers at one [Music] [Applause] point also since this is community's Glee episode there are a bunch of weird and funny songs in here this is my personal favorite Christmas time oh Brit is in this some of these songs even reference the innate darkness of the season with lyrics like if years were Seasons this December would be the December of our December meaning it's the darkest time of the darkest time of the darkest time not to be confused with the Darkest Timeline that's a different thing overall it's a fun little Christmas adventure and while it doesn't reach the highs of aed's uncontrollable Christmas from last year it does still carry the holiday spirit in Spades but with that we're off to the holiday break where we wait until January for community's return wait oh no Community won't be back in January unlike the last two seasons which both came back from the holidays in the middle of January this time Community was pulled from NBC's midseason lineup leaving 30 Rock to take over the time slot this sent both fans and creators into a his he with subreddits like r/ occupy Greendale popping up hashtags like save community and especially the calling card of last season six seasons and a movie spreading all over the place now it should be noted this didn't mean the show was cancelled but it was only a few steps removed because while fans were enjoying the show every week this meant that the whole thing could be completely pulled from NBC schedule at any moment thus ending the show before six seasons in a movie before for the Four Season Arc where the characters would graduate from Greendale at the end of season 4 this is the kind of thing that happens when you double down on the weirdness it makes for an endlessly creative show that can take a foosball match between Jeff and Shirley and turn it into an anime for a second but it also makes the show harder to break into the mainstream so despite how solid the show was despite how consistently funny it was week to week it could all go in an instant at least for now fans could hang on to the hope that the show wasn't to totally gone just yet there was still a chance and that kept Community fans afloat as the clock turned to the year 2012 despite no confirmation on the return date there was some half decent news as 2012 got underway production on the show's third season was moving forward with plenty of casting announcements about Guest roles and teases towards a handful of episodes that were bound to arrive the question was when would NBC bring the show back in the spring spring or would fans suddenly be going to summer school at the very least the fan base was quite loud about their appreciation of the show especially when the episodes aired thus far wound up streaming on Hulu that opened a whole new can of worms suddenly the show tapped into the internet Market where it was able to gain an all new audience and all new appreciation from new fans that's kind of the rub with this era of Television where ratings are still incredibly important but more and more people are watching things exclusively online there was an energy behind the show an energy behind the fan base and eventually it all led to a fateful day at the end of February 2012 Community fans could breathe a collective sigh of relief because finally NBC took the show off the bench and back into the field confirming that Community would return on March 15th the show was going to survive just a bit longer oh you could feel the bullet being dodged not to mention there was a tiny bit of promotion for the show's return specifically in a series of animated shorts titled aed's master key which saw AED get the key to Greendale and a series of hinks that follow in the immediate wake of this decision promos after that circulated Airwaves and the internet there was even a full 2-minute trailer commemorating The Return of the show featuring a bunch of clips for the second half of the Season not to mention promos now had the added bonus of saying that an Oscar winner was part of the show's cast that's right a cast member on community won an Oscar this year and it was none other than Jim Rash for co-writing the descendants with Alexander Payne and Nat Faxon the dean an Oscar winner guys isn't that great I think that's great and with all of that promotion heading into the spring season it was time to turn the TV back on for the much anticipated return of community March 15th has finally arrived it's time to see what kind of crazy fun we can get up to for the rest of the year here the rest of the season seems to have a slightly new lease on life it's not quite as dark anymore which is interesting considering it was mostly written and filmed during the time when no one knew when or if the show was going to come back but maybe that new lease on life is exactly what the show needed given the immense amount of press around the show during the winter months the first episode back in March actually hit a ratings high for the season with 4.75 million viewers it was a big return to form the highest any episode had rated since early season 2 and given the struggles of some of the other NBC shows Community wound up becoming one of the strongest sitcoms on the network it wasn't hitting home runs every week but it was staying afloat and fans were getting more confident and more hopeful each week that the show would be renewed for a fourth season but the show was slightly different as a result some of the comedy bits are a bit broader and more cartoonish I mean you have Jeff's ego personified by an expanding Apple that eventually explodes turning him into the Hulk there's an entire episode that's set within a video game which features a guest appearance by Gian Carlo Esposito as Pierce's half brother Gilbert season 3 also follows in the footsteps of the space episode last year with yet another product tie-in this time around the Greendale cafeteria gets its very own Subway sandwich shop although as it turns out a business in the school needs to be run by a student at the school so in comes this guy now named Subway I have contractually waved my birth identity and am now a man and student named Subway one can always trust Community to go wholly unique with its brand tie-ins I mean Subway and brda wind up getting into an explosively sexual relationship they just can't contain their feelings for one another which ultimately leads to Subway being fired and kicked off campus Bri's love was torn from her and the only thing she knows now is his real name Rick his name was Rick the show is also still doing spoofs of various TV shows and movies most notably the show takes 22 minutes to spoof Law and Order in the episode basic Lupine Urology Greendale Community College is represented by two separate yet equally important types of people the goofballs that run around stirring up trouble and the Egg heads that make a big deal out of it these are their stories this is probably one of my personal favorite episodes of the Season it sees the show take on a police procedural format I mean we have the study group becoming a group of detectives and attorneys we have witnesses including plenty of the recurring characters like real Neil magnitude pop pop starburns and Todd the opposing court is taken over by guest star Michael Ironside which is great and Michael K Williams gets to have a lot of fun being the teacher/ judge of the entire proceedings man's got to have a code a awesome couple all of that with the heightened dialogue that waxes Poetics at every turn and you not only have a funny episode of community but you also have a solid 22-minute procedural we have proof our yam was murdered and now you find your softness it's eat or be eaten when that's convenient but when the going gets tough Winger gets nervous huh I mean even the title basic Lupine Urology is a dee rooted play on the name Dick Wolf who of course created Law and Order I mean that's the kind of stuff this show does so well all of this creativity is once again thanks to the writers and directors of the Season we have plenty of familiar faces Penning these scripts and Manning the director's chairs Anthony and Joe Russo are back to direct plenty of episodes Tristram Shapiro is another recurring director taking on a large brunt of the Season himself Adam Davidson and Jay Chandra sear also returned to the director's chair for some late season 3 episodes but they're also joined by new directors this year with Kyle nuich Dan emman Steven sashida Rob shrab a frequent collaborator of Dan Harmon and Jeff Melman who directed The Season's best episode remedial Chaos Theory the writing team's got plenty of familiar faces too I mean we got Andy bobro Adam County Megan Gans and Chris McKenna who wrote remedial chaos theory and a whole bunch of new writers to give season 3 a new bout of life that separates it in a lot of ways from the season before you got Garrett Donovan Neil Goldman Maggie bandur Matt Murray Chris Kula Steve basalone an maain Vera Santa Maria Alex kolie Tim sardo Matt werton Matt ffield and Alex Cuthbertson just plenty of talent behind the scenes to bring these characters and stories to life in consistently funny ways I mean season 3 might be the most consistent season so far whether it be a conceptual episode or a small scale episode there are plenty of jokes and plenty of truly sincere moments that keep this show standing apart from the pack I mean look no further than the pillows and blankets duology a two-parter that starts like an average episode of community featuring the group going in various directions and doing their own stories mainly centering on Troy and aed's quest to create the largest pillow or blanket fort of all time but with manipulation from Vice Dean lurn who still wants Troy as part of the AC repair School the best friends are turned to Bitter Rivals and begin a campus-wide war between aed's pillow fort and Troy's blanket fort that's where the second episode comes in which isues the standard sitcom ABC story plotting to instead Go full tilt into a History Channel PBS Ken Burns documentary that treats the campus-wide pillow fight as something akin to the American Civil War I mean the whole thing is backed by narration from Keith David who lends his incredible voice to plenty of funny lines that are played completely straight some of the best moments are when the episode tries to lay out the geography of Greendale the north cafeteria named named after Admiral William North is located in the western portion of East Hall gateway to the Western half of North Hall which is named not after William North but for its position above the South Wall it is the most contested and confusing Battlefield on greendale's campus but another thing this season employs perhaps more than seasons 1 and two is a serialized story that backs up the entire season for one thing this season begins to hint at a potential romance between Troy and brda it's nice that the show is seemingly kind of abandoned the Jeff British stuff it started with and is now experimenting with other pairings that might be fruitful in the long run but by far the most significant long running storyline this season has to do with Ben Chang we already know that Chang is insane and that he's also the head security guard at Greendale which can only mean bad things especially when he gains himself an army of child soldiers to protect the school that can really only mean bad things add on to that the fact that he finds himself a guy who looks a lot like the dean and you got yourself a whole equation of bad news and it all builds into the last stretch of the season the final few episodes that bring everything to a head sparked by the end of the Law and Order episode with the sudden and shocking death of starburns that's right starburns died he got exploded by his own meth lab because of a car accident just a horrific way of going out rest in peace starburns your name your name name was Alex this Sparks the episodes that follow kicking off with a funeral service for the starfaces up inciting a riot across the school let's burn this mother down which ultimately allows Chang and his army of children to take over Greendale I mentioned how the season becomes a little more cartoony in its second half and nowhere is that more apparent than right here Chang takes over the school he expels the study group from campus infamously branding them as the Greendale 7 he captures the dean and replaces him with a doppelganger or more accurately a Doppel deer the show even does another clip Show episode featuring clips that have never been seen before one of my personal favorite gags is when the episode highlights some of the most absurd Greendale classes like Advanced breath holding can I fry that and of course ladders welcome to ladders and then it all boils to a gag that Greendale never existed in the first place it was an asylum that the group were all at together of course Greendale isn't an asylum it is a real school but man the last stretch of the season is taking its Concepts to Wild places should we increase their lithium not yet I want to see see what happens if we confiscate one of their pens and It All Leads to a big Oceans 11 styled episode where the green Dale 7 work together to plan an elaborate Heist to retake Greendale there might not be an episode of paintball this year but the season raises the stakes to levels that have never been seen in this show before I mean Chang's so crazy he's rigged the records room of the school to explode with fireworks a not entirely smart plan because that would also destroy the entire school you're going to burn down the school and kill everyone fire can't go through doors stupid it's not a ghost oh sorry my bad regardless in a phantom menace esque face off Chang is ultimately defeated the dean is freed and the school goes back to normal but as climactic as that episode might seem it's not the last episode of the season in fact there is one more episode to tie things up an episode titled introduction to finality this episode features tons of fun bits like a court session regarding the ownership of Shirley's new sandwich shop taking over from where Subway left AED gets taken over by evil Obed from The Darkest Timeline with the mission of making everyone's lives worse in the prime timeline to turn it into The Darkest Timeline and Troy is inducted into the air conditioning repair school where it turns out his special skills mean that he's actually the Messiah the Messiah of a trade school that takes its trade really seriously how rudnik is even here it's crazy you already know the rules because they are in jeez Dennis are you on coke take that crap off and sit down oh also Vice Dean laurn dies and then his Force ghost shows up at the end so you know there's that and ultimately everything comes together with a big old Winger speech to take it home Troy is able to use his Messiah powers to regain his freedom and return to Greendale evil AED is purged from AED system and brida is going to be able to become a real therapist eventually it weirdly ties things up in a nice neat little bow perhaps it's a little rushed but if the show was going to tap out right here this wouldn't be the worst way to go out hell it even ends with an epilogue that montages through a handful of sequences Shirley and Pierce get to open Shirley's sandwiches Jeff Googles his father to try and get closure there dean spr of City College might still be up to no good with Chang in his vents starburns is revealed to have faked his death that's crazy and brida moves in with Troy AED and Annie resulting in the tear down of the dreamatorium the big one anyway AED still has a small one for himself which dips the episode to white as we end on six seasons anim movie a message that could be read in a very Bittersweet way I mean this might be it for the show viewers had come to the realization of something they had feared for quite some time they would have to say goodbye to this show and its characters they would have to say goodbye to Greendale but not today with a blessing from what I can only imagine was the truest repair man NBC gave the green light for season 4 of community the show was going to come back although it was only a half order This Time season 4 would only consist of 13 episodes as opposed to the standard 22 but hey that's 13 more episodes guaranteed and one step closer to the prophesy six seasons in a movie but that didn't mean things were drama free behind the scenes over the last couple months of season 3 press had sparked regarding an ongoing and very public feud between the show's Creator Dan Harmon and Chevy Chase reports had started to pop out that Chevy Chase was getting tired of the show Chevy Chase didn't like the long hours the show was keeping I mean you don't make episodes like the paintball wars without doing a bit of overtime time but perhaps more significantly he didn't like the scripts over time he became increasingly frustrated with scripts that he found weren't funny as much respect as he said he had for the cast and creators behind the show he was growing increasingly frustrated and that led to a handful of reported walkouts offset he didn't want to do it anymore so he'd leave before he was actually supposed to which led Dan Harmon during the season 3 rap party to get the entire crowd present to chant [ __ ] Chevy Chase while Chevy Chase was present with his wife and daughter Chevy Chase then sent Dan Harmon a sternly worded voicemail a piece of which Dan Harmon played as a standup bit for Laughs once these reports came out Dan Harmon was quick to apologize for his unprofessional behavior and how he decided to air out dirty laundry in public for the purposes of Comedy but while publicly it would seem that the beef was squashed there was a question on the horizon how long would Chevy Chase stick around on community the answer given by Chase himself was that he probably wasn't going to be on the show for that much longer but before Chevy Chase would make his seemingly inevitable departure season 4 of community was hit with one big swing right after season 3's conclusion because the day after the season 3 finale was aired a week after it was confirmed that season 4 got the go-ahead the show's Creator Dan Harmon was fired Dan Harmon would no longer have any creative input on the show going forward which elicited a number of reactions ranging from oh no to well you just killed the show and it begged the question why well despite a slight boost in ratings during the second half of season 3 it still wasn't a huge hit in fact the season 3 finale hit a ratings low for the entire series sitting at 2.48 million viewers on top of that there were reports of Dan Harmon being hard to work with scripts would have been sent in late and the allegedly erratic personality was a detriment to the shows behind the scenes operations then there was the added press circuit about the feud between him and Chevy Chase all of these things combined would give NBC and Sony Pictures Television plenty of reason to kick Dan Harmon's bucket which is exactly what they did despite the critical success of the show Dan Harmon was out while he would technically still be involved as a Consulting producer that ultimately only meant that he was going to be paid a little bit of money while the show was still on the air it didn't mean he could have any input creatively Dan Harmon wasn't the only lost voice before season 4 however as several other creatives behind the show stepped away after season 3's conclusion executive producers Neil Goldman and Garrett Donovan left the show one of the head writers Chris McKenna stepped away alongside Dino stamatopoulos not to mention Joe and Anthony ruso also stepped away although that had less to do with Dan Harmon's firing and more to do with the fact that they were slated to direct the second Captain America movie for Marvel Studios fun fact they were hired for that because of this show specifically for the work done on the season 2 finale paintball episodes so that's neat with them gone showrunning duties would be taken up by David gasio and Moses Port who had worked together before on the short-lived CW Series aliens in America so all in all fans got their wish Community was going to get a season 4 but the monkeys paw finger ever curls at the very least the cast would still be the same all of the major roles including Chevy Chase were going to come back they would still continue to inhabit these characters as the machine got rolling on season 4 promotion even began to hit a stride when the cast and new show Runners took to Comic-Con in July 2012 and in the hourong panel they all made an effort to thank the fans for keeping the show Alive and Kicking going into season 4 and on top of that the new show showrunners reassured audiences that they would try their damnedest to maintain the quality and tone of the show they made sure to say that there was nothing to worry about with the future the show was still going to be Community they also took some time to tease some season 4 story lines some episodes that were coming up in the upcoming season and the hourlong panel spent a lot of time reminiscing about the season 3 story lines some of the cast's favorite moments and their respective character Journeys which was a perfect dovetail into the release of the season 3 DVD box set the following month complete with every season 3 episode a behind the-scenes featurette on the pillows and blankets episode and of course there were 20 minutes of bloopers from across the entire season just a lot of fun all around what's even more fun is that season 3 got a nomination at the prime time Emmy Awards it wasn't for the whole season but the show was recognized for the outstanding writing for a comedy series award specifically for remedial Chaos Theory written by Chris McKenna while the show didn't win it was the biggest instance of Emmy recognition the show had gotten yet and while they didn't take it home remedial chaos theory is still a great episode perhaps it would take the show's fourth season to really get the emy's attention a fourth season which finally began production in August slated to begin its 13 episode run on October 19th 2012 October 19th though was a Friday as it turned out NBC was booting Community from its Thursday night lineup instead it had take on Friday nights at 8:30 p.m. a far less popular night on television sometimes referred to as the night where shows go to die but it also meant expectations for Ratings were a bit lower so maybe just maybe Community could be a bright spot in an otherwise dreary night on television at the very least Community was coming back and promotion around the show began to heat up in the fall months as the imminent October debut Drew closer there was promotion regarding a Hunger Games themed season premiere James Brolin joined the cast as Jeff Winger's father confirming that Jeff would finally reunite with his estranged father after years of Abandonment and of course Chevy Chase made headlines again claiming that it was a big mistake for him to have signed on to community in the first place despite the steady paycheck it seemed Chevy Chase was becoming less and less of a fan of the show by the minute but the show's return was drawing nearer and nearer Friday October 19th was coming up fast and the fan base was ecstatic until suddenly the premiere got pushed back yeah the entire season got delayed October 19th would not be the first day of season 4 after all it was frightening it reminded a lot of fans about the horrors of season 3 being pulled from the midseason but the promotional efforts did attempt to dissuade any super negative thinking about the fate of the show a fun video was released on October 19th featuring The main cast members of the show humorously stating that while the show was initially set to air on October 19th the powers that be couldn't decide where to put October 19th because every day is October 19th in your heart October 19th is a state of mind and eventually any concerns about the show's future were completely squashed when NBC finally confirmed a new start date for community's fourth season the show would be back on February 7th 2013 and stretch all all the way across the back half of the season for its 13 episode run and it was back on its regular time slot gone were the worries of community airing on Friday nights the show was back at home on Thursdays at 8:00 p.m. you'll love to see it what you don't love to see however is the climactic explosion to the entire long running Fiasco with Chevy Chase we all know by now that he hated being on the show and as filming for season 4 continued all of those frustrations began Rising higher and higher towards the surface specifically Chevy Chase was growing more frustrated at Pierce's racism and bigotry and in an example of what Pierce might as well be saying Chevy Chase apparently said the nword on set upsetting many cast and crew members but that as Pierce once said is only the tip of the iceberg Chevy Chase's continuing frustration with the show resulted in him being absent from set more and more often the writers and directors would later reveal how they had to plan for multiple contingen with virtually every scene because they didn't know if Chevy Chase was going to be there they had to plan if he was there they had to plan if he was only there for a day and they had to plan if he was never going to show up again it was an increasingly frustrating time behind the scenes and one that was heavily publicized until the biggest Turning Point came on November 21st 2012 because it was here that it was confirmed that Chevy Chase was leaving Community Pierce Hawthorne was on his way out it was both disappointing yet not at all surprising in fact some people were surprised he came back for season 4 at all and the fact of the matter was he was still going to be in most of season 4's episodes as the bulk of the season was filmed before Chevy Chase's departure in fact there would only be two episodes in the final season that wouldn't feature Chevy Chase whatsoever but it brought the most tumultuous Saga of behind the scenes conflict to an end Chevy Chase was gone and Pierce Hawthorne was about to graduate waight from Greendale as 2013 got underway promotion began to Skyrocket for the imminent return of community promos hit the airwaves teasing The Hunger Games themed Premiere and a full trailer was released just before the show returned teasing the stories the jokes and all the fun stuff that season 4 promised to have the question was would the show still be any good would Community still work without its creator Dan Harmon the time had come to find out as the clock had turned to February 7th 2013 get out your pens and get out your binders because it's high time we finally entered our senior year at Greendale Community College [Music] [Applause] they to paraphrase a line from the pillows and blankets episode from last year season 4 is the most contested battle field in the entire Show's history it is no secret that fans and critics of the show were a lot less favorable to this season of the show it was even commonly referred to as new community as it was airing and this is because regrettably season 4 is the worst season of the show that's not even to say it's necessarily bad it's just not the same whether you like it or not Dan Harmon was an intrinsic part of the show's DNA it was heavily baked into his sense of humor his personal brand of of pettiness and his particular brand of Storytelling not to mention every main character is in some way an extension of Dan Harmon so even though the main cast are still around and plenty of writers and directors have returned for this season without the central piece of Dan Harmon season 4 feels more like someone's impression of the show rather than a genuine continuation at every step of the way it feels like the new show Runners have tried to reverse engineer what made Community special in its first three seasons but they've come away with something that only really gets to a portion of what made the show Good the show is known for metah humor so slap in some references and call it a day Pierce is old and racist throw in a couple of runchy jokes and you'll get your money's worth you'll also get the gag that caused Chevy Chase to angrily vent his frustrations about the character and leave the show there are some things that were kind of out of the showrunner control like how the season's delay meant the Halloween episode aired in February instead of October and the Christmas episode aired in April in instead of December but the Halloween episode does feature a brief call back to one of Chang's great lines from the end of season 3 fire can't go through doors stupid it's not a ghost ghosts can't go through doors stupid they're not fire Pierce in fact in the process of making season 4 plenty of proposed ideas during Dan Harmon's run were brought to life they saw fit to continue what was established before like the fact that Troy and brida are in an actual relationship now the seeds were swn in season 3 but now it's full tilt the only problem is the longer Season 4 goes on the more it becomes clear that the show had nothing to give them they're just there until eventually they break up and that's the end of that the episode centering on an inspector SpaceTime convention was a carryover from the previous era and even features a guest appearance from Matt Lucas which is fun but the jokes are painted a little too broad especially with Pierce becoming a focus group tester for an American version of of Inspector SpaceTime the results of which are an incredibly simplified and dumb down version of the show AED loved so much it begs the question what is the joke is it just that Pierce is old and out of touch is it kind of a meta comment about how season four of community is trying to not be like this it's so broad it can mean anything really then you have a fairly significant payoff to Jeff's long running Arc where he finally decides to confront his absentee father it's an arc that's been well established over the course of the show Jeff clearly has a lot of unresolved issues there and on some level it is nice to see some kind of closure and Joel male does bear a resemblance to James broland so the casting was pretty solid but it almost feels like it's too clean of a resolution it's wrapped up very very quickly it's an underwhelming payoff to three seasons of buildup but it should be noted that it's definitely unfair to compare this season to the seasons that came before the only problem is it's kind of imposs possible not to compare this to the first three seasons take the episode Advanced documentary filmmaking which centers its focus on Ben Chang yeah the dictator who almost destroyed the school last year only now he's lost all his memories because of changnesia no I didn't misspeak he has changnesia and the reaction to his arrival is pretty funny I'll give it that hi I'm Kevin he has Chia but this documentary episode while it has its moments doesn't quite hit as hard as the two episodes that preceded it the season 2 documentary episode is one of the show's best and utilizes the concept in really fun ways the season 3 documentary episode well maybe not quite as strong still manages to bring plenty of laughs and does so in a very different way but this one this one probably plays into the fact that it's a documentary too much it might be personal preference but I do think seeing so much of the crew during the episode being so acutely aware it's a documentary does a disservice to the larger idea not to mention it's eventually revealed to us the audience that the changnesia is actually all fake Chang is still his insane Chang self and he's doing some conspiracy stuff with City College to achieve I don't know the destruction of Greendale or something not that it really matters because nothing comes of this development whatsoever but there are moments in this season that hit there are jokes and deliveries here and there that spark a smile or a laugh and that might be because plenty of the behind the-scenes Personnel have carried over from season 3 Dan Harmon might be gone but plenty others are still here I mean Tristram Shapiro a regular series director directed Seven of season 4's 13 episodes he was joined by other returning directors Steven sushita and Jay Chandra sear alongside series newcomers Michael Patrick Jan Trisha Brock Beth McCarthy Miller and Victor Nelly Jr we even have plenty of returning writers like Andy bobro Maggie bandur Steve basalone an maain Tim cardo and Megan ganss and there are some newcomers like Ben Wexler Hunter Covington Jack Cota Jean Hong and even Jim Rash that's right Dean Pelton himself penned an episode titled basic human anatomy and it is one of season 4's strongest featuring a fun Freaky Friday gag where Troy and abet switch places and the dean also gets to play at being Jeff for a little while which is especially fun when Annie immediately develops a crush on The Dean as a result classic wrapup shut up Leonard I've got a picture of your old nose it was a lateral move Dean Dean ABY why is this happening the episode heroic Origins is also all right we get to see plenty of moments from before the cast of characters wound up at Greendale while it is weird that the episode seems to suggest that the group was destined to beat together it is fun to see glimpses of who they were before the show began and there's a brief bit about how magnitude got his famous [Music] catchphrase it's not like the season is a total loss because every once in a while new community can drop the odd Pearl specifically in The Season's best episode herstory of dance this episode is good for a couple reasons firstly it sees AED fulfill a sitcom Trope in a funny way he's going on two dates at once trying to balance both as high Jinx and Sue all the while he finds a third person Rachel played by guest star Brie Larson who he actually grows a connection with boiling to a big old impassion plea in public after making a mistake to try and win her back it's fun it has some humorous jokes and it sees AED take on a new Dynamic with a genuinely fun new addition on top of that this episode gives brida a win and that's always fun to see early in the the episode she decides to create a school dance in one day based around musical artist Sophie B Hawkins of course everyone thinks it's impossible to create a dance in one day they also think it's impossible that the real musical artist Sophie B Hawkins will actually show up but ultimately thanks to some string pulling by Pierce Sophie B Hawkins does show up to the dance lighting up the whole thing this moment not only gives Pierce a nice moment where he's not outwardly being malicious and it also sees brida get an honest to God Victory she deserves it every once in a while and Jeff commending her over text is a genuinely heartfelt moment congratulations on an awesome dance you Britt the hell out of this thing it might not be reaching the same highs the show did in its first three seasons but it shows the promise of what new community can bring it can have heart it can have some laughs it can introduce new things and bring closure to others coming out of this episode the potential of new Comm Community only increased as hope sparked among the audience it's only a shame it immediately plummeted because the very next episode intro to felt surrogacy might just be the worst episode of the entire show and it's not even because of the concept because when it was revealed a few weeks earlier that Community was going to tackle an episode where the main cast were represented by puppets the fan base cheered it seemed like a great idea in fact it was also a holdover idea from the previous era of the show it's only a shame that the reason this episode utilized puppets is so thinly veiled the whole conceit is that the group members are awkward with each other and so the dean tells them to use puppets to reveal the story that led to this awkward silence that plagues them now this episode's most direct comparison is easily aed's uncontrollable Christmas from season 2 but where that was a thoughtful look into the psyche of AED through the guise of a stop motion Christmas special this is just an excuse to use puppets it doesn't help that the adventure that characters go on as puppets is so cartoony and over the top that it's hard to imagine it actually happening even though the show is saying that these are events that actually happened the study group did get bored one day and decide to go on a hot air balloon ride which then went catastrophically wrong Landing them in a forest where they took psychotropic berries and confessed deep dark secrets to one another I can picture the puppets doing that just fine but I can't picture the actual characters doing that compared to the stop motion episode where the characters weren't actually going to these Fantastical locations it was just the adventure that AED was imagining we got a look inside his head not to mention the stakes of that episode all tie into the fact that AET is seeing everything in stop motion that episode shows that a mental break like that might get abbit expelled from Greendale that's what's at stake there what's at stake here is that the group is going to be awkward with each other for a bit that doesn't even get to the worst part which is when they finally r reveal their deep dark secrets to the audience the things that created this awkward situation in the first place and they are all Horrible character breaking Secrets like shirely got paranoid that her husband was with another woman and her investigation led her to abandoning her kids in a grocery store Jeff found a perfect woman but got scared that she had a kid so he bailed with no notice Annie was doing bad at history so she accepted a foot rub from the teacher to get a good grade on a test Troy tried to burn an antill and inadvertently set fire to 55 acres of land okay that was funny I can respect that one that one's kind of funny this is what I mean when it feels like season 4 is an impression of community instead of being a genuine continuation these things just feel so antithetical to these characters characters that have been so well defined before this sure the group ultimately gets a happy ending after this episode thanks to their confessions but the fact that these elements are never brought up again is enough evidence to to suggest why doing it in the first place was probably a bad idea at the very least there are some fun songs with Sarah burelis making a cameo appearance she of course sang the song Gravity which was used in those montages from the season 2 clip show the puppets themselves are also really good they're puppeteered really well they even have articulated eyebrows which is fun and the dean gets to have a couple moments to shine here too which is always great this is puppet therapy workan there is a fire in the cafeteria not now but it just doesn't hit as an episode overall and I don't think it's the only one in fact the final episode of the Season Advanced introduction to finality is the show's weakest finale for two distinct reasons though only one is actually in the show's control that reason being that this episode made the decision to once again bring back paintball paintball was a staple in seasons 1 and two but after its absence in season 3 I'm not sure that particular concept needed to be brought back again but it's also only half brought back because it's interspersed with the other return for the finale the return of The Darkest Timeline that's right the evil study group from The Darkest Timeline are here you know the timeline where Troy went for pizza and everything went horribly wrong immediately yeah that one they show up and the study group has to face them off with paintballs that can transport you across timelines it's a fun idea but it's so rushed to fit into this 22-minute box not to mention it's easily the lamest version of paintball where the other two iterations of paintball included the whole school and saw all sorts of characters come in and out this paintball match is only between the two versions of the study group making it feel so much smaller which isn't helped by the fact that AED mentions how they finally made paintball cool again like did you did you really especially when it's revealed that none of this actually happened and it was it was just a dream Jeff had before his graduation ceremony yeah it was all a Dream It's funny because the tactic of it was all a dream was made fun of earlier this very season the second issue with this finale is the one that is absolutely not in control of the showrunners or writers and that's the haphazard farewell to Pierce Hawthorne the longer the season's gone on the more clear it's been the Chevy Chase is just completely checked out he's so done which is partly why his role gets smaller as the season goes on and here you can really feel that he was only around for intermittent moments he'd only be around very briefly so as a result Pierce just kind of shows up a couple times does something for two seconds then leaves they even Rush his graduation right at the end it's completely out of the show's control but it's such an unfortunate and rushed ending to that character but ultimately both Pierce and Jeff graduate from Greendale Community College they've completed their final year and Jeff Jeff's going to go off and try to be a good lawyer you know a lawyer who helps good people instead of the sleev bag he was before it gives the episode some semblance of finality but not nearly as well as its namesake introduction to finality from season 3 it's rushed it's trying to do too much and it's especially saddening when you consider the possibility that this might just be the last episode of the entire show just like the seasons before it seasons 4 was still not a ratings Juggernaut far from it the season mostly hovered somewhere around 3 million viewers an episode but the episode hory of dance hit a series low with 2.32 million viewers the show still wasn't able to go mainstream even with its attempts at broader jokes and story arcs Community just never had that secret sauce to become the most popular show on TV but low ratings is nothing new for Community what is new is that this season wasn't a critical darling anymore season four was criticized for not quite capturing the magic of what made the first three seasons work it was a different show now a show that didn't have the same bite leave that same lasting impression there was still The Hope among the fan base that the show would continue after all the season finale still references the prophecy of six seasons and a movie as an Easter egg but at the same time season 4 of community was easily the show's weakest season and if it were to continue it might just limp along until its most devoted audience loses interest and ultimately drops off because the show lost its spark a long time ago not to mention Jeff graduating from Greendale is a fairly significant event one you could absolutely end the show on so the fan base was of two minds coming out of the Season 4 Finale some thought that the best parts of the show were over now that the Golden Age had come and gone but others still wanted to keep visiting Greendale at least until the show fulfilled its prophecy strangely enough both camps kind of sort of got what they wanted because on May 10th one day after season 4 concluded NBC ordered another 13 episode season communities coming back for season five but would David gracio and Moses Port return as showrunners no because their contracts were only for one season instead the show would be run by Dan Haron that's right the disgraced showrunner who was booted a whole year ago is coming back to Greendale this was in large part a result of campaigning from the show's cast particularly Joel mccale who were all very vocal about how the show wasn't special anymore without the unique brand of creativity that Dan Harmon brought on top of that a more cynical business-like reading of the situation is that Sony booted Dan Harmon from the show last year to try and boost ratings and now they're going to bring him back to try and boost ratings regardless it was a huge shock to the fan base but a positive one the main lacking factor of season 4 was Dan Harmon now that he's coming back season 5 might be able to restore the show to the golden Roots it once had and he wouldn't be alone with his return Chris McKenna would also be coming back to the show alongside Dino stamis starburns back in business you'll love to see it despite the return of some familiar voices though the show was also going to lose one because season five of community was going to Bid Farewell to Troy Barnes that's right Donald Glover was leaving the show it's no secret that Donald Glover's music career under the sudim Childish Gambino was really taking off right now he'd been working on it alongside the shooting of community for quite a while but the time had come to pursue that side of his career fulltime so while he did sign on to be part of season 5 it would only be for the first five episodes after which the series would have to say its goodbyes to one of its most beloved characters I can only imagine what that departure is going to do to AED one half of Troy and AED in the morning is going to be heading out what will that do to the remaining half but despite the sad news about one of the main casts departing the show the cast and creators of community turned up to ComiCon that year in good spirits Dan Harmon opened the panel dressed as budget Iron Man revealing himself to the crowd to get them amped up for his return and the whole speech that follows is an extended Riff on the opening of Iron Man 2 where Tony Stark proudly proclaimed his return in front of a massive devoted audience it's a fun time and over the next hour the cast and writers teased the future of community how season 5 is going to ground these characters once again and what it means to have Dan Harmon back in the captain's chair ultimately ComicCon inspired nothing but hope for the return of the show which only led to further fan excitement as season 5 got underway there was also a little bit of promotion as well as the season 4 DVD box set released right at the start of August partly advertised by ComicCon but also by the Dean's new recruitment video going back through the Straight A's of Greendale you know from the promotional efforts from before the show even started and this box set not only included the 13 episodes of the senior year but also about 6 minutes of bloopers not quite as expansive as previous season's blooper reels but it's still a fun time as the season 5 machine got rolling casting announcements took off over the summer with Rob cordry confirmed to return for the season 5 premiere and Jonathan Banks set to star in 11 of The Season's 13 episodes that makes Jonathan Banks the second Breaking Bad Alum to join Community as Gian Carlo Esposito had made some brief appearances already not only that though the creator of Breaking Bad Vince Gilligan was also going to guest star in an episode John Oliver was going to be coming back for season 5 he'd been absent for both season 3 and season 4 but now Professor Ian Duncan was back at Greendale Walton goggin was confirmed to take on a guest role for an episode teasing that his appearance would result in an event that will change the study group forever adding on to that you have guest appearances from Mitch herwitz and David Cross of Arrested Development Fame Tim and Eric of Tim and Eric's awesome show were going to make an appearance even Nathan fillian was going to show up for a bit I mean we really have a smorgas board of guest stars for the show's fifth run and with the return date finally marked for January 2nd promotion began to hit a stride as 2013 Drew to a close throughout December you had smaller promos for the show's return but there was also a full 2 and 1/2 minute trailer that presented the show's return with the same epic scale that would be appropriate for a Lord of the Rings movie this cast of characters was coming back to Greendale well except Pierce and they were going to go on a whole new set of adventures all on the latest leg to fulfill the prophecy of six seasons and a movie fans were more excited than ever all they could hope for now was that despite the loss of Chevy Chase and the eventual loss of Donald Glover the show would still be able to recapture the magic it once had now that it's back under showrunner Dan Harmon and that excitement and anticipation took them right to the new year 2014 hopefully you've laid out your New Year's resolutions I know I've laid out mine and it's to tune in on Thursdays at 8:00 p.m. for my return to Greendale we might have grad uated last year but the gang's back together and they're joined by more guest stars than you can shake a stick at and it was time to see it all come to life for community's Fifth Season as the clock had finally turned to January 2nd 2014 get out your pens and papers my friends because we're going back to Greendale Community College just F [Music] away the first episode of season 5 is aptly titled repilot which essentially means that while this is a direct continuation from where we left off this is also an all new starting point things are being reset and shifted around to change the dynamic of the show going forward there's even direct references to how scrubs did the same thing in its ninth season reiling can be intense new people show up regular shift rols or even fall away season n of Scrubs Zack BR was only in the first six episodes that son of a [ __ ] after everything scrubs did for him sorry so how does community reset things well it brings back the entire study group Sans Pierce although he does appear briefly as a hologram most of them decide to reenroll at Greendale taking additional classes to further their education except Jeff who after his attempts to be a good lawyer fail spectacularly he winds up taking a job at Greendale that's right Jeff Winger becomes a teacher and while he initially takes that as an opportunity to blow it off like he would as a student his natural Charisma and charm does take over sometimes and leads to some unique teaching moments that I'd happily sit in on but because Jeff is a teacher and the rest of the group don't all have one class together they're not exactly a study group anymore now they're the save Greendale committee a group comprised of students and teachers whose goal is to try and fix Greendale so it can become something like an actual real school it even features the return of Ian Duncan played by Oliver and new character Buzz hickey played by Jonathan Banks and Buzz hickey is definitely not a new Pierce just like mash did back in the day this new character is completely different from the one he's filling in for Buzz hickey is a hard ass a badass and just all around tough as Nails guy who also draws Duck cartoons you really get the whole picture on top of that Chang's back and they've completely dropped the pretense of his changnesia he remembers everything and he's a math teacher at Green now also the previous season is canonically referred to as the gas leak year just to explain away why everyone was acting just a little bit off last year hell even the study room table gets reset the thing gets burned at the end of the premiere and replaced with table Mark 2 but one thing that stands out from at least the first episode is that it's kind of grim the premiere story is more sad than funny and the whole season has this navy blue color grade to it which makes it feel a bit more melon colly this raised some questions from critics and fans as to if the show really could bounce back could Dan Harmon's return actually bring the show to a new golden age or have things been damaged Beyond repair well those concerns didn't live that much longer because the second episode features some of the show's funniest gags like the dean having an inner monologue that is both singing and in French then there's Obed going insane because he watched too many Nicholas Cage movies to try and figure out if the actor is good or or bad he doesn't find the answer instead he just becomes him I'm a cat I'm a sexy cat and of course the second episode sees the students at Greendale immediately explode into a riot when they learn slightly unfortunate news minuses are made up it's Ryan but things really heat up in the third episode of the Season basic intergluteal numismatics in the first conceptual episode of the Season Community takes on the tone of a David Fincher Movie allaha 7 and zodiac only the characters at Greendale are investigating a far more serious type of criminal they're investigating the ass crack Bandit a bandit who drops quarters down people's exposed butt cracks truly a heinous crime the tone tone the visuals the humor all of it adds up to one of the show's best episodes to date I mean we have tons of fun with Jeff and Annie working together along with commentary about what kind of relationship they have there are a couple of destructive foot chases and the episode also features a Ben fold song a song that you can't ever sing in public which makes it even more unfortunate that it's super catchy as s c r a c k pen wo wo wo and on top of all of that virtually every character is a suspect anyone could be the ass crack Bandit it could be Ian Duncan it could even be starburns because the group finally discovers that starburns is still alive but the episode ultimately doesn't reveal who the ass crack Bandit is in fact it leaves the door wide open so that anyone even the central characters could be the Bandit or maybe all of them were the Bandit at once even this person who has never been seen before and will never be seen again they could be the Bandit instead this episode pulls one final twist to take the focus away from the Bandit themselves because right at the end it's revealed that Pierce Hawthorne has died it's just a big subversion on what you might expect from this story whilst continuing the overarching story of the series and of this season in particular because the revelation of Pierce's death leads directly into another fantastic episode Cooperative polygraphy where the group has to take a polygraph test to prove that they didn't kill Pierce themselves and while Pierce himself isn't in this episode he's embodied spectacularly by the cold and distant Mr Stone played by Walton Goggins I mean this guy's just great it almost feels like Pierce's back in the show even though he's not not to mention there are plenty of funny moments as Mr Stone asked the group a variety of revealing and off-putting questions state your name Benjamin Franklin Chang ready to deal out the truth nothing to hide let's do this have you ever masturbated in the study room but where this episode really hits is in the fact that it's not just funny and a spiritual followup to the episode Cooperative calligraphy the bottle episode from season 2 but it also serves as a heartfelt and fitting farewell for Pierce While most of the episode sees Pierce torment the group with various revealing questions about how all of them are terrible people just like he is the final round of questions reveal his true and mostly positive thoughts on every member of the group all the while giving them some parting gifts Jeff gets a bottle of Scotch Annie gets the Tiara from season 2's documentary episode Shirley gets a time share in Florida AED gets called weird and brda gets an iPod Nano which is actually a call back to a brief gag in season 1 which said that brda would be the proud owner of an iPod Nano in 2014 now it's 2014 and she's the proud owner of an iPod Nano oh also every member of the group gets a liquid nitrogen cooled cylinder of Pierce's hyper veral sperm yeah everyone gets one of those to you I leave this bottle of fine Scotch so that you're less tempted to drink this cylinder of even finer sperm also it's revealed that filling all of those canisters is what ultimately killed Pierce so that's the show's final word on Pierce Hawthorne he masturbated himself to death what this episode and the David finer episode before it proves is that Community was back in full swing gone was the cartoony nature of season 4 and even the end of season 3 The Classic feel of the show was back and that especially extended to the fifth episode of the Season geothermal escapism yet another ambitious conceptual episode where the entire school is taken over by a game of hot lava you know you can't step on the floor or else you'll be consumed by hot lava it's fun in part because it's not a paintball episode instead it takes another Concept in full force to turn the entire School upside down I mean we have tribes Clans we have battlecries and religions Buzz hickey is even the pilot of a oneman Doomsday Machine it's crazy but like every good Community gimmick episode it's not just about the gimmick it's about the story that the gimmick is able to lift and make better and this time the story is squarely centered around Troy and AED their friendship has been one of the strong strongest beating hearts at the center of this show and this episode brings it to the Forefront because this is where their story ends in the polygraph episode Mr Stone reveals that Troy will be the sole inheritor of Pierce's shares in the Hawthorne wipes company valued at $14 million the catch in order to claim the money Troy must leave on a boat named the childish Tycoon and see the world Pierce sold it as a chance for Troy to become his own man and Troy is immediate medely attracted to the $14 million he could get as a reward which means this entire hot lava Escapade in The Season's fifth episode is really about AED not being able to let go he's not able to say goodbye to Troy the two of them even make believe clone themselves so it's not them that are saying goodbye to each other it's their clone selves that are saying goodbye which makes it easier this episode does what every great episode of this show does it plays very heavily on the emotions that the audience has for these characters And the emotions that these characters have for each other which especially comes true when Troy bids farewell to each member of the group one by one the most impactful goodbye coming from AED of course by the way when I cloned you I had to patch some missing parts of your DNA with jeans from a homing pigeon you may notice side effects like a compulsion to come back which leads to the final scene of the episode where Troy finally sets off not only does he set off with Lavar Burton which is fun but the scene is set to a cover of the song Come Sail Away by Sticks which was referenced by Troy in one of the earliest episodes of the show why am I crying will I accidentally listen to come sa Away by Sticks again it's perhaps the most emotional episode of the show so far Troy has been one of the best characters and it's no secret that Donald Glover was one of the funniest performers on set I mean it even got so far that scripts started to feature the line Donald says something funny instead of an actual line of dialogue he was just that funny on set and his character provided plenty of the show's best lines $60 hello rich people Troy's joining you yes I'll hold but now Troy's off to set sail as his own man Donald Glover is off to further his music career as Childish Gambino and produce the FX show Atlanta and Community is now left to move on without him the question is how successful will it be at doing that I think it's safe to say the show struggles a little bit it's one of those cases where you don't truly understand the impact of a certain character until they're gone and with Troy gone there's a sense of melancholy over the episodes to follow they're left to kind of pick up the pieces to a certain extent especially when it comes to AED I mean we've been seeing the duo of Troy and AED since the second episode of the show so now that it's just Obed on his own you can't help but feel like there's something missing as great as AED is but the show is struggles are not for the lack of trying AED is more often paired with Annie through the second half of the season and the two of them are quite fun Chang's in the group now there's very little pretense to that he's just part of the save Greendale committee now and there are plenty of good gags one of my personal favorites is that the show references the everyone bit from Leon the Professional and not one not two but three different episodes this year I didn't just masturbate in the study room I masturbated every everywhere everywhere but Deborah let's be clear I want everything to get through that porn blocker what do you mean everything everything understood so keep your mouth shut or we'll send this file to everybody what do you mean everybody [Music] everybody not to mention the season's ninth episode also features perhaps one of the funniest gags in the entire show in the episode's cold open Dean Pelton shows up dressed like a peanut bar to do a freestyle rap about how the teachers paychecks are going to have to be delayed a little bit and it's it's amazing prisons recruiting them police bees shooting them rap artist looting them labels all delting them Barack Obama is scared of me cuz I don't swallow knowledge and I spit it for Let Me Clear My Throat on top of that the show features a smorgas board of guest stars I mean Rob cordry showed up in the premiere but we also have brief appearances from Cale Nani and Nathan fillian as greendale's custodians Criminal Minds padet Brewster shows up as Deborah the it lady Robert Patrick also turns up as the head of greendale's Parking Department Vince Gilligan shows up as the face of a long-forgotten VHS board game then you have perhaps the best new recurring character in the show cougler someone who's been in the school for who knows how long but has an immediately infectious personality hell the episode that introduces him also features a fake trailer for his own spin-off movie do you even have a career plan yeah uh does getting late count no Mitchell D herwitz is cougler but perhaps the most surprising yet also most welcome guest star this season is The Return of Brie Larson that's right Rachel's back and she's finally dating AED while she only appears in two episodes this year she's great and she really works with Abed it's the only genuine carryover from season 4 and it's one that the show earns it's fun there's even a bit where AED messes up and then has to apologize in the rain like in the movies I mean what more can you ask for a you hired a stunt person no I did not a lot of the best stuff this year is carried Along by the new and returning writers and directors given that this is Dan Harmon's comeback season there are plenty of original Community writers who come back to Breathe new life into the show we got Chris McKenna Andy bobro Tim sardo and Dino stamatopoulos returning but they're also joined by a whole host of new writers to give the show a new voice Eric smers Alex Rubin Monica padrick Dan Gutterman Jordan Bloom Parker day Donald Diego Matt roller Carol colb and Ryan Ridley are all credited for a variety of episodes this year but while there are new voices Penning the scripts the directors behind the camera are all returning trist Shapiro is back to direct a whopping six episodes this year he's joined by Rob shrab who takes on three episodes Jay chra sear directs another two and even Joe Russo comes back to direct two episodes this year the first was geothermal escapism the final episode with Troy Barnes but he also directed The highly anticipated episode advanced advanced Dungeons and Dragons that's right perhaps the best episode of the show gets a sequel in season 5 this time around centering the entire story on Buzz hickey trying to reconnect with his son Hank played by David Cross while the episode doesn't quite reach the heights of the original season 2 episode it does have plenty of Great Moments specifically the dean is involved this time and there are so many great jokes between him and Jeff mainly because the two of them are playing Father and Son characters in The Campaign and the dean takes that and runs with it it's awesome but that's not the only gimmick episode we have this year there's also also an animated episode that is aping its style entirely off of the 80s GI Joe cartoon I mean not only does it feature plenty of that shows most famous characters specifically Duke Snake Eyes Cobra Commander Destro but it also adds every member of community's main cast to the roster of gii Joe and Cobra each with their own code name Jeff is wingman Shirley is three kids AED is fourth wall Annie is tight ship and my personal favorite brida is is Buzz Kill she even has a saw on her arm it's good stuff not to mention the brief commercial breaks for gi. Joe toys both for the classic characters and this Show's original characters couple all of that with era appropriate animation reuse animation errors and you have yourself a loving homage 80s cartoons I especially like the narration at the start of the episode aping off of the gii Joe main theme gii Joe is the code name for America's daring awesomely trained awesome mission for it's purpose to fight Cobra because they're terrorists look I think I'm overe explaining it the bad guys are snakes and the good guys are army people all of this in a show that proudly proclaims that it is set in a community college truer words have probably been spoken then you have perhaps one of my favorite episodes of the year app development and condiments an episode that sees all of Greendale get taken over by an app an app that people can use to rate other people out of five stars or five meow meow beans the higher your rating the better you are it's all a popularity contest and boy does it turn Greendale upside down but something I like about this episode is that it doesn't show the turn immediately you know with the paintball episodes before it the episode would set up the conceit and the stakes and then cut to an hour later everything's gone to hell but this time we see Greendale gradually change over a couple days as every student and teacher slowly Alters their behavior to get a better rating then only after 8 days do we see that the school has been turned completely upside down every rank is separated from one another there's a built-in hierarchy of clothing jobs I think the dean is the one who says it best fives have lives fours have chores threes have fleas twos have blues and ones don't get a rhyme because they're garbage add on to it a central story about Jeff and Shirley being at odds with each other and even jokes about how if br has mustard on her face everyone will listen to her it's like a cheat code to becoming a revolutionary leader it's great the rule of the fives is over long live the reev lution no eventually all leads into the two-part season finale both halves respectively titled basic story and basic sandwich and as far as finales go they're not great granted they're better than season 4 slap Dash finale but they don't carry the the bombast of season 2's finale nor the sense of finality that came with season 3's finale instead season 5's finale features a convoluted plot about how the save Greendale committee has done such a good job saving Greendale this year that Subway is going to buy the property and turn the place into a Subway sandwich school so the group has to investigate greendale's past discover that it was once a computery school find the original Dean who has apparently been locked underground for a couple decades and provide the original deed to the land all of which is to actually save Greendale they beat Subway at their own game and are able to keep Greendale is the Community College we all know and love and that's the finale as much as it tries to filter in some character Dynamics specifically with a quick gag about how Jeff and brda might just get married suddenly most of the finale is focused so much more on the plot that that kind of stuff kind of gets lost over its runtime I mean the Jeff and brda getting married thing is completely thrown away by the episode's end it was really just a commentary about how when things seem like they're ending characters will want to spin off and do other things ultimately these two episodes just don't quite come together even if the larger message about how the committee actually saved Greendale is a solid idea to close out the season overall season five of community brings back plenty of what the show did well in its first three years while still not quite reaching the highs that were prevalent early in the show's run the season start starts better than it ends and has plenty of Great Moments in the middle but there are gaps left by the departing cast members that are very very hard to fill which ultimately leaves season 5 as not quite the triumphant return that one might have hoped for but still a solid season of comedy with plenty of good bits to go around it is after all better than season 4 and in that sense it's a win but because this is the end of a season of Community the question inevitably has to be raised is this episode epod a season finale or the series finale I mean as is customary with a community finale the show makes plenty of omes to the idea that it might just be over now or that it has consistently been on the verge of ending for years your school is still bankrupt it is still unmarketable and is still on the permanent chopping block of anyone who has any say in its future yeah well around here we call that Wednesday not to mention this finale in particular contained an end tag that was a not so subtle dig towards NBC's future prospects for Thursday night TV they made a fake commercial for a bunch of fake probably bad shows including a spin-off with the Schoolboard guys who've appeared in a number of episodes and they're all coming this summer or fall or possibly next winter depends what fails it's really just a big pot shot to NBC from Community I mean for the last few years the network hadn't had that much faith in the show and season 5 was still not a ratings darling I mean it never reached the series low of 2.32 million viewers That season 4 hit but it got close with a season low of 2.5 million viewers despite the Press surrounding Dan Harmon's return the show's seeming popularity still wasn't showing on the rating side of things which is why on May 9th 2014 not quite a month after season 5 came to an end NBC announced that they would not renew Community for a sixth season Community was cancelled this was not a drill this was not a lie NBC decided not to pick up the show and fans were undoubtedly devastated this might just be The Darkest Timeline Community was once added to a killer roster of Thursday night NBC programming back in 2009 but now it was the latest to Fall Away the office and 30 Rock ended back in 2013 13 and while parks and wreck was still on it was only going to go for one more season the devastation rocked the fan base especially considering just how close they were to the prophesized six seasons in a movie I mean we already have five seasons why not push for just one more so the fandom did what the fandom did and campaigned endlessly for the show to be renewed for just one more season at the very least for them there was a potential light at the end of the tunnel because Sony Pictures TV the production company behind the show was shopping it out to other places to potentially get the goahead on season 6 for weeks discussions were held with Hulu who already had an online deal for the previous Seasons perhaps they'd be the perfect place to house new episodes in the coming year everything was hinging on a ticking clock however something needed to be ironed out before the end of June because that's when the cast contracts were set to expire but how the situation ultimately resolved wound up being completely unexpected while Hulu was the front runner to potentially take on the next season of the show there were Financial Logistics that were making the show's Revival a little complicated there so instead right at the end of June an entirely different party leaped into the fry and that party was Yahoo yeah Yahoo the second half of all trustworthy email addresses and one of the many who tried to get into the search engine game as it turns out they were also trying to get into the streaming game with Netflix taking off there was plenty of money to be made from this industry and Yahoo wanted to get in on the ground floor so they established Yahoo screen an ambitious streaming service willing to spend some money specifically on a show with a built-in audience what show is better at filling that bill than Community which meant that fans could Rejoice the news was made official Community wasn't dead just yet it was coming back for its predestined sixth season Dan Harmon was coming back Chris McKenna was coming back the central cast was also coming back the first half of the prophecy was going to come true 13 more episodes were on their way community was going to get six seasons and the excitement that that generated was felt all the way to ComicCon where once again the cast and writers held an hour-long panel to tease the future of community the future they all thought would never happen the rules were going to be slightly different this year but overall fans could rest easy it was still going to be the same old Community just online which Dan Harmon joked was how people were watching the show anyway it's just that this time it' be legal on top of that the hour held plenty of reminiscence for season 5's best moments and gags which naturally led into the upcoming release of the season 5 DVD box set a box set including all 13 episodes a brief behind the scenes documentary on the gii Joe episode and a 6-minute blooper reel featuring some of the funniest cast moments but soon enough eyes would turn to the Future at Greendale as one September rolled around writing commenced for the sixth season which would bring back plenty of the main cast but not everyone John Oliver wasn't going to return instead spending time on his HBO show Jonathan Banks wasn't going to come back as he was filming for Better Call Saul and another original C member was going to be stepping away IET Nicole Brown wound up leaving the show in September to deal with a family emergency meaning surely Bennett would not be part of season 6's proceedings at least not in a major capacity because the door was open for a potential Cameo appearance to explain where the character was going to be but season 6 would feature some new blood as well just before production began on the sixth season padet Brewster and Keith David joined the cast as new regulars which is fun because both of them had appeared in the show before padet Brewster was Deborah the it lady in season 5 and Keith David narrated the pillows and blankets documentary episode from season 3 not long after Martin Mull and Leslie and Warren joined the cast as Brit's parents which dovetailed nicely into the November 17th start date for production season 6 was underway but there was a slight difference in production this year from previous years while all five previous seasons filmed at Paramount Studios in Hollywood this time around the show filmed at CBS Radford which is a huge collection of sound stages but the exact location this show was filming at was described as being more like a basement or parking garage so at the very least filming was underway and it took them into the new year 2015 and this is where promotion really kicked off when mid January rolled around the first promo for for season 6 hit the internet featuring plenty of members of the cast and Creator Dan Harmon talking directly to the camera and announcing That season 6 of community would debut on Yahoo screen on March 17th they were even joined by newcast member padet Brewster to promote some of the new Blood season 6 was going to feature also unlike most other streaming shows Community was going to release episodes weekly none of this drop a whole season at once stuff although there was going to be one significant difference for season 6's schedule the show's new episodes wouldn't be released on Thursdays anymore instead new episodes would pop up on Yahoo every Tuesday so mark your calendars Tuesdays are when we go back to school every week promotion really kicked off a bit later though with a full trailer for the new season a trailer that is designed and edited as a very clear homage to the first trailer for Avengers Age of Ultron I'm going to show you something beautiful I'm going to show you something beautiful it's filled with jokes gangs and epic music to sell this as being something far bigger and more significant than it is but Community was coming back season 6 was on its way and fans could not be more excited Community age of Yahoo as different as it was that the show was going to release on an entirely different platform and that a lot of the cast wasn't going to feature heavily this time it was still what fans ultimately wanted more community and half of the fulfilled hashtag although it's worth noting that if the hashtag is to be followed to the letter this will be the last season of The Beloved show but that's not the only evidence to suggest that this might be it for Community because the cast contracts were set to expire after 6 years if they were to be called back for a season 7 Things would get expensive not to mention some of the cast were already starting to break out and find other work outside of community this might be the conclusion of the show but it is still 13 more episodes and I for one I'm excited to spend just that much more time at Greendale after nearly a year away after the show was quite literally cancelled then saved from the brink of death the time had come for more the clock had turned to March 17th 2015 so get out your backpacks and fill them to the brim with pens and pencils or teaching supplies because Jeff's a teacher now and get ready for the last first day back to school one by one they just [Music] [Applause] away you know The Season's off to a good start when the opening episode is titled ladders and features the return of greendale's greatest class ladders we want to see the ladders professor go welcome back ladders it's almost like you were never gone but even though greendale's greatest class might be back there is no denying that season six of this show is a fair bit different than the seasons before it for one thing the lighting's different it feels a little flattered this year maybe as a result of the change of filming locations the change of filming locations also means there are pillars in the cafeteria pillars that weren't there in any of the previous Seasons there existence is explained in the very first scene of the Season which sees the roof over the cafeteria collapse due to an abundance of Frisbees frisbees that have been collecting up there since Leonard was a young guy coming to Greendale computery College back in the [Music] day like tear in Rain what another difference this year is that every episode is longer given the Advent of this being being a streaming show now it isn't strictly confined to 22-minute episodes instead there are a couple of 24-minute episodes some 27 minute episodes the show even gets up to 30 minutes one week while it is fun to spend just that much more time at Greendale week to week it also might hurt the season in some ways by sacrificing the Rhythm the show was really able to achieve with its tightly crafted 22-minute episodes but by far the biggest difference this year is the cast sure there are plenty of returning characters like Jeff Annie brida Abed Chang and the dean as well as a whole bunch of Side characters that reappear but you really feel the absence of the missing cast members mainly because there are so many this year Pierce Troy Shirley Duncan hickey all significant characters that aren't around anymore which is exemplified every episode because the opening credits now have empty slides where former cast members names would be it makes you aware at the start of every episode that a lot of the regulars have left at the very least Shirley's absence is explained Away by having her start a fake spin-off show called The Butcher and the baker which sees her taking care of a wheelchair bound detective so that's fun and we do have some strong new characters joining the cast this year Keith David joins the festivities as Elroy pachnik a smart guy who never quite made it in the business of computers and is now taking time at Greendale to figure out what he does next and it's great to see Keith David take off on this more comedic role he's a welcome presence in every scene but by far the season's unsung hero is none other than padet Brewster as Frankie Dart Frankie is awesome she's a straight laced administrative professional a complete opposite to what the school scene so far but that winds up working really well not only does her more serious attitude create some laughs but when the facade breaks every once in a while and she becomes just as crazy as everyone else that's also equally fun funny I mean take this moment where she calls the dean an idiot I'm sorry I am so sorry but you're so stupid you have no idea and you're the only one who has no idea because guess why don't answer that you'll get it wrong oh so dumb anyone else would make that a very mean moment where Frankie would just relentlessly deride the dean for being an idiot which he is but padet Brewster plays it apologetically she just can't stop saying that the dean's an idiot and she feels terrible about it it's just a Cascade of insults followed by apologies and it's played really well and at least in padet Brewster's case the show makes subtle reference to the fact that she briefly played the it lady last season I am trying to find the it lady my emails tour get bounced back to me in Aramaic and when I call I hear an undulating high-pitched whistle that makes my nose bleed well sounds like a bad it lady right overall despite the major shifts in the cast this season the show does its best to stay afloat and create new moments and ideas to latch on to and a lot of that is thanks to you guessed it the new and returning writers and directors returning to script writing Duties are Dan Harmon Chris McKenna Alex Rubin Monica padrick Carol colb Matt roller Ryan Ridley and Dan Gman who are all joined by new writers Matt lton Dean young clay laari Mark stean and Briggs Hatton then of course we have returning director Jay Chandra acar Victor Nelly Jr Adam Davidson and Rob shrap the latter of whom directs six of this season's 13 episodes along with newcomers Bobcat gold which is a great name and two episodes directed by The Duo Jim Rash and Nat Faxon that's right Dean Pelton gets a directing credit on two episodes this year both of which heavily feature the dean the first one lawn mower maintenance and postnatal Care sees the dean get addicted to a virtual viral reality machine he really gets convinced that he can manipulate worlds it's crazy Jesus wh and the other queer studies in advanced waxing sees the dean get admitted to the school board on the condition that he comes out as gay the dean sexuality has been a big topic on the show so far but as he himself says gay is only a part of his particular pie gay doesn't include Dalmatians but for a brief moment he has to be openly gay to be on the school board which does feature a fun rendition of Jolene by Dolly Parton this time titled gay dean gay de g g gay I'm begging you to be G for the school Bo despite all the differences this year though there is one aspect of the sixth season that has been true throughout the entire run of the show Community has a lot of fun with its product tie-ins KFC when a beos in season 2 Subway being a literal person in season 3 and now Community takes on Honda by insinuating there's a gorilla marketing campaign at Greendale to sell Honda vehicles and who's doing the Gorilla Marketing none other than Subway although he's not working for Subway anymore so now he goes by his real name Rick and once again brida Falls madly in love with him Community always has a blast with these tiin like sure this is an entire episode that is essentially an advertisement for Honda but it is also constantly making fun of the fact that it is an advertisement for Honda which inadvertently makes it a not bad advertisement for Honda stop the Honda Rick do you hear me use a light press of your foot to engage the highly responsive antiock brakes of this incredible vehicle now it's especially effective for the dean who winds up being a level seven susceptible and that's serious hell even Billy Zayn's here he's Rick's boss trying to recruit brida to also be a gorilla marketer for Honda but what really sells his appearance here is his attempts to vanish after a conversation just like Batman the difference being this guy doesn't quite have the same stealth factor that Batman does oh my where did he go not to mention separate from the show there was a full-on Honda commercial featuring Jim Rash and Danny py in character as Dean Pelton and AED community and Honda who would have th it there are some Bells you can't un ring but if you're going to face your own inner self I say do it in a Honda why do you keep mentioning Honda they approached me the people I drive home are a small but hard-to-reach demo new episodes of Community Tuesday days on Yahoo screen who the hell was that I didn't hear anything are you okay but even with the fun moments populating season 6 there is one detriment to the season overall and that's the fact that there isn't really a serialized aspect to the season I mean the show's always been episodic but there were long running character and story ideas in each of the previous Seasons that kept longtime fans engaged over the entire season Jeff and Brit sexual chemistry in season 1 City College trying to take over Greendale in season 2 Chang becoming a dictator in season 3 but there's nothing like that this year each episode is entirely self-contained it's just a collection of characters doing wacky things at a community college every week which results in a mixed bag of episodes some good some not as good Laws of Robotics and party rights isn't one of the show's best episodes it tells the story of a handful of prisoners gaining access to the school to assist in their Rehabilitation access via iPads on Segway grifting 101 is also not one of the show's best but it does feature Matt Barry and it's always a lot of fun to see Matt Barry some of his line deliveries are top tier you hit me with a woman's hand you Midwestern Floy I lived in New York but one of my personal favorite gags from him in this episode is when he does a play on the phrase good show while talking to someone on the phone good show good show what show I haven't seen that show all right all the best it's a subtle little thing but I like it a lot then you have some of the mid-range episodes like basic crisis room decorum which sees the characters try and fight back against a City College attack ad against Greendale it's also the show's 100th episode so that's fun intro to recycled Cinema sees the group create a purposefully bad but weirdly compelling sci-fi movie Basic RV repair in palmistry sees the group go on a road trip with a giant fiberglass hand no elaboration needed and basic email security has the single best insight into Chang's current and former role in the group's Dynamic this was a study group yeah Chang was our teacher what that's right and frankly haven't been well utilized since season 6 also brings back one of the show's most familiar Staples that's right in one of the final episodes of the season Community brings back paintball and it's it's all right modern Espionage is kind of emblematic of the whole season really it has a lot of familiar ideas and some fun moments but it doesn't quite reach the heights of previous Seasons I mean the fact that this paintball match is played mostly in secret means that the entire school doesn't get destroyed this time which makes sense on a budget level but part of the fun of the early paintball episodes is that the whole school got turned into a post-apocalyptic war zone but there are a couple of action movie references specifically to the works over at Marvel for one thing the opening credits pay homage to the closing credits of the first Iron Man movie and the dean even gets his own elevator fight like in Captain America the Winter Soldier a movie directed by Community regulars Joe and Anthony [Music] Russo but while season 6 might not reach the highs of previous Seasons there are times where the show really comes through especially in the penultimate episode wedding videography it's also the fourth documentary episode fifth if you count the pillows and blankets episode and this episode sees the group attend Garrett's wedding that's right Garrett's getting married to a brand new character named Stacy and this episode is filled with tons of bits we get to see every member of the group experience this wedding in their own unique way we also see Todd give a very strange speech about how he might be God while he's officiating the wedding that's crazy but Elroy has to be the funniest character in this episode in a bit that solidifies him in the Greendale Hall of Fame this episode sees Elroy be addicted to encouraging white people meaning he spends his time at this wedding just telling every white person there that they're doing great because so often they only hear that they're doing bad oh now that's the way to handle meatball and look at you working that as barar but it all builds to the ultimate punchline of the episode after the vows are solidified and the reception is taking place the two newlyweds discover a horrifying fact Stacy's grandmother and Garrett's great aunt are the same person a revelation to which Elroy has the perfect response now this is a man that knows how to marry his cousin that's just an all timer I mean the end tag of this episode is also great it actually breaks tradition for the show because instead of featuring an in Universe bit often featuring some of the main characters it instead centers on this episode's writer Briggs Hatton and he proudly proclaims that he is the man who wrote the community incest episode good work Briggs Hatton wow what an episode of community but while the season is 99% episodic with the status quo resetting by the time the credits roll on each episode there is one slightly serialized aspect to The Season's story it's not huge but it is pretty much the only thing that carries over multiple episodes and that's Jeff's slow realization that he will probably never leave Greendale he graduated 2 years ago but even then he's still stuck on this campus everyone else gets to leave eventually hell Pierce even got to die but Jeff Jeff's going to be at Greendale maybe forever and that daunting realization is is what takes us right into the season's final episode an episode aptly titled emotional consequences of broadcast television after a relatively mixed bag of a season it's almost a bit of a surprise that the final episode is actually one of the show's greatest ever even with Dan Harmon's return Community never quite reached the highs it had back in the first three seasons hell AED even started referring to the first 3 years at Greendale as the golden age but here right at the end of season 6 this team manages to pull off something special which is also fitting because this is not just the final episode of season 6 it's also the final episode of community when season 5 was on the air there was a fair amount of confidence that the show had survive to season 6 I mean Dan Harmon was back the ratings were relatively consistent the prophecy only for told of one more season so what's one more even the finale has a slight air of confidence and an air of we'll be back but the truth is they almost weren't it was a last minute save from Yahoo that brought Community back and so now this year the finale has none of the confidence of season 5 instead it's content in the fact that this is probably going to be the end and that idea is exemplified when it turns out several characters are going to be leaving Greendale Elroy got a job working at LinkedIn to find out why no one uses LinkedIn Annie's gotten an inter ship for the FBI after having spent a couple years studying forensics and AED got a job in Los Angeles to finally kick off his movie making career which of course will leave Jeff behind as one of the sole survivors of the group and the episode plays with perhaps the most fitting concept for a finale it sees each member of the group along with Chang and the dean pitching their ideas for what season 7 could look like and each pitch is a perfect representation of how each member sees the group or at least how they want to see the group AED pitches the basic formula of the show Breaking Down how it all works Frankie pitches a show that is entirely proper and formal Chang is insane so that makes its way in he even pitches a brand new character Ice Cube head brda proposes that Greendale become a sovereign island nation which fights on a global scale for her strong political beliefs the dean's pitch brings back Shirley and Elroy as well as a third black character who since there isn't enough room around the table they sit on a stool and stare blankly in the background progress another fun tidbit in this episode is that given that it is the last episode of the season the writers kind of pull off the handrails and by that I mean they swear yeah but isn't that more about the shape of your brain I bet I mean no offense or anything but isn't the shape of your brain kind of [ __ ] up well guess what Senator you are allowed to call us terrorists before we move to international waters but we're a nation now so I guess this is [ __ ] War but the emotional core of this episode lies with Jeff given the news of the various departures around him he has to Grapple with the fact that he isn't leaving with them he pitches several times one featuring him left behind with community's various Side characters and even Seth Green another pitch sees him trying to contrive away so that everyone can stay at Greendale with him hell he even envisions a future where he's murdering an endless sad of AED clones but the lesson he has to learn is that things change and grow things can't remain stagnant which is also as AED eloquently States a larger metaphor for TV itself and it needs to be okay for it to have a bad day or phone in a day and it needs to be okay for it to get on a boat with Lavar Burton and never come back because eventually it all will ultimately this finale is kind of speaking to the audience and saying it's time to let Community go the fan B had been so passionate over the years to keep the show alive and while that was greatly appreciated you know it's what got the show this far it doesn't need to go any further and after fully grappling with this idea Jeff finally comes to terms with his status as the guy who's going to stay behind at Greendale and he pays a heartfelt goodbye to everyone specifically Annie the shows played a lot with the chemistry of Jeff and Annie ever since the show's ninth episode back in season 1 and while you can criticize the age Gap for being problematic their final scene together is a heartfelt one and it brings together the ultimate point of the entire show the story that Dan Harmon began telling all the way back in 2009 that this show is about a guy who initially couldn't care less but because of this odd collection of characters his heart would grow three times its size which leads to the final scene where Jeff drops Annie and AET off at the airport and this is a moment that always gets me because just as he's saying goodbye by Jeff gives Abed a brief farewell hug before letting him go but then he hugs Abed a second time it's the second hug that does it even thinking about it now like we were introduced to the show through these two characters it's arguably the longest lasting bond in the whole show and seeing them go their separate ways hits hard even for these characters ultimately however AED and Annie strike out on their own as Jeff returns to the remaining members of the save Greendale committee as we fade out with one simple hashtag and a movie it wouldn't be an episode of community without an end tag though and this has to be one of the funniest it sees a family of four playing the community sixth edition board game but during their session they find the script for this very tag they discover that they are a fictional family made for a joke ad at the end of the season 6 finale for a fake board game this means we don't exist we're not created by God created by a joke we were never born and we will never actually live and the whole thing caps off with a vain Chuck Lori S Grant from Dan Harmon about the show and its varying degrees of quality all posited as a safety disclaimer for the board game contains pieces the size of a child's esophagus and that's it that's the end of community SE 6 might not be the best season of the show but it still packs in plenty of funny jokes introduces fun new characters to The Ensemble and It ultimately comes together with a great finale I mean an episode where the characters pitch what season 7 might look like how else could you end a show like this not to mention the fact that the finale is both funny and heartfelt it's all you could really ask for from the final 30 minutes of community you're laughing you're satisfied but also you're crying but would the show eat its word would there be a season 7 well no as mentioned the actor's contracts had expired by now and some of them were starting to Branch off and star in other shows it was going to be much harder and much more expensive to call everyone back for a seventh season not to mention community's new home Yahoo screen stopped existing after a while that explains why you probably haven't heard of it the whole thing went defunct in 2016 and the company kind of sort of blamed Community for it while there were a couple factors involved in Yahoo screens demise specifically that it was a Yahoo streaming service there have still been plenty of jokes about how Community single-handedly killed an entire platform and that's funny but with six seasons all said and done and the DVD for season 6 hitting shelves in March of 2016 including a behind the scenes featurette on the finale and a new six-minute blooper reel there's only one question left to ask where's the movie the hashtag isn't just six Seasons it's six seasons and a movie so where is it every once in a while Dan Harmon would pop back out into the blogosphere to tease the potential of a community movie but for years it was nothing more than just a possibility the movie was never confirmed nothing was ever put in motion so despite the fervent fan demand during the show's run as the years went on and the show fell further and further back in the rear viw mirror so did the excitement and drive for a community movie at a certain point you'd be forgiven for saying it was likely never going to happen but if there's one thing you can say about this show it's that it's resilient a couple years ago things started to change as the years have gone on community has been able to maintain and even grow a cold following plenty of people like myself have picked up on the show after its conclusion videos have been popping up online sharing people's glowing Praise of the show's best moments why season 4 sucks and why it still manages to grab viewers to this day not to mention in 2019 to celebrate the show's 10th anniversary most of the cast United for an hourong vulture panel where they shared their favorite moments reminisced about the show's history and of course teased the potential future but things really started moving in 2020 as everyone was locked inside during quarantine all six seasons of the show wound up on Netflix meaning the show was more accessible than ever and while the DND D episode was pulled from Netflix because of blackface it managed to give the show a huge surge of popularity a whole new generation of fans were introduced to the characters the jokes and the insane world of Greendale and as part of a charity event the cast United over Zoom for a table read of the Season 5 polygraph episode yes even Donald Glover was there joining Danny py and doing the trademark Troy and AED handshake but it also featured Pedro Pascal in the role of Mr Stone given that Walton Goggins was on available but Pedro Pascal was great and it was especially funny seeing him trip up on the lines where Mr Stone bequeathed Pierce Hawthorne's sperm canisters I also leave you this I also leave you I also leave you this liquid nitrogen cooled cylinder all of this gave the series a huge boost in popularity it had found a second life on and for the very first time real discussion started happening on the highly anticipated movie until finally in September of 2022 The Impossible happened after 7 years off the air the community movie was finally green lit set for streaming on peacock that's right folks the entire prophecy not just the first half is going to come true we no longer live in The Darkest Timeline Community is going to come back with most of the main cast returning Joel mcale is back along with Gillian Jacobs Allison Brie Danny py IET Nicole Brown Jim Rash Ken Jong and as confirmed in April of 2023 Donald Glover will also reprise his role as Troy Barnes It's been a long time coming for Community fans and it's still a long ways out you know things were delayed by last year's wga and sag after strikes but filming is set to begin sometime this Year we're all going back to Greendale for one final trip with our favorite gang of community college students throughout all its ups and downs Community is a truly unique television show it defied all logic to be both standard and ambitious at the same time it journeyed to different genres it told a whole variety of jokes and it even survived death more than once sure it might have some missteps here and there but by and large community is one of the best half-hour sitcoms it's clever it's funny it's emotional it gets melancholic at times and every season offers something a bit different you start with a standard and funny sitcom which explodes into some of the best half hours on television and builds into a more ambitious show week to week as it goes and as much as the series finale is kind of about letting the show go because it's so good as an episode it makes the show feel like it can be rewatched endlessly every time you start Community from episode one again you know that there will be bumps in the road but you'll ultimately come to a solid conclusion and it's for that reason and many other reasons that this show still survives and still thrives even 9 years off the air it's been almost a decade since Community ended and yet the characters the jokes everything has managed to live on I for one greatly enjoyed my six-year stay at Greendale I enjoyed revisiting my favorite episodes my favorite jokes and the intense and crazy behind the scenes chaos that motivated the show at every step and I hope that if you haven't seen the show before this video has maybe convinced you to give it a shot because there's a lot to enjoy the more of us that are there when the movie drops the better I just got to figure out how I'm going to watch it in Canada I I'll figure it out but for now I have graduated from Greendale Community College after studying nothing but TV for 6 years AED would be proud and now it's time to start working on my next retrospective I got to go pick up an Xbox controller I just found this big old ring in space so I think I got to look into that until then however this will be the end of this video and I will see you guys [Music] later [Music] [Applause] [Music]

Channel: Prime's Theater

Views: 706,070

Keywords: Prime, of, Grammar

Id: nXe4iINPZKs

Length: 218min 57sec (13137 seconds)

Published: Sat Feb 03 2024