Community: Full Series Retrospective

[Music] the following is an in-depth series analysis if you haven't seen community you may want to before watching this video you all came to this community college after your lives fractured pill addiction failed legal career broken marriage lost scholarship old enough i don't want to hear mine community is a rare type of sitcom ostensibly trading on the rising star power of the hangover's kenjong and the fading star power of karate dog's chevy chase the series became an unlikely launch pad for a number of careers show writer dan harmon would go on to create rick and morty as well as become a fairly prominent figure in the podcasting world he's a rare example of a showrunner that became a minor celebrity in his own right and an even rarer example of one that became famous for being liked instead of hated season two paintball finale directors joe and anthony russo would be tapped to direct the biggest film franchise in history with winter soldier civil war infinity war and endgame all bearing their name as far as the cast most went on to lead their own series throughout the 2010s alison bree with glow gillian jacobs with love and dr ken with dr ken and of course do i need to state the obvious the undisputed breakout star who is now a household name joel mchale is the bad guy in ted but for all the stars it made the journey was turbulent near cancellations actual cancellations hot-swapping showrunners and major cast member departures sometimes the finished product is so fantastic you'd never know there was drama behind the scenes other times the backstage chicanery is all too apparent still no sign of a movie on the horizon but we've got six seasons to take a look at let's pick up our history credit this is community the state bar has suspended my license they found out my college degree was less than legitimate well i thought you had a bachelor's from columbia and now i have to get one from america community follows the misadventures of sorry manly adventures of seven students at the less than prestigious greendale community college sleazy lawyer jeff winger must complete four years of remedial classes after getting sacked for holding a fake bachelor's degree jeff tries to trick activist airhead brita perry into a date under the pretense of joining his study group of one but when she takes it on herself to invite a number of other classmates in need of a tutor jeff finds himself running an actual study group the pilot it's an interesting novelty when you're already a fan of the show going back to see how everyone met what the characters were initially like before the writers and actors found their footing it's intriguing however when you're brand new to the series you're probably just gonna wonder what all the fuss is about introducing audiences to jeff six study group members and professor ian duncan as a lot of ground to cover in 20 minutes jeff set maximum scumbag levels to tee up his arc of discovering his humanity which can be off-putting some characters are introduced through solid jokes others kind of info dump backstory out of time-crunching necessity it's a mixed bag you already know brittles uh abed abed the arab is that inappropriate sure and finally this beautiful creature is named shirley is that even close the main cast in addition to jeff and britta consists of abed and on the spectrum movie buff annie an overachiever who blew her chance at the ivy league unaccounted for pill popping troy the washed up high school quarterback in annie's not so secret crush shirley a christian mother and recent divorcee and lastly pierce the apotheosis of baby boomers after the pilot community works its way through a series of six episodes each one pairing jeff off with a different member of the cast it's a solid way to introduce us to the characters one by one as well as help the writers get a feel for which characters will naturally collaborate with each other and which characters will clash pierce and jeff team up for a class project and it's apparent that pierce wants to be as cool as jeff but can't decide if the better way to accomplish that is to suck up to jeff or try and tear jeff down what are you going as a gay douche bag just kidding nice one i'm not much of a costume guy no no you're not much of a liking ladies guy either huh jeff becomes a surrogate father to abed after abid's dad stops paying for his classes abed seems somewhat aware they are in a tv show and is able to predict the sorts of emotional arcs and scenarios jeff will be going through shirley and jeff bond through gossip and snark directed at other students which helps the two blow off steam but also stunts their development into better human beings jeff gets britta off the hook for cheating on a test emphasizing that wolbrita often makes a show of appearing to do the right thing jeff is the sort of guy who begrudgingly will actually do the right thing blackmailed by the dean jeff talks troy into joining the football team troy's optimism and lack of shame about where he is now versus where he was in high school mirrors the journey jeff is on now's not the time to worry about who you used to be now's the time to make the most of where you are jeff and annie are the last to be paired off first in the halloween episode introduction to statistics and shortly after with the episode debate 109. if you ask people when the growing pains for community ended and the show first hit its stride the answer will usually be either introduction to statistics or debate 109 at that point commander riker is no longer clean-shaven the show's beard is fully grown and the rest of the season is home run after home run he was horny so he dropped him i'm not saying that the episodes preceding debate 109 where we get to meet the contestants were bad just that the show wasn't firing on all cylinders the jeff a plots were mostly solid but the b stories were mostly filler forgettable generic and lacking any real laugh out loud moments with the big exception of professor duncan's waiting room freakout experiment the soul train awards were tonight you promised buster i barely remembered annie and shirley hosting a protest abut not understanding pranks or brita being too ra ra feminist to make ladies room small talk because no parts of those b stories are all that funny pierce is far and away the worst offender what's that one episode where pierce claims to have some sort of professional skill but doesn't but is too proud to admit it if you're struggling to narrow it down that's because there's actually four of them claims he's a hypnotist claims he's a songwriter claims he's a mascot designer and claims he's a public speaking coach it took the writers longer to get a handle on how to utilize chevy chase's talents than it did for most of the characters he's obviously a master of comedic delivery and gets destroyed his stuff as the series progresses but in the early days we get a lot of funny man fall down go boom oh god with debate 109 the show really enters the golden era on top of whip smart writing and characters the audience has come to know and like in record time community has mastered the rising action and each third act is a spectacle season one community episodes don't just end they pay off in explosive ways fights and dance numbers and musical numbers surprisingly moving heart to hearts that strike the perfect balance between saccharin and snide even when the resolutions are more low key than dazzling community still has a good habit of wrapping up with the biggest punchline of the night the std awareness fair that's been passing out defective rubbers all night and abed's very poor choice of words to alert the campus gets me every single time don't use the condoms if you're going to have sex tonight don't use condoms the rising action of each episode lends an infectious energy to every plot with the glorious payoffs making the audience feel like they just watched an event episode which brings me to the actual event episodes the series would soon become known for the two style parody episodes of season one contemporary american poultry an episode long goodfellas homage and modern warfare the first of many greendale paintball action flicks the latter quite literally ends in an explosive payoff community was never a stranger to pop culture references and there were plenty of sequences and b stories that were outright homages but these two episodes were the first instances of what i'll dub style parodies these episodes go all in on the bit while at the same time the writers endeavor to elevate the adventure above references for reference's sake by tying the heightened reality to a grounded emotional core contemporary american poultry explores abed's inability to connect with people and by converting the entire campus into one big movie he finds he can connect with people by drawing them into his world keep that in mind because we'll see abed employ this trick more tactically again in future seasons modern warfare was already an event in and of itself with the action movie direction villains plotting in shadowy rooms on top of the campus just getting completely trashed you're not even a student wrong critical media literacy and politics of gender [ __ ] but this is also the episode where the will they won't they of jeff winger and brita perry comes to a head they do the first season of community handles romance with a lot more levity than its contemporaries but there were still genuine moments of flirting pining heartbreak and emotional growth jeff and brita hooking up in the middle of something as trivial as a game of paintball makes the painful match feel more significant and serious which in turn makes it even funnier please tell me you didn't have sex with me to win a paintball no i had sex with you and now i'm gonna win it paintball don't be gross following the paintball showdown and the ousting of lunatic teacher senor chang as yet another person with a fake bachelor's degree we come to the last of five dances this year i attended the mall i got my free t-shirt brita announces she's in love with jeff when she fears he's going to hook back up with his ex professor slater it's not exactly the greatest love triangle of 2010 because slater is basically a nothing character whose only purpose was to have jeff throw himself at her to show he's lost his mojo please sleep with me please pretty please i'm so lonely i haven't slept with anyone in a very long time and you are so good looking please do me the favor of having sex with me if you're struggling with the ladies might want to give that one a try fellas that move's almost as reliable as the naked man however brita and slater is not the real triangle of the finale jeff freezes up walks out on both then starts knocking on the teenage annie funnily enough by throwing that curveball community ended on a note that generated more will they won't they pop culture buzz in five seconds then overwrought sitcoms heavily focused on will they won't die dynamics were able to conjure up it's one last end of episode show stopper for the road on top of that chang takes professor duncan to task for his barbs throughout the season and troy decides to move in with pierce instead of abba next year it's an interesting meta nod to the behind the scenes circumstances that led to troy and abed becoming best friends the original outline for the season had pierce and troy winding up as a pair their shared juvenile sense of humor allowing them to join forces despite the age difference for those of you who don't know sitcoms actually have fairly grueling shooting schedules and there were special circumstances that made community shooting schedule even more nightmarish that i'll get to later so when it came time to film credits gags the story is that danny pooty and donald glover were frequently the only two main cast members willing to stick around after hours to throw something together after the mid-season break the writers incorporated the budding relationship we've seen through the end tags and the rest is history in the morning handling the sexual dynamics between characters with even the slightest hint of importance imbues the first season of community with a unique flavor along with the more grounded nature of the storylines and the college campus being an actual setting that informs the character arcs as opposed to the one big implausible zaniness backdrop it becomes it's a bittersweet send-off because while the show's best year is coming up next it's also the end of an era season one of community is a comfy watch if you've ever been stuck in an undesirable job living situation or you know college it's a refreshing look at making the most of a bad situation learn grow change enjoy every odd moment of unexpected happiness that situation can provide because it's going to end someday and the whole experience becomes one big sand mandela that gets swept away that's the first season of community and it's great on to the next i guess i'm just excited about the new year looking for ways to improve things i'm hoping we can move away from the soapy relationshipy stuff and into bigger fast-paced self-contained escapades the premiere of season two spells out the intention of the series going forward if you were here for the shipping and the love triangles and the will they won't days there are plenty of other shows out there for you community goes full bore into becoming as funny as humanly possible as exemplified by the writers taking the big cliffhanger of season 1 and turning the entire thing into one big joke oh my god you had premarital sex on the table oh [Applause] there's this anything for a laugh energy to season two not in the low brow or desperate way what i mean is that the hits don't stop coming razor sharp banter character-based gags clever pop culture references dumb pop culture references visual gags continuity gags all paired with ridiculously ridiculously raising mistakes i always enjoy pinpointing the first time in any sitcom with a seemingly mundane premise where the characters either commit a felony or are put in mortal peril the first felony comes courtesy of annie in episode 2 when she chloroforms a janitor during a break-in and the entire cast is almost killed in episode 6 when greendale becomes the epicenter of a zombie apocalypse a zombie apocalypse that is not another character's spec script or a dream or nothing it's real yeah season two community goes off the rails fast and it's glorious you have to destroy the brain the writers got a taste for style parody episodes at the end of season one and naturally the volume has increased there were only two episodes last season now it's almost half while some are just about being as funny as possible like the kfc space simulator or the conspiracy thriller that ends in jeff annie and the dean repeatedly staging each other's murders others imbue a surprising amount of heart to the proceedings by anchoring the insanity to a core character conflict abid stop-motion christmas therapy wonderland can still get me to well up even after all these years the my dinner with andre heart to heart has a touching but ultimately fake emotional core which is interesting advanced dungeons and dragons gives the low stakes tabletop game terrifyingly high stakes as pierce's meta gaming murder hobo antagonizes an emotionally fragile student i can't hear you over the sound of me rubbing his sword on my balls here's you you have successfully rubbed your balls on the sword that brings me to the first of three major character arcs this season here's the villain pierce steps into a villain role a number of times throughout the season going from someone who shoots his mouth off but is otherwise well-meaning to a manipulative vindictive and sinister figure integrating a character so outright villainous into a formerly cozy show seems to have rubbed some audiences the wrong way but i'm a big fan the only time i found him more abrasive than funny was in celebrity pharmacology other than that his scheming and backstabbing is so joyously evil that the joy is infectious pierce's comically monstrous actions throughout the season provide us with the emotional thrust of the finale prior to the year-ending paintball game the study group voted to kick pierce out annie was the lone holdout but even she jumped ship when pierce jealously attempts to get jeff eliminated from the game i'm so glad that we didn't shoot you now we have the tactical advantage of knowing that jeff winger wants to be a ballerina and that his achilles heel is wieners one reason pierce needs to step into the villain role is because a lot of these style parodies necessitate someone stand in as the corrupt sheriff saruman or guy with space madness and he's an easy fit but another reason is because the previous bad guy was dethroned at the end of season 1. senor chang is an interesting case study he was the most over the top character in season 1 but still an understandable character he stumbled his way into the tiniest possession of authority and went mad power tripping in what's known as internet moderator syndrome in season 3 he will return to a modest position of authority as a security guard though by that time the writers have transformed him into an utter lunatic maybe it was crazy or maybe i was finally sane why is this going to keep staring at me and season four we'll get to and then in the final two seasons chang is a generic non-sequitur machine so season 2 is kind of a limbo season for him the once prideful and powerful chang has been kicked to the gutter and is desperately trying to warm his way into the group some people outright hate the consistency of him seeing season 2 in particular as a massive mishandling of the character there's certain elements i take issue with most notably how chang has gone from master paintball assassin to the worst player in the game between seasons which always irked me more than i know it should but for the most part his presence is still a boon to the show chang is much funnier than andy from the office a similar character in that they were both really amusing and effective villains who got a justly deserved comeuppance in their first season but then came back the next season as a completely different pathetic character it's a low bar to clear though positive cancer diagnoses are funnier than late season andy i've worked out a way for them to reroute the power from the auxiliary battery reroute to what two out of three so far isn't bad but community does not land the hat trick on character arcs this season because our final contender is shirley it's pretty apparent that the writers rarely knew what to do with shirley throughout the series most likely boiling down to all the other characters being more organic for them to write for brita is gung-ho about social causes and annie is gung-ho about academics so they naturally kick off various plot lines troy can be sweet dumb or idiot dumb as needed to add heart or levity as needed and easily pairs off with abed for pop culture shenanigans jeff and abed are two sides of the dan harmon self-insert coin and pierce serves as the mouthpiece for edgelord jokes he still assumes i'm a terrorist if you're not i'm sorry and if you are i'm a hero i'm willing to take that chance you said i have a crafty jew brain nobody knows how to take a compliment anymore surely well what do you do with shirley i was disappointed they needlessly put the kibosh on jeff and shirley bonding over clandestinely chaffing the rest of the study group which made for one of the stronger early episodes shirley's repressed anger issues former alcoholism and capacity for bullying are the only facets that the writers get much mileage out of presumably because those are the aspects they can relate to i did a little research and from what i can tell few to none of the writers had kids at the time so they don't relate to the parent aspect when other characters end episodes on the beat i respect you surely because you're a strong single mother it rings very [ __ ] hollow and i didn't even waste my time researching if any of the writers are christian because they aren't in a season that makes a point to leave greendale so we can explore the outside lives of these characters it's telling that they never have the confidence to take shirley off campus for her big events we meet jeff's old law buddies at a work party we celebrate troy's birthday at a bar we see annie's miserable living situation but when shirley delivers her baby it's in the classroom shirley gets married it's in the study room shirley opens a business it's in the cafeteria it's very sitcomy and not in a wink-wink sort of way in a we don't really care sort of way it's a shame yvette nicole brown has great delivery and comedic timing she really makes the most of it when she gets something fun but unfortunately that isn't all that often her character sort of got what the makumaku called dirt roaded i almost feel left out well we've had our share of focus lately speak for yourself but why am i ending on a sour note season two is incredible definitely the strongest of the six and i will never ever get tired of re-watching it pierce saves the school from financial ruin but refuses the offer to return to the study group whatever they have is over and going into season three we know the study group will never be the same yeah right we have parted ways with our closest oldest craziest most racist oldest elderly crazy friend and he's not coming back i'm back [Applause] it turns out that the elderly character realizing he is a toxic influence and dramatically excising himself from the group in a heartfelt season two finale was actually part of an insincere ploy which is funny enough exactly what happens in harmon's next series rick and morty community season 3 sets about attempting to ground the series a hilarious endeavor knowing where the season will wind up and the first three episodes aren't exactly barn burners chang the security guard steals the show in all three they're grounded like the season one days sure but where season 1 episodes were kind-hearted journeys culminating in characters making positive discoveries these early season 3 episodes take more cynical arcs where the greendale 7 realize how self-absorbed and negative they are just when you fear community may be losing its mojo episode 4 rolls out remedial chaos theory remedial chaos theory follows every possible branching timeline created by a dice roll if you are not creating six different timelines of course i am my bad the episode expertly explores how the interpersonal dynamics of the group shift in the absence of a single character cleverly displaying how each member influences the group the funniest bit in the episode is that if troy leaves it sets off a cascade of events that ruins everyone's lives i'm a big sucker for science fiction focused on alternate realities wrestling with concepts like regret opportunity and erasing past mistakes by replacing your double so watching the end tag where the darkest timeline inhabitants plot to cross over to the real world i was practically giddy we are the evil study group and we have but one evil goal return somehow to the prime timeline the one that i stopped you from rolling that die then we destroy the good versions of ourselves and reclaim our proper lives remedial chaos theory is widely regarded as the greatest episode of the series and it more than proves dan harden and coast still have the moves going into season three that being said the wilder conceptual episodes are no longer shoe-ins and seem to have divided audiences this time around case in point is the episode virtual systems analysis aka the dreamatorium episode some counted among the best episodes of the series others call it a dud and unfortunately i've fallen to the latter camp the gist is that while troy and brita go to lunch to explore their budding feelings for each other annie will play with abid and his make-believe hollow deck annie challenges abba to consider other people's feelings ahead of his own causing a meltdown where abid disappears into his own simulation what follows is a heartfelt deep dive into the heavier emotional themes that have been simmering throughout the season with abed posing as various study group members to challenge ani's perception of the group's dynamics however this is also a guarded way for abed to express his own emotional turmoil or at least that's what the episode's going for few of the emotional beats landed for me because the writers never commit to one and stick with it feels like grasping at emotional straws or frantically changing lanes on the freeway to get where you're going as fast as possible first it's about abed fearing he'll become a third wheel of brita and troy pair off then it's about jeff and annie and the torch she's been carrying in secret then it's about abed being an inconvenience to the group that they would be better off without that last one could have worked if the show held abut accountable for some of his more selfish acts abid is more inherently likable than pierce but there's been a lot of occasions throughout the series where his antics were just as antagonistic it's only natural he'd fear the group was starting to resent him and want him gone just as pierce felt last season but the problem is in the execution well villain pierce episodes typically end with pierce being gloriously defeated for his wicked actions episodes where abed is manipulative or condescending tend to end on characters realizing they were in the wrong for ever questioning him and abed knew better all along gee we've seen that before so that undercuts the emotional core but the worst scene of the episode is it's just not that funny pierce has a few solid one-liners the dean's d plot is hilarious but the only real laugh in the a story comes from imaginary troy getting a dose of truth serum i love butt stuff i hate spiders i stole a pen from the bank i cried daring about a boy the soundtrack and don't get me started on the show's parody of doctor who i've seen skyscraper foundations less run into the ground at the same time as i'm ripping half the season i'm happy to declare that the other half is beyond incredible most of my top 10 favorite episodes in the series run come from season 3. the writers returned to some conceptual wells they tapped in season 2 and instead of being disappointing rehashes they are impossibly even better than what came before season two's documentary about pierce's hospital stay was an iconic episode but season three's documentary following the dean's descent into autur madness is a masterpiece if i ever managed to finish my old christmas tv series regional holiday music would have been the crown jewel abed's uncontrollable christmas takes the silver medal but regional holiday music is easily the best christmas special in television history and that's a hill i will absolutely die on greendale is an all-inclusive school why don't we let britta sing her awkward song last but not least the show does one more faux clip show a concept originally pioneered by the animated clerks series which is surprisingly a real thing this time the framing device is a visit to abed's new psychiatrist it is my favorite episode of the show specifically because of the ludicrous twist it takes in the third act when they learned greendale as a shared delusion and they've been in a mental asylum the whole time oh yes this fantastical community college where everything that happens is unbelievably ridiculous and it all revolves around you as a group when they pulled that stunt i was like okay this is probably one big joke but the show is likely not getting a fourth season and there's a one percent chance this might be real though of course the fake doctor was all part of the show's most absurd storyline in its entire run the first chang dynasty starting with the mid-season premiere chang has been plotting to kidnap the dean replace him with a body double and rule the school with an iron fist this culminates in another love it or hated episode due to the absurdly high stakes and complete departure from reality but this time i fall into the love at camp the study group pulled off an elaborate heist to rescue the dean in the process saving the lives of everyone on campus when chang nearly burns down the school and when the works accidentally go off when i hit the final note of my awesome kitar solo they'll burn up the school's records and all evidence of my misdeeds you're gonna burn down the school and kill everyone fire can't go through doors stupid it's not a ghost this episode's like a film negative of virtual systems analysis vsa was about taking a silly low stakes premise seriously or at least as seriously as community can the first chang dynasty is about raising the stakes to ridiculous levels but never taking it seriously your enjoyment is going to be predicated on if you can roll with the punches on the directions the writers took chang this year and if you found those changas to be actually funny this shit's getting too goofy for you i understand this is by far the goofiest the show ever goes which is saying something for a sitcom featuring a zombie apocalypse yeah i am interested in your matchbooks would you like to place an order i had to think fast yes part of the study group's heist involves troy finally joining the cult-like air-conditioning repair school the other major plot line running throughout the season the vice dean of the ac repair school played by the always welcome john goodman has been aggressively attempting to recruit troy who possesses an uncanny knack for blue collar work it's all played very sincere and very sweet for how inherently silly it is we get episodes examining how troy resents living in abed's shadow teases of a burgeoning relationship with brita and the apartment has become a main setting throughout the season so the audience feels the impact when troy is forced to leave for mandatory on-campus housing community was that one-of-a-kind show that could make a season-ending character-centric heartfelt moment out of something as stupid and implausible as a deadly hvac repair competition unfortunately it wouldn't stay that way for long i would have had too much leverage too much power too much salary as one of a lot of writers coming into season four so they just flushed us things behind the scenes over the past two years had gone from bad to worse on may 10 2012 community was renewed for a fourth season one week later dan harmon was notified that he would not be returning to helmet i mentioned earlier that sitcoms have a pretty grueling shooting schedule and that special circumstances made community even more arduous well those special circumstances have a name dan harmon as great as dan's finished product is it's pretty well known at this point that he was a nightmare to work with chevy chase is notoriously difficult to work with also so the two clashed frequently and those clashes were only exacerbated by harmon's drinking habit his procrastination and perfectionism also led to delays and production and though it didn't come to light until 2018 harmon had also been making inappropriate advances on one of the writers and then mistreated her after she rebuffed him all things considered i can understand the position that network suits were put in harmon's firing is one of the less egregious nbc screw-overs especially in the shadow of the whole conan and leno tonight show debacle that happened a few years prior it's uh stunning how uh jay leno outfoxed you again yeah he's good we'll never really know for certain what motivated the decision some people say harmon made his bed and he had to lie in it other people say nbc was just looking for any excuse to sack the guy the people nbc would really be screwing over were the viewers the showrunner position would be taken over by moses port and david jurassico the pair who wrote the it crowd no not that the i.t crowd this the i.t crowd let's talk about season four congratulations it's me huh i think we've all reinvented ourselves over the summer from the very first scene of season four it's apparent that something is very wrong this is by design the season opens with a dream sequence on abed's part abid is naturally afraid of change and since this is everybody's fourth and final year at greendale change is coming abid wants to retreat into the comfortable world of sitcoms where the status quo never changes in doing so fantasizing the terrible citicomized version of community fans were dreading with harman's departure that's a cute meta way to address the issue maybe this isn't gonna be so bad after all but as the episode goes on it's apparent that something is very wrong the final history class that the study group needs to graduate is overbooked so the dean invents a series of physical competitions to determine who will get enrolled this competition is appropriately titled the hunger deans and by appropriately titled i mean the title makes no sense the hunger games came out a year prior but i guess the writers did the freedberg and seltzer thing where you try to parody a movie without actually watching it the hunger games isn't about a bunch of various tests of skill it's a death match where even allies eventually turn on each other because only the last person standing is the prize like battle royale the bilco experiment squid game or an episode of the show community titled modern warfare and then abed abandons the sitcom element to do this whole muppet babies thing a skin crawling sequence that's not skin crawling in the way the writers intended this premiere is flat out awful it's a tale told by an idiot full of sound and pop culture references signifying nothing the shame of it is the character motivations are rock solid they're just poorly capitalized on jeff wants to graduate early but he's come to care about the group so he's gonna endeavor to take them along for the ride abed knows that change is coming and struggles to cope with it the dean knows jeff is about to leave greendale and hatches a scheme to delay his graduation pierce wants to make a joke about jeff fondling balls this is gonna be so good when i finally get it all these character arcs make perfect sense but we're forced to explore them through this hackneyed hunger dean presents robot jocks with abeds fred willard sitcom starring muppet babies superfluous pop culture parade in fact the fourth season is so afraid of ruining the characters that they wind up prohibitively slavish to their existing archetypes not a single risk is taken this season to push characters out of their comfort zones or explore unseen aspects of their lives the only two characters who are different are pierce and the dean the dean has gone from the lovable pansexual imp we knew him as and is now effectively stalking jeff moving in next door to him and just constantly harassing the guy it sucks to see the dean was a fun and oddly relatable part of the show even if the jokes often went a little too broad for my taste i think a lot of us have been on both sides of the coin at one point or another we've been the unwanted admirer failing to keep a lid in our feelings and we've had an unwanted admirer failing to keep a lid on their feelings seeing the dynamic played out in an exaggerated fashion was amusing but now instead of being exaggerated it's being taken in this creepy stalker direction it's borderline gay panic material how am i supposed to keep track of what you tell me in confidence and what i hear through your walls with a glass to my ear in an effort to appease chevy chase who already had his foot halfway out the door as the season began pierce now gets to play the wise mentor figure on a handful of episodes providing unexpected emotional support when characters are at their lowest point it's actually kind of sweet to see i liked a few of these moments it was not enough to tie chevy over though after four years of complaining about every aspect of the show other than his co-stars chevy left the series midway through production his absence is awkwardly hand-waved in a few episodes it's no fair professor cornwallis turned all hard-assed again lucky pierce donating his kidney to gilbert to get out of here yeah here's a better idea just don't mention him at all so that's it for pierce and pretty much it for chevy chase the actor a man with a number of classic films under his belt who made countless enemies in the industry given one last shot at redemption that he instead turned into one last shot to make a few more enemies can i just do cameos and soft reboots from now on and can we use a body double anytime my face is invisible okay great perfect the premiere is actually painful for me but the rest of the season is merely inoffensively bland i knew watching hack writers put on a puppet show with the marionette corpse of community was going to be a struggle for me so i actually did write down timestamps of every time season 4 made me laugh out loud i'm gonna show you them here's all three of them the first is when the dean claims he and jeff switched bodies freaky friday style it wasn't any one line in particular it was just how good jim rash is at affecting jeff winger's mannerisms that kind of chuckle out of me back in 1968 leonard got an a in rotary phone maintenance since then he's been taking every other class pass fail to keep a perfect gpa the other two were actual lines everyone's gonna know i'm a liar help me oh britta let me tell you a story about a friend of mine that everyone called the liar his name was bernie madoff i can tell you bullets one of us is it you yes the problem is i'm editing those both then go on to have the other character explain the joke afterward why would you say that what a dumb thing to say yeah i know that's why i laughed at it before you added that when i say the majority of the season was inoffensive the part i'm not talking about is brita and troy who are unceremoniously paired off after a whole year of flirting in season 3. i'm not upset with the mishandling of the two because i'm some big shipper or anything even in season 3 the pairing didn't exactly light my world on fire but the execution in the season is appalling the premier involves the two walking around campus holding hands and throwing coins into a wishing well together like they're in kindergarten and troy's obsession with abed and obvious desire to not hang out with brita makes him seem like a childish loser this is even more insulting since his whole thing with the air conditioning repair school was about discovering his own identity outside of his forced dyad with abed if brita took issue with the way troy treats her it would at least be the seeds of a character conflict it would be a dumb conflict but it would be something instead brita is uncharacteristically doting and understanding to the point that even when the whole relationship ends with troy dumping her on their anniversary while pretending to be swapping bodies with abed she entertains that [ __ ] with the patience of a saint brita plays along taking what would probably be the most humiliating moment in any person's life in stride she doesn't react like she's dating the guy she reacts like she's his mom or his caretaker and he's a [ __ ] invalid the dynamic is even weirder because their relationship is so utterly sexless i don't even think they kiss on screen all season i mean why not they kissed in season two that was just for a gag even innocent youngster annie got to mack on vaughn back in season one let the guy get his rocks off i know we see troy and brita in bed together but i don't buy it the way they're written this season i expect them to have separate beds even when they're married to each other like they're in the muppet movie and troy is written so childlike this season that he probably thinks you get girls pregnant by peeing in them we do some things we do a lot of things not all the things things one of the few episodes that actually manages to have some semblance of a heart is the sadie hawkins dance episode britta puts on a dance of her own with jeff teasing her over the dance's inevitable failure she miraculously pulls it off at the last minute and there's this genuinely moving scene where jeff reflects on how brita has been going out of her way to do things for him even while he mercilessly teases her even with all the missed opportunities this season as jeff sends brita a heartfelt text in recognition of all the good she's done and crosses the dance floor to meet her lingering eye contact between the two with sophie hawkins music swelling in the background it's impossible not to feel a little magic in the air hey wait a second she's still dating troy in this episode what are you doing troy and britta have been together all season and you got more meaningful romantic chemistry out of brita and jeff by accident and troy's there he's [ __ ] in the room with them dancing with someone else how about when jeff admits defeat brita gives him a sly comeback then leaves to dance with troy are you people insane hello my name is kevin i have chanesha central to the marketing of season 4 and an early sign that everything was going to suck chang is feigning amnesia and calling it changia no comment then we get to the final insult the finale jeff is graduating just jeff for some reason guess they wanted to save the rest of the cast for next season so they could ruin two finales and in a panic over the prospect of devolving back into the sleazeball he used to be he dreams the darkest timeline has crossed over to make him evil they do this with the aid of inter-dimensional paintball guns so the writers took the event that the series has been building to for four years and sidelined it in favor of a slapped together darkest timeline paintball dream sequence episode don't logic this one away from me we finally figured out a way to make paintball cool again [ __ ] you so jeff graduates although the graduation is mystifyingly presented as a wedding ceremony and pierce graduates too in a frankly pathetic send-off i'm ready to graduate yeah well i'm ready to graduate first congratulations pierce okay see ya that's it for pierce all in all the gang's senior year is an orgy of missed opportunities and that's the worst part about it the last year of college is a time of radical change but aside from the woeful premiere and the embarrassing graduation ceremony no potential end times plot lines are capitalized on compare this to the final season of 30 rock where the show within the show is cancelled they pull out all the stops almost every episode incorporates some big send off to a certain aspect of the series there's an episode where the main couple gets married there's an episode where a popular fan couple explores why they never became a canon couple we say goodbye to some of the show's most popular guest stars the big bad guys come back with one last big bad plan community doesn't touch any of that chang does nothing all season dean sprech's pathetic revenge plot is over before it even began the only relationship dynamics the show explores are by accident and the graduation scene is such an afterthought they should have not bothered including it the only big event the show tackles is jeff's reunion with his father the episode immediately devolves into wacky grating antics courtesy of guest star adam devine but i can't even pretend to care about them whiffing on the whole missing dad thing deadbeat dad reunion plots are always always lame even in movies or tv shows that i otherwise like they're always the lamest part they always suck the only one that was ever good was homer's mom and the simpsons but she was a missing mom not a missing dad so technically i'm still right suffice to say nbc realized the error of their ways and hired dan harmon back on for season five though chevy chase was already out of the picture and donald glover would be leaving halfway through the season tune in next year to see our main man dan spin straw into yeah into gold your fans are going to be like recognize that you're back they're going to hurt they're going to hear that that tone again hopefully right and then and that will be yeah they're going to feel like they're fresh by loving kisses yeah but it won't be in the form of a [ __ ] uh matrix uh spoof like i'm back look at the wire like i won't it's hard for me to discuss season five as a single entity because i've always seen it as two distinct half seasons one season with troy and one without the character-based heartfelt yet incredibly funny writing that community was known for comes roaring back with dan harmon's triumphant return and i love every episode leading up to donald glover's departure on the other hand almost every episode after troy rides off into the sunset leaves me wanting i don't believe troy's absence is solely responsible for this drop in quality in fact troy doesn't have a single a story his entire final season and is pretty firmly a background character so well his and pierce's absence are felt it seems in equal part due to the series just kind of naturally running out of steam jess returned to greendale pierce's death and troy's farewell feel like endgame shots of adrenaline to push the series over the finish line but then all those things happen there's still eight more episodes to go and everybody feels like they're kind of sleepwalking through the rest season five sees two-time loser lawyer jeff winger returning to his alma mater to build a lawsuit against greendale you just lost our client yeah but i can create five new ones and that's the winger guarantee i was intrigued by the idea that this would be a season-long arc jeff winger as a villain recruiting study group members into his class action case one by one wonka's chocolate factory style in a dark mirror of how he paired off with study group members one by one in the first season i really need to stop convincing myself this show's gonna do season arc stuff though it's never really been a thing that's my bad that that's on me the class action plot gets dropped at the end of the episode and instead jeff becomes greendale's latest law professor once more more teachery i want to kill myself use that there's a lot of potential in jeff as a teacher potential the show unfortunately does not utilize in the long run only two episodes in the entire series have anything to do with jeff teaching a class the last being one of the stronger season six episodes and the first serving as our introduction to new cast member buzz hickey you down here there a bit i'd like my earring back yeah go get your arena piece of human garbage hickey is a fun addition to the cast instead of acting as pierce 2.0 he's more of a foil instead of using jeff as a tool to make himself fit in he's a mentor helping jeff fit in instead of being oblivious and self-serving he's cynical and self-aware an attitude that brings out the best but also the worst in characters like annie shirley britta and the dean i found his most interesting pairing to be with abed hickey is the first character in the series unwilling to entertain abed's eccentricities making the two natural adversaries but also presenting both with the opportunity for growth you know what i think i think he's used to getting his own way i think he's never met me hickey fits like a glove seamlessly incorporating himself into the existing cast i would have loved to see the character explored further in the final season but actor jonathan banks left the cast after season five and buzz hickey was vindictively killed off in a season six easter egg he's in a better place now a better call saul plays what stopped us i remember you saying something about doing the right thing i don't even know what that means i previously expressed some mild disappointment that community never chose to pursue jeff the teacher or jeff the traitor as season long arcs but the front half of season five is still a refreshing change of pace from the antecedent season the comedy is laugh out loud great but on top of that the genuine heart underneath it all is more effecting than ever the premiere is an effective re-pilot reflecting on how far everyone has come and how lucky we are just to have the show at all the follow-up episode is a fun exploration of the new status quo low-key and comfortable like the best season one episodes even though that status quo later proves to be a mirage next is the first style parody of the season a david fincher thriller riff following jeff and annie's search for the ass crack bandit the assrack bandit roams the halls of greendale waiting for an exposed rump to present itself for a deposit quarter in hand he strikes without mercy i hope you enjoyed my work again you can't stop me because what are you gonna do not have butts the investigation is cut short by the surprising death of pierce hawthorne surprising to the characters of course if you were even remotely in touch with pop culture news at the time you likely suspected pierce's fate dan harmon claimed that he wouldn't retcon or antagonize the writers of season 4 but the stellar bottle episode cooperative polygraphy in which all the characters undergo a polygraph test to prove they didn't murder pierce comes across as one giant flex just to show how much better his writer's room is viewers might have given season 4's awful pierce send off the benefit of the doubt justifying it by saying what else could they do if they didn't have access to chevy chase then this episode premieres and shows us all how it's done where pierce uses his will as a final tool to expertly instigate infighting within the study group bringing them down to his level one last time so they can all roll around in the dirt with him nothing to hide let's do this have you ever masturbated in the study room it's impressive the writers demonstrate their knowledge of the characters as so strong that they can make you feel their presence even when they're not in the room just like we saw previously in remedial chaos theory it also shits all over a season 4 episode with a similar premise intro to felt surrogacy saw the study group navigating embarrassing confessions but each confession was tepid and uninteresting cooperative polygraphy's confessions are plausible and true to the characters but also perfectly concocted to spark outrage cooperative polygraphy is mozart sitting down to play the 88 intro to felt surrogacy is a kid sitting on his lap playing chopsticks mr barnes okay i did it okay i killed pierce lie okay good just making sure pierce's final head games end on a sentimental note with him ultimately bequeathing minor gifts to each of the study group members along with a liquid nitrogen-cooled cylinder of a sperm except for abed who notably receives only a container of sperm and nothing else hey bed and a deer did you know that you were insane and nothing that you said ever made any sense to me yep here's your sperm pearce's final bequeathman is to troy to whom he leaves his fortune so long as troy agrees to sail around the globe for a year this sets us up for the end of the season 5 hot streak troy's departure episode takes the form of a campus-wide game of the flores lava organized by abed with an absurd cash prize as bait so the campus will go all in it's spiritually another paintball episode except this time they actually made it cool again you guys ready for closure love your caskets the hot lava match explores a similar theme to the asscrack bandit investigation that ended on the revelation of pierce's death these wacky adventures are no longer organic like the halcyon days of season two the characters are increasingly coming to rely on them as distractions from the grim realities of life it's a dark theme but the conclusions are saccharine enough to remind us that as cruel as a world can be there's still fun to be had sad to say after troy departs and greendale returns to its regularly scheduled programming the show struggles to recapture either the heart or the consistent comedy of these first few episodes with professor duncan's aborted attempt to woo an emotionally vulnerable brita being the sole late season highlight the first five do feel like playing the hits one last time before it's all over community dropped the mic but then they had to come back and pick it up again when the episodes go low-key community is still a decent hangout comedy but it lacks the grandiose rising action that made the first season's inherently low-key episode so engaging when they go for big pop culture riffs they're rehashed rehashes but not in the season 3 way that improves on the original the sequel to advanced dungeons and dragons doesn't shake up the formula it's just another dungeons and dragons game now with two main cast members missing one of whom was the linchpin of the original gi jeff is just abid's uncontrollable christmas again but with jeff having a mental breakdown instead of abed transporting your characters to a fantasy world as the result of a psychotic break is the kind of trick he can really only pull once without it feeling lazy the laziness accusation isn't helped by the slapped together motive behind jeff's madness sketchy anti-aging drugs making him perchance to dream after he realized lordy lordy i'm turning 40. it's one of the show's weakest offerings the references are only funny to a small audience familiar with the source material the joke that characters conveniently don't die in children's cartoons is repeated at infinitum and the emotional beats are sloppy but the writers expect you to fall for them hook line and sinker anyways i already consider abid's uncontrollable christmas a masterpiece but gi jeff makes it even more impressive now that i see what a tightrope walk the conceit is and how bad it is if you botch it it's up to you to hold him back with your inner child's hand that's wonderful despite being a two-parter the finale was largely anticlimactic by community standards season one was the height of the jeff and brita and annie's sexual tension season two was the paintball spectacle that left pierce on the outs season three was an obvious pseudo-series finale in anticipation of the show's cancellation season four was the worst thing ever but in season five it's a rush to save the school from being sold affair without a whole lot to latch on to the big climactic moment comes when jeff has to escape a bunker by overloading a computer with human emotions don't ask he does this by thinking of how much all the study group members mean to him except for shirley who isn't in the room the school is saved everyone claps and abet has a little wink to camera moment where he claims if the audience never hears from them again it's because a meteor hit the campus and killed everyone that line was a cheeky show of self-confidence that the six seasons in a movie prophecy would surely come to pass there was just one problem community was cancelled good news and bad news everybody nbc has renewed hannibal for season three but cancelled the cult favorite comedy community the dream of six seasons and a movie appears to be dashed while nbc hasn't made an official announcement yet tv line reports that the comedy has indeed been cancelled immediately following the news joel mchale tweeted darkest timeline the save greendale committee within the series was toast but the real world save greendale committee kicked into overdrive and by overdrive i mean you know it's a bunch of people saying please don't cancel the show on the internet they didn't really do anything sony shot the series around looking for a last-minute stay of execution with hulu being their most likely salvation hulu had long held the community back catalog on their site and had begun to dip their toes into original programming in an effort to keep up with their evil counterpart netflix talks with hulu fell through and there was an ever intensifying ticking clock of the actors contracts expiring on june 30th the day the contracts would expire a surprise deal was announced between community and the shiny news streaming service yahoo screen with yvette nicole brown unable to return due to a family emergency before you ask no shirley does not get a big send-off episode like troy or pierce did all the confirmation i need for my confirmation bias the writers never clicked with the character there was no announcement that season six would be the very last season but there were two massive hints this would be the case one the recurring six seasons in a movie mantra and two the yahoo screenplayer worked about as well as release day cyberpunk if you don't follow video games that's another way of saying the player [ __ ] the bed so it was clear the platform would go down in flames fortunately community ends with a proper series finale or at least as proper as you can do with three of the seven original cast members gone it's a wonderful bittersweet end to a tv show that meant a lot to a lot of people including me tied together by an endearing and novel meta framing device where the characters pitch what an ideal seventh season would look like for them if you've never finished the series i can't recommend checking out the grand finale enough i also can't recommend skipping every other season 6 episode enough because they just don't work it's a fascinating juxtaposition to season 4. they're both disappointing in dramatically different ways season 4 was emotionally overwrought and stuffed with indulgent needless pop culture references well season 6 suddenly interjects emotional beats with no setup and refuses to be self-indulgent even when the sillier storylines are begging for it at the end of the day both seasons leave you feeling the same way not irritated or annoyed just kind of bored it's certainly not the fault of the two new main cast editions paget brewster is frankie dart who does a lot with a little as the new de facto straight woman and keith david as elroy patashnik the wacky new i.t guy who is worldly but seemingly worldly from some other much weirder world my name is elroy patashnik and from 2006 to 2009 i was addicted to encouraging white people all right now there's a man of noses meatballs no the new kids in school are just fine the big sin of season six is a more intangible issue it's never really any big problem just a whole lot of little problems but you can't argue with the little things it's the little things that make up life some episodes have a very compelling premise that gets too muddied in execution to work properly the season premiere sees frankie dart arriving to bring order to the campus and jeff winger starts his own on-campus speakeasy to keep the day drinking dream alive so you probably think it's going to turn into some big bootlegger riff community does boardwalk empire but it really doesn't they don't make use of the zany speakeasy stuff so why incorporate it why not make it a more down to earth but still funny bit about jeff roping people into his hard drinking lifestyle gradually escalating the campus-wide degeneracy until it devolves into chaos well that kind of is what they did but there's no gradually to it there's like 10 minutes straight of abed doing meta commentary on the change in networks the departure of shirley the arrival of frankie then suddenly there's a speakeasy the episode where greendale takes government grant money to educate convicts who roam the campus as ipads on sticks similarly refuses to pick a lane the writers lay the groundwork for two really solid potential premises a grounded one where one of jeff's convict students is a class clown antagonizing him and turning the school against him there's also a zany one where one of jeff's convict students attempts to murder him using his remote controlled body did you just try to murder me instead they do both they do the class clown thing first then he tries to murder jeff in act one but then jeff just takes it in stride and the whole murder thing never comes up again this pitiful robot attempting to engineer jeff's demise is a hilarious premise so why not commit to that maybe even give him an actual motive too like perhaps the convict was represented by jeff in the past and harbors a grudge over his sentencing it's a question i ask myself a lot while watching the sixth season why would you do that if you're gonna do it half-assed a racist comedian comes to greendale but in the interest of freedom of speech the gang stands up for his right to perform you see the joke coming a mile away whatever his performance is it's going to be awful and they're going to feel foolish forever defending it and then you get to the performance after it's been building up all episode and it's just awkward ad-libbing hey look i see there's a lot of jews in the crowd i mean you know there isn't but you usually when i do my act there's more remember in season three when jeff wanted to discredit pierce on the stand so he perry masoned him into telling an offensive joke you know basically this exact same bit but actually funny an irish and a jew walk into a chinese laundry with a gay duck all right all right so you're telling me they're not good at basketball there's an episode where chang is treated miserably during stage rehearsals in a whiplash inspired effort to make him a master actor and again instead of making the most of the concept it's just scene after scene of jason mansoukis seemingly ad-libbing one episode involves the campus being besieged by guerrilla marketers and they tease that the characters are going to start incorporating needless product placement throughout the episode but then that gag only happens like once advertised things without you knowing is that legal sounds like brainwindexing and don't get me started on the grifting episode casting matt berry as a guest star and then wasting him is an action that maybe should carry criminal charges there's also a much heavier reliance on overly long gags this season like yeah the dean becoming really really enthralled by an extremely crappy vr operating system is hilarious but god they milk the bit dry it lasts longer than energizer ultimate batteries it's not even the b story it's the a plot of the episode i think i'm alone in this complaint though people love the vr episode apparently corey barker of tv.com ranked it one spot higher than the hot lava episode on his master ranking of every episode hey corey what are you [ __ ] nuts the power the facility jesus what i think jesus wept i often had problems with the episode pacing too the third act tends to move slow as golden barrel molasses wait a second 28 minutes okay that explains a lot the yahoo screen episodes were all six minutes longer and unfortunately you feel every second of it often there's a natural punctuation to the end of the episode and then you realize the bee story hasn't even reached his third act yet sad to admit it i'm very disappointed this is where i'm at with this season i'm bummed out this was my first time watching season six in its entirety i expected it to be weaker than the first three seasons but still a decent amount of fun but there's just not a lot of fun to be had in general season six was almost as tough to get through as a light locked core diamond rated bicycle lock but it's still not all bad the dean is the strongest part of the season but he's not a yeti crossroads backpack he can't be expected to carry everything alison bree dresses like this in one episode so that's cool the final paintball spy thriller is a lot of fun more so visually than in terms of laugh out loud comedy but it's still an enjoyable watch we've got a real-life feminist shamania in here it's shyamalan unfortunately as with his stories i don't anticipate yours holding up easy target who's heckling me the silver bullet that pushes this season ahead of season four is of course the finale emotional consequences of broadcast television again it's a bittersweet finale with abed and dany both moving out of state at the series end leaving jeff behind with only frankie his ex-fuck buddy his stalker and chang as company jeff and annie share one last kiss with an intriguing dynamic behind it essentially it's really important to jeff and really not important to her it's not romantic or sexual really annie is the avatar of youth and jeff is finally accepting that he has to kiss it goodbye it's the perfect glossary cherry on top of this emotionally evocative ending there's a very sweet kiss at the end of drop dead fred she has to kiss drop dead fred goodbye and it's not a sexual kiss it's not it's not necessarily an unromantic kiss but it's not it's not it's not it's not they're not macking on each other as the kids said in 1982 um the the the but it was like a it was like it was a kiss goodbye like it was it was love uh wha what did you think the finale effectively captures the emotions of all your older high school friends graduating before you leaving you behind in the wasteland on purpose this time as opposed to the rest of season six preceding it where that vibe was just sort of happening jeff claims to have come to accept things the way that they are so it isn't meant to be a sad ending but i will admit the end does cast a bit of a shadow over season 1 on a re-watch a lot of the comfy feelings that season generated were from the knowledge that jeff's time at greendale was limited it started as a miserable prison to him but all these experiences and memories would stay with him long after he left the campus becoming a period of his life he may look back on and wish to recapture in sentimental moments instead jeff never gets out don't forget you're here forever except jeff can't even do it for her he's got no her to do it for maybe he'll get out when we get the movie [Applause] show's gonna last three weeks six seasons in a movie so that's community and uh just call me the writer of the season four finale because i have no idea how to end this thing it was a roller coaster ride of a series one of my favorite comedies of all time despite its occasional slumps even at its lowest points it's clear as windex streak-free glass cleaner that the writers and stars hearts were in the right place the creative team was always striving to do right by the fans and even when they couldn't quite hit the mark their dedication was still appreciated which is another way to say sorry i capped off a video on one of my favorite tv shows of all time by bitching about it for 10 minutes i'll play myself out they think i'm cooler than cool cause they know that when i do it imma do it to death see i'll be taking their breath cause they know that i'm flying you couldn't be as fresh as me so tell me why would you try could it be in my leonard likes this post

Channel: Slip Maker

Views: 647,309

Keywords: Harmontown, Russo Brothers, Paintball, Finale, Six Seasons And A Movie, Community Movie, Rob Schrab, Megan Ganz, Chris McKenna

Id: BhWwaPO62As

Length: 58min 44sec (3524 seconds)

Published: Fri Jul 08 2022