I was very pleasantly surprised with this week’s episode of “Community.” This will come out as a back-handed compliment, but “Community” has a hard time balancing an overarching storyline and multiple plots; normally, the episode will be too far to one side of the spectrum. However, this episode was a great balance of the two, with a strong overarching storyline without sacrificing the comedic gold of multiple plots.
I particularly enjoyed Pierce’s place in this episode. He’s tiresome most of the time, and I find him to be the bad kind of annoying. But the writers really found a good spot for him this episode. I loved the jab at college sketch comedy writers, too.
Vaughn was hilarious. The best parts of this show are the parts where you can see direct parallels with your own life, and Vaughn is one of those. Not that I’m like Vaughn… heaven forbid. I just know people who are exactly like him, and it cracks me up to see such vapidity and denseness on a comedy show:
Troy: You’re not my bro… bro.
Vaughn: Actually, everyone’s my bro in the whole entire universe, you know, cause everything is connected… Rocks, eagles, hats…
Also, Annie’s adorable.
Even after a full season of seeing his character on the show, Senor Chang does nothing but add to the scenes he’s in. I have yet to see him not be funny when he’s supposed to be.
Finally, I’m glad they had Brita and Jeff team up and scheme together. It adds subtle tension between them, which was sadly missing for about half the season. Jeff seems to be back to normal, and Brita seems interested in Jeff without being totally gaga over him. The episode wasn’t too serious, and too let’s-all-learn-a-lesson like it has been.
This review is completely backhanded in its praise, I realize that. It does have its own merits, and it was a great half hour of comedic entertainment. But this is the first episode in a long time that got most of the stuff right. If next week’s episode is as good, I’ll try to be less backhanded in my compliments.
