Monsters of Television

“This isn’t going to stop until Pictionary bans the word ‘windmill.'”

The big laughs this week build, as do the show’s sweet and tender character moments. Community isn’t structuring itself like Seinfeld, where the plots converge into one final freeze-frame joke, and nor should they (unless they intend to do a Seinfeld-parody episode, something I’d be all for them attempting), but the show nicely lays the groundwork for jokes across an episode, even if the episode overall isn’t spectacular.

First and foremost, an East Asian rabbi is, by definition, funny. Funnier than an East Asian teaching Spanish (“This is who I am!”). That the joke of the two Changs in occupations you wouldn’t necessarily find them in isn’t overplayed, and instead allows Pierce’s latent Nazism to express itself by drawing a Swastika in place of a windmill during the Pictionary tournament. There’s enough of a gap between seeing Rabbi Chang and the tournament that you forget that Rabbi Chang is around, creating another punchline. That it results in an off-screen fight that is bad enough to summon the police is simply icing on the cake.

Second is Britta and Troy. A good comedic combo already, Britta’s white liberal guilt leads her to get a switch after she feels she’s disrespected Troy’s grandmother. It’s an amusing idea, though that Britta has no idea what a switch is, and that she doubts Troy’s grandmother will use it seems a bit weird, but I was willing to roll with it after the pay off of Britta being spanked, Troy watching while cry talking, only to have Jeff and Amber (Pierce’s swindling ex-stepdaughter) stumble in while making out added another sexual element to a scene that was already uncomfortably sexual anyway.

Story-wise, the show continues to drive home the of the study group as family, as Pierce and Jeff finally acknowledge that they are the same person, but at different stages in their lives. That Jeff still indulges in jackassery by sleeping with Amber (albeit only once; he wanted to do it twice) but feels bad about isn’t a step backwards, but a consistent character trait. Pierce’s confession that he probably would’ve done the same absolves Jeff of the guilt, and provides acceptance. It’s a nice moment, but one I feel that the show has firmly established at this point. I’m ready for it to move onto another thematic concern, or provide more variation on it (somehow).

Finally, if Jeff Winger doesn’t see the appeal of Glee, I don’t know why anyone else should.

FINAL THOUGHTS

• The Human Being with a tinier, female version of itself: creepy. (And until you know that it’s Family Day, it’s REALLY creepy.)
• The episode did suffer a bit from a lack of Annie. I guess her family doesn’t care about her after that time in rehab.
• Cry talking is the show’s tradmark gag, and Don Glover is a master at it (McHale isn’t bad either).
• Line of the episode: “Disappointing you is like choking the Little Mermaid with a bike chain.”