Monsters of Television

“You tried to Nancy Screw me out of my free credit!“

My face still hurts from laughing. And my belly. I’m still laughing about some of it while I try and type.

“Conspiracy Theories and Soft Defenses” may not be an episode that people think back to when they rank episodes of Community, but for my money it’s easily one of their single funniest episodes of any sitcom I’ve seen in a while. It’s clever without being overly clever, grounded while still being silly, and allows for yet another glimpse into the characters without making the episode completely about the characters.

Not that there’s anything wrong with doing that. Last week’s episode was all about the characters, and it worked amazingly well, as I discussed. But it was also a very intense episode (as bottle episodes tend to be), and this was an excellent pressure release after having the characters stew in a single room for a full episode last week.

But I, personally, needed this episode. I don’t know if the writers’ room loved Rubicon as much as I do, or they just found the entire series so silly that they needed to lampoon it, and I don’t care. In my stages of grief, watching an episode of Community that meticulously pays homage the paranoid thriller genre helped me reach a level of acceptance about Rubicon‘s demise.

Indeed, it’s this kind of smart, grounded homage that I think Community does better than a full blown homage. One of my quibbles with “Epidemiology” was that, while reasonably silly, unmoored the characters too much from their reality. Yes, Greendale is a magical place where all sorts of pop culture hijinks occur, but there’s such a thing as too much magic.

“Conspiracy Theories and Soft Defenses” wisely attaches itself to something within the actual functions of the school, which I think is where the show really excels. So dealing not only with the issue of course credits and returning to Jeff’s desire to do as little work as possible by signing up for only blow-off classes, but also incorporating campus living makes the episode, for me, work on a stronger level than the past three episodes have.

Which is why I found this episode so funny. A college credit is serious business in this episode, and I think that this season has gotten away from being able to show just how serious the business of getting out of college (community or otherwise) can be. And the parody is right on, between Professorson’s painfully bad cryptic dialog (“From the lips of a ghost to the shadow of a unicorn’s dream.”) to the chase through the pillow fort as a crowded street (more on the sheer brilliance of the pillow fort in a moment) to the confrontation showdown in the study room.

And like all good episodes, the climax in the study room is my favorite bit. All the silliness leads to a genuinely honest, off-script, moment of confession from Annie to Jeff. Yes, we’ve been down this road a bit already in the premiere, but I like that we come back to in this moment of extreme (mock) tension. It works given both the characters and the genre needs of confession confrontations, and when Community does that, I think it’s streets ahead of any other sitcom on TV right now.

The blanket fort: Okay, yes, this could’ve been some pointless, throw away plot that extrapolates the weird things people do at college to be entertained (where the hell are the dorms on this campus, by the way?!). But that the episode manages to not only integrate the blanket fort into A-plot but also make it work for the A-plot’s genre work is just another example of how smart this show is. Even having Professorson be in the parade (“They had all the right permits!”) was just icing on that cake. And watching all those sheets and blankets fall down was actually a pretty glorious sight, and to cap it off with a looting gag was just great.

Another great episode from Community. I’m going to be really sad when NBC cancels it because they don’t own it.

FINAL THOUGHTS

• “Well, guess what? Annie’s got a gun!”
• “You even work too hard at passive-aggression.”
• “We make more dioramas than my boys do.”
• “Enjoy eating fiber and watching The Mentalist.”
• “To illustrate the slippery slope of academic fraud!”
• Appreciate that no one is taking NBC Green Week seriously any longer. Though it did give us Greenzo.
• Maybe this episode, maybe the premiere, but I’m ready to start campaigning for Alison Brie’s Emmy.