COMMUNITY has reached the coveted 100-episode mark! After being on the chopping block for 4 seasons, Dan Harmon getting fired and re-hired, being cancelled by NBC, and saved by Yahoo! Screen, COMMUNITY somehow made it to triple digits (and thank goodness it did). No one will understand how important this show is to me in terms of comedy and writing. Dan Harmon is a genius, and I am so glad he is still able to write a show as great as this.
So, what happened on this special episode? Well...the study group finds out that Greendale gave a four-year degree to a dog. A dog named Ruffles. A dog that was a student for 7 years. This information comes to light after Annie received an email from a friend that works at the TV station saying City College (Greendale's rival) was going to run an attack ad against them. The ad centered on this so-called college graduate, Ruffles.
The group meets at 3am, and Annie and Frankie lead a Situation-Room in the study room complete with clocks with different time zones, corkboards, whiteboards and more. Jeff uses his skills as a lawyer to go after the dog and find anything to prove the attack ad is a lie. Abed works on their own smear-ad against Ruffles, and Annie and Frankie go to look and see if they actually did give a dog a degree. Frankie finds out there was a dog named Ruffles enrolled, but he didn't graduate due to unpaid library fees. The group realizes that they can beat City College using this technicality to get the ad taken down, but Annie is upset with the way they are going about it all.
Annie says she'd rather Greendale is honest instead of stooping to City College's level, but Jeff and Frankie would rather keep the school afloat. Frustrated and upset, Annie storms out sayings she's going to transfer to City College since at least her degree matters there.
The next morning, as Annie is filling out the application, Abed comes in to show her the ad that was run in front of the City College ad. He shows her that they changed it to an honest ad featuring the Dean and Ruffles, in which the Dean states that Greendale has to "get its s*** together," but at least if you work hard at Greendale, it pays off. Annie is happy they took the higher road, and returns to the study group.
So in the end, Greendale saves itself from total ruin, like it always somehow does. This episode had a lot of humorous moments-as it always does- but I liked how Annie got to have a more serious storyline in this episode. She dealt with whether or not saving Greendale was worth being dishonest, and also had major disagreements with Jeff and even Frankie. Annie was even willing to leave Greendale and transfer to City College if that meant staying honest and not stooping to the level Jeff was willing to. I liked seeing her stand up for what she believed to be true, and not giving in to Jeff and Frankie's ways of winning. This allowed for a lot of growth from Annie, who loves Greendale more than anyone, but was finally willing to give it up for her morals and ethics.
However, the parts of this episode that really made it shine involved The Dean and Chang.
The funniest Dean-Jeff situation on this show in its 6 seasons was in this episode, and Jeff was technically not even involved. The Dean thinks he's been texting Jeff for a while, but it's actually been a teenage Asian boy. Fake Jeff is very nice, yet not great at English, and makes the Dean think that real Jeff loves and cares about the Dean. Fake Jeff even gets the Dean to bring real Jeff 5 cans of olives. This gesture freaks real Jeff out, because he has no idea why the Dean is acting this way, but the Dean is so blind that he thinks is really is dealing with Jeff over text and that everything is normal. When the kid playing the prank on him admits to what he's done, the Dean still doesn't get it! However, as seen in the tag of the episode, this final conversation between the Dean and Fake Jeff led the boy on the path to become the head of the Yakuza! (I lost it at this part).
Also in this episode, Chang tells Jeff, who as always isn't really listening, that he is going to shoot a porno at City College so that they can "fight fire with fire." At the end of the episode he comes back and shows the study group the porno, which only has one actor: himself. Abed, who is in awe of this film and the camera work, points out that Chang shot the film in front of a plaster wall that could be anywhere and that he's wearing his Greendale shoot. Chang realizes what he's done and leaves to do "reshoots."
Somehow in 6 seasons, the Dean and Chang have managed to get increasingly more ridiculous with each episode. I honestly thought at one point they'd reach a plateau, but I am being proven that with these characters that is virtually impossible. The Dean/Jeff texting B-plot of this episode is one of the funniest things I have seen on the show, and I cannot stop thinking about the ridiculousness of it. I mean the Asian boy he was texting ended up being the head of the Yakuza just because of a conversation with the Dean. I knew the Dean had a power to turn things in crazy directions, but this is a whole new level.
I enjoy the relationship that Annie and Frankie have: they are both Type-A, but Annie embodies the more hopeful side and Frankie the more realistic side of people. They contrast each other well, but at the same time learn from each other. I am growing to really like Frankie as an addition to the cast. Speaking of new cast members, Elroy is the greatest. He is so out of it and uncaring about what's going on and his input in any conversation is usually pointless, but hilarious, like when he talked about the meaning behind the phrase "that and 50 cents will get you a candy bar." I hope to see him get deeper storylines later in the season, but for now I am completely content with his one-liners.
Minor things I also thoroughly enjoyed in this episode:
-Britta's reaction to soiling her pants, and then her scenes in the background as she tries to figure what to do
-Greendale background student, Dave telling Vicki he's been getting more to do lately only for her to point out they will e lucky to get three words in as she is immediately interrupted by Frankie
-Britta's dream sequence while listening to Pillar of Garbage
-Elroy's reaction to Frankie saying she doesn't own a TV
Favorite Lines from the Episode:
-Jeff: "If you're not dying, I'm going to murder you. I had to remove my night cream-it's $200 an ounce."
-Abed: "The brotherhood of AV exists beyond your petty factionalism. We serve only video, the one true queen, and her faithful consort, audio."
-Annie: we needs whiteboards, cork boards, laptops-" Abed: "A bunch of clocks with different times on them, a red phone, a big tabletop map with little Nazi tanks and/or a Godzilla.
-Chang: "The Brenda Paradox."
-Elroy: "I found the dog, I also found a lot of people's Social Security numbers."
-Frankie: "I found the smell, someone filed a taco."
-Elroy: Some things are silly and evil, like candy cigarettes, and remember when Flava Flav had that reality show?
Make sure to leave your comments/favorite moments below, or tweet me at @k8linmilligan! I'll see you next Tuesday as I recap the newest episode of COMMUNITY, only on Yahoo! Screen!
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