This season on Community: Shirley and Pierce teamed up, Troy and Abed broke up, Jeff and Annie almost hooked up while Britta finally picked a major.
There were 8-bit video games for inheritance, civil wars, expulsions, decoy deans, alternate timelines and unexpected hiatuses.
Also, there was a Subway incident, and a Chang Dynasty, and a biology trial and the revelation that Troy is air-conditioning messiah. And miraculously, with all this going on, Dan Harmon still found the time to feud with NBC, Sony Television and Chevy Chase.
It’s been a rough year.
However, with the future of the show looking uncertain even with a 13-episode pick-up (Fridays? With new showrunners? From Happy Endings?) it’s hard not to appreciate the 22 totally bonkers, if occasionally unnecessarily-indulgent episodes we got. Ill-advised Chang-centric plots and all!
Jeff. B
Look, I love Jeff. I watch The Soup and I get sad that Joel McHale is, probably one day soon, gonna have to play some other less-perfect for him character. But its time for some growth. He loves the study group – that’s not news anymore. He’s loved the study group for seasons now. He is increasingly ambivalent about becoming a lawyer again. (That is not news, either.) Unfortunately, this leaves his love life as the only area with any forward movement and, even then, the shifts haven’t exactly been seismic.
While in general I admire Community’s resistance to cheap character development, refusing to allow change on principle just rings false in Jeff’s case. He’s the leader of the group. He sets the tone. It makes no sense to have the people around him be changing while he stays the same. I’d even be in favor of embarking on a multi-episode Jeff/Annie story if it would generate a new flavor of snark from Jeff.
Britta. B
After toying with mental illness as a theme for a couple of seasons, Harmon and co. finally made it official by balancing Abed’s increasingly questionable sanity with Britta’s newfound interest in psychology. Her pysch degree offers yet another opportunity for the show to comment on itself while finally acknowledging the unspoken reality of Greendale: these people are bonkers. Unfortunately, by designating Britta as the resident observer-slash-truth-speaker the show has inadvertently separated her from the group. Which kinda sucks; Britta’s the most fun when she’s part of the crazy, not just commenting on it.
Annie. B
Annie’s having some growing pains. She’s a little lost and a little alone and desperate for love. And looking in the wrong places (i.e. the much-older Jeff). She regularly jumps at the chance to be little sis to Britta and as a roommate she mollycoddles Abed. Basically, she’s 21 and trying to figure out who she is if she isn’t “Little Annie Adderall”. She tries on the sexpot thing. And the lawyer thing. And the United Nations thing. None of it quite fits right but that’s OK. She’s got time. And a monkey named after her boobs. She’ll be fine.
Troy. A
While everyone else was kind of piddling around this season, Troy made a whole bunch of big kid decisions. He moved into an apartment with his best friend. He stood up to his best friend when said best friend was being an irresponsible asshole. He kinda sorta developed a crush on Britta. He joined the air conditioning repair school, risking his future happiness, for his friends. He moved out of the living room tent and into a real bedroom. In short: he started to become an adult. Awesome.
Shirley. B+
Shirley got to break out of her born-again Christian shell this season and show a little grit. She’s a savvy business lady who teams up with Pierce to start a sandwich shop and doesn’t let a little Subway product placement stand in her way. She strengthens her friendship with Jeff through confronting her foosball bully past. And, in the end, she saves the gang from succumbing to their darkest urges by putting Jeff’s needs above her own. It’s a simple gesture that requires more strength than anyone else in the group can muster. But if we’ve learned anything but Shirley this season, it’s that she can be a total badass.
Abed. B+
I mean, how do you grade the purest expression of Community’s id? Abed is the unorganized, unconscious base drive part of the show. He’s quick to indulge his dark impulses, resistant to change and functions in a weird dissociative netherworld. But we love him anyway. Even as we increasingly fear what the long-term effects of his questionable sanity might be.
Pierce. C+
“Is that a Chevy stand-in?” was a fun game I played this season before news of the behind-the-scenes drama ever broke. Pierce’s father died this season, but outside of some daddy issues and the occasional racist comment he was largely a non-presence. Not exactly what I expected after last season when he was the show’s primary antagonist. But, given what’s been made public, I can’t really blame the writers for wanting to keep Chase off set.
Dean Craig Pelton. A
Dean Pelton is and was and will always be my favorite character on this show. I will never tire of his delightful costumes, his inappropriate feelings for Jeff or his complete inability to run a school. After years of blatantly favoring the study group like a desperate teenager with an unrequited crush, the gang finally realized how good they had it in a fake-therapy session and rushed to rescue their friend. When it comes right down to it, the Dean is what’s keeping the gang from transferring and it was nice to have that be acknowledged.
Chang. D
Remember when Chang was just a dictatorial Spanish teacher? Those were good times.
Season 3 – B+
Sure, Season 3 wasn’t the darkest timeline but it was a close second. Pierce didn’t die but the gang was expelled and Abed was, at various points, committable. Greendale might be a literal asylum but it’s definitely asylum-like in the vein of the island from Lost: a purgatory for crazy damaged people to work out their issues through relationships and smoke monsters. But less realistic.
Appropriately, the show itself was more than a little bit bi-polar this season. The highs were really high and the lows… also happened. It’s this endearingly manic depressive quality that I worry the show is going to lose without Harmon. Community’s appeal for me is as tied to its willingness to be prickly, unlikable and bleak as it is to its ability to make me laugh. While I have no doubt that the season four writers will be able to make me laugh, I worry that the new showrunners are going to be less insistent on frustrating me on a bi-weekly basis.
What do you guys think? Are you gonna keep watching? Are you worried? Are you excited?
