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Community: Foosball and Nocturnal Vigilantism

“Thanks for the help, officer. If you should ever need me, I usually get out of school around four.”

And so the dark times are getting ever closer. The dreaded hiatus of dread that we've all been dreading is now only one episode away. But Community will not go gentle into that good night. Oh no, it's going to rage, rage against the dying of the light, and we along with it. For example, earlier this week it won TV Guide's Fan Favourites poll and was rewarded with three very nice covers. If you voted, feel proud. If you didn't, just pretend that you did. It's not like we have records to check or anything.

Dragonball Shirley

Shirley has been underused too much this season. It was well past time she got a proper plotline. And I'm glad the writers decided to team her up with Jeff. I like Jeff and Shirley as friends and think Joel McHale and Yvette Nicole Brown work well together.

As the show helpfully reminded us, Jeff and Shirley haven't bonded like this since way back in season 1 when they made fun of Britta's (later Annie's) boyfriend's tiny nipples (they were pretty small). Well, nothing brings two people back together like getting the chance to completely annihilate a trio of German stereotypes at foosball. And nothing drives two people apart like learning your friend is really Big Cheddar, the foosball bully who once taunted you so badly after winning that you went to Tinkle Town (to be fair, he had drank a lot of Mountain Dew that day).

Normally, I find it annoying when a show does something like this. Fringe did it last season with Peter and Olivia and it still bugs the hell out of me. But I wasn't that bothered here, mostly because this revelation gave Joel McHale the chance to do his best 'Donald Sutherland at the end of Invasion of the Body Snatchers' face.


Even though Jeff and Shirley had a massive falling out, there was no doubt that, by the end of the episode, they would've made up. This is one area where Community tend to conform to conventional sitcom storytelling. But not many conventional sitcoms would have their characters reconcile via a brilliant Anime-style epic foosball death-match to the death!!! Does Whitney ever have brilliant Anime-style epic foosball death-matches to the death, NBC? Well, does it?

I thought as much.

The Dark Knight Rises and Slips and Rises Again

We got a further glimpse into life at Casa Trobed this week and it is no longer all sweetness and shadow puppets. It's now all lies, built upon more lies, built upon the unintended destruction of a valuable limited extended special edition dvd. Frankly, it's really Abed's own fault that Annie accidentally stood on his valuable limited extended special edition Dark Knight dvd. If you're going to leave your valuable limited extended special edition dvds just laying around on the floor, things like that are going to happen. And let's not ignore that fact that the TV did need a serious dusting.

Revisiting stuff we liked from season 1 seems to be the theme of this episode. Thus Abed became Batman again to avenge the theft of his dvd and bring the guilty party to justice. I love Abed as Batman, and I love that it turned out that he wasn't a very good Batman. He might have the voice and mannerisms down perfectly, but Abed never had an extensive training montage with Liam Neeson, so he is not the most graceful of watchful guardians, even when using the grapple hook Troy got him. Whenever the show does return from hiatus, we have to see Trobed as Batman and Robin at some point. Maybe with Annie as Catwoman. Hey, I can dream.

Notes and Quotes

-- Loved Alison Brie's Christian Bale Batman voice.

-- No Chang this week. Hurray!!!!

-- No Dean this week either. Boooo!!!!

-- And very little Britta or Pierce as well. I think Pierce only had two lines all episode. And I'm disappointed that we didn't get to see Britta volunteering at the animal hospital. I was looking forward to that.

-- Leonard's Food Review had 40 likes and 2 dislikes. Bet one of them is Jeff. And the other one is Jeff again, only under a different username.

Annie: “I did it! I stepped on your DVD, and it broke, and I staged a break-in to cover it up!”
Batman: “If that were true, you would have come forward a long time ago. You’re lying to keep me out of danger. But there can be no peace while crime spits and dances on the grave of justice, to the hot beats and infectious rhythm of all that is wrong.”

Annie: “My necklace! It was gold. White gold. With emeralds. And my name engraved—in Hebrew! It was a bat-mitzvah gift from my Nana. She was a Rockette. She married a Count. He was blind. He loved her for her mind.”

German: “Oh you are so on that things have become very much like Donkey Kong.”

Batman: “Men like Rick operate above the law. But there’s something else above the law; bats... and me.”

Jeff: “What are you guys doing here on a Saturday night? Shouldn’t you be making weird art movies or well-engineered cars?”

Shirley: “Jeff, you don’t need to worry about what foreigners think of you. That’s your birthright as an American."

Al Calavicci: “Sam, Ziggy’s saying there’s an 80% chance you can’t leave Woodstock until you bone these hippies.”
Rick: “Oh boy.”
-- Don't think I've ever seen that episode of Quantum Leap.

Britta: “He only has the one eye, Jeff, I can’t exactly buy him a cat monocle! It’s pretentious!”

Another exceptional half hour of comedy from that show that's on the cover of that magazine about that thing with the moving pictures that you watch. Three out of four frozen pizza reviews.
---
Mark Greig has been writing for Doux Reviews since 2011. More Mark Greig.

7 comments:

  1. Loved your review, Mark. You made me laugh nearly as many times as the episode did.

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  2. I'm going to miss Community. Annie's Christian Bale impression had me laughing so hard I nearly fell off my chair :-)

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  3. I did not vote, not knowing. But this was a WONDERFUL surprise. Very happy about this. Oh ya.

    Season 3 is, so far, very strong. God I hate NBC.

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  4. Great review of a very fun episode. So many interesting and funny things in a half hour. Nobody does it like Community.

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  5. Remember that episode of Friends where it turned out it had been Phoebe who mugged Ross when they were children and humiliated him?
    I can't decide if Community stole that lazily or reappropriated ironically.
    MAYBE they stole it lazily in order to ironically point out the laziness of typical comedy writers.
    Hmm...
    Abed should always be Batman. Batman Abed could come to life in the Dreamatorium. He can only be defeated by normal Abed.

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  6. I had the same thought sunbunny did about the Friends episode. Either way, I liked seeing Jeff and Shirley together.

    But, Batman returns. I love how Troy enables. "Abed, where have you been?" Annie's expression is a treat.

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  7. I'm so missing Community right now.

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