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Community: Geothermal Escapism

"Come out with your feet on the floor and there will be no need for nudging or jostling."

It is never easy when one of your favourite actors decides to leave one of your favourite shows. I’m still not over Claudia Christian leaving Babylon 5. Or Anthony Edwards leaving ER. Or pretty much everyone leaving Misfits.

We've had a lot of time to get used to the idea of Troy leaving, but that hasn't made it any easier. Donald Glover has been one of the best things about the show since day one. Losing him is going to be a major blow to the series, especially since it is also going to result in the break up of one of the best comedy double acts on TV right now.

Troy and Abed are in many ways the heart and soul of the show. Theirs is a story of love between two men who found in each other what they had been missing. Abed finally found someone who, while never fully understanding him, understood him more than anyone had ever done and accepted him regardless. For Troy, Abed's friendship allowed him to shed the jock personality he had acquired in high school and embrace his geekier side. The relationship wasn't always blissful, they had their ups and downs, were probably too co-dependent (which is why some time apart might do them both some good), but it was always the healthiest, purest relationship of the entire group.

As it should be, the focus of this episode was on Troy and Abed and how Troy’s looming departure was affecting his other half. As previous episodes have shown, Abed has some serious abandonment issues so he was never going to take Troy leaving well. To Abed, Troy is more than just his best friend. He is part of his soul. So it should come as no surprise that he would go to extreme lengths to prevent Troy from sailing away on that boat. Don't let that adorable exterior fool you, Abed can be ruthlessly Machiavellian when he wants to be. This is someone who created a fake boyfriend for Annie just to ensure a higher quality of breakfast.

Abed's default coping mechanism in the past has always been to escape into a fantasy world inspired by the movies and TV shows he consumes like a machine (the guy is just one robot army away from being Skynet). This time he remakes the real world to match his imagination, devising a scenario that, assuming he and Troy were the last ones standing, would result in deadlock because neither would ever turn on the other thus prolonging the game.

Abed knew exactly what buttons to push to escalate the situation and keep Troy around longer. After all, this is a school that turned the building of a blanket fort into a full scale war. All he had to do was wave a valuable prize in front of everyone (like a comic valued at $50,000) and a simple, sweet children’s game quickly turned the campus into a post-apocalyptic landscape complete with vicious Mad Max-style biker chair gangs roaming the halls (or jumping out of lockers). This was basically a paintball episode without the paintball, because paintball just isn’t cool, cool, cool anymore, especially after the debacle that was the season 4 finale.



This was also a great episode for Britta, the best she's had in years. The writers pretty much acknowledged in 'Repilot' that they went too far in making Britta the group dunce and are now making efforts to correct that mistake. It really felt like we had season one Britta back. Rather than being 'the worst' she was the nagging voice of reason, the one who wanted everyone to deal with their true feels regarding Troy’s departure -- whether they wanted to or not. Because of this she was sort of the villain of this episode, albeit a well-intentioned one. Without her, Abed would never have found a way to finally let go of Troy. Britta may be the worst sometimes, but at heart she is always the best.

And so came to pass that everyone, audience included, bid a sad goodbye to Troy Barnes (or at least his older, wiser, no longer catatonic in the presence of LeVar Burton clone). We just couldn’t have asked for a more perfect swan song than this. It was the fond farewell that Glover and Troy had earned and deserved. So farewell, Donald Glover, and thank you. We're all going to miss you, and Troy, and wish you well with your future ventures.

Now comes the truly hard part, because the only thing more difficult than saying goodbye to someone is learning to live without them. Abed may have been able to let go of Troy in his own way, but how is he going to cope without Troy around all the time? Will someone new come along and take Troy’s place at the study table the same way that Hickey has (rather successfully) replace Pierce?

Notes and Quotes

--Is this the first time they have openly stated that Greendale is in Colorado?

--Just what is a 'Best Boy'?

--Jonathan Banks is really fitting in well as Hickey. So well that I wish he had been part of the group from the start.

--What happened to the Dean? We never saw him again after the cold open. Was he taken down early? Or was he locked up in his office hiding on his desk?

Prof. Duncan: “Real nice, Winger. This is why the British never win any sports: Because everybody else cheats.”

Troy: “Sorry, Britta, Abed knows best. But I’ll always remember you as kind of slowing us down and complaining a lot.”

Britta: "Who's there, bitch? Floor! Floooooor!"

Magnitude: “I’m actually British!”
--Yeah, and you went to Hogwarts. You're fooling no one, Lee Jordan.
Troy and Abed: “Troy and Abed in a bubble!”

Abed: "In a cool way like Keyser Sozë or a lame way like Jewel of the Nile?"

Britta: “There I go — I almost Britta’d our goodbye.”

Jeff: "Sweet, sweet portable chairs! Plastic gold, four-legged diamonds! You claiming this? Lava joust?"

LeVar Burton: “You know, starting a sea voyage from landlocked Colorado may not have been the best idea.”

Four out of four same sex celebrity crushes. For the record mine is, as I'm sure some of you already know, Alexander Skarsgård. Right, I've told you mine, now tell me yours.

8 comments:

  1. This was a good episode for Troy and Abed but I was most happy with what they did with Britta. She's a ditz and she does not think things through (she dropped out of high school to impress Radiohead, after all), but she's not stupid. It was also cute they brought LeVar Burton back. Poor guy; I'm sure he wishes Troy was still terrified of him.

    PS. Cobie Smulders

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  2. This episode was so well done that it made me cry and I rarely cry at TV. I just felt so bad for Abed who was literally dying because of the loss of Troy. The clone idea was brillant. Britta does get Abed- at least in emergencies. The Mad Max theme was hilarious and I am also loving Hickey and hope that the writers can continue this great season with a good story line for Abed.

    PS. Ming-na Wen

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  3. I've never cried that hard in front of a comedy, so that was en effective goodbye. Yet it was weird, though awesome, that Britta got to shine so much in this episode. My personal favorite line was, "Don't regress to primal behavior just because we can! We're human beings, not the editors of Teen Vogue." She's right, they set a TERRIBLE exemple for today's youth.
    Now, I can't wait for Donald Glover's new FX show!

    (PS : As a gay man in love with Glover, it would be an opposite-sex-celebrity-crush for me, and it would be Sarah Paulson.)

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  4. Wonderful, wonderful episode. Best one in a long time.

    Ksenia Solo and Kristen Bell.

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  5. I'm sad to see Troy go, hilarious episode though. I always get a kick out of the generic post apocalyptic gang members that seem to spawn out of Greendale during these catastrophes. And Hickey in his fire extinguisher powered vehicle was beautiful. It seems they finally found the sweet spot with Britta. Though I still found the character role she fills still very annoying, they managed to make it less annoying this episode.

    It'd be interesting if they cycled different guest stars and/or existing students into their study group instead of trying to find a full out replacement.

    Jon Hamm.

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  6. Like some of the rest of you, this episode made me cry. I loved Britta stepping up to "clone" Abed. After all the nonsense with her, it was a very touching moment.

    The goodbyes simply wrecked me. As I sat there watching it with tears coursing down my cheeks, I couldn't believe how much a sitcom had affected me.

    Elizabeth Mitchell and Gillian Anderson

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  7. I loved that this episode centred around Troy with Abed and Britta. I was never a big fan of Britta and Troy as a couple, but it was a thing that happened, and it was nice to see that acknowledged. Also, I love it when Britta is the only sane person.

    I'm amazed how much I miss Pierce, though. I never liked him, but Hickey just isn't quite doing it for me - I felt like it should be Pierce on that crazy thing, helping Britta turn villain.

    P.S. Mila Kunis.

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