The fifth season of Community is here, and it is as good as ever. I was worried, with season 4 being less than stellar, but Dan Harmon is back, and he's letting everyone know.
The adventures of Jeff Winger (Joel McHale), Annie Edison (Allison Brie), Shirley Bennet (Yvette Nicole Brown), Pierce Hawthorne (Chevy Chase), Troy Barnes (Donald Glover), Abed Nadir (Danny Pudi), and Britta Perry (Gillian Jacobs) are some of my favorite. Let's not forget about Dean Pelton (Jim Rash) and Senior Chang aka El Tigre (Ken Jeong). So, I spent a large portion of the winter holiday re-watching the entire series to pick my top 10 episodes, and it was CRAZY tough. Also, no episodes from season 4 were even remotely considered.
10.) Digital Estate Planning, Season 3.
This episode is amazing. Most of it is told through 8 bit video game animation, portraying a game designed by Pierce's father, Cornelius Hawthorne, to decide who will inherit his fortune. The study group helps Pierce play through the game against Gilbert Lawson (Giancarlo Esposito), who was Cornelius's personal assistant. It is hard to explain how captivating this episode actually is. I was cleaning out a closet in my basement, and I was watching season 3 in the background, but when this episode came on, I couldn't help but sit down and watch the entire thing (for the 100th time). This is a great episode that is centered around Pierce, probably one of the last, and I read that this was one of the "big problem" episodes between Chevy Chase and Dan Harmon.
9.) Investigative Journalism, Season 1.
The misadventures of Buddy and The Study Group. Jack Black makes a great cameo as Buddy, the guy who just REALLY wants to be a part of the gang. From the cold open to the end, this episode does not disappoint, starting by showing how Buddy completely throws off the rhythm of the group by being cut off mid-sentence by the credits. The episode centers around Jeff being more "care-free" and trying to not be his usual self, instead trying to act more like Hawkeye from M.A.S.H.. This becomes a problem for the group when Jeff will not help them kick Buddy out. At one point, this was probably my favorite episode, but I've honestly watched it at least 100 times, so now it will have to settle for top 10.
8.) Conspiracy Theories and Interior Design, Season 2.
Jeff Winger's journey for the ultimate blow-off class finally pays off here, when he creates a fake independent study for conspiracy theories. After being confronted by the Dean about the legitimacy of the study, along with it's instructor, "Professor Professorson," Jeff is backed into a corner. Assuming he is caught, Jeff plays into his "conspiracy theory" teachings, until an actual Professor Professorson (Kevin Corrigan) actually shows up. This leads to a series of crazy twists between Jeff, Annie, and the Dean, as they all work against each other to prove each other wrong. All of this happens while Abed and Troy use Greendale to build a giant blanket fort. All in all, an amazing episode.
Jeff Winger's journey for the ultimate blow-off class finally pays off here, when he creates a fake independent study for conspiracy theories. After being confronted by the Dean about the legitimacy of the study, along with it's instructor, "Professor Professorson," Jeff is backed into a corner. Assuming he is caught, Jeff plays into his "conspiracy theory" teachings, until an actual Professor Professorson (Kevin Corrigan) actually shows up. This leads to a series of crazy twists between Jeff, Annie, and the Dean, as they all work against each other to prove each other wrong. All of this happens while Abed and Troy use Greendale to build a giant blanket fort. All in all, an amazing episode.
7.) Celebrity Pharmacology, Season 2.
Annie decides to cast the study group in a play about the dangers of drugs, that the school will put on for at risk children. Pierce is cast as "Drugs," which is him being the bad guy, dressed as a giant marijuana leaf, and is unhappy that everyone else seems to have better parts, along with better dialogue. Pierce finds out that Annie is living in pretty poor conditions (above a porn establishment named Dildopolis), and offers to give her money to help her out. Annie reluctantly takes the money, and Pierce uses the money against her to beef his part in the play up, essentially letting him do whatever he wants. The play is a mess, with kids in the audience chanting "we want drugs!", only because the message of Annie's play has been completely destroyed by Pierce wanting to be the center of attention.
6.) Aerodynamics of Gender, Season 2.
In this episode, Troy and Jeff pair up to play some basketball, excluding Pierce. While playing, the ball goes out of bounds into a "secret garden" with a giant trampoline. Troy and Jeff meet Joshua (Matt Walsh), the Greendale Community College groundskeeper. They fall in love with the calming effects of the trampoline, and all Joshua asks is that they never tell anyone about it, oh, and no double jumps. Naturally, Pierce goes crazy trying to figure out what they are up to. This episode might have been one of my favorite, but the B-story is a Robocop/Mean Girls thing with Abed, Shirley, Britta, and Annie, which was fine, but not half as great as the trampoline stuff.
5.) Beginner Pottery, Season 1.
Jeff, in his never-ending quest to find the ultimate blow-off course, has found "Beginner Pottery," which issues a participation grade. He convinces Annie and Abed to join him, and the rest all join a sailing class with Pierce. The pottery teacher (Tony Hale) has only one rule in his class, which is "No Ghost-ing," so Jeff is ready to participate his way to a course credit.
Everything his fine, until he meets Rich (Greg Cromer), the successful doctor who, "just takes pottery to unwind," and is amazing at it. I see him as the "Anti-Jeff." Now that the stakes have been raised, Jeff tries harder and harder in pottery, with no success. He starts to look into Rich's school history, which starts to unravel Jeff, putting him in a state Abed refers to as, "Goldbluming."
The B side of this story is equally great, with Professor Slaughter (Lee Majors) teaching Shirley, Britta, Troy, Pierce, and Star-Burns (Dino Stamatopoulos) how to sail, on a boat in the Greendale parking lot.
4.) Basic Lupine Urology, Season 3.
Hopefully, the "Dick Wolf" wordplay can give you a clue as to what kind of episode this is. As a person who hasn't really seen a ton of Law & Order, I totally got the episode. The episode starts off with the night janitors finding the study group's biology project smashed on the floor of their class room. Jeff, Annie, and Professor Kane (Michael K Williams) arrive at the crime scene to look it over. It has Star-Burns as the street rat they had to track down, Pierce as the first perp, Troy and Abed as the detectives, Jeff and Annie as the Lawyers, and Britta "Britta-ing" up the analyzers job. The episode even busts out a twist ending, and a guest spot from Michael Ironside.
3.) Advanced Dungeons & Dragons, Season 2.
This is another great Pierce episode. The gang decides to help out a depressed classmate Neil (Charley Koontz), who is given the unfortunate nickname, "Fat Neil." Neil decides to give all of his Dungeons & Dragons materials away, which forces Jeff to gather the others to give Neil the best D&D campaign of his life. Ultimately, while intentionally excluding Pierce, they inadvertently include Chang, which drives Pierce crazy. When the group gathers together to play, Pierce shows up to ruin the game, turning it into the adventure of a lifetime.
2.) Contemporary American Poultry, Season 1.
In this Goodfellas parody, we see exactly what it takes to corrupt the Greendale Seven. Chicken fingers. The entire premise of this episode is that the study group is tired of getting to the cafeteria late on chicken finger day, because they always run out. Well, not the whole group. Britta loudly announces that she's a vegetarian when the group shows interest in shutting down their study session early to grab chicken fingers. It turns out Star-Burns (Dino Stamatopoulos) works the deep-fryer, and saves chicken fingers for his friends. Jeff Winger is having none of that. They hatch an elaborate plot to get Star-Burns fired, and to replace him with Abed. The power goes to Abed's head, and even more so to the rest of the group. Seeing this happen causes Jeff to reassess what they've done, and gets him kicked out of the study group for trying to stop it.
1.) Remedial Chaos Theory, Season 3.
This was a very ambitious episode. The initial premise is that Troy and Abed are having a house-warming party, and invite the group over. Pretty run-of-the-mill, right? It gets all wobbly when the pizza arrives, and Jeff decides to roll six-sided die to decide who will get the door. This splits the episode into 6 separate timelines, being noted by Abed throughout. A lot of these stories play into each other, relying on things done and said in previous stories to carry the story forward, and it is brilliant. There is a timeline with "evil" versions of everyone, with a goatee Star Trek reference. I don't know that I've seen a sitcom pull off such a crazy/great episode. Were talking 7 total stories (They eventually figure out that there are 7 of them, and that Jeff has omitted himself from getting the pizza in rolling and choosing, so they make him get the door) being coherently told inside of 22 minutes. This is the reason that I chose this episode for the first spot.
I am quite pleased with the first 2 episodes of the 5th season. Chang's teaching again, Magnitude is back in full force, and it looks like Chevy Chase will be replaced by Jonathan Banks. Many of you know him better as "Mike" from Breaking Bad, but if you're like me, You'll always know him as "Cuz" from Beverly Hills Cop.
I hope you enjoyed my first post of 2014!
This was a very ambitious episode. The initial premise is that Troy and Abed are having a house-warming party, and invite the group over. Pretty run-of-the-mill, right? It gets all wobbly when the pizza arrives, and Jeff decides to roll six-sided die to decide who will get the door. This splits the episode into 6 separate timelines, being noted by Abed throughout. A lot of these stories play into each other, relying on things done and said in previous stories to carry the story forward, and it is brilliant. There is a timeline with "evil" versions of everyone, with a goatee Star Trek reference. I don't know that I've seen a sitcom pull off such a crazy/great episode. Were talking 7 total stories (They eventually figure out that there are 7 of them, and that Jeff has omitted himself from getting the pizza in rolling and choosing, so they make him get the door) being coherently told inside of 22 minutes. This is the reason that I chose this episode for the first spot.
Community is one of my favorite shows, and choosing 10 episodes was pretty impossible. I didn't choose any Paintball, Halloween, or Christmas episodes, because there are a lot, and mostly all great (Season 4, you just don't make the grade). It pained me to leave out "Physical Education," "The Art of Discourse," and "Anthropology 101," to name a few. I've seen every episode countless times, with different ones jumping out at me at different times, so I had to settle on this list.
I am quite pleased with the first 2 episodes of the 5th season. Chang's teaching again, Magnitude is back in full force, and it looks like Chevy Chase will be replaced by Jonathan Banks. Many of you know him better as "Mike" from Breaking Bad, but if you're like me, You'll always know him as "Cuz" from Beverly Hills Cop.
I hope you enjoyed my first post of 2014!
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