Surfing Sitcoms: Community – “For a Few Paintballs More”
These spoilers for the season finale of Community are an unstoppable jugglenaut… juggernaut…
I remember watching the Community pilot and thinking “well, that was interesting, but I have absolutely no idea what, say, episode five of this show looks like.” I also was skeptical the show would ever reach that point based on its viewership numbers. But little did I know that within two seasons Community would be a serious contender, in a world with Doctor Who and Supernatural and The Venture Bros, to be not only my favorite show on TV bar none, but maybe my favorite live-action comedy of all-time. Based on my critic-heavy twitter feed, I don’t seem to be alone in these feelings. Through some miracle NBC decided to pick up the show for a third season recently, causing celebrations far and wide across the internets.
So second season of Community came to a close Thursday night with the conclusion of the two-part paintball extravaganza begun last week. The Sergio Leone parody played with in “A Fistfull of Paintballs” becomes something of a generic war movie homage in “For a Few Paintballs More”. Abed, however, announces early on that this going to be a Star Wars parody and steals Starburns’ vest so he can be Han Solo. However, the show has only an intermittent interest in either idea, instead for the most part choosing to focus, successfully, on the characters. In a way if last week was a culmination of the storylines for Season 2 then this week felt like it might be the start of some cool storylines for Season 3. At the same time the show brought back almost its entire recurring guest cast to fight alongside our heroes.
Troy, Abed, and Annie after "Operation Troy's Awesome Plan" lives up to its name.
The mystery of who is inside the ice cream cone costume is resolved right off the bat: It’s the Dean of City College, who devised this plan to destroy Greendale once and for all (I was a little disappointed at first, but the actor’s performance is so off-the-wall and fun that I let this random development slide). The few dozen Greendale students remaining agree to ally with each other to make sure one of them wins and then donates the prize money to the school to pay for repairs. Jeff and Troy get in a petty fight to determine who is in charge that can only be mediated by Annie (who I’m pretty sure was actually in charge). A complicated (and vaguely Return of the Jedi-esque) plan ensues, including a full frontal assault on a paint-machine gun and Troy using what he describes as his “super plumbing skills” (remember that random episode?) to put orange paint in the library sprinkler system.
Oh yeah, and Abed and Annie make out, or should I say Annie and Han Solo. I have no idea where the show is going with this but I have decided I hope it continues to come up in the future because, as good as this show was this year, you get the sense it needs to shake up these dynamics just a little. Abed later claims he only kissed Annie because that’s what Han Solo would do. Annie (who has a long history of being suddenly attracted to guys she previously thought were off-limits) seems to still have feelings. We will update you next year! Anyway, in the end Shirley and Britta’s full frontal assault on City College’s paint-machine gun (the Death Star?) fails, but thankfully one of the City College stormtroopers turns out to be… Pierce, who shoots the other stormtroopers and wins the game, then immediately announces he wants the check made out to Greendale. Jeff tells him the group wants him back… but then Pierce refuses, and the season is over.
Overall I would say that I enjoyed the second season of Community even more than the first, which I of course also love and own on DVD. It had at least seven or eight episodes (“Epidemiology”, “Advanced Dungeons & Dragons”, “Cooperative Calligraphy”, “Critical Film Studies”, “Mixology Certification”, “Paradigms of Human Memory”, “Abed’s Uncontrollable Christmas”, etc) that will be drop-what-you’re-doing-there’s-a-rerun-on classics forever, and maybe more. Even the bottom-tier episodes were very funny must-see TV on a weekly basis. Not everything was great every week, I’ll admit, but Community is quite simply everything I have ever asked out of a TV comedy and more.
Quotes:
-”Why would someone who gets paid to do things be at Greendale?”
-”You haven’t seen how mean this Dean can be-ean.”
-”POP WHAT, MAGNITUDE? WHAT ARE YOU TRYING TO SAY?!?!”
-”I’m calling dibs on the Han Solo role before Jeff slouches into it by default.”
-”Those guys are ballers, yo. I hope you like getting balled.”
-”Our sperm counts are higher… EVEN IN OUR WOMEN!”
-”Operation Troy’s Awesome Plan is living up to it’s name.” “Operation the Actual Operation is also currently underway…”
-”Now we have the tactical advantage of the knowledge that Jeff Winger wants to be a ballerina and has the Achilles heel of… weiners.”
-”There is a place that we will all see each other again, and that is Denny’s.” “Which Denny’s?” “We’ll figure that out afterwards.” “Is it the one out by Route 15? I’ve been banned from there.” “Well then, Leonard, I’ll see you in Hell.”
-”Wendell?!?!” “I think I may be stuck in this vent. It’s too early to tell.”
-”I’ve been in two actual wars, and this is even more frightening.”
-”Will you still be Han Solo after we die?”
-”Maybe we should just take Anthropology 201…” “Bad idea. Sequels are almost always disappointing.”
-”He’s just acting out. I’ve seen this behavior before… in cats… my cats.”
See you next year, everybody!
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