We are only 2 episodes into the season and I can already tell that the direction is way different and that the writers (plus Dan Harmon pulling the strings) are doing the best for the show to move forward and not backwards like last season and I feel like the spark is back, or at least it's starting to light. “Repilot” is an episode that is fairly enjoyable, but nothing to be crazy about; it’s mostly busy work to piece the show and its characters back together again, while “Introduction to Teaching” feels more like a classic Community episode. I liked both episodes and I was glad to see that it didn’t take too long for Community to find its footing.
Starting with “Repilot” we pick up sometime after Jeff graduated; he is trying to make it as a lawyer and he is failing miserably. And complete failure is the perfect time for evil ex-coworker Alan Connor to show up and alert Jeff about a potential lawsuit against Greendale. Jeff is doing so bad that once his drink is taken away from him he decides he has no choice but to do so.
It turns out the old study room is now a records room and while Jeff is searching for Humphries records, Abed pops out (“I see your value now. It’s a reference from when we first met in season one”) and tells Jeff that he is part of the “Save Greendale” committee and he has invited the whole gang there. As everyone (minus Pierce who won ‘t be returning) gathers around their old table I couldn’t help but smile; nothing really memorable has happened yet, but there is a change in the air that makes you feel that the show has restored its sense of self. One of the main troubles of season 4 (aside from the one already mentioned above) it was that the show seemed to be struggling to find itself, as if it was lost and it didn’t know what to aim for. Seeing the study group reunited and hear them how their lives haven’t got any better since they left Greendale brings back to Community its feel of identity (or should I say “I-dean-tity”?); this was a show about broken people coming together in order to make something better, last season only some episodes felt that way, but now that feeling has surged to the surface once again and it seems the whole season will continue to carry on that.
Of the whole group Shirley is the one who has it the worst; her business failed, her husband left her and took her DVR (which had Bones in it) and now she is just waiting for him to call her. Jeff sees he is about convince his friends to turn against his school, he gets cocky and meets briefly with Alan to show him who is boss and we have a very funny scene in which he forces Alan to take his tie off and he hits him with it. As he goes back to the study room he finds out his friends have decided to enroll once again in Greendale, but soon they find out that Chang has been sleeping on some records boxes and that he is a math teacher now (also he dropped his Changnesia act, thank god!); this drives the gang insane and as they are about to turn against Greendale, Alan comes up and tells the group that Jeff intended to turn them against Greendale.
In a classic Community turns of events, the group decides to let Jeff decide if he is taking the case or not; and as the group is pretty sure Jeff is going to take the case, Abed decides to burn the table because no one else deserves it and everyone agrees. Jeff is about to leave, but then he sees a Pierce hologram warning him not to do it. It was a nice touch, and even better when he said he was never allowed to return (which is an obvious reference to Chevy Chase’s troubles with the cast and crew of the show). It took me by surprise and I like it, it followed up one of the few things I really liked of season 4, which was the fact that Pierce redeemed himself and showed that he could be also some kind of likeable character.
“Repilot” is not the funniest Community episode, but it is certainly an enjoyable one; it offers the so much needed feel of identity the show seemed to lose last season and some very funny gags in the middle along with some references. It makes you feel like the show is back on track.
Grade: B+
It starts with Jeff completely clueless of how to run his class; he has been a Greendale student for so long that he is not really comfortable with changing his status to teacher. No matter how much a teacher or a student tries to have symmetric relationships there is an obvious difference in the dynamic of it all; being a teacher means you get treated differently than if you are a student. In Greendale in particular, Jeff soon learns from Annie’s Criminology professor Buzz Hickey (who he shares office with) that teachers can skip launch lines and that they can do pretty much whatever they want in the classroom.
Annie finds out about this pretty quickly and she enrolls in Jeff’s class in order to make sure he does a proper job as a teacher; it doesn’t work that much at first, but once Jeff wins an argument against her and she leaves the classroom, Jeff’s students are impressed and asks him how he did it and as he explains how Jeff discovers how he can teach these students the little he knows about law and he also find out that he actually likes teaching.
Jeff is so excited about it that he goes to Annie to tell her that he might enjoy teaching, but Annie is crying because Hickey gave her an “A-” (spoiler alert, this is the grade of the episode); that drives Annie crazy and she decides to drop Jeff’s class, so he goes to confront Hickey about it; turns out that “-” in the grades are just a convention used by professors to deal with unpleasant students.
Finally, the dean convinces him to form an actual “Save Greendale Committee” in order to forge a student-teacher alliance so that the riots can be reduced to 40% with Jeff on charge. Hickey pops up to apologize to Jeff as he admits that teachers might be working for the students and not for themselves. One of the things I really liked about this episode was how Jeff realized how satisfying teaching is and how important is to take the students in consideration; it has always been known how important teachers are, but not many tv shows tackle this, and Community has done it right, it’s funny and it’s also kind of sweet.
Now, on the B plot (and the funniest of it all); Shirley, Britta, Troy and Abed take a class on Nicolas Cage with professor Sean Garrity (performed by a great actor, Kevin Corrigan, seen in season 2), which asks the question “is he a good or bad actor?”. Abed already deduced the answer of another class named “Who is the boss?” and he is ready to take on the challenge, but professor Garrity warns him to be careful.
The follow up with Shirley going to Abed’s apartment in order to cheer him up is also nice. After a failed attempt to turn him a Christian, Shirley explains him that he can’t understand every single thing and convinces Abed that, in the end, Cage can be seen as both good and bad, “an angel to some and a demon to others”. What I like about it is not really the resolution of it all, but mostly seeing Shirley and Abed get the chance to interact one on one, which is very rare in this show. I like their on screen chemistry and how Shirley helped calm Abed down.
“Introduction to teaching” takes Community back to its crazy self, showing us that the show still has the guts to burn Greendale down to the grounds if it has to, and for me that’s the best Community, the one that is fearless and can take any single direction. What else can I ask for this show? Nothing; its characters are already great so with the proper risky and crazy storytelling, I’m good to go.
Grade: A-
Stray Observations:
-Troy: "Doesn't it feel weird that we are doing this..." *stares at Pierce's seat "... without Magnitude?"
-I was shocked that after Abed mentioned how one of the Scrubs cast members left after six episodes Troy got the line when he says “That son of a bitch! After everything Scrubs did for him!” Obviously making a reference to Donald Glover's departure; it’ll be a sad day when he leaves.
-Can I say once again how much I loved the “It’s my I-dean-tity!” line? No? Ok.
-Community didn’t do great on the ratings, but it can still live on considering the poor state of NBC's comedies. The show can’t end until every single cast member has said “Shut up Leonard!”; so far, Jeff, Shirley, Britta and the dean have done it.
-I love how the dean comes to the study room with an apple, a graduate cap, glasses and a pipe to dress Jeff as a teacher. Both Joel McHale and Jim Rash’s faces were priceless.
-I'm really excited that Chang will be a teacher again; I loved him as spanish teacher in season 1; from season 3 and onwards I haven't been really crazy about his character, but that might Chang-e now.
-Hickey (who I assume will become a new cast member) likes to draw comics of ducks; I can see a storyline being made out of that.
-The end of “Introduction to teaching” with Dean thinking in French about how much he wanted to teach Jeff excel was gold.
