Community- Episodes 5.05/5.06 "Geothermal Escapism/Analysis Of Cork-Based Networking" Review- A great send off and an ok episode

I couldn’t get my review for “Geothermal Escapism” last week because I honestly didn’t know how to approach it. I loved it, I loved it so much, but it was Troy’s goodbye. I was a little bit blocked because I didn’t know how the show would move forward from now on, without Troy? Of Troy and Abed? He has been such an important to the show and has been on stage center for some of the most emotionally affecting episodes. His relationship with Abed was one of the strongest elements of the show, so how would the show handle the episodes after his departure? I needed the next episode to figure that out and the answer is “pretty well”.

First of all, “Cooperative Poligraphy” was such a great episode that I doubted the show would be able to deliver yet again those heights; I was expecting a good send off for Troy, something that would get to me a little, while not being the greatest thing ever. And then comes an episode that is funny and poignant at the same time: if “Modern Warfare” and “Mixology Certification” had a baby, it would be this episode, funny, crazy, and a turning point for some of our characters.

Troy’s having a going away party with most of the study group, but soon Abed turns everything upside down when he declares a school wide lava floor game, and to make sure everyone participates on it he says he will give away his “Clone Space” comic valued at $50.000. Of course, as it often happens in Greendale when the prize is high, everyone gets super serious about it and the whole school prepares for war.

The episode uses Britta to navigate the whole school; she knows Abed is trying to avoid dealing with Troy’s departure, and with Britta being Britta, she doesn’t care much for winning the prize, but she aims to get to Abed so he can admit what he’s been holding up. One thing the episode does right from the start is giving Britta the spotlight on an episode focused on Troy’s departure and navigating her through a crazy Greendale; not only it gives her a chance to show that she is no longer the air head she was on the previous two seasons, but the show also explores her own desperation to help people even to extremes (it’s obvious, and pretty funny when she jumps towards Troy and Abed’s bubble “I will force you to grieve properly even if it kill us all!). And it also give us the chance to explore how Gillian Jacobs and Jonathan Banks do as a comedic pair, the result? Pretty damn funny, there is nothing like watching Britta being rescued by Hickey and then turning against Troy and Abed.

Jeff, Annie, Shirley and Chang are all reduced to supporting roles; while I like Community the best when the whole cast is exploited I can understand why this episode needed to tune them down, it needed to focus mainly on Britta, Abed and obviously Troy. Jeff and Annie are working together to win and they rescue Britta, Chang is among some kind of gang called “lockers boy” (who are taken down by Hickey, in really funny bit) and Shirley has a safe heaven and provides Troy and Abed a bubble they use to escape. That’s about it, and that’s enough, with the limited screen time they get they managed to make me chuckle and even crack at times.

Near the end of the episode it becomes pretty obvious that Abed is having a hard time dealing with Troy’s departure; Troy tells him that the game has to end eventually, but for Abed it is no game, it’s the real deal, there is actually lava in the floor. The fact that Troy is leaving means that everything is insecure, unknown, and pretty damn scary. He initiated the game so everyone could see what he was actually feeling, and even though he knows that it is wildly crazy to actually think that there is lava on the floor, it the way his mind is processing Troy’s departure. Troy gets that, and as Britta gets there (and throws Hickey to the floor to protect Troy and Abed, which is a nice little moment) Abed finally realizes that the lava is not there because Troy is leaving, but because he won’t let go. So he does what he has to do, and he let himself fall into the lava.

While Abed plays death Britta gets next to Troy who is in the verge of crying: “You don’t get it! No one gets Abed…! I got him a little. This is my fault”, it’s a powerful line and it reflects the responsibility Troy has always felt towards Abed; as the guy who understands him he has always felt the need to protect him, like in season 3 when Abed hired those Hollywood doubles and Troy had to figure out how to get him out of debts.


Britta figures out how to fix Abed by fake cloning him; she may not always be right and she may make many mistakes, but she understands her group of friends better than anyone. Sometimes I think Britta only fails as a psychologist because she tries too hard, she can easily understand what everyone in the group is going through and she is usually right, this time in no exception, and it’s only when she tries too hard when she fails. So it’s nice that the episode actually gives Britta a winning moment and that she can actually fix Abed, who comes up as “clone Abed” a version who is ready to let Troy go. And on that spirit, Troy lets himself fall into the lava floor so he can come back as “clone Troy” a version of him who is ready to departure.

And then comes the goodbye scene, which is pretty much my favorite in the whole episode. Troy tells Britta she is the best (and asks her if he is better than sex than Jeff to which Britta responds that there could not be anyone worse than him, which is surprisingly fitting), he tells Annie that he lost 4 years of Annie on high school and that is a shame, he tells Shirley that she is a bad ass, he tells Jeff that he is the coolest guy he knows (and Jeff tells him that he is actually cooler by doing what he is about to do) and finally Abed… it just needs a hug and their face expressions to make the whole thing a tearjerker. Oh, and LeVar Burton will sail the boat with him, cool, cool, cool, and now clone Troy is able to speak to him.

Troy’s goodbye episode is all you can ask for, funny, poignant, and heartwarming. It builds a lot of momentum, and it gives Community the strength to move forward without one of its pillars, while leaving the door open for Troy to comeback at any time should Donald Glover ever decide that he is ready to return to the show. And that’s the best kind of departure you can ask for, one that opens a lot of possibilities open to the imagination.

Grade: A

Now, "Analysis Of Cork-Based Networking" is an episode solely based on showing us that Community can be the same even if Troy is not in the show. On my first watch it was ok, but as I watched for a second and third time I came to enjoy it more and more; that is unusual, usually my first experience determines my overall enjoyment of the episode, but here I was able to come to enjoy it more and more, probably because with every re-watch I made more sense to what was going on.

I think my favorite part of the episode is the whole Britta/Abed conflict; Abed spoils Britta a part of Bloodlines Of Conquest, a very Game Of Thrones-ish HBO show, so she decides to get back at him. Abed, of course, wears noise-cancelling earmuffs so that Britta can’t spoil him details from the book series. It’s a very funny spat to watch, and I also loved the bits with Abed having a thing for the deaf girl (and how he struggled with sign language at first), who turns out to be in the end someone Britta paid to ultimately give Abed a spoiler. It’s funny to watch Britta being evil, and it makes sense that as soon as she realizes how much he hurt Abed she wants to take it all back, but the thing is already ruined. But worry not Abed, Rachel is back! The girl he had so much chemistry with in “Herstory of Dance” (probably my favorite episode from season 4) and who hasn’t been since ever since. Rachel call Abed out for never calling her and Abed apologies, she accepts the apology and they go watch movies; I would pretty much like if the show can finally give Abed a love interest and if it is Rachel, then that’s awesome, because she fits him really well.

The whole Annie and Hickey plot was fun to watch as well, they make a good pair, and it somehow feels like a better version of what was done in "Basic Intergluteal Numismatics" (you know, the David Finch-esque episode); instead of going on a quest to catch an ass crack bandit, Annie and Hickey are on a quest to post a bulletin board back in the cafeteria, which turns out to be an almost impossible task. We have plenty of guest stars (including Firefly and Castle’s beloved Nathan Fillion) who get limited screen time, but good bits. It’s all about Annie obsessing to get things done and going too far in order to get the job done, making all kind of shenanigans (giving the janitors their porn, getting a parking spot to a lady in NTI department and control over the bulletin board to the parking spot management guy) and Hickey calls her out for going too far, rooting the school rather than fixing it as they set up to do initially (and Hickey only snaps when the dean wants him to say “easy peace, lemon squeeze”, which is just outright awesome). So far Jonathan Banks had the chance to work directly with Joel McHale (Introduction to Teaching), Gillian Jacobs (Geothermal Escapism) and now Alison Brie, and once again he proves that he has an awesome chemistry with the cast (I just hope that next season he can be in some episodes now that he will be starring in "Better Cau Saul").

The only part I didn’t really dig was Jeff, Duncan, Shirley and Chang decorating for the dance. Chang comes with the idea “Bear Down for midterm!” (and I gotta admit, it was pretty funny that he just repeated the whole thing and got everyone involved by crying), but there wasn’t much to it to make it memorable at all, just some funny bits. It would all come together after they discover there has been a birthday tragedy with a lot of people killed by a bear (and that’s how Chang came with the idea) and they try to pass it all as “Fat Dogs for midterms”. The dance is put together, and the real goods comes when Hickey decides to put his own bulletin board on the cafeteria (and it is a bit symbolic, as he takes down all the notes and stuff about the time he was a cop, which means taking a step forward letting that go) and just outright does it without asking permission. Annie is happy and they both share a look of complicity before the Dean comes with the janitors to take it out, but Annie won’t let it happen and neither will the study group who stands beside Annie and manage to leave the bulletin right where it is.

The episode comes to an end with a made up dance Chang came up with (“it’s not made up, it’s not made up”) and Garret stumping into one of the “dogs” and figure out it was a bear once the dog ears fell off, and he screams: “IT’S A BEAR DANCE!” And that’s it; I was a little bit shocked, I expected a similar riot to what we saw on “Introduction to teaching”, but on my second viewing I realized it wasn’t necessary.

All in all, the episode was fairly enjoyable, everyone gets something to do, all the storylines get together in the dance, but there is something missing. While this episode proof that the show can continue to be good and enjoyable without Troy, I found it had some troubles figuring out some of the storylines; while I loved seeing Annie and Hickey together it was pretty obvious what the structure for their quest would be and that reduced the amusement quite a lot, and the decoration part wasn’t really outstanding either, only the Britta/Abed stuff was actually outstanding, but you know what? As a whole the episode is pretty enjoyable, and I believe Community can continue down a road without Troy and still be as funny as it has always been.

Grade: B

Stray Observations:

-Duncan has a lot to do! In Geothermal Escapism he steals food and is taken down by Jeff before he can get to Britta (“This is way England never wins anything! Because everyone else cheats!”) and he helps decorating. It’s nice that we get to see him a lot this season.

-Talking of people we get to see a lot, Star Burns thinks he won and that he was the last man standing (“50,000 lottery tickets!”) before he is taken down. Awesome.

-“Troy and Abed in a bubble!” I will miss this so much, knowing that I may not hear a new “Troy and Abed in the morning!” makes the world a little bit sad.

-LeVar Burton will have to endure many Star Trek questions from Troy.

-Duncan talking about Blood and Conquest: “They really get the incest right.”

-Britta to Abed as he meets deaf girl: “Are you going to have another intense burst of compatibility with a girl we never see again?”
Abed: “I can’t hear you” *sign language of banana and train*.
I love that Britta called that out, because it is so true!

-Breaking News: LeVar Burton and non celebrity companion are captured by pirated! Troubles for Troy or a chance of adventure? I wouldn't mind the show giving us little reports of how Troy's trip is going... actually, it would be pretty amazing to look for little pieces of information of his trip in every episode!

-Is the dean going to be this season villain? When he came by the end to take down the bulletin I became a little worried, because I started hating Pierce and Chang when the show turned them into villains (luckily for both, they had their chance to redeem, especially important for Pierce who is dead now). I like him the best when he is trying his best to give a free pass to the study group, as he did in “Geothermal Escapism” when he declared the lava floor game in honor of Abed and Troy’s friendship.

-That’s it for now Human Beings! Due to the Olympics Community will be in a short hiatus. See you all in February 27th!