Due to all kinds of personal problems these reviews for “Advance Advance Dungeons and Dragons” and “G.I.Jeff” came later than ever. So far I’ve given Community a poor treatment in terms of punctuality, but it was never the intention. I want to apologize for the delay, and let you know that the review for “Basic Story” will come next week along with the review for “Basic Sandwich” since those two episodes are a two-part season finale, and if I just review “Basic Story” as a standalone I probably would do no justice for it, since it feels mostly like set up for the season finale next week.
Once again, I want to apologize for the poor treatment and ask you to stay with me until the season end. Should Community be renewed for a 6th (and most likely final) season and I continue to review the show, I’ll do my best to bring the reviews in time, so these kind of things don’t have to happen again.
In this episode the group decides to help Hickey to reunite with his son, Hank (played by the great David Cross) through a game of Dungeons and Dragons, one of Hank’s favorite hobbies. Now, I’ll approach to the episode differently from what I usually do: I’ll outright tell you what I think works and what I think doesn’t work.
One of the things that make me really happy about the episode is to have the chance to let Jim Rash play for more than just a couple of minutes. All season long The Dean has been one of the most forgotten characters, often used to deliver one liners or just heard through the loud-speaker, so it’s nice to have an episode that allows Jim Rash to use all his acting strengths in display, playing as Jeff’s son in the game he does some tremendous work, especially after they are separated and he is daydreaming about reuniting with his father.
The main issue, I think, is that one of the many strengths of “Advance Dungeons and Dragons” was its innovating breathe and exploration of the game as a device for storytelling. We have the exact same device, but it’s lacking that innovating breathe now. Abed feels a little bit underused; Community had a lot of fun using him during the first game of dungeons and dragons, but now he is used solely as a narrator. Then there’s this feeling that the characters in game do the exact same role they did during the first game; now that doesn’t mean it least funny, but it is way less exciting, and even when the cast plays their reactions hilariously it never fully makes up for a story that it is hard to connect with.
And then, there’s the ending: no resolution, quite abrupt and you have to take Jeff’s words in order to make an ending out of what’s happening: somehow through the game Hickey and Hank supposedly established a connection, but we don’t know if it lasts or if it solves even some of their troubles. I was left frowning at the screen because I didn’t understand the show commitment to leave this storyline up on the air.
The episode has its hits and misses; during my first watch I was kind of disappointed since it never really reached the highs of the original “Advance Dungeons and Dragons”, but to be fair the episode probably never aimed to be more than an entertaining half hour of television, and the editing team, the cast and most of the writing makes that happen, it just doesn’t feel as special as the first instalment.
Grade: B
This is a dream episode; not everyone is a fan of a dream episode, some people see it as filler, some other people see it as great character insight. Most of the times I see it as the later, some of my favorite episodes of many shows are dream episodes (Dollhouse, Chuck, Supernatural, Fringe, Revolution, all have great dream episode, and there's way more shows to count for), because they get to play around and do stuff shows are usually restrained to do.
Now I will admit that it is weird to have a Community episode that is entirely a cartoon show, it may be off puting; “Abed’s Uncontrollable Christmas” was a surprise for me when I got to watch it, but it never felt truly weird, but that’s probably because we were told from the word go that everything is happening in Abed’s mind. Here we don’t have such an explanation at the start, the show outright throws you into the world of G.I. Joe where Joes and Cobras are fighting to death, only not really to death since they always miss.
Jeff finally decides to take on Cobra head on and outright kills their commander, which leaves everyone in the show with their jaw dropped. Killing is off limits in most kids shows, and as a parody of such, Jeff is obviously going to get thrown into jail for violating that rule, even when he argues that now that Cobra’s commander is dead he can’t do any more damage. He gets thrown in jail with the whole group and soon they will go for a little trip to Greendale in which Jeff will learn the truth about this reality.
Among the episodes flaws I’d say the animation may be lazy, but I don’t know if that is actually a flaw since it seems done in purpose. Also, I’m always against underuse of cast in any episode, and Chang, The Dean and Hickey didn’t have much to do aside from popping up and failing at stopping Jeff and company (Duncan’s bit was quite funny though).
But as a whole it was funny as hell to me, and it makes sense how it is tied up with Jeff’s existential dilemma about being a middle age guy with a teaching job; Jeff always tries to put on a swagger to hide the insecurities he has, so it’s not really surprising that he wants to hang onto his inner child, the one with the dreams and imagination to look beyond what life seemed to be headed. And it’s a very dark twist that he drank scotch with age reverting pills, I’m sure Jeff did know that it would put his life in peril, even if he denies it.
This whole episode is there to fool around, but it fools around with a reason behind it; everything that is happening is tied up with Jeff’s desire to escape the crisis he doesn’t want to face. He didn’t expect his life to end up as a teacher in a community college by 40, he was supposed to be a lawyer and it didn’t pan out, so eventually that frustration had to catch him.
I understand why some people may not like the episode, but I think it was a very good wacky episode with a layer of depth into it. The show explored Jeff’s psyche while also doing all kinds of crazy fun stuff. It may not be perfect, but Community is always at its best for me when it manages to create balance from both comedy and drama, and while this episode rely almost solely on parodying G.I.Joe it also finds its way to sway in some insight of how Jeff is holding up, and we can see over the cartoon candy coating that he actually isn’t doing so well.
Grade: A-
Stray Observations:
-Chang can ask for insurance on the street; I wonder what kinds of deals he would have gotten.
-Abed says he’s taking on the task of surpassing all those guys who makes sequels. Sorry Abed, it was a nice try, but you are far away from surpassing a sequel as well made as “Shrek 2”.
-It’s hard for me not to picture Tobias from Arrested Development while watching David Cross act. Anyone else had this issue?
-Dean: “I WILL FIND YOU!” *Door closes*
God, that moment was comedic gold!
-It only takes about two minutes of gameplay for everyone to become too invested and competitive during the game. Classic Community.
-Shirley: “Just remember, whenever the wind blows through the woods, you got me killed.”
Shirley surely holds grudges.
-Tight Ship: “Let’s be truthful this is a very disorganized militia.”
Buzzkill: “Yeah, what’s anyone’s rank? We are all dressed like serial killers and strippers.”
Three kids: “I have three kids!”
-Fourth wall: “My name is fourth wall and I believe that what we perceive as life is actually a syndicated children’s cartoon.”
The whole conversation with Abed’s Fourth Wall is so filled with in-jokes that I just find it hilarious.
-Fourth Wall’s toy: “We’re in a kid’s toy commercial!”
-Wingman to Fourth Wall: “Your outfit is 3 layers of racist!”
-Cobra’s member at the funeral: “Look, I’m not good at eulogies, because I never had to give one!”
That’s deep man.
-Same Cobra member: “COBRA! AVANGE MY TOTALLY PLATONIC FRIEND!”
-The smashing people with rocks tactics never gets old.
-Fourth Wall’s toy: “Didn’t this guy used to be the voice for He-Man’s commercials?”
-Did you catch the flash to reality around half of the episode?
-Wingman: “I keep having these visions. Kids… little boys…”
Three kids: “Uh, are these visions we should share with the authorities?”
I outright cracked at that line!
