by Thom Yee

Community images courtesy of NBCUniversal Television Distribution

5×09:  “VCR Maintenance and Educational Publishing”

Probably like a lot of Community viewers, I hadn’t given a lot of thought towards Annie and Abed being roommates without Troy.  But really, as soon as you think about it, as soon as there’s even the slightest mention of it, your thoughts start going down some weird, largely unnatural paths.  As Abed identified early in season one, Annie and Abed are like the Chandler and Phoebe (in that order) of the show, and the two really just don’t fit together that well, with natural pair ups virtually never resulting in the two being together without a separate mediating force.  Now that Troy’s gone, we find out that there’s a natural friction between the two, and it makes sense, even if you never thought about it.  Sure, Abed isn’t academically driven or competitive, and Annie isn’t a near-emotionless pop culture cypher, but if the two ever have to compete for the same thing, they’re probably the two most dangerous characters on the show.

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by Grace Crawford

Images courtesy of Bay & Thomas Productions and 20th Century Fox.

9×20: “Daisy”

Finally, after weeks of waiting to find out where Lily went after she stormed out on her and Marshall’s fight, we… well, find out where she went after she stormed out on her and Marshall’s fight, I guess.

At the same time, Robin’s finally having her pre-wedding panic attack for the same reason a lot of women do: because she’s convinced she’s marrying her dad. So let’s jump into that, shall we?

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by Thom Yee

Community images courtesy of NBCUniversal Television Distribution

5×08:  “App Development and Condiments”

With this week’s episode, I think I finally understand what people mean when they say, “I don’t really get ‘Community’.”

Don’t get me wrong, I got most of the jokes, being the learned individual I am, but most of “App Development and Condiments” really didn’t hit home for me.  I’m a huge fan of seventies dystopian sci-fi movies, which is to say I’ve read the wiki plot synopses and then watched the trailers of several of them, but not having lived through any part of that decade (thank god) and not having forced myself to sit through any movies from before the mid-eighties, I’m just not totally feeling the episode I’ve just watched.

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by Grace Crawford

Images courtesy of Bay & Thomas Productions and 20th Century Fox.

9×19: “Vesuvius”

So here we are. After this week’s “Vesuvius,” there are only three four episodes left until How I Met Your Mother is over forever. I would say it’s a bittersweet parting, that it’s time this show wound down to a close, that the curtain dropped, that everyone got their happy ending. There’s just one problem:

Something is terribly, horribly wrong.

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by Thom Yee

Community images courtesy of NBCUniversal Television Distribution

5×07:  “Bondage and Beta Male Sexuality”

This is an unusual episode.  This is an unusual episode of a show that’s already extremely weird and introverted.  Not only does it dispel some of the myths most of us take as fact in the Community-verse, but it almost actively goes against what we’ve held to be true all this time. It ends on a strong note of emotionality and sentiment, but it rings more and more hollow the more you think about it.  The whole thing’s still funny and clever, but some of the jokes don’t go anywhere, and it feels like some of the character potential is… starting to bottom out.  I’m getting worried, but I don’t know if that worry is me for the show’s quality or me not wanting the show to change.

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