First off, Community has become my most anticipated show in NBC's Thursday night lineup. The writers are not short on ideas, where other programs in the block will use NBC's "Green Week" to fill entire plot lines, Community gets over with in the opening, refusing to shoehorn an environmental message into their ambitious plotlines.

The extent of Green Week is Dean Felton, this time addressing the students by a boom box, temporarily changing the school's name to Envirodale Community College, as the 5,000 posters will no doubt remind students. Oh, and they booked a band named "Green Day" to play a concert Friday night, so they'll need a new run of 5,000 posters.

The bulk of this episode digs deeper into the cranky Sr. Chang's back story, as Jeff is coerced by the study group into convincing Ken Jeong's character to ease up on the vengeful essays he assigns the class. Jeff uses his experience in jury selection to deduce that Sr. Chang is recently divorced.

In order to raise his spirits, Jeff starts going out drinking with him, and Winger's hangover the next morning is chillingly accurate for those who have ever gotten blotto on a school night.

A major complaint about this show has been Ken Jeong's overacting on Sr. Chang's freakouts, so it was nice to see a quieter side. He even got the best line of the night at the expense of Troy and Shirley, "Ustedes estan sucios. You are dirty. It's plural but it's also formal, because they are not my friends." It's a joke in Spanish and English about stereotypical Asian racism against blacks!

Shirley gets the second tier this week, trying to overcome her fear of public speaking with Pierce's coaching, though little is revealed about her character, she delivers big laughs playing off the moist towelette magnate.

The material Chevy Chase's Pierce Hawthorne is given seems more inspired by the actor's sage demeanor than that of a character. It isn't hard to imagine Chase offering unsolicited wisdom or aping Joel McHale to appear "cool" to his coworkers on set. One of the best scenes in this episode was Pierce, sitting in Jeff's chair, messing with his phone, and cracking one-liners Jeff Winger-style.

The third plot, which the program gracefully uses in nearly every episode to pull together a chaotic climax, revolves around Abed and Troy losing their science project, a rat named "Fivel," to whom they duet "Somewhere Out There."

Troy is afraid of rats and refuses to help search for Fivel, which Abed does by singing his the song in the hallway. Not until Troy lends his voice in harmony with Abed's does Fivel return, a scene cut three ways with Sr. Chang and his wife making out to live salsa music played by Greene Daeye, a Gaelic band, as Sherry knocks her speech out of the park with a "HEEEEERRRRE'S BROWNIES!" Jack Nicholson impersonation.

Sr. Chang takes the microphone and gives a quick speech, thanking his friend Jeff and rescinding the punishment assignments. Britta seems impressed by Jeff's effort on behalf of the group, though their dynamic has a long way to go after Jeff and Annie's steaminess last week.

The play on Troy's presumed Alpha male status falls short because audiences have had so few opportunities to see his macho side. The indiscretion can be easily looked over because so many other characters are developing well.

Pierce's "I can help you with that" one-on-one situations in every episode provide an opportunity to isolate members of the cast, while also providing insight into why Pierce has been divorced seven times.

Abed, always quick to point out obvious jokes for slower viewers, never mentioned "An American Tale," and these little bits of restraint by the writers go a long way. This was one of the weaker episodes in the fledgling show's run, but it has a lot of things going right for it.




Story by Matt Anaya

Starpulse contributing writer
Twitter.com/shmattshmanaya

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