In Community’s world, it only makes sense to say goodbye to a character with a ridiculous concept episode. Or, rather, it makes sense for certain characters. Pierce’s official goodbye last week was about as grounded as the show gets, canisters of sperm notwithstanding. But Troy is one half of the Troy and Abed Manchild Make-Believe Team, so ending his time at Greendale with a post-apocalyptic war about standing on chairs is the way to go. That said, the idea is sold more by (as was done in the paintball episodes) the introduction of a grand prize to the proceedings, in this case, a comic of Abed’s worth $50,000. And, even though we’ve been here before, the moment when Abed announces the prize, marking exactly what kind of episode we’re in for, still manages to be pretty great. Of course, another major difference between this episode and the paintball ones is that Britta isn’t really going along with it. In previous concept episodes, Britta was right there alongside everyone else, getting into the spirit of things but, now fueled by her studies in Psychology, she’s upset with everyone for being in denial of their grief and wants the game to end so that they can face the fact that Troy is leaving. This makes the episode largely Britta’s, which is great because it’s awesome to witness her come into her own as a formidable force rather than as just the butt of so many jokes. Ultimately, it’s great that Britta’s struggles actually result in her finally positively helping Abed, something she’s attempted to do in the past but has largely failed at. This also reveals, in a roundabout way, that this is more an Abed episode or at least an Abed-through-Britta episode, which is something else that could be off-putting to newer viewers and well, me. The childishness of Abed and Troy’s relationship has often dipped too far into a creepy realm. Everyone going along with Troy and Abed’s immature needs just rubs me the wrong way and this episode pretty much takes the cake on that front. The sappy stuff at the end was played so straight that my blackened heart’s instinct was to reject it outright but, luckily for Community, I love these characters too much and found it mostly genuinely sweet and almost (almost!) tear-inducing. In fact, what I enjoyed most about this episode were the moments of sincerity between the characters, because the parody framing the proceedings didn’t quite land for me. Plus, maybe people standing on objects and avoiding the floor is just less exciting than people shooting at each other (Though, admittedly, the consequences would be pretty severe. Some of those falls looked pretty bad, especially for those whose legs were tied to stuff). I can’t say for sure why, but there were times where the show was much more committed to the concept of, er, standing on things, than I was. There were a lot of moments where the combination of total ridiculousness and utter sincerity just made me feel a little embarrassed for everybody. Maybe because this sort of homage episode doesn’t feel as wildly novel as it once did. Take, for example, Shirley’s Island. Pierce started his own little gated community in the last paintball episode. With Shirley’s Island, this episode is relying on a hugely similar conceit to be at once taken as hilarious and important to the plot, but without that coat of freshness to distract, it feels a little silly. There were also times I was surprised the show didn’t acknowledge the absurdity of the premise more. I expected some joke at the part where Troy chooses to “die” by falling into the lava because, I mean, he falls straight back onto the floor. I thought for sure someone would step in and stop him from severely hurting himself or that he’d be bandaged up later, but apparently he just gracefully slammed into the ground flat on his back. On reflection, I suppose last week’s “Cooperative Polygraphy” was Troy’s episode. We got far more great one-liners from him then and the entire narrative built to his choosing to leave Greendale to become a man. It also makes sense for this episode to be more about Abed coping with losing Troy as we just know he’d take it the hardest. But it is still a bit unfortunate that Troy felt often underused and pushed to the background for the only episodes Donald Glover was available for this season, including his very last one. But maybe it’s wise to not overload a rebooted season of a show with a guy you’re going to have to lose only five episodes in. Hey, also, did Britta win Abed’s $50,000 comic? Or is that just irrelevant at this point? Like us on Facebook and follow us on Twitter for all news updates related to the world of geek. And Google+, if that’s your thing!
