Wow what a great episode! Community seems to have two types of shows: ridiculous cartoony episodes, and strong character driven comedy. This episode was the later. It’s Troy’s 21st birthday and the gang decides to go out for his birthday. Honestly I’m surprised they didn’t do an episode like this earlier, considering the amount of time college kids spend trying to get into bars. Jeff and Britta drink too much. Abed meets a fellow Farscape fan. Shirley spends the night removing incriminating photos from her from her wild youth posted around the bar. Troy decides to wait until midnight when he is officially legal to drink. Each situation is something we’ve all faced at one point or another. Like Shirley everyone has documented evidence of drunken shenanigans. Abed’s sci fi buddy turns out to be a gay guy hitting on him. Come who hasn’t gotten unwanted attention while in a bar and been to awkward to handle it properly.
Alison Brie I thought stole this episode. Annie is only 19 so she procures a fake id, which says she’s from Texas. Because she is so high strung she starts to fake an accent. The Accent evolves into a completely different persona representing everything Annie isn’t. This Texan girl is a foul mouthed, trouble making, free spirit. She begins to talk about Annie as another person and realizes she isn’t happy with who she’s become. It’s funny but sad at the same time. This might even be a moment where she starts to outgrow her immature over achiever side.
Something very fitting about this episode is that Troy acts as the mature big brother. He stays sober intending to ceremonially drink on his official birthday, but abstains when Abed, Annie, Jeff, and Britta become plastered he drives them home. After passing a bar that Jeff and Britta have been arguing about being cool/lame he realizes they don’t know more about life than him. It’s fitting that on his birthday he grows up a bit. He even cheers up a depressed Annie. It’s nice to see the most immature character in an adult life. There have been many a night where I’ve been in his scenario the lone sober man amongst a thralls of drunken slobs. It’s a lonely job being the DD, but someone has to do it.
On a scale of 1 to Epic, (Epic= 10) I’d give it an 8.1