Community is what you would call an ensemble cast, and much of their humor revolves around the characters’ chemistry with one another. The last few episodes have focused on the group being a group as a whole with one or two characters stepping into the foreground. “Early 21st Century Romanticism” departed from this, and reminded us just how funny the characters are on their own.
After a small fight centering around something as ridiculous as how good the Bare Naked Ladies are, Jeff decides to watch a soccer game at home while Chang decides to crash and hosts a party at Jeff’s house and hilarity ensues. Britta begins hanging out with a girl she thinks is a lesbian, who is only hanging out with her because she thinks Britta’s gay. Both are actually strait and hilarity ensues. Abed and Troy pursue the same woman in fair competition, and hilarity ensues. Ian Duncan fall off the wagon, and hilarity ensues. Pierce becomes addicted to the pain pills and start talking to a little man who’s not there, and guess what… hilarity. That’s a lot of hilarity crammed into one episode. Any one of these scenarios could have had an episode all to themselves. We get to see our favorite study group’s individual quirks under a nice magnifying glass. Nothing particularly over the top happened in this episode besides maybe Pierce’s drug induced hallucination, and still it remains funny. It’s episodes like this, the episode where they go to the bar, or where they loose a pen that make this show worth watch. The best humor comes from the characters reacting to how crazy they are rather that in an odd situation.
Down the road I predict Pierce’s drug use will become a major plot point. Each episode has been following a closer continuity, and Pierce’s drugs have cross the threshold of being funny into self destructive territory. Though usually played off for laughs, Pierce’s insecurities and need to be accepted are growing are becoming malicious. He ruined the hidden trampoline. Took over Annie’s anti drug play. He cruelly tried to ruin Fat Niel’s DnD intervention. He’s now gotten to the point where his imaginary friend has convinced him he doesn’t need his palls, he only needs to get high. An intervention episode almost writes itself. Britta will start getting dodgy because she does recreational drugs too. Annie and Shirley will try to help Pierce in an after school special sort of way. Abed will reference Requiem for a Dream. Troy ever the innocent will take Pierce’s addiction hard and become too emotional. Jeff will need to be voice of reason and reluctantly rise to the role of sponsor. Maybe that will be the season finale. One can only hope…
On a scale of 1 to Epic, (Epic= 10) I’d give it a 9