Community (Season 2)

At the end of its first season, Community would begin leaning into the meta humor that the show is well-known for. In Season 2, Community goes full meta, packing in tons of references to other forms of media, and it's absolutely glorious.

Season 2 has a bit more of a story this time around compared to the first. Just like last time, there's that one difficult class that everyone has to make it through (Anthropology this time), but there are also subplots about Jeff's feelings for Annie, Shirley accidentally having a kid with Chang, and biggest of all, Pierce feeling he's starting to get kicked off the group. Pierce's storyline is a bit odd, as it feels like the writers purposefully made him more of a jerk at some points in the season, but it also definitely manages to be the most emotional part of the season as well. However, while Season 2 is generally more story-driven, many of its episodes are far more standalone and driven by meta humor. Remember "Modern Warfare" from Season 1? Well, this season is packed to the gills with episodes like that, and so many of them are great. And just like the parody episodes in Season 1, many of these episodes in Season 2 manage to maintain an emotional throughline to stay grounded even when things go wrong, whether it's Abed's family issues, Jeff realizing he hasn't spent much time with his best friend lately, or of course, Pierce feeling alienated from the group. The series also doesn't hesitate to get surprisingly serious, such as in Mixology Certification which deals with alcoholism. It's this expert juggling of tone and creative episode premises that make this season of Community so special.

But of course, this show wouldn't be nearly as good if it wasn't funny, and Season 2 of Community is incredibly funny. The parody episodes are consistently excellent, with tons of clever references and fun gags. But sometimes the sheer bizarreness of these premises can be hilarious in itself, whether it's a zombie movie caused by Dean accidentally giving out military rations as food, a tense chase scene in a tent fort, or a crossover between Pulp Fiction and My Dinner With Andre. And even if you don't get all of these movie references (because let's face it, there's a lot of them), there are still a ton of well-written jokes and funny character interactions to keep you entertained. I also think this season strikes a good balance between these more chaotic parody episodes and standard episodes like the ones from Season 1, with about a 50/50 ratio between the two. As you can see from my highlights list lower in the review, I much prefer the gimmicky parody episodes, but there's also some great episodes that are more on the low-key side like Anthropology 101, Intro To Political Studies, and the aforementioned Mixology Certification.

There are so many amazing episodes this season, but I managed to narrow down my favorites to these:

Epidemiology: The first excellent episode of the season, Epidemiology manages to work as both a great zombie movie and a great parody of zombie movies. Despite the surprisingly tense and creepy zombie chaos, there are still a ton of fun character interactions near the start of the episode, and the episode kickstarts the Shirley's kid storyline. Oh, and the fact that it's all set to music from ABBA just makes the episode like 20 times funnier.

Cooperative Calligraphy: I'm gonna be honest here, this isn't my favorite bottle episode of the series. However, I absolutely love how the group slowly descends into madness as Annie refuses to let everyone out until she finds her pen. The latter half of this episode is so ridiculously chaotic and overwhelming you can't help but laugh, and the reveal of what happened to it actually gets revisited later on in the season.

Conspiracy Theories And Interior Design: This episode is just so good in so many ways. I love the concept of these weird night school classes, I love the hilariously intense pillow fort chase, I love the fact that there's a pillow fort in the first place, and I especially love the chaotic and hysterical double-crossing scene near the end of the episode that just keeps going on and on, and gets funnier and funnier the longer it goes.

Abed's Uncontrollable Christmas: This is a fun episode to watch around Christmas time. It does a good job of parodying the Rankin-Bass stop-motion Christmas films, while delivering an emotional story about Abed. I also think this episode does the best job of exploring the concept of "the meaning of Christmas", better than any Christmas episode I've ever seen. It's not the funniest episode, and if you're not a fan of the premise, you might not jive with this one, but I can't say that this isn't one of the most unique episodes ever put to television.

Advanced Dungeons & Dragons: So many Dungeons & Dragons episodes try to recreate the adventure through visuals or base the comedy around poking fun at the people who play the game itself, but this episode turns the group's D&D game into an epic, Lord Of The Rings-esque adventure and plays it all seriously. There are no visuals, only the narration and the sound effects, but you feel engrossed in the game anyway. Aside from just being a genuinely funny episode, it made me realize just why so many people love D&D to begin with.

Intermediate Documentary Filmmaking: The documentary episodes of Community have always been some of the show's best, with this one taking most of its inspiration from mockumentaries like The Office. Once you realize that all of Pierce's "presents" are meant to poke at his friends' sore spots, it's hilarious to see the ridiculous things that cause the other characters to completely break down. Troy meeting LeVar Burton is easily one of the funniest moments in the series.

Critical Film Studies: This episode was so creative in so many ways. I never thought I'd see a crossover between My Dinner With Andre and Pulp Fiction, but they pulled it off so well! All of the references are hilarious, and I like the emotional ending where Abed reveals he and Jeff hadn't spent much time together lately. Also, Abed appearing on Cougar Town is even funnier knowing that Danny Pudi as Abed actually did make a background appearance in one of its episodes.

Paradigms Of Human Memory: There's this problem with clip show episodes. On one hand, it's a lot of fun to see a highlight reel of your favorite show's best moments, and even better when it's edited in comedic ways. However, if you're in the middle of watching a show, you don't really need that reminder, so it just feels like filler. So how did Community make its clip show episode one of the best in the whole show? By making all of the clips entirely original and never-before-seen, of course! Not to mention the way it follows up on Cooperative Caligraphy is brilliant, I just adore this episode so much.

A Fistful Of Paintballs/For A Few Paintballs More: While not as "Modern Warfare", the show's second paintball episode gets pretty damn close! By basing itself off of westerns and Star Wars respectively, we get even more creative action, with a surprisingly large-scale and massive war in the final act that's surprisingly similar to Rogue One (this came out in 2011!). It also works pretty well as a season finale, with incredibly high stakes and a cliffhanger that brings Pierce's storyline to a pretty dramatic close. (Fun fact: This episode was so good, it caused Marvel to ask the Russo Brothers to direct Winter Soldier, and the rest is history).

Overall, I loved Community's second season. It's packed with creative parody episodes, excellent comedy, and some of the most inventive episodes of television, I've ever seen. It's a nearly perfect season and yet it's still not my favorite of the series, that honor goes to my next review... 

5/5 Stars