Community: Now With More Sweaters!

Well, after last week’s unfortunate Office mini-marathon, I was happy to settle in with a beer and another episode of Community. Not to mention that I was able to watch with the secure knowledge that it’s been picked up for a third season! Troy and Abed in the Morning will be a part of our lives for at least another year, people!

We start off this week with a baby shower for Shirley, and it’s really surprising how far they’ve taken this Shirley-and-Chang subplot. What started off as some zombie-inspired survivor sex has become a multi-episode arc that gives Chang a reason to still exist, and Malcom-Jamal Warner a reason to continue guest starring in sweaters. (Don’t they live in California?)

Shirley asks Jeff (who still looks terrible, BTW. What’s with the bangs? And the black jacket?!) to use his lawerly powers to serve Chang with a document severing his parental rights. After all, Shirley’s still not sure if the baby is Chang’s, and she doesn’t want to take any chances. Chang, we’re reminded, is still crashing on Jeff’s couch, doesn’t have a job and is generally horrible. Jeff seizes the opportunity to get Chang out of his apartment by convincing him that he just needs to show Shirley that he can be a responsible person. I have to say, Chang’s cardigan sweater and pipe did make me crack up.

I was happy to see a Britta B-plot, but it wasn’t big on laughs. Troy and Abed make a new friend, Luca, who loves playing violent video games as much as they do. Britta thinks he’s cute, but they forbid her to bang him because they don’t want her to ruin their new friend. Apparently Britta has a habit of telling them bad or awkward things about the guys she sleeps with, and even ruined Jeff for them by telling them he likes nipple play.

Once Shirley figures out that Jeff served his own ends instead of getting Chang to sign the papers like she’d asked, she guilt trips him both about what he did and the fact that he’s stressing out a pregnant woman. So much for Shirley deciding to stop using guilt as a weapon against her friends! I don’t really get why she feels so self-righteous about the whole thing, considering she’s being a little harsh on Chang and Jeff has nothing to do with it.

When Jeff gets home from a jog, finally looking hot, he finds Chang there, teaching Spanish to two small boys he insinuates are Shirley’s. Once it becomes clear that they aren’t Shirley’s, Jeff kicks Chang out of his apartment (Jeff: What the hell is wrong with you? Chang: I’m nuts, Jeff. Get with the program!) and goes to take the boys home.

Ruh roh, it’s a trap! Chang calls the cops on Jeff. (Nerdy aside: it kind of bothered me that Jeff actually got arrested. The kids would definitely be questioned, and they’d be able to tell the cops exactly what happened. Why would it take until the next day, and a phone call from Shirley, for them to go after Chang? Not to mention that with his legal knowledge, Jeff would be able to handle himself better than the average person.) This plot concludes with Shirley realizing that trying to keep all imperfection out of her life won’t fix everything. But interestingly, she doesn’t apologize to Jeff for dragging him into the whole thing!

Britta, who is getting ready to bang Luca, figures out that he’s basically a Balkan war criminal. But thanks to Troy and Abed’s guilt-tripping, she doesn’t say anything to them. Rather, she tries to turn them against Luca by framing him for taking Abed’s favorite DVD. Abed’s dorm room security camera (I mean, of course he has one) catches her in the act, and the guys storm off to spend more time with Luca. But soon enough, Luca’s decision to make a hat out of a baby in a video game tips the guys off that something’s not right about him. Traumatized, they tell Britta that, in the future, she’s allowed to ruin guys that have committed genocide.

The episode ended on a weird note. Community has a Scrubs-esque ability to change its tone on a dime, and the little scene during the credits seemed to be a commentary on overuse of technology. I guess it made me think about the fact that the study group wouldn’t get into nearly as many hijinks if they were just glued to their phones all the time. Point taken, Community! Now I’ll just publish this article and maybe go outside for a walk.

Photos: NBC