Community: Baby Crazy

Well it’s time again for the weekly Community recap. I will warn you ahead of time that I’ve been up since 4:30 a.m. ET watching the royal nuptials, so this post might not be as coherent as it should be.

So basically this episode was a stock sitcom “wacky delivery of a baby” episode but without the referential wink that we’re used to Community. Shirley goes into labor during the anthropology final exam, which wasn’t much of an exam anyway, because Professor Duncan didn’t bother to make one.

Strangely enough, even though it’s Shirley’s third baby, she doesn’t recognize or acknowledge that she’s in the early stages of labor until her water breaks. True, they semi-explained it by her saying that her babies are always right on time, and this one was early, but it just seemed annoyingly contrived, particularly on a show that skewers sitcom tropes all the time.

And why can’t they get Shirley to a hospital, you ask? Because the Dean set up an international food festival in the parking lot, and apparently there are race shenanigans going on that are severe enough to make it impossible to get out of the parking lot and impossible for an ambulance to come in. See, the thing is, she’s in labor, she’s not critically injured. This campus is big enough that there isn’t another entrance they could get to for the ambulance to reach them?

Sorry for the nitpicking, but I don’t think a show can spend two seasons setting up that it’s so meta-aware of its own sitcom-ness and then pull a stunt like this with a straight face.

Anyway! A few fun things happen, like Chang acting like a normal human being and comforting Shirley with stories of scrappy little Chang babies that have been born in unlikely places. Troy and Abed “sell” their secret handshake to Pierce and deal with the Indecent Proposal-esque dilemma of giving away something special to them.

Britta desperately wants to help Shirley (especially since she’s now accidentally doing a natural birth!) but is overwhelmed and disgusted by the unpleasant reality of childbirth. Jeff, who’s strangely (or not strangely?) way off to the sidelines, gives her a pep talk. While it isn’t on the grand scale of last week’s “emotional ghosts” speech, it works for Britta, and if you didn’t notice the fond little look Jeff gives her as she marches back to help Shirley, then you haven’t been paying attention.

Shirley’s husband shows up at the last minute, along with the paramedics that Britta shoos away because she’s “in the zone,” and it turns out that the baby is Andre’s after all. It, of course, looks nothing like a premature newborn baby, but I doubt there are many of those that show up for baby casting calls.

Anyway, everyone hugs and there’s a happy ending for everyone but the Dean, whose extended cover profile for Dean Magazine is thwarted when the magazine folds after its second issue (worst idea for a magazine ever!). Troy and Abed get back the magic of their secret handshake, and Chang is given the honor of having the baby named after him: Ben Bennet. Adorable.

Photos: NBC