Saturday, May 12, 2012

Community - Curriculum Unavailable


Two months after the study group is expelled from Greendale Abed (Danny Pudi), convinced there is a conspiracy afoot, sneaks back onto campus in the guise of Inspector Spacetime to prove Dean Pelton (Jim Rash) has been replaced by an impostor. After being caught by a police office with an appreciation for Antiques Roadshow, Abed is forced to attend therapy or face criminal prosecution.

With Abed unwilling to go to any kind of doctor alone the entire study group soon finds itself in a psychiatrist's office trying to convince Dr. Whitey (John Hodgman) that Abed is less crazy by showing examples of each member of the group's craziness in recent months. Sadly, the stories only convice the psychiatrist that Abed is lacking a strong support structure and would do much better, as Troy (Donald Glover) puts it, in "crazy people jail."


The episode is heavy on flashbacks (which are, surprisingly, full of new footage) that lead the group to not only stand up for Abed and Greendale but suspect that Abed's suspicions about the fake Dean are true. However, the shrink throws the group a curveball when he tells them Greendale isn't a community college but an insane asylum which they have been fortunate enough to be released from and now need to move on.

To help prove his argument Dr. Whitey points out the flaws in each of their lives that led them to be sent to Greendale and the unlikelihood that any of them would attend a community college for three years and not actually learn anything. Not all the clips from "Curriculum Unavailable" work, and it terms of storytelling it's all over the place, but many of them prove to be pretty darn funny. My favorites might be Troy driving a four-wheeler into the study room and the revelation that Annie (Alison Brie) has always secretly wanted to co-host Troy & Abed in the Morning.

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