I think the MacGuffin in this episode is the MacGuffin Neurological Institute.
D’oh. Excellent point - or at least the $40k grant.
It started out quite well (I loved when the doctor* contradicted Britta, saying that a blow on the head can only cure amnesia if a blow on the head caused it in the first place), but dragged as it went on. Still there were good moments, like Troy contradicting Annie and getting the confession that way. “MacGuffin Institute” was a great joke.
*Obviously a specialist in Sitcom Neurology.
The one thing I didn’t really understand is what changnesia is. Apparently that’s one of the signs of changnesia. Or so they tell me, I don’t know.
I’m guessing there wasn’t anybody on the other end of that cellphone call.
Clearly we’ve ventured into full-blown schizochangnia.
Huh, I didn’t know Magnitude could say anything other than “pop-pop!” It feels wrong, somehow.
And now Jeff is (mildly) praising Pierce. What are the odds?
Not a great episode, or even a particularly good one. I won’t be gay-marrying or even gay-dating it.
I thought last night’s episode was not bad; the P.E.E. parts were pretty funny. Certainly it avoided the “Community fan faction” vibe of the first few episodes of the season.
The P.E.E. was a tad reminiscent of the yachting class episode (eccentric teacher never seen before praises Shirley) but was saved by Donald Glover’s skill at physical comedy.
It was a little distracted. Abed’s fraternity stunts could have been either more fleshed out or dropped altogether. However, there were several lines that I like.
“Let me reveal the fortune inside this cookie…”
“Well City College slipped that slope when they slipped him that scooter. And they sure slipped up when they let him set foot on our soil.”
“Noone deserves to be mocked for being mock locked in a mock locker”
They need to bring back the Troy and Abed bits at the end of the show (if they didn’t last night, I haven’t watched it yet.)
Nope, it was Troy, but they really Britta’d things by having Britta there instead of Abed. Of course, they were in bed, so that’s probably why.
I hope that the frat stuff wasn’t a one-off because they completely blew the potential on that. All that build up for a depantsing? I was fully expecting Abed to go Animal House by the end. Alas.
Back to trying too hard fan fiction.
There was literally only one thing good about the episode and that was Jim Rash’s Deana Reed outfit.
I realized how quickly I’d dropped the show without thinking about it when I realized this morning that I’d missed the latest episode, it hadn’t recorded for some reason, and I didn’t particularly care.
You people are the Britta of TV discussions. The party stuff was dumb (never even heard of Susan B Hawkins or whoever she is before), but the Abed stuff was great. I hope the coatcheck girl shows up again.
Geez, you guys, I didn’t think they Brittaed this week’s episode. While perhaps not hilarious, I found it perfectly enjoyable. The Deana Reed outfit was fantastic, I agree.
While there probably won’t be any payoff coming, if you looked on the hallway bulletin boards this week, there were at least a couple of leaflets featuring the Delta Cubes logo. So Abed’s frat does indeed live on!
And Rachel, the coat check girl? Yes, indeed. More, please.
I remember Sophie B. Hawkins as a one-hit wonder (“Damn, I Wish I Was Your Lover”*), although Wikipedia tells me she did have one other top ten hit in the US – “As I Lay Me Down”, which Abed mentioned as the one he preferred.
I hadn’t thought about Sophie B. Hawkins in years prior to this episode, and probably would have described her as a singer who was briefly popular in the early '90s and is mostly forgotten today. So the Dean’s line about how Greendale was full of people who basically gave up on life 20 years ago and thus still consider Sophie B. Hawkins a current, popular artist struck me as pretty funny. 
I liked the Abed stuff too, and the Dean’s Pleasantville-esque black and white costume was one of their best Dean costumes ever.
This was far from the best-ever episode of the show, but I found it reasonably entertaining and enjoyable.
*This song had a video deemed too racy for MTV in 1992. I don’t think I ever saw it at the time (I do remember seeing an alternate version that was just Hawkins and her band on stage), but looking at it now it seems pretty tame…but at the same time hilarious. It’s like a parody of a Madonna music video from the same era.
Abed hooked me back in from apathy by saying he liked As I Lay Me Down the best.
C’mon, even Pierce probably understands that’s the far better song.
Though they’ve made him so much more likable a character this year that you have to wonder what’s coming up that drove him off the show.