I enjoyed this episode, although I do think the gang screaming as they saw Chang was a bit much.
Oh, and I’m over Chang.
I agree… it was a relief.
I just hope that they aren’t going to try to make the show more “realistic” by gradually making small changes like the current episode where had a competent instructor (Malcolm McDowell) teaching there. It comes across as so fake. 
Hey, the times, they are a-Chang-ing.
He may have been competent, but he ended up at Greendale.
I love how the group quickly grabbed on to the idea that it was all a set up and people didn’t really hate them. It reminded me of when they ignored Todd’s critique of them.
Okay, I felt a little smug for getting the Calvin and Hobbes costume thing midway through the episode (from a few weeks ago), when several posters mentioned not getting it till it was explained here in the thread, but now it’s my turn to say “Ooooooh!!”
I just got this. Yeah, I know the song, but it just clicked. Ninety-nine red balloons. Nearly a hundred.
:smack:
This was the worst of S4 so far for me.
It’s just so weird. I see all these people, Jeff, Britta, Chang, Vicki, etc. and they are moving around Greendale. But it’s like it’s a different show. Not even the uncanny valley vibe.
Sure I got the pen and luftballoons jokes. But the little jokes were few and far between. E.g., the Greendale mascot made an appearance but was just … there … and nothing more.
What’s really weird is twice earlier I mentioned how little the study room was used in the previous episodes. Now they’ve gone the opposite direction. Made it the theme of an episode.
Looking forward, obvious Chang will need a serious psych treatment to return him to normal. Maybe they’ll strap him into a chair, stick his eyeballs open and force him to watch movies while Beethoven plays. Like in that movie, what one was it? You, know. The one with that guy.
I’d kind of hoped that Jeff’s father would remain a Vera Peterson or Carlton the Doorman character- referred to but unseen; my worst fear was that he would turn out to be Pierce. But, that said, I thought last night’s was a solid episode and Joel McHale even did some good dramatic acting without making the show too serious. Also liked the Thanksgiving plotline, especially how A(y)bed was trying to force the Shawshank narration while admitting it didn’t really work, and appreciated that the dean was used sparingly and Chang not at all.
Thoughts?
I loved this episode. I was worried how they would handle Jeff meeting his father as well, but I’m totally satisfied.
This episode didn’t work for me at all. Jeff’s half-brother felt like a character visiting from a different, cheesier show. The Shirley’s house story was incredibly boring since the POV was in the garage the entire time. Isn’t the first rule “show don’t tell”? The characters just kept telling us how wacky and annoying Shirley’s in-laws were… lame.
Abed’s Shawshank parallel was the ONLY thing this episode had going for it.
Oh, Britta was completely ridiculous too. She says something like, “You probably have an overwhelming desire to sleep with each other,” just as Jeff and his Dad are greeting each other? WTF, creepy?! Apparently this was just a setup for a callback joke later between Jeff and Britta, but in order for a callback joke to work, the first usage has to make sense in context. Horrible horrible.
I haven’t been as harsh as some of you on the previous episodes from this season, but I thought this was the worst. episode. ever. None of it was funny. The Shawshank parody is a good idea, but it deserved much more than this.
That was Adam Devine from Workaholics so, in a sense, that’s what he was.
Britta looked especially fuckable in this episode, I feel compelled to note.
It’s kind of like the old series is on medication. It’s a lot more balanced and easygoing and doesn’t have some of the negative extremes (almost any Chang or Dean heavy plot), but also doesn’t have the manic highs (the zombie outbreak episode, Chaos theory, etc.). If you live with a manic-depressive you’re more than willing to sacrifice the “good mania” if it means an end to “bad mania”, but for an entertainment program, I kind of wish it was unmedicated.
It’s bad. It’s worse than bad. It’s worse than worse. Each episode now has a stupid, simplified, feeling-good resolution of an emotional problem, i.e. the sitcom as lowest common denominator. They’ve turned Community into its own evil twin. We’re in the dark world.
It’s worse than worst. The ratings are going up for this atrocity. Turns out goop is what the American diet wants.
It’s awfuler than awful. If this is what brings ratings, we’ll never see another good sitcom on network television ever again. Who will experiment with a Community or a 30 Rock or a Better Off Ted if the American public thinks that this comedy? Sitcoms are over. Finished. Dead.
It’s bad.
That plotline wasn’t about Shirley’s in-laws. Showing the gang suffer through that Thanksgiving would have been boring and hackneyed. The actual story was about the interaction between Shirley and her friends, after she’d put them in that situation. Which they did show. There was no need to show the in-laws more than they did because the viewers filled in the terrible Thanksgiving blanks themselves, allowing the show to quickly get to the Shawshank parallel, which you did like.
Britta was referring to “Genetic sexual attraction”, which is a real (although far from universal) phenomenon where people who are closely related but do not meet until adulthood feel attracted to one another. I didn’t think this was a particularly hilarious joke, but Britta is a psych major and keeps spouting off things she’s learned in class, so it did make sense in context.
So recently Richard Castle met his long lost father who turns out to be James Brolin and then last night Jeff meets his long estranged father who turns out to be James Brolin. Deja vu.
How funny would it have been if Nathan Fillion had played the brother? Meta. A-bed gets it.