Community, Season 3, Episode 7 “Studies In Modern Movement”
Airs Thursdays, 8pm EST on NBC
What to say about this episode, other than that the scene in which Jeff and the Dean sing “Kiss From A Rose” to each other was one of the funniest moments of the entire series. I don’t think I’ve laughed that hard at anything in this season and there have been some hilarious episodes.
Essentially the plot is that Annie moves in with Troy and Abed and starts finding them annoying because Britta told her that it would happen. Jeff fakes being sick to get out of helping her move and runs into the Dean who makes him do stuff with him in order to avoid him telling the group about the lie.
What I found interesting about the episode is that my usual beliefs about certain characters was flipped. I thought Britta was extremely cruel to Shirley. Yes they have had their conflicts over how they see each other but Britta was incredibly rude to Shirley when replying to her comments about being the groups moral compass. Shirley can be very annoying with her emphasis on religion with everything she does but here I saw this as a mild comment she was making and Britta’s harsh comeback was too much. She also put it in Annie’s mind that she would find Troy and Abed annoying after living with them. This was most likely unintentional but I’m getting sick of the whole style of her character acting like she knows everything about everything. I think it has gotten worse since she became a psych major.
Troy and Abed have always been my two favourite characters, and while that probably isn’t shocking to learn since most people feel the same, you may disagree when I say that for a lot of this episode I didn’t like their behaviour. They were completely oblivious to anything to do with Annie and helping her to move. I expect it from Abed because he can’t read people’s emotions, but Troy has always cared about Annie and he should be able to tell.
It certainly seems that they were trying to show how everybody’s quirks have become too much of a problem because each of them are taking things too far. Annie certainly was incredibly naïve about the way things would happen, and her innocence has always been her weakness. She lets people get away with things all the time until a point in which she bursts and has a tantrum. This time it felt warranted, but she still needs to grow up.
Britta and Shirley need to both understand that people have different kinds of beliefs and that they can’t always force theirs on each other. Troy and Abed are spending too much time with each other and it’s making them childlike. They didn’t know what a linen closet was and Abed had a wound for a week before asking Annie to help.
Jeff needs to stop being so self centred and embrace things that are out of his comfort zone. I think it is extremely interesting to learn that he sees a therapist and I really hope that this storyline is shown in later episodes. Only Pierce seemed to be the person that cared about anybody for the first three quarters of the episode. He has always cared a lot about Annie and tried to help her but this feels much more that he has grown since his fathers death. If it is then I’ll be happy, although I will miss his ridiculous behaviour.
When it came down to things though, the gang showed that they truly do all care about each other. They all see the mistakes that they are making in some way and then fix them to help the others. It’s nice that Annie ended up staying with Troy and Abed because they all fit really well and I’m sure it will lead to some great moments of the show. Troy and Abed giving up their room for her and moving into the blanket fort shows that they are still childlike but know deep down what’s important. Although keeping the spare room as an imagination room seems ridiculous to me, even for them.
The episode had some great moments like the already mentioned karaoke and Pierce’s paint fume-induced hallucination of him playing piano to the senator. It also had some problems in the personalities of some of the characters but it was still an enjoyable episode nonetheless. If I had to compare it to another, it was most like Mixology Certification, but nowhere near the level of quality. I do like where the show is headed however. For the first time, this season is showing us the prospect of the group’s future outside of Greendale. They care about each other enough to make their group last and that’s great to see.
Yiannis Cove