I wonder if Alison Brie has finally tired of the attention paid to her chest on (and off) Community. Aside from the brief reappearance last week of Annie's Boobs, the monkey, her cleavage has been largely contained.
If it's a conscious strategy, good for her. Brie's *other* show, Mad Men, returns this Sunday and perhaps she's trying to put herself in position for serious roles she might not be considered for if she's primarily known for bouncy animated .gifs.
But if it's just Dan Harmon and company being contrarian, well, screw those guys.
NBC's airing this set of episodes out of order - and not even bothering to disguise the fact - is more contemptuous than pulling it from the schedule in the first place. "Happy New Year?" It's almost fucking April, people. At least overdub "How was your spring break?" so it looks like the network actually cares about the show. Don't be all passive aggressive like Fox and chisel away at what little audience there is, just pull the plug and be done with it.
Anyway, there was an episode last night. Following the "break," we learn Britta's enrolled in "Intro to Psychology" (which everybody feels is redundant), Abed has hired celebrity impersonators to help him reenact movie scenes (which is, admittedly, pretty weak), and Jeff has started seeing a therapist, which makes him even more insufferable than ever.
Dean Pelton also makes a deal with Ben: find some students to be "security interns" and he won't get in trouble for shooting a tranquilizer dart at Abed's Tommy Lee Jones-from-The Fugitive pursuer. I'm glad that was the first instance of that, because the whole "I didn't murder my wife"/"I don't care" shtick stopped being funny almost before the lines were uttered.
The manager of the...store? Corral? Agency where Abed has been hiring his impersonators coms looking for the money Abed owes him, but decides instead to hire the study group for an event (Howie Schwartz's "Star" Mitzvah) based on their resemblance to celebrities. Jeff - Ryan Seacrest; Shirley - Oprah, Annie - Dorothy from The Wizard of Oz or Anne Hathaway; Pierce - "Fat" Brando; and Tory and Britta - both Michael Jacksons.
The manager also bears a striking resemblance to French Stewart. Because he's French Stewart, get it (must have burned through that Beverly Hills Chihuahua 2 paycheck pretty quick)? And he makes it clear Abed is in serious trouble if the study group doesn't deliver.
The bar mitzvah goes about as expected; Jeff's ego threatens to become sentient as he's repeatedly told he's more handsome than Seacrest, he's finally left a broken man. Meanwhile Troy has to go out of his way to make sure Abed doesn't get his kneecaps broken, apparently distancing himself from his hetero lifemate, and Pierce has to come to terms with his Fat Brando-ness. Hey, better fat Brando than fat Val Kilmer.
Community still feels like it's trying to get its rhythm back. Last night's episode was one of surprisingly narrow focus, but built on a premise that was forced to begin with and just seemed moreso as the ep wore on. Abed was...more sociopathic than I remember, and it seems like they're setting up some future conflict between him and Troy.
Jeff's ego force field take down of Pelton was pretty cool, however.
Random quotes:
- "I'm so confident now I can pull things off I never thought possible. Look: aviators."
- "All we had was dumb reality before we met that man."
- "Can you believe some jerk brought a scalpel to a bris?"
