'Community' Watch: "Paranormal Parentage"

Which one of these should I dress up as next year? 

Sitcoms tend to excel at Halloween episodes. From funny costumes, to trick-or-treat, to haunted houses & other horror tropes there's a lot of potential fun to be had with a Halloween episodes but over its first 3 seasons Community clearly established itself as the king of Halloween episodes. The first season's "Introduction to Statistics" was the first great episode (Abed as Batman!) & where the show hit stride. Season two's zombie epidemic, "Epidemiology," is maybe the funniest episode the show's ever done. Last year's "Horror Fiction in Seven Spooky Steps" was a fun look at the psyches, & storytelling abilities, of the Greendale Seven. So this episode had a lot to live up to & thus it's no surprise that Megan Ganz, one of the best writers of the last 2 seasons, was handed scripting duties for this episode & she delivered.

Last week's episode was called an imitation by a number of critics & fans alike, & while I understood where some of that criticism was coming from it ultimately felt like Community to me. Not Community at it's best mind you but last year's first few episodes didn't light the world on fire* either. If Harmon were still running the show I don't think that episode would've raised an eyebrow. On first viewing I wasn't so sure about this episode though, upon further reflection, & a second viewing, though I feel even better about this episode than the premier**. Maybe realizing Ganz wrote it biased me towards liking it more but ultimately I realized my biggest criticism on a first watch didn't bother me so much later.

*Then the fourth episode was "Remedial Chaos Theory," the multiple timeline episode that sparked the darkest timeline, & all was right with the world.

**Alas, based on last night's ratings, it seems quite a few people weren't big fans of that premier & missed out on last night's episode. That or "Community" fans had a lot of dates.  

There is a great idea at the heart of this episode, that the group must go to Pierce's mansion to save him from his own panic room only to find that the mansion is haunted by his dead father, but initially the obviousness of the plot behind the haunted house bothered me. Of course Jeff's right & Pierce faked the whole thing because he wasn't invited to Vicki's party & didn't want to be alone, & just as clear was that the mysterious figure who'd been watching Pierce sleep was his half-brother Gilbert (Giancarlo Esposito!). However I'm not sure what would've been better, & it all converged into a strong emotional payoff.

"I remember when this show used to be about a community college." For all of Abed's wisdom his meta comment in this episode is completely wrong––this show was never about a community college. That was just the setting & the way Dan Harmon could sell the network on the show, but in reality it's always been about the broken people within the study group & how, over time, they've formed their own literal community. One of the reasons Pierce has always struggled to fit into that community is how little everyone else wants him to be there. Now there's an argument that someone like Pierce should just take a hint & shove off at some point but the show has been clear that it's been the constant rejection Pierce has faced, starting with his father, is the primary cause of his being such an obnoxious, offensive, & damaged human being. What he most craves in the world is acceptance & companionship & yet even his best friend struggle to provide it.  Here we see that in order to just get them to hang out with him on Halloween he's forced to trick them into coming over to his house to rescue him from his panic room.*

*It's telling that when they ask him why he didn't trick/scare Vicki instead of them Pierce replies, "Because I hate her." The whole charade is so clearly a ploy to spend time with the rest of the group but even at the end they don't seem to fully realize how much they actually matter to him.

It's all pretty sad, quite pathetic, but it ultimately leads to cathartic realizations for a number of characters. Pierce finally finds someone actually needs him & what's to be around him in Gilbert, & maybe with all their money they can become drug kingpins or something. Troy finds out despite the insinuations of Jeff & Shirley that Britta's perfectly fine taking things slow.* Annie's reminded that being a good friend is never naive. Most importantly though Jeff, with help from Britta**, who manages to be very un-Britta in her ability to get him to successfully open up, & an unwitting Gilbert, decides to reach out to his dad. While I already know who will play his dad it will be very interesting to see how the show decides to craft the character & what effect he'll have on Jeff & the rest of the group. Based on the quality of this week's episode I very much look forward to finding out.

*While Donald Glover plays Troy's frustrated cluelessness, first at the right number of things for he & Britta to have have done (culminating in "Things!") & then at Pierce's "gym," brilliantly it also comes off as odd for a guy who was a football star in high school & injured doing a keg stand to have so little understanding of sex. Then again season one Troy & Troy now are pretty different people, & it was all funny, so I'll stop complaining. 

**Gillian Jacobs once again kills it with Britta's thrill at finding out what being in the zone feels like.

Grade: B+ 

Other Notes:

• I mostly talked up the emotional side of this episode but a lot of funny things happened too.

• As always the show had perfect costumes. There'd already been Community fan art comparing Troy & Abed to Calvin & Hobbes, Shirley as Princess Leia set up a good joke about her not having enough kids to properly play the ewoks (in Abed's mind anyway), Britta continued her run of unflattering (though I found myself oddly drawn to her in ham form) & completely ridiculous costumes, Jeff having a costume showing off how highly he thinks of himself*, & the highlight was obviously Annie's confusion, & the Dean's clarity, as to what Jeff meant by ring girl.

*Somehow I forgot that Jeff's dad's name was written on his boxing gloves which, as Alan Sepinwall points out, makes the "costume a tribute to his dad." While over at the A.V. Club Todd VanDerWerff (Yes, that's his real name) makes a point I meant to touch on more, the show's going to take some time to find itself without Harmon which means we may get a few uneven episodes but thus far I've, obviously, been fairly pleased. 

• "I've been locked in way worse places than this... Not against my will."

• I'm embarrassed I didn't get the Do the Right Thing joke until reading VanDerWerff's review because it's a great one.

• "I used to know where everything was before I fired my maid. Now there's no reason to use my safe." This was my favorite line of the night, a strong episode for Pierce on a number of fronts.

• When Annie's alone & looks in the mirror where she sees Pierce's dad there's a bowl filled with wine corks on the dresser below the mirror. This is both evidence that Pierce has a drinking problem & how awesome the show's set designers (or is it art direction?) are. 

• "Why's he have so many collars? Secret dogs!"

• "Don't let it out! Don't let it out!" & "I broke the the remote! Do you think it's expensive?!" Further proof Donald Glover yelling/crying is the funniest thing in the world. 

• "Pierce, don't die slightly before your time." "Then we're next and I care about us." 

• "You probably asked someone to help with your stupid prank and then forgot about it." "Un uh. LeVar Burton was a hard no."

• "Did it work? Are you tall?" Another great Troy & Abed tag. 

• Last week Alan Sepinwall posted an interview with new showrunners Moses Port & David Guarascio about the new season, I'd recommend reading it, & it touched on some things we saw tonight like Britta working as Jeff's therapist & the Jeff/Annie relationship not being done.