8.6/10. At some point, you start running out of ways to try to parse out Community's greatness. But man, an A-story where Annie and Jeff spearhead a ridiculous Model U.N. competition and a B-story where Britta and Chang play cop and criminal to the tunes of tortured romance is just gold.
As to the former, there's an interesting, if kind of didactic thread about Jeff infantilizing Annie as a form of keeping distance between them. I've never been a big Annie-Jeff shipper in terms of a romantic relationship, but I like their friendship, and so to the extent the episode was exploring the contours of the latter, I appreciated it, but the hints at the former did little for me. Still, the onslaught of "Crisis Alerts!" and the utter silliness of the Model U.N. scheme, and the amusing interjections from Professor Cligoris (Party Down's Martin Starr!) was all great. And the resolution, that it was the purely symbolic rather than pragmatic act that win in a Model U.N. fight is genius.
It even gave the rest of the gang some good comedic notes -- Troy's mix of preparation and whimsy, Abed's sci-fi fascination with Earth 2, and Pierce's usual racism (quoth Mrs. Bloom: "We just elected that guy.") Unfortunately, as became typical as the show went on, Shirley doesn't get much to do, but even just her pronunciation of "I far-ted" is amusing.
And the B-story is peak Britta. I love the notion that Chang is an ineffectual security guard, and Britta is an ineffectual troublemaker, and there's a perfect match between the two of them to fulfill each other's very important, but mostly fanciful dreams of achieving anything in either pursuit. Telling that story in terms of a "go to him"-style romance is absolutely inspired. Balancing the silliness of Britta's goofy, low-level protests with Chang's overenthusiastic enforcement is brilliant.
Overall, it's a lot of laughs and some very clever storytelling, which is what we expect from Classic Community!
Review by Andrew BloomVIP 9BlockedParent2016-11-15T22:12:20Z
8.6/10. At some point, you start running out of ways to try to parse out Community's greatness. But man, an A-story where Annie and Jeff spearhead a ridiculous Model U.N. competition and a B-story where Britta and Chang play cop and criminal to the tunes of tortured romance is just gold.
As to the former, there's an interesting, if kind of didactic thread about Jeff infantilizing Annie as a form of keeping distance between them. I've never been a big Annie-Jeff shipper in terms of a romantic relationship, but I like their friendship, and so to the extent the episode was exploring the contours of the latter, I appreciated it, but the hints at the former did little for me. Still, the onslaught of "Crisis Alerts!" and the utter silliness of the Model U.N. scheme, and the amusing interjections from Professor Cligoris (Party Down's Martin Starr!) was all great. And the resolution, that it was the purely symbolic rather than pragmatic act that win in a Model U.N. fight is genius.
It even gave the rest of the gang some good comedic notes -- Troy's mix of preparation and whimsy, Abed's sci-fi fascination with Earth 2, and Pierce's usual racism (quoth Mrs. Bloom: "We just elected that guy.") Unfortunately, as became typical as the show went on, Shirley doesn't get much to do, but even just her pronunciation of "I far-ted" is amusing.
And the B-story is peak Britta. I love the notion that Chang is an ineffectual security guard, and Britta is an ineffectual troublemaker, and there's a perfect match between the two of them to fulfill each other's very important, but mostly fanciful dreams of achieving anything in either pursuit. Telling that story in terms of a "go to him"-style romance is absolutely inspired. Balancing the silliness of Britta's goofy, low-level protests with Chang's overenthusiastic enforcement is brilliant.
Overall, it's a lot of laughs and some very clever storytelling, which is what we expect from Classic Community!