Community 2×14 – “Advanced Dungeons and Dragons”

In this week’s Community, we have another bottle episode.  This time, instead of getting stuck in the library because they’re searching for Annie’s pen, they’re in the library all episode because they’re playing Dungeons and Dragons with their suicidal classmate, “Fat” Neil, trying to break him out of his depression and extend an olive branch of friendship.

This is the exact kind of premise that makes me love this show so, so hard.  One of the best things about Community is the way it will take a serious issue or a character’s internal dilemma and turn it into an incredibly silly episode without sacrificing the heart.

Was this episode successful on that front?  Yes and No.

The Feminist in Me Thinks… The highlight of the episode that was filled with many, many funny bits, was the Annie/Abed pantomime sex scene.  As Dungeon Master, Abed is playing an elf maiden that Jeff’s character has to seduce.  Jeff is uncomfortable with the idea of having to talk dirty to Abed, so Annie steps up.  Annie, as Hector the Well-Endowed, makes love to Abed’s elf maiden as the rest of the gang watches with varying degrees of admiration and horror:

I love this for so many reasons.  1) The rest of the group often looks as Annie as a little girl that they shouldn’t sexualize, even though she is technically an adult and has been as long as they’ve known her.  This is somewhat understandable, given that there was a time when Annie was uncomfortable talking about penises and condoms.  But she’s been growing a healthy sexual appetite for awhile now, and she completely stuns the rest of them by showing that she’s very, very knowledgeable about sex – so knowledgeable that Troy starts taking notes. 2) Just like Annie ably plays the role of Hector the Well-Endowed, Abed is not remotely bashful about acting out the female elf maiden.  In this case, and in many cases, Abed’s complete obliviousness to social cues works in his favor.  He’s so comfortable with himself that he can be the elf maiden without a hint of embarrassment.  I salute you, Abed.

My second-favorite sequence in the episode was Britta completely missing the point of the game because she’s too emotionally invested about gnome rights, causing Jeff, Annie, and Shirley to all yell at her in unison.  One reason I’ve come to love Britta is because she reminds me of myself.  I think that, for the most part, I’m able to talk about my political beliefs and human rights and all that bleeding-heart liberal claptrap with a fair amount of intelligence and passion, but I also know there have been times when I’ve ranted and come off as completely ridiculous.  I can laugh at myself and Britta helps me do that.  Thanks, Britta!  I am, however, conflicted about her abbreviated rant earlier in the episode, when she apparently said, “Julian Assange is the modern-day Thomas Paine!”  I didn’t think feminist Britta would be defending Julian Assange after the rape accusations – but then again, she has shown to be a hypocrite on many occasions, so that might actually work for her character.

The Comedian in Me Thinks… Pierce, You’re a B.

Pierce’s aggression and mean-spirited comments toward Fat Neil almost ruined the episode for me.  I understand that they needed him to be the “evil” character to commit to the Dungeons & Dragons parody, but he crossed the line into being unnecessarily cruel.  It’s simply not funny watching an embittered, mean man belittle a depressed person on the verge of suicide.  If they needed Pierce to be the over-the-top villain to fit the Dungeons & Dragons story, they could have done it without making him so unlikable and awful.  If I were to rewrite the episode, I would have Pierce reveal himself to be a closeted D&D nerd who joins the game without knowing the rest of the group was using it as an intervention for Neil, and takes all the best parts and completely ignores, or doesn’t pick up on, Jeff and Co.’s subtle hints that he needs to let Neil win.  He can still go mad with power and a need to win, and he can still reveal that Jeff came up with the “Fat Neil” nickname in the first place, but his behavior can be a result of being clueless and selfish rather than outright mean.

Pierce is a difficult character to begin with, and occasionally the show gets him right.  One of my favorite moments from “Abed’s Uncontrollable Christmas” was when he admitted to Abed that he doesn’t want to be alone on Christmas.  Up until that point, he repeatedly insisted that he was only on Abed’s quest because he wanted cookies, but then we saw that he, more than anyone else, was able to truly relate to Abed about the pain of missing his mother.  It was sweet.  They need to have more Pierce moments like that, and less Pierce episodes like this, because I’m at the point where I don’t understand why the group hasn’t kicked him out for good.

Aside from that, I thought the episode was brilliant on the comedy front.  This was the best use of Chang in a long time and I hope the writers continue to have him appear for brief, hilarious cameos and then disappear for the rest of the episode, because he works best in small doses.  I loved the characters’ D&D nicknames: “Jeff the Liar, Annie the Day Planner, Troy the Obtuse, Shirley the Cloying, Britta the Needlessly Defensive, Abed the Undiagnosable.”  And I died, died laughing at Troy’s frustrated cry of, “This is why I wanted to play Chutes and Ladders!”

The Verdict: If I were judging the episode purely on how many times it made me laugh, it would rank as the best of the season, but Pierce’s relentless cruelty left a bad taste in my mouth.  My favorites of this season remain a tie between “Comparative Calligraphy” and “Conspiracy Theories and Interior Design.”