Community 2×17 – “Intro to Political Science”

On last night’s Community, Jeff and Annie went head-to-head in a political election and continued to refuse to acknowledge the searing hot sexual tension between them, while a Secret Service agent showed a romantic interest in Abed.

The Feminist in Me Says… As much as I enjoyed the episode, I wanted to throw things at the TV when Jeff commented on being adult that was ruining the dream of an “idealistic kid” (referring to Annie).  He needs to stop infantilizing her and he needs to do it now, regardless of whether or not they get together.  They’re friends in the same study group and he should consider her his equal even if there is an age disparity.  I’m convinced he keeps mentioning her age because he’s insanely attracted to her but really wishes he wasn’t, and I will believe that until the show explicitly denies it (and maybe not even then).  It doesn’t help that Joel McHale is looking increasingly hotter with each episode, and that he and Alison Brie snap, crackle, and pop in their scenes together.  There is so much comic potential to be mined from a Jeff/Annie romance and the slow burn is killing me.

In other romance news, I loved the odd little courtship between Abed and Robin the Secret Service Agent.  Eliza Coupe injected some much-needed life into season eight of Scrubs as the acerbic intern Denise and I was delighted to see her again, and she and Danny Pudi had a very sweet, weird chemistry.  As much as I don’t want anything disrupting Troy and Abed time, I’d like Robin to come back every once in awhile.

In fact, I would like to have more female tertiary characters on the show, period.  There aren’t enough of them.  I love Annie, Britta, and Shirley and I like the way the show allows them to be as silly as the men, but where are the other female students and faculty at Greendale?  When it comes to secondary and tertiary characters, we have Chang, Duncan, Dean Pelton (who I’ve come to enjoy more than Chang OR Duncan, in a possibly unpopular opinion), Starburns, Leonard, Garrett, Fat Neil, Magnitude, Vaughn of the tiny nipples, Abed’s friends from the A/V Club, and now Magnitude.  Where are the wacky female students and staff?  The only female faculty member we’ve seen more than once is Professor Slater, and according to the ticker, she’s missing!

The Comedian in Me Says… I was glad to see Pierce get his comeuppance from Vicki.  His meanness has turned me off in the past few weeks, as I’ve written about before, but thankfully, they kept his participation in the election minimal, and I admitted I laughed long and hard (that’s what she said) when he admitted he only joined the race because he was mad at her for not lending him a pencil.

Troy and Abed’s political commentary cracked me up.  My favorite line was Troy describing Pierce: “I live with that dude.  It’s like God spilled a person,” with an honorable mention going to their admission that they didn’t know how to calculate a margin of error and only interviewed two people by the vending machine.  I also loved the opening gag with Abed, Jeff, and Troy making notches underneath the table:

Then, of course, there was Jeff singing George Michael in an audition for The Real World. Brilliant.  Jeff may be cool even as a zombie, but he’s not cool singing “Faith.”

My Verdict: “Pop POP!”