I think this is our fourth viewing of this season. S is working on a Community project for class so it's imperative that he do his research and since our apartment is tiny AND I also love this show, and I mean REALLY love this show, I've got no problems watching it over and over and over and...
Anyway, today alone we watched episodes 2-25... that's right. Everything but the pilot.
Here are some of my favorite quotes:
Ep 1.03: Introduction to Film:
Mr. Nadir: Where do I find Mr. Britta?
Britta: I'm Mr. Britta. That's right. I'm a woman, with rights, and you can see my whole face.
Ep 1.06: Football, Feminism and You:
Troy: Hip, hop, body don't stop. Riverside got the broom, don't need a mop. Put your team in the box, put a ribbon on top, we're not John Kerry 'cause we don't flip-flop.
Annie: Troy, why are you doing our politically conservative high school's shamefully outdated fight rap?
. . .
Troy Barnes: Bing, bong, sing along. Your team's Al Gore 'cause your views are wrong.
also, elsewhere in Greendale...
Jeff notices Dean Pelton's wall of Ethnically Neutral features and skin tones:
Jeff: “Is that Seal?”
Dean:“That is our human color wheel. It goes from Seal to Seal’s teeth...What do you think?”
Jeff: "I think not being racist is the new racist."
Ep 1. 07: Introduction to Statistics (The Kick-ASS Halloween Episode)
Jeff: In the last two months you've doubled the national average for the amount lived per life time.
Pierce: Well I do have a young African American friend.
Jeff: But more importantly you're dressed like a gladiator in a desk fort you built during a bad trip.
Ep 1.12: Comparative Religion
Annie: Shirley, you are a guilt machine
Pierce: And Annie knows a thing or two about guilt, am I right Jew?
Annie: Say the whole word.
Pierce: Jewey?
Troy: You would never catch a Jehovah's Witness saying "jewey."
Pierce: Tell that to the the birthday cake you never got.
Ep 1.16: Communication Studies:
Dean Pelton: [over P.A.] It's Valentine's week, when the Greendale Human Being is the Cupid Being, delivering your gift to that special someone. But, remember, Cupid's face is magic marker on nylon, so love is not only blind but also dizzy and a little belligerent.
Ep 1.20: The Science of Illusion:
Jeff (to Britta): Great frame job, Britta-dict Arnold!
Troy: Oh! Colonial Burn!
Ep 1.21: Contemporary American Poultry: (The FANTASTIC high-concept mafia movie episode)
Troy: If God were edible - not that I'm Catholic - but if it was cool to eat God, he'd be a chicken finger.
later...
Jeff: Why do you have a monkey?
Troy: It's an animal that looks like a dude. Why don't I have 10 of them?
and in the cold open...
Troy: I think I'm failing psychopharmacology.
Britta: Why are you taking that?
Troy: I thought it was a class about crazy farm animals.
Abed: For as long as I can remember, I'd always wanted to be in a mafia movie... and that was it... that was the moment that we stopped being a family and started being a family, in italics.
Abed: I just need to be able to connect to people like you can... then I can make everyone happy.
Ep 1.22: Modern Warfare (This is the episode (known around here simple as "Paintball") that sold Community to me as my favorite current sitcom)
This episode is primarily action-oriented so it's hard to pull single lines that really blow me away, because most of the strength here comes from the quirky high-conceptness of it all.
However:
Troy: Jeff WINGER! You son of a bitch! I thought you were dead, man! (said like every black soldier in every John Carpenter movie EVAH!)
and later...
Britta: Oh my god, you've been hit!
Jeff: What? Oh no! Wait... (laughing) it's just blood. I thought it was paint but it's just blood.
and even later...
Jeff: Please don't tell me you had sex with me to win at paintball.
Britta: No, I had sex with you and now I'm going to win at paintball. Don't be gross.
Some of my favorite things about this season:
- The characters and situations evolve naturally and sometimes, at break-neck speed. Britta and Jeff, Jeff and Annie, Britta and Vaughn etc. All the love triangles that would normally take at least two or three seasons to resolve are blown through in the first season. The writers don't hold out on the audience, they go ahead and do all the things that we want to see/know will eventually happen.
- This show has a ton of heart. This is something, I have a feeling I'll talk about a lot in this blog. The show is quirky and the characters are often snarky but this show has a lot of weight behind it and every episode ends with a character's realization or cathartic moment, the "we learned something today" music swells and we all understand how the a,b, and c plots all come together to help the character reach a new level of self understanding, group happiness etc.
- Community isn't afraid of anything. They go from high-concept to little, interpersonal stories like it's nothing. They're super meta but totally sincere. The characters are all extremely human while maintaining the kind of fun meta-ness that helps them fill traditional roles.
