Quick Take: Community, “Advanced Gay”
“I’m gonna eat spaceman-Paninis with black Hitler and there’s nothing you can do about it!” – Troy
Review: Community, “Advanced Gay”
(S0306) Troy may not have gone to get the pizza in the multi-timeline “Remedial Chaos Theory,” but that hasn’t changed the fact that things are getting dark on Community – just not quite as fast. The storms of war are brewing over the fate of Troy’s career, and Pierce’s father has returned to dominate his son’s life just as he “meets the minimum requirement for open-mindedness.”
Pierce’s Hawthorne Wipes are the newest sensation among the gay community. At first, our favorite old homophobe is understandably peeved, but once he sees that his sales are booming since being featured in a tranny’s music video, he turns the other cheek and displays a semblance of progressiveness. He even plans to throw Greendale’s first Gay Bash. Don’t get hasty, Pierce is new to gay culture, so he wants to throw a party to support Hawthorne’s new key demographic. His plans are derailed, however, when his elitist father Cornelius (guest-star Larry Cedar) arrives, garbed head-to-toe in white (including the purest ivory toupee, in case you didn’t catch the symbolic iniquitousness). He firmly reminds Pierce of his purist background – racist-Abed-ing the whole study-group in the process – which incites Jeff’s already-enflamed daddy-issues.
While Jeff decides to give Pierce’s party new life out of what Britta calls the “edible complex,” Troy has found new fandom of his own. Jerry the Janitor (guest-star Jerry Minor) has been taken by Troy’s plumbing prowess since season one, and wants to make sure that he doesn’t use his gifts for evil. Not skipping a beat (and making a nearly-overdue reappearance) Vice-Dean Laybourne (guest-star John Goodman) kidnaps Troy and other potential recruits for his Air Conditioning Annex. Laybourne even goes to the extreme measure of securing an astronaut and a black Hitler so that he can maintain deniability should anyone divulge the secrets of their fraternity. Troy dominates the tests that the Vice-Dean challenges him with, prompting his introduction to the room-temperature room, and an offer to start the prestigious life afforded by the annex.
Troy looks to Abed for a solution, but they end up pretending to be each other and they don’t really get anywhere. As Jeff’s party starts to heat up – figuratively and literally – Cornelius arrives to pressure Pierce into denouncing Hawthorne’s ties to the gay community once and for all. While Troy performs an impossibly difficult air-conditioning repair, Pierce fakes a heart attack, just like Papa Cornelius taught him.
And if you’re wondering if it could possibly get darker than a black Hitler and Shirley’s eerie smile when she’s talking about family murder-suicides, well, it does. Jeff finally decides to confront Cornelius on Pierce’s behalf, feeling wronged for years of abandonment and deprecating thoughts. Although he knocks out another classic Winger grand-slam with an endearing speech about the gift of being a father, he also causes the first actual Hawthorne heart-attack in three seasons of Pierce’s “cry-wolf” scares, killing Cornelius. Pierce’s eulogy doesn’t make things any better – he tells his dead dad to suck it and throws in an “I win” for good Sheen – ah, I mean measure.
For the time being, Troy makes the very important decision to hang out with Abed and watch Inspector Spacetime. Even though Laybourne offers Troy the life of his dreams, Troy and Abed already have sweet homemade costumes, and they do such a good job of rephrasing every question into the context of “when.” Troy’s air-conditioning repair skills can be fought over another day; for today – or whenever they say they are – there are blogons to be destroyed!
There is just something inherently funny about the name Cornelius... apologies to any Corneliuses out there who might be offended at that :-)