Quick Take: Community, “Studies in Modern Movement”
“This is our apartment, too, and just because we’re... awesome... doesn’t mean we’re not adults!” – Troy
Review: Community, “Studies in Modern Movement”
(S0307) Troy and Abed’s apartment is a place where magic happens – mostly figuratively, but maybe literally, too. If there’s anything of consequence that came out of the six timelines that didn’t actually happen, it’s the glimpse we got into the budding character developments that have clearly been slated for the rest of the season.
Annie has finally taken up Troy and Abed’s offer to move from her trashy neighbourhood into their apartment. She’s recruited the study group for the obligatory tradition of friendships everywhere, which Troy and Abed are spicing up by live tweeting – #AnniesMove. Being the flake he wants so desperately to be, Jeff fakes a hospital visit with the help of a cute salesgirl at the mall, though he soon rethinks his choice.
As much as I enjoy Community when it highlights its cast’s spectacular group-dynamic, the writers certainly know when and how to mix it up, allowing everyone to split off for their own equally-hilarious and awesome adventures. The driving plot focuses on Annie’s acculturation – or perhaps assimilation – to her new living arrangements, but it doesn’t diminish the corners that the characters paint themselves into. Which Pierce literally does.
As experts in imagination, Troy and Abed build Annie a blanket fort with a laundry bed for the sake of preserving the actual bedroom that’s been converted into a “Dreamatorium.” Speaking of conversion, Britta and Shirley are once again engaged in a debate about their conflicting stances on religion, when they pick up a peculiar hitchhiker with his own conversion story. And harkening back to something that never happened, Pierce stays behind to fix up Annie’s old apartment, nearly setting fire to the place, and spilling a bucket of hazardously-fumed paint, bringing him close to dying.
The greatest thing to come out of this episode has to be Jeff’s encounter with Craig Pelton. Didn’t you know? The Dean is only a dean during the week. He’s following #AnniesMove nearly as avidly as he follows Jeff, and threatens to blackmail him by telling the study group where he is. They end up spending the day together, wearing the same clothes and filming an amazing duet-rendition of Seal’s “Kiss From a Rose” in front of a nineties’ screensaver – the song itself makes me want to watch Batman Forever. Also amazing: Jeff orders Craig’s lunch for him, complete with a Spanish serenade.
Shirley and Britta’s hitchhiker turns out to be somehow universally appealing and unappealing – probably because of his name. Britta picks him up to prove a point to the hypocritical Shirley, but his conversion story initially endears him to her. She’s quick to change her mind, however – as we eventually do – when she finds out that he believes that he’s Jesus, and definitely promotes the legalization of marijuana. Even Britta draws the line when he starts singing about drinking human blood and not mixing races.
Troy and Abed certainly have their charming qualities – they perform a play with cut-out puppets behind a sheet-curtain, they fork-joust, and they have an incurable candy-cigarette habit. Unfortunately for them, Annie needs her own ordered, rational space, and needs Troy and Abed to compensate for her needs for once. Not willing to sacrifice their Dreamatorium, Troy and Abed embrace their creation, moving their bunk-beds into the blanket fort, and giving Annie her very own, very pink and girly room.
Among some of the running gags from earlier seasons are “loosey-goosey” Annie, the aforementioned candy-cigarette gimmick, Dean Pelton copying someone else’s wardrobe, and Pierce being old. I can only imagine we can continue to see more of these recurrences in next week’s “Documentary Filmmaking: Redux.” That being said, I want to see an episode take place inside the Dreamatorium – it sounds like it gets pretty real up in there for a space of pure imagination.
