Community 4.5: Cooperative Escapism In Familial Relations
Posted By Arturo Garcia on March 13, 2013
Jeff (Joel McHale) confronts his father on NBC’s “Community.”
For the first time in the post-Harmon era, Community attempted to resurrect maybe its more overlooked strength: the ability, from time to time, to really get at the emotional core of its otherwise happy-go-lucky core characters. For the fourth time this season, the results were a mixed bag, to say the least.
That “Cooperative Escapism In Familial Relations” succeeds at all is in large part to the efforts of Joel McHale and Gillian Jacobs. In following through on Jeff’s efforts to finally make peace with his rediscovered father (James Brolin), McHale gets some of his best moments in the series in this episode, with the right mix of fear, hopefulness and anger.
Writers Steve Basilone and Annie MeBane do right by both McHale and Brolin by giving their characters awareness of their similarities, but thankfully, Jeff also realizes where their characters (so to speak) diverge. When he hisses, “With all due respect, which is none, go to hell,” you can hear the pull of the years behind it.
Jacobs gets another good outing, as Britta Brittas herself into the middle of things, first by inviting herself behind Jeff’s back, and later by attempting to work her thera-mojo on Jeff’s half-brother Willie Jr. Adam Devine does fine playing the younger sibling as a malcontent (Willie Jr. makes Garrett look stoic) but the episode almost lets the premise behind the character (He’s soft because he has feelings, see?) get out of control.
But Willy Jr. still fares better than the rest of the cast, who gets stuck not just in Shirley’s garage, but in a wasted opportunity of a subplot. The idea of placing Abed, Annie, Pierce, and Troy opposite Andre’s “normal” relatives at Thanksgiving dinner had promise on two fronts: not just the idea of poking fun at the necessary evil that is a holiday dinner, but to continue seeing how fundamentally inept the Group is when dealing with people who aren’t them.
Instead, like last week, the action gets moved behind closed doors, literally. Ultimately, Abed’s efforts to cover the action thru Shawshank-esque narration comes off like a quick way for the episode to Say Something Geeky. It’s also plausible that the episode ran into time and casting constraints here. And the show’s never been adept at handling race very well. But being told how badly the gang’s evening was dragging dragged on in and of itself, even before the episode closed with another saccharine Speech by Jeff leading up to their “real family” dinner (which included the Dean, despite Jeff rightly getting creeped out over his continued email snooping. That’s more than a little problematic.)
Abed’s final voiceover confirms that Jeff’s family issues are settled, another sign that the current showrunners could be clearing the decks as much as possible before this season ends. This puts more pressure on them to deliver something big, of course, but with each passing week it’s getting harder to believe they can deliver in full. One only hopes that whatever the season’s crescendo is, we get to see it and not just hear about it later on.
Comments
Leave a Reply
Please note: Comment moderation is currently enabled so there will be a delay between when you post your comment and when it shows up. Patience is a virtue; there is no need to re-submit your comment.