This week, Abed goes for psychiatric evaluation, accompanied by his friends/“enablers.” While I enjoyed the episode’s concept, it felt like experimentation for experimentation’s sake.
I love Dan Harmon‘s ceaseless innovation. But, each season he typically finds one sweet spot for the cast and writing to exploit. But, the post-hiatus season has no sweet spot, just creepy weirdness. The writing feels too internal and lacks the funny, brilliant weirdness I normally enjoy.
Did I love the concept of a Greendale Asylum? Hell yes. Did I love watching Britta pretend to be a doctor beside the pretend doctor? Yes. Did I love the creepy Scooby Doo rainy background? Yes. But, it still felt off. I love when Harmon experiments, but beforehand, he always did it with a purpose. Now, I don’t really sense a purpose.
However, I don’t like that Abed is more “creepy weird’ this season and less “adorable weird.” Please stop that. I miss my lovable idiot savant weirdo. In fact, Community post-hiatus feels like Abed in Community post-hiatus, creepy weird without the huge side of adorable. And, without the huge side of adorableness, I start to see Community like Community’s community sees Abed, as a potentially dangerous person without aim.
However, once the show hit the middle, I started to enjoy it more. In fact, despite my criticisms I have a laundry list of things I enjoyed:
Quotes:
“Nobody in this room gets to define sick.” –Britta
“I do.” — Psychiatrist
Clacked by An Nicholson 
on May 10, 2012 @ 23:39 EST5EDT
I just can’t get mad at this episode… it had so many great moments, so many funny jokes and John Hodgman fit right in. Plus, I didn’t realize they were doing another not-clip show, so I got really excited when I realized it.
Also, the return of Abed’s Don Draper and Annie’s immediate giggly reaction kind of made my night.
I could see this episode being a bit slow at first, but it certainly went off to crazy town. It was funny, it may be just one of the more quotable episodes and with a bunch of great gags. There were so many great lines and gags in this episode, much like last years clip show episode. The thing I can’t shake is the group should have noticed imposter dean from the moment they were expelled. I mean maybe it’s more obvious since we’ve seen this story unfold. I don’t know, I just keep seeing imposter dean as failing horribly and quickly. How does Chang get power through imposter dean with around John Goodman’s character around? How is imposter dean something that even lasts longer than a week? It’s crazy. I still think it’s funny, but just thinking about it for a little bit sounds crazy. At least it was still better than BBT’s Finale.
I only watched the last 15 minutes. My housemates thought I was crazy and had no clue what was going on. It was so insane, it was amazing.
I loved the line that it had to be fake because community college only last two years and it’s been three.
“WHY DOES EVERYBODY KEEP SAYING THAT?!”
I loved this episode, as I usually do with this show. I don’t have a problem with anything about this season, and I don’t think it’s fair to think Abed has changed all that much – remember Season 2’s Christmas episode? That’s where the “potentially dangerous person” angle got started. Not this season. It’s been a fine character arc.
I definitely agree on the creepy weird, I think the main difference is that the Community episodes seem more like a series of skits instead of an actual episode that fits perfectly.
Also, only one memorable quote? “Hello rich people, Troy’s joining you, yes I’ll hold”