Recently, Bagel and I finished the entire six-season, 111-episode run of Community. I’d watched the first several seasons between 2009-2015 when the show first aired but had fallen off the wagon at some point. It was nice to return and finish the show properly.
If I had to pick one aspect I enjoyed most about the show, it’d be the show’s irreverence. Of all of the cast, my favorite person was definitely Pierce. (Though I also love Hickey, losing Pierce was truly devastating.) I know Harmon gets a lot of criticism (at least from the little I’ve read online) but I do believe the man’s a genius. Between Community and Ricky & Morty, the ideas and writing are just undeniably excellent. In Community, Pierce is outright racist and misogynist. And not in an ironic way either. But in a genuine, the person actually is racist and misogynist. But still to be able to make him a sympathetic and likable character (at least I thought so) was an extraordinary feat.
To be fair, there are definitely more than several episodes that went over my head. Being the meta-show it is, if you weren’t familiar with the underlying “formula” that a particular episode was parodying or paying tribute to, then you wouldn’t get the many inside-jokes, nods/homages, and references. Bagel didn’t like the first two seasons because they consisted of mostly talking. She really started enjoying Community in S3 and S4 when the show, in her words, “got more high budget.” (Eg. We got to venture outside of Greendale and see individual people’s apartments and houses.)
For me though, I really loved the “low-budget” talk-heavy episodes. Run Lola Run/Sliding Doors, cough, “Remedial Chaos Theory” (S3E4) is probably my favorite but one of my favorite moments in the show’s entire run is definitely Chang’s “Winger Speech” in S6E12. Ah, Community, you will be missed.
PS. Actually, come to think of it, my other favorite episode is “Digital Estate Planning” (S3E20). “Journey to the Center of Hawkthorne” is glorious.