“I still think that man will evolve into woman, not a three-headed dragon.” – Britta
“I hate bottle episodes,” Abed proclaims repeatedly during Community’s bottle episode.
The gang is tasked with working on their evolutionary chain project for Professor Duncan’s anthropology class (Britta: “I still think that man will evolve into woman, not a three-headed dragon”), but when they all have to leave — Jeff has “a catch to date” and the rest are heading to a puppy parade in the quad. But as they are leaving, Annie notices that her pen is missing – again. Apparently, she’s lost a bunch of pens recently, and this time she is not going to let it go unchecked.
This becomes what the whole episode is about: finding Annie’s missing pen. They go through increased stages of depravity, from checking each other’s bags to doing the strip search that Alison referred to in her tweet. At various times, they all want to leave and go to the parade, but one of them steps up and keeps them there. One of the funniest moments in the show is Pierce criticizing the gang’s indecision: “People like you are why we took so long to get into Vietnam!”
Troy’s old monkey, called “Annie’s Boobs” (we didn’t see her actual ones but at least the monkey’s back!), hops out of its little lair where it has all kinds of trinkets, including all of Annie’s missing pens. There are some great callbacks in this scene, and if you’ve seen every episode of the show like I have then you will love it.
Some other random thoughts:
- When Jeff empties out Troy’s bag to just find a pillow and says, “You are my new hero,” I could not agree more. Every single day when I’m trying to sleep on my bus ride I wish that there wasn’t so much other stuff in my backpack so that I could just put a pillow in it.
- In the end / bumper of the episode, where the puppy parade is actually shown, the Dean’s comments are absolutely hilarious. “Responsible pet ownership is always in season,” and when a float comes by with a puppy and a kitten together, he says “Oh, well this feels a little preachy.” Brilliant.
- Yeah, so basically this is an amazing episode. And if you haven’t seen Community before, now is the time to jump in.
Some stats and info about Community, “Cooperative Calligraphy”
TV SHOW – Community
SEASON/EPISODE – Season 2, Episode 8
AIRED ON – November 11th, 2010
NETWORK/STREAMING SERVICE – NBC/Yahoo! Screen
GENRE – Comedy, College Shows
CREATED BY – Dan Harmon
CAST – Joel McHale, Danny Pudi, Donald Glover, Chevy Chase, Gillian Jacobs, Alison Brie, Yvette Nicole Brown, Ken Jeong, Jim Rash
This review originally appeared on TV Geek Army.