Community
Fighting with a friend may be one of the most painful things you can do – you know, someone you love dying or getting your heart broken. But in some ways, fighting with a friend feels like losing a loved one or breaking up with a boyfriend. It has a similar level of gravity; your friend is someone who knows you best, who has been with you through thick and thin, who shares so much of your world. To fight with a friend is to put that world in jeopardy, and that idea presents some pretty high stakes.
I think its that element that really makes “Pillows and Blankets” work for me. For all its parody and comedy, there is really a friendship at stake in the episode, and it’s a very dark core that ties everything together. I think this idea is exemplified in the second act where Troy and Abed share emails and text messages. Having known each other so well for the past two and half seasons, each person knows how to ruin the other. As avclub.com puts it, they both have the option to go nuclear, and they both do. They attempt to destroy each other, and after that point in the show, the battles, which admittedly are only pillow fights, seem much more immediate. And that fact that Troy and Abed won’t stop fighting even after everyone else does seems all the more sad. You can feel that they both regret their actions and that they’re both clinging to something that has inevitably changed. They can’t really go back, and even though they may put on Jeff’s sarcastic friendship hats, it’s not quite the same. As Troy says, “We’re grown-ups now, with grown-up problems,” and it’s actually very true, even though, one has to admit, it’s said while pillow fighting. The only thing Troy and Abed can do after their mutually assured destruction is to rebuild from the hopefully stronger stuff that is left behind.
That’s a pretty dark place to get to on a sitcom, and some of it is wrapped up neatly, perhaps too neatly, but that’s not to say the episode wasn’t also wholly entertaining and memorable. I feel a little guilty at liking the big concept episodes of Community the best, because I do know that they are just as adept at doing smaller ones, but I really loved this one. The PBS Civil War style documentary was perfect for the subject, and I particularly liked the shot of the photo of Troy and Abed ripped in half at the beginning. It was a very PBS-like touch and I appreciated it. I also thought that the Jeff/Annie story was pretty funny, if only because the idea that text messages are now historical documents was effing brilliant, and so (depressingly) true.
For me, however, what made this episode so great were all the little details that fleshed it out . Community, more than any other show I can think of on TV right now (except maybe Parks and Recreation), takes care to create its world and to make it as real as possible. I think that allows them to take great leaps, like having an entire school have a pillow fight, without veering off course. It’s almost like a sci-fi show; the writers have created a world with a set mythology and as long as they don’t contradict that mythology, we will go on any trip with them. (I also think that’s why some shows fail when they try to do big things, like when The Office tries to do farce. It violates the accepted mythology and therefore doesn’t ring true.) So what were the details I loved? There were tons as the documentary style leant itself so well to mentioning them. In order of appearance, because that’s how I took notes:
• Jeff’s introductory photo shows him with his hand in his shirt like Napoleon.
• The couch in the dean’s office has no cushions on it because they have all been used for Pillowtown
• The dean’s office is covered in dalmatian posters – season one callback!!
• The all-tomato – Of course Troy would think that’s how it’s pronouced
• Fat Neil is now Real Neil, a popular radio DJ – nice happy ending for him
• Fat Neil plays “Daybreak” the song from the Halloween episode
• This quote: “Winger’s critics suggest he merely improvised hot-button patriotic dogma in a Ferris Buellerian attempt to delay schoolwork. Winger decries the accusation as slanderous betrayal akin to 9/11” – 9/11 jokes are always funny (too soon?)
• The Changlourious Basterds who collect mattress tags instead of scalps – even the narrator doesn’t understand why Chang just replaces syllables with Chang.
• Pierce as the Michelin man – someone loves Ghostbusters
• Leonard likes this post!!
• The narrator is the guy from “The Cape” – “Six seasons and a movie!!”
• The pledge-drive at the end where you can buy “From Labs to Riches: The Annies Boobs Story”
My only problem with the episode was that I found the effect that they used on the battle scenes kind of annoying and cheesy, but then again, how are they going to make pillow fights look threatening? And if that’s my only complaint, I really should just keep my mouth shut. So that’s what I’m going to do.
Grade: A (A = “Epidemiology”/”Abed’s Uncontrollable Christmas”/”Intermediate Documentary Filmmaking”/”Remedial Chaos Theory”)
Last but not least: Mad Men, Bones and the rest of the week
Mary the TV Maven 