photo: nbc
Accounting for Lawyers
Original Air Date: Sep 30, 2010
Meg – Senior Reviewer
meg@thetwocentscorp.com
Much better, show! After a not-entirely satisfying premiere, Community put in a solid second episode, by dispensing with the love parallelograms and returning to what makes this show great: the community of characters. I’ll wax on about some minor quibbles later, but overall I’m pretty pleased. Let me know your thoughts in the comments. But for now – let’s get to the story.
Guten tag, homies! It’s Oktoberfest at Greendale! The campus reacts with a resounding “meh” until the Dean decides to make Oktoberfest more “diversity-friendly” by adding some bling to his lederhosen and hosting a ‘pop and lock’ contest.
Jeff runs into Alan (played by Rob Corddry), a former colleague from his lawyer days. While I feel as if Old Jeff would have gone to great lengths to hide that he’s a student, New Jeff fumbles a bit and then just admits he’s taking classes. Yay growth! However, as Jeff spends more time with Alan, he realizes how much he misses being a lawyer and starts regressing to his pre-group self—getting more and more arrogant and jerktastic.
The group is dismayed (Troy: “What does Alan have that we don’t?” Aww…). This works out great for Chang, who takes Jeff’s place on their pop and lock team and makes them promise to let him join the group if his mad dance skillz win the competition. Considering his sample routine looks like a rabid mime, I don’t think the group has anything to worry about.
As the group commiserates over feeling betrayed and insecure, Annie realizes she remembers Alan from a Narcotics Anonymous (NA) meeting – even worse, she remembers Alan possibly talking about having gotten Jeff disbarred. Scandal!
Because they care about their bud (even though he’s ditching them), the gang race to the fancy firm party Jeff and Alan are attending to rescue their friend. Sadly, this leaves Chang dancing by himself. Sorry, Chang—one really is the loneliest number (especially when you’ve been popping and locking for five hours straight).
The crack tactical team of Abed, Troy, and Annie deploy to Alan’s office. Abed has come prepared (would you expect anything less?) with suction cups, a (broken) credit card, and chloroform. Their office break-in is made of win. When they are busted by the janitor, Annie saves the day by jump-chloroforming him. Everyone is relieved, until they realize that they, umm.., you know, just chloroformed a guy. They freak out (this scene is worth it for Troy’s reaction alone). Instead of playing dead, they try and play chloroformed, and pretend to be victims along with the janitor. That lasts about 0.3 seconds until the janitor sees Annie is still holding a rag doused with chloroform (unlike Abed, Annie clearly has not been schooled in props). The poor janitor gets double-chloroformed, and our intrepid intruders run back to the party.
The group gives Jeff the proof that Alan screwed him over, and he… doesn’t care? He says that Alan’s a crappy friend, but a good lawyer. His study group chums (and I!) are horrified. Jeff tells them that “caring is lethal. It’s a disease. You guys care, but I don’t.” Ouch. However, Jeff seems to have A Moment, when slimy Alan pins the crime on some anonymous do-gooder who saves old ladies from burning buildings and so forth.
Morale destroyed, the gang slinks back to Oktoberfest to join the crazed, half-dead Chang on the dance floor. Their hearts aren’t in it, though, until Jeff surprises them (and does an awesome marionette dance). They get disqualified by a group hug, but don’t really care because they’re reunited and it feels darn good. Chang, however, does not feel darn good. Thwarted (and aching!), he collapses into sobbing, maniacal laughter. He is appropriately removed from the premises.
I liked this episode a lot better than the premiere. The gang dynamic is back to normal and since the show seems willing to move on from the relationship quadrangle, I’m happy to follow. I wasn’t thrilled with Jeff’s degree of regression – I feel like Season One was all about his growth and it felt cheap to have him turn on his friends so quickly. What do you think? Is the gang co-dependent? Did you dig the episode? Leave some comments and let me know your two cents!
TheTwoCents 