Community – Recap & Review – Conspiracy Theories and Interior Design

photo: nbc

Community
Conspiracy Theories and Interior Design

Original Air Date: Nov 18, 2010

Meg – Sr. Reviewer
meg@thetwocentscorp.com

While not as side-splitting as last week’s episode, tonight’s Community installment was still pretty darn good. Dean Pelton discovers that Jeff has a class on his schedule that doesn’t exist (Or DOES IT? Dun Dun Dunnnnn!). Jeff claims to be taking an independent study with “Professor Professorson” on conspiracy theories.

Jeff is appalled that the Dean would try and take away his class credit, so he marches Dean Pelton and a disbelieving Annie over to the professor’s office, which…. turns out to be a supply cabinet. Ingeniously, Jeff then claims that the supply closet stunt must be part of the class! The Dean remains skeptical.

Then out of nowhere appears Kevin Corrigan (aka the coke-snorting, prostitute-lovin’ investment banker from Damages – nice to see he’s cleaned up somewhat). Corrigan shows a Professor Professorson faculty ID, claims to teach night school ad tells Jeff he’ll see him next week. Jeff’s flabber is utterly gasted—as he explains to Annie, he’s never seen Corrigan before and that he made the entire thing up.

Jeff tells Annie to drop it, but because she’s Annie she goes into investigative overdrive, researching the mysterious night school teachers. They find that their “Professor Professorson” is a drama teacher. Of course he’s an actor.

While Annie is tending to her overcomplicated motorized diorama, complete with moving vehicles, Jeff gets a call telling him to get Annie to stop looking into the conspiracy. Then in homage to pretty much every car bomb movie scene ever, Jeff throws Annie to the ground to save her from the miniscule sparks flying from the sabotaged diorama. Then comes one of my favorite lines of the night from Jeff: “It looks like someone sent us a message. A tiny, underwhelming message!”

Annie and Jeff investigate night school (a magical place, with classes like “History of Something,” “Class 101,” and “Learning!”) and find that Corrigan is basically running a night school scam. Corrigan tells Jeff that he was once the same –that he made up a fake class, then had to invent a fake teacher, and it just spiraled from there.

Horrified at the prospect of being taught a lesson, Jeff solicits prop guns from Corrigan and goes to confront the Dean. And then everyone shoots everyone. No, really. Let’s see if I can map this out right: Jeff and Annie shoot Corrigan to teach the Dean a lesson about trying to teach lessons. But then the Dean shoots Annie (who double-crossed Jeff) to teach Jeff a lesson about “the slippery slope.” Then Jeff shoots the Dean (who double-crossed Annie) to teach Annie a lesson about friendship. And THEN (are you still with me?) Annie shoots Jeff, claiming she’s angry over the kissing and dissing last season, to teach the Dean a lesson about… teaching lessons? When a police officer comes and shoots Corrigan in the chest to teach everyone a lesson: “that prop guns belong in the closet,” the Dean has a mental break.

In tonight’s B plot, B clearly stands for blankety goodness. Troy and Abed get pyjamatastic and build a blanket fort. Unsatisfied, they expand to a blanket villa to a blanket town to, well, a blanket underground empire. Everyone from Leonard (who steals his kid’s blankets) to Pierce (who is uncharacteristically silent tonight) joins in. Even Britta shows up, despite having earlier suggested they “do something more grown up (what? like, a WTO rally, you hipster?). Annie and Jeff chase Corrigan through Blanketopia, running into a Latvian independence parade, the crowded “Turkish district,” civil rights museum and Pierce’s mom’s memorial tunnel. Awww… While the gang is debriefing after their adventures, Jeff makes a comment to Annie about how she went “off script” and said she loved him during their triple-cross act. Britta makes a concerned look. Oh, c’mon show! You can have a great episode that takes advantage of the chemistry between characters and not need to tack on a love story!

We close out the episode with Troy and Abed realizing Blanketopia has gone “mainstream.” They enact the “Omega Protocol” and collapse it, resolving to go build a cardboard submarine. I love them. This was a fun episode, although I wanted to know more about all the craziness going on under those blankets. What did you think? Are you worried about a return to the triangle? Was anyone else having Arrested Development flashbacks? Leave some comments and let me know your two cents. And now, if you’ll excuse me, I have a blanket fort to go build….