Community 5.11 Review: “G.I. Jeff”

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A week without Community was long. Good thing writing is like riding a bike, and Community is a bike I will ALWAYS get back on.

This week’s episode was entirely unique (unless you frequently watch G.I. Joe cartoons) and the show is at the top of its game. To describe the episode in too much detail would just ruin the experience for you, so I’m just going to cover the basics here. Trust me, it’s better if you watch it.

Most Community fans already knew the animated episode was coming this week. So they waste no time in jumping right in to the animated world. Anyone who has ever watched G.I. Joe or any other cartoon from the 80’s or 90’s would recognize the reference immediately (despite the title of the episode).  All of our favorite characters are inserted into a G.I. Joe type story. They even have cool names that sound like old Gamma Iota Joseph picked them out himself. So Wingman (Jeff), Three Kids (Shirley), Tight Ship (Annie), Buzz Kill (Britta), and Fourth Wall (Abed), suddenly find themselves in a world where Jeff can hurt the bad guys instead of just firing at and missing them. This is a dangerous world, so our five heroes are banished and become “The Mutineers”.  The word “Greendale” makes Wingman pass out, but they feel they must find this place.

At Greendale, the assistant director of COBRA (Dean Pelton) and his lackeys (Hickey and Duncan) along with Overkill (Chang) are discussing healthcare when our “mutineers” enter the building.  Wingman begins to find out who he really is: a teacher at Greendale who is unconscious. Jeff figures out who he is but he wants to stay in cartoon land (his mind). After some continued fantasy living and a Winger-speech, he realizes that he doesn’t want to live in a world without scotch and female anatomy. Scotch saves lives. Who knew?

So Jeff rides his jet pack through cartoons, kid commercials and the like, and wakes up in a hospital bed surrounded by his friends.  Quite a heartwarming ending for Jeff, who realizes that getting older isn’t so bad.

This episode was a blast. I loved cartoons like this growing up and this was like my favorite sitcom all wrapped up in my childhood TV experiences. It was an excellent viewing experience littered with all sorts of past episode references. “Fat Dog for Midterms”, “Some Worries”, and revisiting Abed’s Christmas hallucination were just some highlights from this weeks episode. Definitely check it out if you have not! You won’t regret it!

Just a few more episodes left! Remember to read the case I built for Community‘s sixth season renewal here. As always, we’ll end with some of my favorite quotes from the episode:

“Imaginary Britta is right. And only imaginary Britta”- Fourth Wall/Abed

“Do you understand that the real Jeff Winger is in some kind of actual real medical jeopardy? Like the kind in a one-hour drama?”-Fourth Wall/Abed

“I wanna be Buzz Kill because of my awesome saw!”- Britta/BuzzKill

“So, is there a Mr. Tight Ship?”- Dan Harmon’s two-second cameo

“I keep having these visions with kids….little boys”- Jeff/Wingman

“What outfit did you draw me in?”- Dean Pelton

Chang: (tries to read Korean)

Shirley: “This is Korean!”

Chang: “Okay…what am I?”

Everyone: “CHINESE!!”

Chang: “…I swear to God I feel Korean.”

 

That about wraps up my article for this week! I’m going to stop saying “see you next week” without checking that first, but I will definitely see you all sooner rather than later! Fat Dog until then!

[Photo via NBC]

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