It’s another Christmas at Greendale, with the group sharing this year’s holiday plans (sadly, no claymation is involved this time). Abed wants to spend time with his friends and watch the holiday special of Inspector Spacetime, but as usual, everyone has their own plans. Annie is going to the movies with her grandma (or, ‘bubbe’), Shirley is helping out at her church and Troy, who’s a Jehovah’s Witness, isn’t allowed to celebrate.
The group’s conversation is interrupted by the pretentious Glee Club. As they sing one of their ‘pop culture’mash-ups, they receive an anonymous tip (from Jeff) that they’re performing material without artist permission. After being delivered a cease and desist notice by Chang, they begin freaking out and give themselves a collective nervous breakdown. With the Glee Club now out of commission (the loss of Greendale’s second Glee Club in two years), Dean Pelton is almost forced to cancel the Christmas pageant – but he wants to try to convince the study group to help him out before he gives up completely. He enlists Glee Club director Corey Radison (SNL’s hilarious Taran Killam) to talk to the group, who want nothing to do with him as they hate Glee Club and all it stands for.
Abed, who feels badly about the situation, goes to visit ‘Mr. Rad’whom he finds sadly playing the piano. Mr. Rad tells Abed that ‘no Glee Club means no Christmas,’and when Abed expresses that he just wants to spend the holiday together with his friends, Mr. Rad says he can do just that — by giving them the gift of ‘glee.’A song and dance number ensues, and Mr. Rad ends up successfully convincing Abed that he should do the pageant. It’s now up to our resident Christmas spirit to begin recruiting his friends.
His first stop, of course, is his roommate and best friend. Troy says he can’t celebrate Christmas because he’s a Jehovah’s Witness (and yes, I did sing as I wrote that — this episode was amazing) and Abed convinces him that he actually can celebrate as long as they go undercover with the guise of helping their friends. This results in a hilarious and rather genius rap number where Donald Glover managed to prove that, once again, he’s one of the show’s most talented and underrated performers.
Annie finds them rapping together, and warns the group of what’s happened to Trobed. When they arrive at the study room, they find their table mysteriously missing and Glee Club chairs set up instead. Troy and Abed try to convince their friends to do the Christmas pageant, attempting to coerce Pierce by performing a brilliant mash-up of 60’s music dedicated to what Santa invented. The girls (and Jeff) resist but Pierce is successfully brainwashed, and the group soon loses another member.
While Abed goes to tell Mr. Rad that his friends are slowly but surely getting aboard the Christmas pageant (and Regionals) train, Annie shows up to make her case. Cornered by Abed, Troy and Mr. Rad, she too gets sucked into the Christmas spirit and when Jeff goes to find her, she surprises him with a sexy Santa outfit. In a rather obvious and hilarious Lea Michele spoof, she sings to him about understanding Christmas as a Jew. Pierce, meanwhile, attempts to work his magic on Britta and Shirley by bringing out a cute crop of innocent caroling kids. Britta resists, but Shirley doesn’t fare so well and it isn’t long before she’s singing gospel along with the small children. When Britta goes to find Jeff, she finds that her worst fears are confirmed — the entire study group has been brainwashed into being Glee Club members.
Having successfully convinced the entire study group to save his pageant (Britta apparently got on board somewhere in between commercial breaks and we’ll assume it was from Jeff’s singing), Mr. Rad gathers them to say proud he is. As he calls places, he personally thanks Abed, letting it slip about how excited he is to perform at Regionals — and then Sectionals, Regional Sectionals, and even more Sectionals. Abed is confused and tells Mr. Rad he thought that the Regionals performance was a one-time Christmas thing, but Mr. Rad replies that the Glee Club is not just for Christmas — it’s forever. Even longer than forever. Abed starts to realize that he might have gotten himself into more than he’s willing to handle, and at the last second, he coyly tells Britta that she needs to take his role as the Mouse King.
Of course, we know that letting Britta do anything will result in disaster, and sure enough, her bad singing and dancing effectively ruin the show (my favorite line from Dean Pelton: ‘Britta’s in this?’) Mr. Rad freaks, letting out his inner insanity and also the fact that he was the one who killed the last Glee Club in their bus crash. As Troy (and the group, but let’s face it, it’s mostly Troy) defends Britta, Abed apologizes to his friends for insisting they do the pageant together — all he wanted was some holiday time with his friends and instead, things ended up darker than ever.
Abed leaves sadly, and ends up by himself at home in his pajamas watching Inspector Spacetime. As he settles in, he hears singing and finds the entire study group outside his door. Annie tells him that they want to spend the holidays together, and Jeff admits it’s been a dark year after all (a bit of an understatement considering Community‘s benching news, don’t you think?)
As the group gathers around the television in Trobed’s humble abode, we fade out on our favorite misfits in what will be our last image before a too-long hiatus — Abed and Annie, Troy and Britta, and Jeff, Shirley and Pierce spending time together, sharing in each others company the way good friends are supposed to. The episode tag uses the familiar faces of all our popular characters — Dean Pelton, Chang, Magnitude, Leonard and Starburns — as singing carolers in ornaments hanging on a tree.
Happy holidays, Communies! We are now officially in hiatus mode, and while the show went out on the highest creative notes possible, I don’t think I need to express my disappointment that I won’t be able to watch or write on new episodes for at least 3 months. Greendale will be back — hopefully without any Regionals horror — and things will be back to normal soon enough. Until then, wear those goatees, keep those episodes on your DVR, and learn Trobed’s rap (no, seriously, learn it — I know I’m going to.)
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Did you catch the "see no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil" moment during the "Baby Boomer Santa" song? My full thoughts on the episode are posted on my site.