#generic gifsets are clearly not my forte

[callioope]

Finally finished Community! Thoughts below. I can’t say they’re coherent or insightful, but thoughts below. I’m still sorta processing everything so I’m not even sure I’ll settle on these thoughts, but they are my immediate impressions after binging this thing in 2.5 weeks. (Whew!)

First, a preface: Prior to this binge session, I had seen one episode many years ago, but whatever episode that was I have no idea because none of them felt familiar to me. More importantly, though, I used to see a lot of Jeff/Annie stuff in my dash back when the show was still airing. So, that informs my preconceptions of the show before I started.

Overall impressions: 

The first three seasons are pretty solid, and honestly I didn’t really feel like season 4 missed a beat from them. At some point towards the end of season 4, or maybe early season 5, I stumbled on the season 4 controversy and was pretty surprised because I still enjoyed it. Season 5 actually felt like the beginning of a decline and season 6, whew. That was almost painful to watch. It felt pretty dry, lacking in the show’s original magic, and definitely forced, which was even addressed in the season finale. And speaking of the finale, despite some brief entertaining meta moments, it didn’t really feel like a good ending for the whole thing. But I suppose we’re still due that movie, right?

What I loved about the show was how much fun it had and the relationships between the characters. It seemed to do a good job of shaking up interactions so we got to see different sets of characters interacting. Troy and Abed’s dynamic was the most interesting to me (I think I’m going to have “Troy and Abed in the mooorning!” stuck in my head lol). The blanket fort episodes were pretty great.

Couldn’t stand Britta/Jeff moments. Didn’t like the idea of the woman Jeff just wanted to bang finally giving in. Would have been terrible if that had ended up (man did I hate the set up at the end of season 5! fortunately that seemed to be a ruse to make a point, like Jeff and Britta getting together “just because it was how the show started” wasn’t really a realistic ending. I’m looking at you How I Met Your Mother. I bet that was intentional. It probably was? When did HIMYM end? I have no idea because time stopped making sense after I graduated college. 

Troy/Britta was interesting, and I was into it, but when it fizzled out that also made sense. Troy/Abed, hmm? Idk. Maybe. Haven’t settled on that. I sorta feel like they’re missing a person, like they should be Troy/Abed/??? I just feel like they have that dynamic where they need a third person. But who? Britta? Eh. Idk. 

Speaking of Troy, I really wished he could have made it back for the finale, at least! That was sad. 

And now for no reasonable transition but just because I just binged 6 seasons in 2.5 weeks and am trying to remember all my thoughts throughout: Chang. Chang was pretty annoying. Honestly it was a miracle I made it through season 1, I made it through in spite of him. He was better when he wasn’t a teacher anymore but still kind of grating. Not my brand of humor, sorry.

Let’s see, what else? Oh, Pierce was also awful. In a different way from Chang but still pretty unbearable. Does it make a difference that I’m watching this post #metoo? Or did everyone agree he was unlikeable from the start? I rarely found anything redeeming about his character and he always felt like he just didn’t fit. (Side note that I had no idea Chevy Chase was in Community until I watched the pilot! It’s funny how much tumblr manages to spoil with gifsets and also not spoil.)

Jumping around again -- so I obviously knew Donald Glover was in Community but I feel like. The next time I watch Solo. That it’s going to be very weird seeing Troy there. Mostly because I know if it was Troy playing Lando it would be mindblowing to him. I hope whenever they make the movie there can be some throwaway reference to this.)

(also oh shit but i did not realize until I looked it up on imdb during like season 3 but Annie!!! was Trudy!!! in Mad Men!!! I did learn this fact before the Don Draper reference)

The Dean’s weird obvious crush on Jeff sort of made me uncomfortable. i mean the parts where he clearly fantasizes about jeff (the puppet thing for example). outside of that I thought the dean had some good moments, and I enjoyed the plot with the study group rescuing him from chang, but whenever he weirdly hit on Jeffrey it felt like negative representation. sort of like “look at this sex-crazed deviant harassing jeff” and that was bad. i mean it felt like harassment. is this supposed to be some sort of comeuppance for Jeff’s womanizing ways? If so it still feels off to me. Is there something I was missing there? I don’t want to upset anyone or be out of touch since I’m the noob here so please if I’m off let me know. 

What else??? I’m probably forgetting so much because I watched it so quickly. Everything’s sort of merging together.

Oh! Britta!! I did see in a negative review that Britta’s character kind of got screwed with and I do agree with that. I wasn’t a big fan of Britta but it did seem like her character development (what development) really stalled. And the jokes about her being terrible at psychology were overdone. I get that she’s supposed to be the screw up but let her have something she’s good at? I guess. I mean I guess she did end up helping people so it sorta worked out but idk, didn’t feel like they put her character to good use after season 4. 

I’m saving Jeff/Annie for last. As I stated above I was predisposed to thinking this was gonna be like THE ship of the show. I didn’t hate it, but it definitely wasn’t what I was expecting, namely because I didn’t realize the age thing was going to be such a prominent part of it. (Didn’t realize the age gap from the gifsets! ...or at least didn’t remember it) I do get the chemistry there, but there were some scenes that felt really awkward to me. I was waiting for it to get better and it sort of had its ups and downs. Loved the “teamwork” dynamic to their scenes, but sorta hated the paternal vibe. Jeff’s “I do this as a coping mechanism so I don’t have to address my feelings for you” sorta made sense, buuuut I also thought that scene Got Weird. Also didn’t feel like we got sufficient closure. Maybe we weren’t supposed to. But I felt like for as much weight as they tried to lend it at the end, there could have been more obvious development and build up towards it. Like, for as much time as Annie clearly spent pining over Jeff throughout the whole show, she really didn’t play a large role herself in the final episode. In one scene, I think it was one of the pitches, someone tells Jeff he’s not really thinking about what Annie wants, and I would have liked Annie to have a chance to speak to that, but even when Jeff finally admits he “let her go,” she barely says anything. So, idk. 

I worry that the movie would reset the status quo. I don’t really like that kind of thing, when season after season there’s no real progress made. It was a staple of sitcoms, sorta the point, but I like a show that an be funny and have character growth. (I’m looking at you, The Good Place! not every show can be the Good Place...) It did feel like we got character growth here. I think what I’m actually worried about is the Gilmore Girls Effect, where it’s allegedly ten years later and nothing has changed. That was a disaster. If they do a movie, I hope they think realistically about where the characters would have gone during the time that elapsed. Like reasonably. 

Anyways. Those are some very loose thoughts I basically just word-vomited immediately after finishing the last episode. It’s definitely possible I missed some things, as I was sewing masks during most of season 6 and some of season 5. And I watched them really fast in general. So who knows what I’m forgetting. It’s all a blur. I’m gonna stop myself before I embarrass myself even further. And probably go read some fic. Yeah. 

#really debating if I want to tag this or not #i don't know this fandom and i always feel weird putting posts in a tag when i'm new there #so what i'm going to do is stall and fill up the first five tags with commentary #and then i'll throw the tag after the first five #and then i'll see this post in the tag anyways because that's happened #and maybe even after years I don't understand how tumbler's tagging system works? #bc i always thought if you tagged outside the first five tags it wouldn't show up in the tag #but i've definitely seen posts that do #so IDK #*throws hands* #anyways i do want to tag this for my own blog organization so #community #the latest with liz