Community Season 2 Analysis

Season 2 builds upon character arcs and the humor style established in season 1 to make a coherent story. Many consider this season to be the best and it sure is a part of the peak of the show when it comes to hilarious parody episodes and breaking the fourth wall. The aspect of trust and how to evolve together is what’s mainly tackled this season.

Anthropology 101 sets up the season to resolve some of the pressing story beats from the season 1 finale. What happens to Annie and Jeff? Nothing, it's deemed as a mistake even though Annie wants to pursue the relationship. What happens to Britta after her humiliation? She becomes popular for her boldness which is satisfying as she’s always been so confident, but never rewarded for it like Jeff. Unfortunately, this confidence vanishes later on in the series, because the writers liked the joke of everyone making fun of Britta’s pronunciation of ‘bagel’ in Physical Education from season 1.

Jeff’s takes more of a backseat this time causing this season to expand more on the ensemble. Accounting for Lawyers is the only major episode for his progression this season as it tests if Greendale truly changed Jeff. This wasn’t just only a test for Jeff; it was also for the rest of the group to trust him to do the right thing. However, the group helping Jeff has come to be expected and the true development is from Jeff and his fear of commitment. Chang also proves his dedication to the study group as he just wants to feel like he belongs and this is his progression for the season.

Troy is the person to indulge in Abed’s chaos but he’s his own person too so it's important to discuss his arc. Epidemiology falls into Community’s chaos with our favorite characters interacting in a zombie apocalypse. Troy learns that there's no rush to grow up and that his innocence and friendship is more important which is shown by the changes in his costume that each character got to resemble their personality. Epidemiology combined with Aerodynamics of Gender built the framework for Troy’s character to want to grow up fast. Mixology Certification builds upon this as Troy turns 21 which makes him re-evaluate his juvenile behavior. He gets pressured by the group to try his first drink but after seeing how drunk Britta and Jeff get and he realized the real mature thing to do is be the driver. It's shown in a humorous manner of Britta and Jeff having this fight throughout this episode to come to be nonsense in the end.

Abed is a hilarious character used to break the fourth wall and make fun of shows and do parodies, however at times he has a battle with his autism to maintain his close relationships. It’s part of the point of the show to have a found family who will care about you no matter what so we also see the other side of the story about his friends helping him through his adversity. Abed’s Uncontrollable Christmas is a beautiful episode that tackles Abed’s autism and his difficulty to process tough emotions. He’s seen throughout the series to use film to process his feelings and escape from handling situations. This time he sees the world as a stop-motion classic Christmas film as a form of escapism and coping to deal with his mom moving on from him to another family. The main point of the episode is less of how Abed needs to mitigate his issues but how his friends who are his support system need to help him. Duncan dismisses Abed’s process for the sake of his own frustration but the friends who stick with him are the ones who don't need development from a place of selfishness. Critical Film Studies shows the struggle that Abed faces of showing affection due to his autism. It’s hard for the group to understand which upsets them because they feel apathy from him. This episode teaches them to accept his love language and trust him.

Some episodes have to be reviewed for how elevated the humor has gotten with its takes on classic styles of genres and wacky attitude. Messianic Myths and Ancient Peoples has the show make fun of itself by teasing meta humor. This is why community is so great, it's not judgmental in its cynical nature; it's just pure enjoyment. Abed and Shirley come together on their differences about religion through Abed's misunderstanding of why it's so beloved and Shirley being stubborn of how religion should be consumed. Abed makes a meta movie about Jesus as he tries to become Jesus. He soon realizes, however, that even though everyone at Greendale loves it it's pure nonsense - which is what meta humor is sometimes. Everyone blindly following Abed as Jesus could be a take on religion. It shows just how naive people can be, and how they put their faith into anything. Cooperative Calligraphy had the study group have a bottle episode. It’s the first episode in a long line to have each member holding a secret which gets let out for an agenda where chaos ensues between everyone due to their secrets. Additionally, we have the chance to see the more panicked side of Annie. She uses her relentless stubbornness for a pen. Conspiracy Theories and Interior Design jokingly criticizes the ‘plot twist’ technique and how overused it gets in film. In the history of film it's seen that famous creators have milked out the plot twist by changing what it means. The episode calls back to it in a zany way with new things happening constantly between Jeff’s lie and Annie either helping him or not with the dean. Paradigms of Human Memory completely demolishes the idea of a clip show episode by making one where all the clips are stories we haven’t heard before.

The character who’s the most attention grabbing this season is Pierce where at first we learn more about his past and sympathize with him just for that to be let go where he takes an antagonistic position in the friend group. This arc starts out with The Psychology of Letting Go which is a touching episode about grief and coping mechanisms. This is shown by both Pierce, who gets manipulated by his cult to believe his mom is still alive, and Jeff, who can’t handle the naivety arising from his existential crisis due to his age. Eventually, after hearing a heartfelt CD from Pierce’s mom, Jeff understands that people grieve differently. For Pierce, he understands his denial of his mother’s passage through subtle hints. Aerodynamics of Gender has Pierce as a proper antagonist for the first time but Celebrity Pharmacology finally utilizes Pierce in an interesting way in the main story. He feels out of touch with the group which is a vital part of his character and his progression so he bribes Annie using her innocence and bad circumstances to his advantage. This put Pierce back into the antagonist role from Aerodynamics of Gender and Annie has to relearn the right thing of not being dependent on other people in her life so she doesn’t need to owe anyone anything and she can live without feeling like a burden in peace which is a needed lesson for college student or people in her situation to be ambitious. Advanced Dungeons & Dragons is a fan favorite episode as it's a classic to introduce the show to anyone as it reintroduces our beloved characters from an outsider in the college’s perspective. Neil who is severely depressed from being bullied for his weight and Pierce explicitly takes a villainous role and knows about Neil but still pushes the limit with his rude comments and taking away the one thing Neil enjoyed which is his power in the game ‘Dungeons & Dragons’. Even though Neil finds out that Jeff started the teasing by calling him ‘Fat Neil’ he understands his worth as the whole study group except Pierce cares enough to help him out. He even ends up pitying Pierce as they didn’t even invite him to play which is why Pierce was so fueled up in the first place. They shake hands as they’ve met their match to hit them in their vulnerable places. Intermediate Documentary Filmmaking is one of the funniest episodes of the series putting a spin on the bottle episode of sharing secrets by Pierce bequeathing gifts that psychologically torture each friend. This episode toys with the idea of Jeff confronting his dad while putting Pierce as a foe once again. One criticism is that Pierce doesn’t receive enough consequences for his actions but he does get beat up this time for crossing the line.

Certain episodes have takes that can be considered political that should be analyzed as well. It’s noted that in Aerodynamics of Gender, through Joshua, we can see how political sugarcoating works - Jeff and Troy didn’t even notice he was racist because of the sweet trampoline distracting them. In Early 21st Century Romanticism, Britta and her friend Paige is a take on how politicians use liberal issues to their advantage of the media without understanding the point and having no substance to their actions. Intro to Political Science is a take on how fake politics can be and how people like Jeff just relying on their charisma make their way into being politicians with no real ideas and passion. It also criticizes how naive we are as a society to buy into this deception.

A Fistful of Paintballs and For a Few Paintballs More acts as the season finale recapturing the magic of Modern Warfare in another paintball episode although it parodies old western films more. Throughout the season Pierce has been a jerk to the whole group which finally gets confronted when they kick him out of the group as even the nicest member, Annie, can no longer stand him. He takes things too far which is also displayed in this episode. The ending where they set off paint from the ceilings with dramatic music while Annie and Abed kiss in the shower of paint was a beautiful scene to capture the chaos of the whole thing.

To conclude, this season dug deep into each character with funnier episodes and new fresh ideas to increase the cynical nature of this show. The B-stories this season definitely had less weightage of importance to the characters and story progression but they were still enjoyable. This season is a perfect sequel to the last.