One of the main tropes of the Law & Order franchise is that no time is wasted — even suspected murderers never pause from their busy bits of business (usually stacking papers or carrying crates of produce) to focus on the cops there to interrogate them. So it’s only fitting that I do the same.
Why do I get the feeling you’re about to waste my time?
“Basic Lupine Urology” was a brilliant parody of what Michael Ironside’s couch-crashing commander might call a “target-rich environment.” The look, the chung-chungs, the coroner, the terrible hot dogs — all of it was pitch-perfect and very, very funny.
Thank you, this review is done. But since being “very, very funny” is the kiss of death for reviewers like you, I see you feel the need to continue. I’m bracing myself.
But unlike 30 Rock, the episode — nimbly scripted by Community all-star Megan Ganz — never quite came together for me as anything other than satire.
THERE IT IS. For fuck’s sake. You know, the other day when I was reading A Modest Proposal I thought, this is really not coming together for me as romance. And Annie Hall: kinda sucked as tragedy. Now 2 Broke Girls, that’s really working as Wagnerian Gesamtkunstwerk. Glad I’ve got our standards established.
The opening was undoubtedly invigorating (I particularly loved Shirley Epatha Merkerson knocking on the aquarium glass, detectives Troy and Abed haggling over zingers, and Britta Instagramming the evidence) but the triple-red-herring-laden conclusion was more messy than memorable.
Yes, that’s what we want, a memorable conclusion. Hugging, learning. A takeaway. And then a fucking diabetic coma from all the treacle.
Also, you seem to be under the impression Andy that this is actually a Law and Order episode where we need some kind of Sam-Waterston-as-Atticus-Finch profound revelation at the end. I’m sorry, Scout, but it’s a fucking satire.
Ultimately, Community just can’t help itself, and its freaky, self-aware heart bursts through at inopportune times —
Freaky, self-aware, we wouldn’t want that in a comedy show, would we, Andy? Now self-aware, that might be ironic, and freaky, well that might just be off-putting. But the real offense here is inopportune. Everything in its proper place, Benjy. Because INOPPORTUNE!! messing with timing and the expected flow of INOPPORTUNE!!! expectations isn’t a fucking fundamental INOPPORTUNE!!!! part of comedy, apparently. You know, comedy, as opposed to, say, a police procedural.
having Professor Omar intone about the importance of codes, dragging Jeff in front of the class for one more creaky speech. Weirdest of all was the conclusion.
Oh dear God and network television execs, please spare us the weird conclusion. Anything but that! We need resolution! We need a pretty bow and maybe a cute little card tied to it and maybe even a delicately placed flower right in the center of the knot at the end of the episode! Weirdness makes me feel all tingly inside, like that time I tried on my mommy’s lacy underclothes and I was such a naughty boy and--ahem. Well. We can’t have weird. Every show must be entirely the same, as focus grouped by the Andy Greenwald Department of Opportune Timing in the school of not-funny comedies.
On the screener disc sent by NBC, Michael K. Williams’s last line was redacted to avoid spoilers. The big, terrible, devastating secret? That Starburns had died when his portable meth lab exploded. Only Community would go to such lengths to build an emotional shock around a background joke.
Yes, only Community would write such a perfect beat-for-beat parody of Law and Order that they would include the final twist that makes all the characters question whether they got the real bad guy, and then make something as base as a joke out of it. Just think. A joke on a sitcom. How crass. Next thing you know they’ll be wearing white after Labor Day. Why do I get the feeling, Andy, that you’re just pissed that even though you get screeners sent months before the rest of us supposedly weird-hating and conclusion-loving tv viewers, they cut five seconds off the end of it? I know, I feel for you, that feels weird to be all alone in the house without some earnest arms to hold you when the show ends. It’s OK. We’ll get through this together. Just never fucking write about television again.
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