Community - Asian Population Studies recap/review

An average, not-that-funny episode of Community? That hasn't happened in a while.

Remember the Halloween episode last year where Shirley and Chang had sex, but then everyone lost their memories? Remember how Chang left a voicemail to Troy saying that he did the nasty with Shirley? Well, that came back to haunt our Greendale students this episode.

Shirley is pregnant (which you could have guessed if you paid attention to Abed’s menstruation chart a couple of months ago), and she assumed the baby is her ex-husband’s, so they got back together. Because the reason they broke up was that he cheated, Britta is not happy to see that they are an item again. But Troy and Pierce did the math, and the baby could be Chang’s. Pierce let Shirley know after she voted against his pick in the group’s election for a new member of the group. Because Shirley’s ex is a “new man” now, he decided to stay with Shirley and father the baby—no matter whose it is.

Annie has started liking Rich, a bit character from two previous episodes. It’s ok if you missed or forgot him. This show is all about the little details, and you have to pay close attention. Remember the one episode where Abed was missing the entire time, but if you looked closely among the extras in the background, you could see him helping a girl deliver her baby and fighting another guy over her? Community is like that sometimes.

Annie wanted to get Rich into the study group, but Jeff gets wildly jealous of him. First of all, Rich is “perfect.” He makes great kettle corn and is really nice to everyone in the group. Jeff made one of his famous lawyerly arguments to get the group to vote Chang into it, rather than Rich. It worked and now Chang is part of the group. After hearing that Rich refused to date Annie because he thought she was too young for him, Jeff ran dramatically through the rain to someone’s apartment, and he gave a dramatic speech in the doorway of…not Annie. He went to Rich’s place and begged Rich to teach him the secret of being so perfect, so that he could abuse it for his own ends, naturally. We will see what comes of that, but we are not huge fans of Rich the character.

This episode was more plot advancing than most Community episodes. It had lots of little details and references that are good if you have been watching the show for a while. Jeff’s love with Annie is still dead, for now, we have a new character, and Chang is an official part of the study group. Yikes.

But the episode wasn’t as funny as usual. DON’T let this review put you off of watching the show if you have never seen it, because it is usually fantastic. Just not this week. But if you liked the song at the end where Jeff was running to Rich, it is called "Running Through Raining" by Ludwig Göransson. The song hasn't been released yet though.

Episode Grade: C+