Community is the show that probably jumpstarted the careers of many great artists. We have the creator, Dan Harmon, who’s probably more known for his later creation, Rick and Morty. We have Donald Glover aka Childish Gambino who played Troy, Ludwig Göransson, the composer for the show who’s known for his work in Black Panther, Creed and Tenet. And of course, the Russo Brothers directed a bunch of episodes.
Community features a group of diverse students who ended up in a Spanish study group at a local community college. The show plays on various pop culture references and movies in its episodes, which gives us amazingly crafted escapades. It also plays on various meta references, giving the audience a fresh take on the episodic sitcom genre. And it functions as a great palate cleanser after watching something some more melancholic, perhaps you’re in your Neon Noir marathon.
While Community can be thoroughly enjoyed by those who are into movies and have good knowledge based on pop culture, it can be a jarring experience for a lot of people. So here’s a list of episodes to start your friends and family on their journey watching Community, easing them into a show that we know will be a great experience for them.
Advanced Dungeons and Dragons (season 2, episode 14)
Right of the bat, we have a very strong episode of season 2 that sets the dynamic of the study group, building up to a rift between Pierce and the rest of the group.
This episode features the group’s attempt of cheering Neil, a classmate who’s going through a rough patch in Greendale. It starts off as any typical Dungeons & Dragons session, with an appointed dungeon master (Abed, of course) and the rest playing random fantasy characters throughout the gameplay. And along comes Pierce, who’s been excluded intentionally because let’s face it, he’s kinda of dick to everyone and the last thing the group needed is having a boomer breaking the confidence of an already depressed boy. Drama ensues.
This episode is a special take on what I would consider a bottle episode, since it only took place in one location (briefly in another) and most of the adventure were taking place in their collective imagination. This would be a good introductory episode to lure your friends in into the Community fandom.
Modern Warfare (Season 1, episode 23)
Nothing is normal in Greendale. Expect everything happening here to be dialled up to the max. When the dean announced that there will be a schoolwide paintball assassin game, everybody in the community college participated. The original prize was supposed to be a blue-ray player which got stolen, so instead the Dean offered something way too irresistable to the students of Greendale.
When priority registration became the new prize, everybody in the school lost their marbles and started gunning each other down. Everybody gets in the role of trying to win the prize. In this episode, we’ll get to see multiple homages paid to action movies from the late 80s and 90s. We have Die Hard, Predator, and even a scene where it resembles every other Chow Yun Fatt flick. Extra sauce is give Joel Mchale paying homage to Bruce Willis’s character in Die Hard.
Basic Lupine Urology (Season 3, episode 17)
One thing that Community does best is paying homage to popular series out there, taking out the essence and adopting it into a community college setting. This particular episodes brings in the Law & Order format.
The gang finds their Biology project, trying to grow a yam spud, “murdered” in suspicious circumstances. From the iconic sound in each title cards to the usual characters you’ll find in a criminal drama series. And it wouldn’t be a a Community episode if you don’t sprinkle other TV references into the episode. The episode features the group getting into groove of investigating, along with other characters from Greendale.
Conspiracy Theories And Interior Design (Season 2, episode 9)
Jeff’s ultimate goal in Greendale is to graduate in record time and reacquire his license to practice law again. To ease the pain of learning in a community college as well as his general attitude towards doing any work related to his studies, he chooses what he calls blow-off classes where there are no tests or syllabus.
This time around, the Dean busted him for attending a fake class on conspiracy theories. Although Jeff is absolutely lying through his teeth to the Dean and Annie, a mysterious figure that claims to be his professor for the fake class appears out of thin air and confirms that the class actually exists. So, Annie and Jeff digs deeper into what seems to be a convoluted double crossing
A Fistful Of Paintballs (Season 2, episode 23)
Using the same theme in a show is difficult to execute without some sort of backlash from the fans. However, if you’re a fan of Community, you know you can never have enough of paintball episodes. And this time around, we have two episodes back to back.
The theme this time around has changed to Western Spaghetti and has established each member of the study group becoming a character in this paintball tournament. There are some flashback moments of something that’ll be important to the story later, but it seems that this time around the episode revovles around Annie. Who by the way is an absolute badass in this episode.
There’ so nothing much I can say without spoiling too much of it. Just enjoy the ride that is the paintball episode of season 2. And get psyched again because it continues with more paintballs in the next episode ( For a Few Paintballs More). Although, there might be a shocking revelation at the end of the 2-parter final episode of Season 2.
Remedial Chaos Theory (Season 3, episode 4)
And finally, the last episode on this list is the fabled Remedial Chaos Theory. This episode would probably be Abed’s favorite since it revolves around alternate timelines. Another bottle episode, it starts off with Troy and Abed christening their new place with a good ol’ house-warming. Once the setup for each character has been set, all we need is Abed announcing that Jeff’s idea of using a dice to decide who should get the pizza will ultimately create 6 different timelines.
And thus, we get a window to each of the timeline, where the scenarios play out differently where each character interacts with each other. The episode addresses the dynamic of the characters, specifically the micro relationships within the group. And let’s not forget the unresolved conflicts that have been looming in the background. Shirley’s baking addiction, Pierce’s jealousy towards Troy moving in with Abed and so on.
The episode really gives us an inside look into the inner mechanics of the study group. Ultimately, the key takeaway from this episode is to accept the flaws of your loved ones and support each other through life. Also, find people who would dance to Roxanne!
Conclusion
And that’s all folk. If I had it my way, I would probably have a list of 30 episodes that I would deem to be interesting as introductory episodes to the non-initiated. Community is a great show, although being cancelled and losing its steam towards the end of its life cycle.
The show does not shy away from heavy topics and shows that it’s not rainbow and sunshine at the end of the day. But if you’re lucky enough to find a group of strangers that you can call family, then nothing that life throws at you will ever stop you.