Thom Bitches About Community: "Basic Sandwich"

Left to right: Yvette Nichole Brown, Jonathan Banks, and John Oliver

In the ashes of a failed column comes the reformed birth of Thom Bitches About Community: a weekly look at the beloved Dan Harmon sitcom that chooses to push boundaries and throw a meta cocktail into the face of every sitcom currently out there. With the return of the show's creator after a rocky, disastrous season four, we take a look at the show and try and capture what exactly makes the show worth checking out all these years later. Keep an eye out for it every Thursday night following the episode unless otherwise specified.

And with that final moment, we have ended season five of Community. For the most part, it was a return to form. That is if you only consider the metaphysical contexts of varying subjects clashed with pop culture-themed episodes. Among them ranked some of the strongest episodes in awhile, though at other points was a little too on the nose. While we were able to save Abed (Danny Pudi) from those Greendale Babies abortions, he lost a key component to his success: Troy. For every high, there was a low. Unlike season four however, those lows were higher than most of season four's highs. Community is back thanks largely to the return of Dan Harmon, whose voice managed to  ground the series with some brilliant moments.

The whole "Save Greendale" thing was a little different. It only felt like a bookending topic in order to add weight and theme to the season which didn't necessarily need them. In fact, in "Basic Sandwich," we get the conclusions of last week's Subway buyout episode "Basic Story" and it couldn't be any more anticlimactic.  What starts off as essentially an us vs. them narrative evolves into a "whatever will be will be" story in which they find the original dean (Chris Elliott), who has been living under the school with a computer who could feel emotions. Also, Abed must consider this the end of his existence in order to place some logic in his life.

To sum up this episode, it is a narrative about season four of Community as contextualized in a buyout. Consider Subway to be NBC and Greendale to be Dan Harmon, who was infamously laid off last season. In the basic outline of the building, Chris Elliott is his surrogate, serving as The Architect of this universe. He doesn't understand what's cool and goes off of his retro charm. There's no way around it. Harmon may be hip, but anyone who thinks that a G.I. Joe parody is going to keep an audience is definitely aloof in some capacity. When everyone celebrates Greendale's bankruptcy anyways, it brings the realization that Harmon never cared about ratings, but simply being himself in the face of corporate buyout. 

However, the closing moments are what has bothered me about the latter half of the season. When considering his future, Abed claims that he will be back unless an asteroid hits him. Yes, this implies that cancellation is now an asteroid, but also feels a little forthright in claiming that Community is coming back. Moments like these may be entry points for the audience, but they also feel too on the nose to be humorous or clever. Also, it does feel like the show's gimmick of "six seasons and a movie" is its main sustenance for continuation. I am not calling season five bad, but with exception to season four, it is my least favorite. I want to like it, but there wasn't much that felt new past a point.

Maybe it is because I missed Troy. Maybe it is because Abed should never fly solo. Maybe it is just that the reliant nature of its pop culture references are getting a little too familiar. Also, Chang (Ken Jeong) is still around and accepted as a legitimate character for some reason. Why can't that guy go on a boat cruise? Also, I don't feel like much was achieved of note here. If anything, it isolated its audience more than ever. That's saying something considering where the first three seasons of the show went, including an episode based around 8-bit animation. They set the bar high with those, and I do feel like the novelty that made it so endearing has worn off for me.

I may continue to watch, but I also feel like its time has come. It should be glad that it made it through five seasons. That's more than most shows get, especially ones on the verge of cancellation. At most, this season was a commentary on cancellation and the aggressiveness may have been too much for me. Again, "six seasons and a movie" feels like a pandering threat from here on out. If it continues, that movie will be all that people want. If it stops, people will complain that they didn't get that movie. Of course, Veronica Mars came back through Kickstarter. As Harmontown has proven, Harmon is a popular fellow, so that could easily be predicted.

I can't hate the season as a whole, though. Any season that provides an episode based around Nicolas Cage or that faux-noir of Ass Crack Bandit mystery is fine by me. Even the addition of Jonathan Banks as Hickey has a lot of great moments. I still feel like Abed remains misused, but with promise of more potential Troy moments, that can be easily fixed. There's still creativity here, but I do feel like it can't go much further. As Harmon proved by helping to launch Rick and Morty, he has a lot of big ideas in other places. Maybe it is time to come up with something else.