‘Community’ Season 4 Episode 7: “Economics of Marine Biology” Recap
I forget how big of a fan of Community I am sometimes. Or how big a fan I was. I have a shirt, a lanyard (for my job as a professional key holder) and two mugs, and all the seasons on DVD of course even though they’re readily available – for free – on Netflix. I mean, come join me on top, am I right? All of this may be why I’ve been pretty easy, for the most part, on this season so far. And this week’s episode was no exception as I thought it was another decent episode for me.
While they’re still working out the kinks (7 episodes is enough time to have gotten them all out, I hope) and not everything is perfect or like it once was, Troy continues to make me laugh. His delivery of “get your damn hands off my Letz” was the highlight of the episode. The central, Greendale centered plot worked well with the episode and felt like a typical episode of Community. It wasn’t particularly exciting and was a little been there, done that (the Dean acting crazy, Britta being annoyed, Annie having nothing to do…etc…) but it worked.
I’m all for pairing on sitcoms. I love when two characters get together, especially two characters that often don’t have that much to do. Like when Brad and Alex realized they had nothing in common on Happy Endings? And the one with Rachel, Chandler & the cheesecake was a great episode for those two characters. The story needs to be good to support the pairing though, or else you’re stuck with something like Rachel & Joey and no one cares. Shirley & Troy worked well earlier this season and in the past, but their subplot for this episode just didn’t click. First, the P.E.E joke (an acronym for Physical Education Education) was childish and not funny and secondly, their entire story just felt like it was something for them to do.
On the other hand, Pierce & Jeff’s storyline was a step up from Troy & Shirley’s. I like that we’re still seeing Jeff trying to deal with his father issues, even if they have to be through Pierce. Side note but not really: isn’t it odd that every storyline involving Pierce this season mentions how “difficult” he is? It’s like they knew what was coming… While it was a step up in the pairing department, it still wasn’t anything exceptional and I think that’s been the saving grace of this season that as long as it’s not terrible, we accept the semi-decent storylines we’re being served.