Community lasted five seasons on NBC, and later received a sixth on Yahoo Screen. The show's premise consisted of seven people who found themselves at Greendale Community College for vastly different reasons. All study group members have very different personalities that provides for a lot of comedy, and they grow so close together that they often participate in out-of-class activities with one another. Here is a subjective top 10 list of all episodes of Community. Leave yours in the comments below!
10) App Development and Condiments--Season 5, Episode 8
This is the only post-Pierce/Troy episode that makes this top 10 list, as I feel the show is usually at its best with the entire study group involved. To me, this episode is the best of later Community episodes. In the episode, a new app allows people to rate people with "meow meow beenz", which ends up dividing the attendees of Greendale Community College into castes, separating people by how many "meow meow beenz" they average out of five. The result lends to tense relations, and Shirley ends up being the head of "the fives". As for the study group, at one point every person is rated at least a four except for Britta. The idea of people staying in designated areas based on their ratings is heavily enforced.
The episode is an exaggerated, comedic take on the world of being obsessed with getting likes, shares, etc. on social media platforms. It is a tonal shift from many episodes, with very few moments taking place in the study room.
Funniest Moment:
When Jeff, a four, does a stand-up routine that entertains "the fives" and becomes a de-facto school celebrity.
9) Intro to Political Science--Season 2, Episode 17
In this episode, Dean Pelton holds a school President election seven hours after it being announced due to Joe Biden visiting Greendale while on the Biden Time Talkin’ Bout Teaching Tour, touted by Britta as “folky, yet progressive”. Annie runs in an effort to actually approve the school, and Jeff runs pretending to care, but the two finalists end up being Magnitude and Leonard. The result of the end of that debate is predictable; Magnitude keeps yelling "Pop Pop!" and Leonard makes fart noises. South Park wins. In a side plot, Abed has a serious conversation with an F.B.I. agent.
This episode is a comedic take on student government elections, which can sometimes become a messy popularity contest. It also fits right in with the typical Greendale culture; it's pretty impossible for something serious to get done given the personalities of these people. The election got to the point where the Dean, of all people, was the straight-faced one. The episode also made sure to include many of the supporting characters: Magnitude, Leonard, Starburns, and Garrett all ran for class President, alongside Vikki, who quickly exited after center-staged Pierce kept bullying her. As for the study group, Shirley and Britta had reduced roles as a result.
Funniest Moment:
When Pierce bullies Vikki and drops out right after her, explaining he only ran so he could get back at her for not lending him a pen.
Funniest Line:
Shirley: "Well Pierce we're glad to have you back. I'm assuming."
Honorable Mention:
“Joe Biden”: “Whatever. I just had a dream that I was a regular President.”
8) Social Psychology--Season 1, Episode 4
In this episode, Annie is taking a Psychology class that holds an experiment. They get a group of people in a room, and consistently come back and apologize, saying it will only be "five more minutes" before it began. Little did the participants know, that itself was the experiment. While the experiment in the past has always led to everyone breaking at some point, Abed does not. Instead, he accidentally turns the experiment onto Professor Duncan and the rest of the class, who were all waiting for him to break. The episode also has a plot where Britta falls in love with a "new-age" guy named Vaughn, as well as Jeff bonding with Shirley about making fun of Britta and Vaughn.
The highlight plot in this episode for me was the Psychology class one. What gets this episode on the list as well is that it helps define the personalities of a lot of the study group people, as at this point the show is still only four episodes in. The most important part of the episode to me was when Abed explained the reason he didn't break was for Annie, as she had previously told him they were friends. It's one of the early authentic moments that highlight the study group growing closer than simply a group of people trying to get through Spanish 101.
Funniest Moment: Chang has a meltdown and storms out the first time they say "five more minutes". In other words, basically right after he walks in. Also funny is the fact he took part in the experiment in the first place.
Funniest Line:
Britta: "I'm gonna get dessert, you want anything?"
Vaughn: "Carrots."
7) Modern Warfare--Season 1, Episode 23
There is no way I couldn't include a paintball episode in this list, and for me the first one is the most memorable. In it, a school-wide paintball game takes place, with the winner (eventually) guaranteed priority registration for the next semester's classes. The Debate Club, Chess Club, and Glee Club have been traveling in packs, aiming to take down the rest of the student body.
In the end, the study group works together to make sure one of them wins, and all agree that they will give Shirley the prize, who wants to schedule her classes so she can see her kids more often. The episode, though mostly satirical and commenting on how far some people will go to get a specific prize, also shows heart and is an example of the group growing closer together. Plus, it led to a handful of other paintball episodes, which isn't something I am complaining about.
Most Memorable Moment: When Jeff asks what's going on in reference to the paintball tournament, and a distraught Troy can't believe Jeff doesn't know what the prize is.
Funniest Dialogue: (referring to the prize)
Dean Pelton: "It was a Blu-ray DVD player, but it was stolen. So now it's TBD!"
Troy: "I want TBD! Is that new?"
Pierce: “If it's what I think, I had it for about a month in the '70s.”
6) Advanced Dungeons and Dragons--Season 2, Episode 14
It's not Community's best bottle episode, but it's pretty close. In the episode, Jeff invites "Fat Neil" over to the study room for a round of Neil's favorite game, Dungeons & Dragons. The study group, sans an uninvited Pierce, plays along, though Abed doesn't get the memo that Neil is supposed to be successful in the game, which negatively impact's Neil's character in the game. After all, Jeff is trying to save Neil, who has been showing signs of impending suicide.
Pierce is bitter he wasn't invited, as if he's clueless as to how insensitive he can be. He is probably more insensitive in this episode than any other, even ‘defacing Neil's valued sword', but still ends up inadvertently saving Neil's life.
The episode takes a serious issue and manages to have a lot of comedic moments built around it. The positive outcome at the end secures the episode's spot on this list, though in general it is a very memorable episode.
Funniest Dialogue:
Annie: "I'm...ew, Hector the Well-Endowed? Abed!"
Abed: "I didn't know you'd just grab one at random. I made that one with Troy in mind."
Funniest Moment:
When Pierce walks in mad that he wasn't invited but "Fatty" was, and keeps bullying him, completely clueless of the purpose of the game.
Most Memorable Moment:
When Neil asks Pierce is he wants to play again in the future, saying "I'll be around."
5) Cooperative Calligraphy--Season 2, Episode 8
While some of the episodes on this list barely ever had scenes in the study room, this one takes place almost exclusively there. The premise is extremely thin: Annie can't find her pen and makes everyone stay and look for it. What turns this episode into a classic is the methods they take. There are plenty of invasion of bags, where they find everything from Shirley's pregnancy test to Abed's book outlining the menstrual cycles of all three women in the study group. At any point in the episode, it appears obvious that any given person in the episode is hiding the pen.
This is how you do a bottle episode. It's easy to tell the writers are proud of it too, as the episode gets multiple callbacks later in the series. The episode is made great by its complete randomness. It shows a lot of the people at their most vulnerable, and everyone in their most desperate modes. To top off the randomness, turns out "Annie's Boobs" (Troy's very temporary pet monkey from a different episode) stole the pen and put it back into the vent alongside a lot of others.
Funniest Line:
Troy: "Maybe nobody took it. Sometimes I think I lost something really important to me and it turns out I already ate it."
Funniest Moment:
When they tear apart Pierce's casts in the hopes of finding the pen.
Most Memorable Moment:
When they all strip off their clothes to prove they don't have the pen. At this point, the study room is completely defaced.
4) Pillows and Blankets--Season 3, Episode 14
Abed and Troy start a school-wide conflict by arguing if there should be hallways made out of pillows or blankets. Students at Greendale choose sides, and the conflict brings out the worst of the students. It is very similar to a paintball episode in format, except with pillows and blankets. This conflict--or as they call it, "Study Room Cerfuffle", goes well past midnight. Annie creates a neutral zone where she takes care of injured participants; Leonard compares it to being in the Korean War. The episode also features Neil signing off from his radio show with the same tune that Abed hums in his Season 3 Halloween episode story. When Community does callbacks, they are oftentimes very subtle like in this case.
The episode, alongside its randomness and wild plot, features a voice-over, as if they are showing a documentary about the battle. It also highlights the real friendship of Troy and Abed; it was originally decided their friendship would be over at the end, but they realized they couldn't grow apart from each other.
Also, is it just me or would it be awesome to live in a situation where everything is made out of pillows and blankets? Seeing the setup actually makes me wish I could have been there.
Funniest Line (Tie):
Voice-over: "[Troy] would later say of the war: It was awesome. But also, it wasn't?"
Dean: "Do people go to classes?"
Funniest Moment:
Chang's young security team attempts to break up the battle.
Most Memorable Moment:
Troy and Abed realizing they can't go their separate ways.
3) Celebrity Pharmacology—Season 2, Episode 13
In this episode, Annie attempts to put on a school play for middle schoolers about drug awareness, and manages to get the study group (plug Chang) involved. The play is interrupted by Pierce's determination to be funny. Though his role is "Drugs", who does not have any lines, he makes sure he becomes the star of the show by performing in the lowest form of comedy possible, making him popular with the kids.
Pierce explains that he is underutilized in the script and is a veteran at multiple forms of comedy, and complains that Jeff is on every page of the script. This all may or may not be a parody of Chevy Chase. We also learn of Pierce's sad past as a child, when his father had a stand-in child actor in a commercial because Pierce's audition wasn't considered as good. Paying Annie a multi-thousand dollar check shows a combination of both his inner kindness and his desperation; the first for helping her with her poor housing situation, and the latter for doing so as a bribe to help himself get into the play more. I like how he was more integral to this episode than being the guy who comes in with controversial jokes as awkward comic relief.
Funniest Moment:
When Pierce completely improvises his act in the play to make him popular.
Most Memorable Moment:
When Chang comes out as "bad" drugs in Act 2 in order to save the play, and actually get the intended message across much more effectively than it would have otherwise.
2) Horror Fiction in Seven Spooky Steps--Season 3, Episode 5
In this Halloween episode, Britta finds out that her standardized Psychology test indicates one person in the study group is a psychopath, and attempts to find out who buy having them all tell scary Halloween stories. In the end, it turns out Britta "Britta-ed" it by running the tests upside down. The second time around, only one of them doesn't show signs of being a psychopath: Abed.
The episode properly shows everyone's personalities. Abed finds Britta's story poorly-written, completely unaware of how emotionless he is being. Annie's story further indicates her developing crush on Jeff, though it also introduced her ability to tell a very warped, scary story. Troy's story was exactly like you would think: completely random and beyond unbelievable, with a strong comedic element. Shirley's story passive-aggressively paints her as the good person because she is a devout Christian, who is shown here as being lifted up to Heaven while the rest of them have to suffer with the Apocalypse. When Britta displays psychopathic thoughts herself, Jeff tells a story to try to be the leader and calm people down, but ends up describing Chang as a man who kills out of fear.
Funniest Moment:
When Pierce tells his very brief story. It wasn't scary, and it wasn't intended to be either, but it does show the weirdness that goes on in his brain.
Funniest Dialogue:
Pierce: "What did I do to deserve that? Keep me out of your stupid stories."
Troy: "I didn't say it was you, I said he was a crazy old racist doctor."
Most Memorable Moment:
At the end, when the real test results are revealed.
1) Remedial Chaos Theory--Season 3, Episode 4
There's just no beating this episode. In the episode, Jeff roles a die to determine which person will go down from "Troy and Abed's new apartment" (yes they sang that in the beginning) to pick up the pizza from downstairs. Doing so creates seven different "timelines" in Abed's mind. In the best timeline, Jeff gets the pizza and comes back to find everyone dancing and having fun. In the darkest timeline, Troy gets the pizza and returns to a fire, a shot Pierce who would go on to die, Jeff loses an arm, and he swallows the troll and becomes evil. Also, it makes Shirley an alcoholic.
This is an episode that deviated far away from the typical sitcom episode and created something special as a result. Over the course of 22 minutes, there is the same basic setup, except what happens differs with every person who leaves the scene to get the pizza.
The "butterfly effect" here is the whole premise of this episode. It could have been a boring mess, but instead provided what was arguably the best episode of the entire series. It can be watched repeatedly without ever losing any of its uniqueness.
Most Memorable Moment:
Troy coming back to the apartment room to seeing everything in ruins.
Funniest Moment:
When Pierce brings up a past situation he claims to have had with a famous person in an airplane. It's one of the lines that is present in nearly every timeline.
Funniest Line:
Pierce: "Man, pizza guys are getting worse and worse looking. Guess all the good ones went into porn."
Honorable Mentions
Very briefly, here are three honorable mentions.
1) Pilot--Season 1, Episode 1
This episode perfectly set up the series. Sometimes, series completely shift away from their pilots. Community provided an exception by how it introduced everyone in the study group. The only exception here is Britta, who was yet to become the character who was always saying how warped society and societal norms can be.
2) Geography of Global Conflict--Season 3, Episode 2
The A-plot in this episode was very strong, with Annie recruiting most people from the study group to participate in a Model UN battle against Annie Kim, a nerdy determined student who steals study-group Annie's idea for starting a Model UN club. The study group has no clue what they're doing. Pierce reads up on his country, Somalia, and thinks it's a paradise. Troy partially mistakes his country, Georgia, with the state in the United States. The whole thing falls apart when a mysterious person farts, until Abed finds a loophole to allow the group to win. Having Garrett as the very-engaged moderator was funny.
Funniest Line:
Garrett repeatedly yelling “Crisis Alert!”
3) The Abed special episodes.
While Remedial Chaos Theory made the list at #1, there are other episodes where Abed's thoughts were at the center that did not. Most notably was the Christmas special that featured stop-animation. It was a remarkable episode of television that went to great lengths to stand out from the typical sitcom Christmas episode.
Other Notable Highlights
There are also a few funny clips from Community. On YouTube, you can find creator Dan Harmon having "conversations" with the cast members, giving them all "evaluations" for Season 1. You can also find the ending to an early Season 2 episode, where Betty White guest stars as an Anthropology professor and sings Africa by Toto with Troy and Abed. What starts out as a little rap to help remember course material ends with Donald Glover seamlessly transitioning to Childish Gambino.
Community can be watched with a Hulu or Netflix subscription, or for free on Crackle. Paid digital downloads and DVD releases are also available.
