I’m pleased to announced that “Advanced Safety Features” is the best episode so far of Community‘s sixth season, at least in terms of sheer laughs-per-minute. It was flat-out hilarious. There have been more ambitious episodes this season, but ambition and scope do not necessarily a good Community episode make (look at the “Hunger Deans” episode from the much-maligned fourth season). The reason “Safety” worked so well is that it started getting really in touch with its two new characters, Frankie and Elroy, and also did right by Britta, one of its most consistently problematic characters.
Guerilla marketing is invading Greendale, and much to Abed’s chagrin, it’s guerilla with a u, not the amazing kind that needs no marketing. This leads to the return of Britta’s star-crossed love, Subway (a returning Travis Schuldt, in a nice beard), now going by Rick and shilling for Honda. (The Dean, who it turns out is level 7 susceptible, becomes particularly swept up by Rick’s subliminal messaging.) Rick’s boss – Billy Zane, also nicely bearded – makes Britta a proposition: she and Rick can be a couple, but only if they work together. She agrees, because as it turns out she’s pretty damn good at the work.
The B-plot is pretty solid, too. Jeff realizes that Elroy doesn’t like him, and in true Jeff fashion he sets out to fix it. Even if he doesn’t particularly care about the person – and there’s been nothing in the previous few episodes to suggest that he craves Elroy’s friendship – his ego dictates that he be liked by everyone. He goes as far as to book Natalie Is Freezing, Elroy’s favorite band, to play Greendale’s Alumni Dance (Annie: “I think a lot of current students will show up for the degree raffle”). This backfires, because Elroy and Julia, NIF’s lead singer (played by Lisa Loeb!), used to date, and she messed him up. (Elroy gets in a great burn, as he angrily calls Jeff a “hair-gelled CPR dummy.”) Ultimately, this all gets resolved, because Community is nothing if not a show about friendship and companionship. Hell, it’s right there in the title; the show isn’t called Community College.
Britta’s story comes to a sadder ending, as Rick tries to market Honda to her parents and insists that they love Avatar. Community pretty expertly subverts the guerilla marketing angle to posit Britta and Rick as con artists; he talks about making “one last score” before they’re “out of the game,” but unfortunately that score turns out to be a sting put on by Frankie. So off Rick goes to the land of occasional guest stars, but it’s okay because we got to spend a good amount of time with Britta Perry, who Community is gradually reinstating as one of its strongest characters.
A Few Thoughts
- Chang’s PowerPoint presentation – “Chang and PowerPoint: A Journey to Disappointment” – was some of the funniest material that Ken Jeong has gotten all season
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Loved Jeff telling Frankie that Troy was really good at steel drums. “That won’t pay off immediately, but it will pay off.” And then she showed up later, playing steel drums! It did pay off
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Frankie calling the Dean an idiot over and over was so perfectly delivered by Paget Brewster. I seriously can’t get over it
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Abed, on Elroy: “I don’t know if he’s black Pierce, old Troy, or Shirley without a giant purse.”
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The fact that Abed and Annie have been working on new secret handshakes, including a disturbing one where farmer Annie milks cow-Abed, is a nice way of showing that they’ve remained friends even in the wake of Troy’s departure. Little touches like that show that Community exists outside the walls of Greendale
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