Community Season 3 Rebounds in a Big Way After a Slow Start

Season three of Community started immediately with a fairly ambitious goal. Right from the get go, it became clear that a major theme for the season was going to be the main ensemble -- especially Jeff -- coming to terms with who they (and one another) are. This has clouded the first handful of episodes as we have to witness the extremes of the bad behavior that these people are capable of and the tenuousness of the bond they have. Whether it's Jeff and Annie awkwardly hanging the lampshade on the defense mechanisms they've built up or it's the group treating outsiders with intense hostility as a way of reinforcing their attitude of togetherness, the proceedings have largely lacked the heart that defined the show for me (with the awesome ending to Geography of Political Conflict being a major exception).

The fourth episode, Remedial Chaos Theory, was a huge step in the right direction if the writers want to keep this difficult theme alive while letting the show be what it is at its best. The ridiculous, multiple timeline exploring structure provided a great way of showing the impact, good and bad, that each person has on this group by letting them highlight specific parings and show us what happens when individual people aren't present.

I'll freely admit that it took awhile for the episode to get going and not every joke was perfectly clear. Britta's pizza dance doesn't make sense if you don't immediately suspect that she was getting high. It also took me a second viewing to catch the crunch that tells you Troy was keeping candy in his cigarette case and not eating actual cigarettes instead of smoking them. The revisiting of the sexual tension between both Jeff and Annie also keeps feeling a little forced (the repetition didn't help this). None of that matters, though, in the face of the complete ridiculousness of the Troy-less timeline, especially when it's revisited in the bump. There was a lot to set up, from Annie's gun to Troy's fear of the Norwegian troll, but I nearly fell off my couch laughing as things kept going farther wrong.

A great episode that has me feeling good about what the show can do this season -- assuming they keep their ambition level high.