NBC’s ‘Community’ season 5, episode 9 review: More Brie Larson and VCR games
Does the presence of indie favorite Brie Larson still make up for the loss of Donald Glover on “Community“? That is something that Thursday night’s episode “VCR Maintenance and Educational Publishing” hoped to answer. It wasn’t the show’s strongest episode ever, nor was it the weakest. It was instead a small, funny story that brought in a few guest stars, and really showed us where the NBC series is now. It remains one of the best comedies out there, but it’s been several episodes now since we saw one that blew our socks off.
Larson’s Rachel was back this week as Abed and Annie held a VCR game in order to determine who their new roommate would be: Her, or Annie’s brother Anthony (who seems to be one of the weirdest men to ever surface in Dan Harmon’s creation). We had all but forgotten that these games exists, and this episode was a great reminder as to why they are not around anymore.
The subject of Glover’s Troy eventually became the center of Annie and Abed’s narrative, and they realized that they were trying too hard to force the issue with people that they knew. It took an adorable third-act save from Abed using a pail full of water to ensure that he did not lose his girlfriend entirely. Just when it looked like Britta was going to be the new roommate, the show surprised us again with Abed and Annie going to Craigslist. A nice ending to a pretty nice conflict.
The other story was perhaps even more demented, and yet another reminder that Shirley has a supremely evil side when you start to tempt her. This happened with a tale of a textbook deal gone terribly wrong. The truest thing about this story is that you can make a ton of cash selling books on the market … but only “Community” would turn this into something so crooked.
As we said in the intro, this was a funny and at times charming episode. To us, the best thing about it was really getting to see Vince Gilligan at the center of the game. Who knew that he could act? Grade: B+.
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Photo: NBC