NBC’s ‘Community’ season 5, episode 10 review: The return of Dungeons & Dragons
“Advanced Dungeons & Dragons” was one of our favorite “Community” episodes. It was completely bizarre, extremely funny, and a love letter to all of the Dungeon Masters out there. The thing that this show does such a magnificent job at is celebrating its nerdiness.
So in total, “Advanced Advanced Dungeons & Dragons” is probably one of the show’s nerdiest episodes ever, and is not going to bring in many viewers who are not already committed to the show. Almost everything we saw here took place within the span of a few rooms, and it was almost entirely dialogue as Professor Hickey and his son (the awesome David Cross) played the game at first to fix their relationship, and then to tear it apart, and then to try and fix it again. There were a few pendulum swings in here.
Even with this being said, there were also still plenty of laughs and, more so than that, plenty of imagination. There are some “Community” episodes that you really need to watch more than once to fully understand, and this is one of them. It is pretty hard to grab onto every little bit of dialogue, since there was so much of it.
Some of the best moments? Think along the lines of the following:
1. Abed’s goblin impression.
2. Chang seemingly making out with the hand of Cross’ character.
3. The Dean playing the character of Jeff’s son during the game, which basically ended up becoming a series of attempts by the Dean to hug him.
4. Jonathan Banks. His presence has been so great this season, it has helped the show deal with losing Donald Glover.
In the end, “Community” continues to make Dungeons & Dragons even more awesome. This one started a little slow, but when it got going, it was at truly insane levels of great. Of course, there was a nice moment for Hickey, and we move on to the next half-hour with a warm and fuzzy feeling. Grade: A-.
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Photo: NBC