NBC’s ‘Community’ season 4, episode 7 review: A whale of a tale
For the first time really all season long, we’ve had some nice things to say about “Community” over the past couple of weeks. It felt more and more like the show we had come to love rather than the show that had started to come off of the rails during the early portion of season 4.
In watching Thursday night’s new episode, though, we’re a bit divided. It got off to an extremely slow start, and the first five minutes may be among the unfunniest of the entire season. On the flip side, though, the content that followed was reasonably funny, at least on the level of one of the weaker episodes during the Dan Harmon era. Plus, it brought back a number of Greendale mainstays including Leonard, Magnitude, and even Fat Neil as Dean Pelton tried to persuade a “Whale” to attend the school … mostly because this character would never graduate the school, and his parents would continue to spend a massive heap of money even though the guy will never graduate from the school.
Really, the best moment of the entire episode came via the Dean, who quickly realized that he had gone too far when he took away one thing that made the place distinctly Greendale: “Pop, pop.” He ended up treating the Whale like a normal person, and thus he decided to attend. It was a little bit too sappy of an ending to this show, just as the end to the side story regarding Pierce and Jeff spending time together was also heavy-handed.
As for Troy and Shirley working in a class about gym class, it was a novel idea to pair them together, and it was a marginally fun way to see what Shirley is good at and how Troy, despite being an athlete in high school, has no idea how to discipline others. The problem with this story, and perhaps the episode as a whole, is that it always felt like it was about to take off, but never managed to ignite the thrusters.
Overall, what did you think about this episode? If you want to check out a preview of the new episode airing next week, you can do so over at the link here.
Photo: NBC