‘Community’ season 6, episode 4 review: Is this the best Ken Jeong episode to date?
Remember how we’ve said that “Community” tends to improve more and more as each season progresses? Tuesday’s new episode is without a doubt the strongest of the entire series since the Yahoo takeover, and it may be our favorite Chang episode of the entire series. It has humor, heart, and a tribute to “The Karate Kid” we certainly did not see coming.
There was really neither an A story nor a B story here, since both carried almost equal weight. Chang, at the encouragement of Annie, tried out alongside her for a production of the popular feature film in stage form. We’ve seen productions of the Greendale theater department before, and most of them are disastrous. This still brings back great Troy memories almost every time. Chang eventually leads the role of Mr. Miyagi, and then suffers relentlessly at the hands of a director who treats him like garbage. Ken Jeong was absolutely brilliant through out and it’s easy to see why so many fans love him. “Community” for a long time seemed to struggle with the idea of making Chang into one of the good guys, but they are proving here that there was never anything to be afraid of. Sure, he can be psychotic and to a certain degree dangerous, but there was a warmth to seeing him actually excel at something … even if he was berated to the point of Annie losing her part while trying to stand up for him.
The other main story in this episode gave us an opportunity to explore something that has always been a topic of conversation among fans: Dean Pelton’s sexuality. Is he gay, bisexual, in love with dalmatians, or something else entirely? The great thing is that we had no real answer, but instead an attempt by the school board to place him in a box reading “gay” so that they could use him for political gain. The “Gay Dean” twist on “Jolene” was perfect, and Jim Rash (who co-directed this episode with Nat Faxon) had some of his best material of the entire series, as well. He realized that this position was going to his head, and transforming him into something he was not in allowing Abed and Elroy’s baby birds (which really could be defined as the B story of the episode) to die.
Eventually, the Dean let go of his power, we had a nice Jeff / Annie moment, and everything was right in the world of Greendale again. It’s fitting, since almost everything was right about this episode. It proved that you can take two supporting characters for five years and still find something different within them, and that you also don’t have to go completely insane with the story to create magic. The plot points here were relatively simple, but made into something more by the writing, the acting, and of course Rash and Faxon’s directing. Grade: A.
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