NBC’s ‘Community’ season 5 spoilers: Chris Elliott lands important Greendale gig

Chris Elliott is one of those people who you would hope to be on “Community” someday, mostly because he has the sort of humor that would be perfect for the show. So to hear that he will be in an upcoming season 5 episode? It’s basically the opposite of how Abed felt when he learned that “The Cape” was canceled.

Here is what we know about the character that Elliott will be playing. He is the founder of Greendale Community College in Russell Borchert, but he was last seen under mysterious circumstances. Following some sort of sex scandal (which seems appropriate, given that Dean Pelton is now in charge), he disappears off of the face of the earth for a rather long time before resurfacing in a spring episode.

The one thing that we have to say here beyond a shadow of a doubt is that “Community,” despite being a low-rated show, is killing it this year in the casting department. Not only do you have John Oliver and Brie Larson coming back, but there’s then Nathan Fillion, Jonathan Banks, Vince Gilligan, Mitch Hurwitz, Paget Brewster, David Cross, and many more stopping by for guest spots. Banks is even going to be around for most of the season. This is one of the best assembling of people that we’ve seen for any comedy series in quite a long time, and that to us just further shows the level of faith that actors and creative people have in Dan Harmon to deliver something that really is a home run, even after a pretty weak season 4.

“Community’s” return is just under a month away, coming back on January 2. We’d ask if you were more excited than us, but for the time being, we admit that would be pretty difficult.

You can read some more scoop on the new season here, at least in the form of what Joel McHale had to say about another upcoming guest star in “Justified’s” Walton Goggins.

Photo: NBC