What is Greendale Community College?
Greendale is an anus flag. Greendale is a paintball war zone. Greendale is a courtroom. Greendale, no matter what form it takes from week to week, is just an empty study room, taking the shape of the needs of the people who populate it.
The truth about Community – from the pilot to today – is that Greendale is nothing more than a hub for the interactions of seven washout students, thrown together by a beginner’s Spanish class. It is whatever they make it.
It has never mattered what happens to the school itself. Greendale has been subject to two paintball wars, a zombie invasion, a deranged security officer, a massive pillow fight and so much more. But without fail, Greendale is clean and repaired the next week.
It’s never been about the college. It’s always been about the community. If that seems like the most obvious statement one could make about a show called Community, that’s because it is.
Tonight the Greendale Seven realized that the fate of their school and their place in it didn’t matter because they were still together. Community is no stranger to concluding episodes with profound self-actualization, so tonight’s ultimate revelation felt underwhelming. Did Annie really not know that her friends are more important to her than her grades? Did Britta not realize that her psych major isn’t as important as her unwitting "patients"?
I doubt it.
“Course Listing Unavailable” was one of the more high-concept Community episodes ever seen (excepting the many genre homages and parodies). It felt as though the show’s creators were trying to make up from all the lost ground caused by the hilarious – albeit one-note – Law & Order parody of last week’s “Basic Lupine Urology,” a funny diversion from the season’s arcs that did absolutely nothing to further the plot or the characters.
“Course Listing Unavailable” followed the plight of Greendale’s populace in the wake of Starburn’s death in a meth lab explosion, a tragedy revealed alarmingly quickly at the end of “Basic Lupine Urology.” Because lab equipment from the Biology 101 class was used in the meth lab, Professor Kane resigns, leaving the course and all the students’ credits incomplete. This means everyone enrolled in Biology 101 will have to make up the credit during the summer.
At Starburns’s wake, the Greendale Seven start a riot to rebel against this injustice that the school has served. Scared for his safety, the Dean grants Chang the power to exercise martial law, and the Changlorious Basterds take that to heart, pepper spraying everyone in sight. The school board pins the riot on the study group, and they are all expelled.
In fact, so many big things occurred in this week’s episode that there was only time for one commercial brake. In and of itself, this cramming threw off the structure of the episode, making it feel much shorter and much less complete. This could have been fixed with a stronger ending, complete with a more powerful character revelation, but sadly it was not.
Perhaps I was expecting a lot because of the callback to this season’s “Remedial Chaos Theory,” which I found to be one of the series’ most brilliant examinations of the Greendale Seven’s dynamic, unstable relationship.
Whatever the reason, I was left disappointed but eager for the final four episodes. The plot of “Course Listing Unavailable” was most exciting because it laid such a great foundation for the pending conclusion.
The main characters have been expelled. The school is in the hands of a deranged dictator. We’ve been promised a grand finale. I have a couple speculations as to what that might be, but one thing is certain: When all is said and done, Greendale will still just be an empty study room.
And if you are still wondering, the answer is yes; the table is magic.