Valloween; Or, Community Returns to Form

Community had a somewhat rocky season 4 premiere last week, but this week's Halloween episode (it was supposed to air October 26th!) "Paranormal Parentage" was a funny, sweet, and a little bit spooky Valentine for fans.

The study group is meeting up at Greendale CC to head to Vicki's awesome Halloween party; Troy and Abed's "Calvin and Hobbes" costumes were absolutely adorable and perfect (seriously, Donald Glover rocked that tiger costume!), and the miscommunication between Jeff (as a boxer) and Annie (who was supposed to be his ring girl, but showed up as the creepy little ghost girl from the movie the Ring) was actually a pretty clever touch. Britta is inexplicably a ham.

Okay: Tangent. I never know whether to expect anything between Annie and Jeff; of course it's been hinted at pretty heavily since the Season 1 finale, but I almost feel like choosing "now" to expand their relationship (or close the lack there-of) would seem a little tired since the writers have already settled on Britta and Troy exploring their relationship. I hate it when shows shoehorn as many couples as possible at one time, especially when it's relationships within the main cast. At any rate, I liked that Annie stood up for herself when Jeff said "are you naive?" and she replied "I'm sure as stuff not your sexy little ring girl!". You go, Annie! That being said, she felt more like her early Community self as opposed to the more confident and clever girl she's (supposedly) grown in to.

The episode itself centers around "rescuing" Pierce from his panic room - along the way, spoooky mishaps happen to the study group as they divide up to search the house and look for the passcode. Could it be the ghost of Pierce's overbearing (and extremely racist) father? Unlike last week, the B and C plots didn't feel rushed or cheap. Britta is intent on solving Jeff's own daddy issues, and Shirley (unintentionally) shakes Troy's confidence in his ability to keep up with Britta. Abed finds the secret security room and watches the events unfold from behind the revolving bookshelf. Annie, in an act of meta so meta that it's just mindblowingly meta, reveals that she hates reference humor. Touche, Community. You do not disappoint. On the whole, though, the humor was somewhat low-key. It's not that most of the jokes didn't land - it's just like the show wasn't even trying to raise the bar humor-wise. It was a comfortable and reassuring "shhhhh, don't let the last episode give you the wrong impression."

Hawthorne Manor was a real treat to finally see - we'd heard so much about it from when Troy was living there, yet it's taken this long to get a proper glimpse of the place. And, of course, Torg the Norwegian Troll is missing from his rightful place on the bookshelf. Much like Pierce himself, the decor is stuck perpetually in the 1980s and giant picture of Chevy Chase Pierce, in his glory days, adorns his bedroom.

Now, I love Community and its doses of whackiness and suspension of disbelief (especially with the Halloween episodes). However, as much as I felt this episode will hopefully be indicative of a season that can only go up from here, I really am looking forward to a plot in the study room, at Greendale, with the characters grounding themselves and dealing with slice-of-life issues. The Study Group has a way of finding and amplifying the craziness among the normal goings-on at Greendale CC and I really like those episodes the most, I think (for example, their extreme and overblown hatred of Todd is really funny to me).

Finally, I love that Britta is ready to start her journey of becoming a Spacetimian.