Abed (Danny Pudi) takes up the role of documentary filmmaker (again) focusing on the mystery behind Chang’s (Ken Jeong) amnesia. In order to offset the monetary strain of searching for the cause of “Changnesia” the Dean (Jim Rash) enlists the support of the entire Greendale community to help the school procure a $40,000 grant from the MacGuffin Neurological Institute. And so, despite Jeff’s (Joel McHale) objections, the Study Group decides to help their troubled former enemy.
As Britta (Gillian Jacobs) helps Jeff (Joel McHale) spend Thanksgiving with his estranged father (James Brolin) and the half-brother (Adam DeVine) he’s never met, Shirley (Yvette Nicole Brown) invites the rest of the Study Group to have Thanksgiving dinner with her family. Trapped in a situation that makes their own family dinners look inviting by comparison, Abed (Danny Pudi) narrates his friends’ plan to survive the ideal and escape in a way designed not to hurt Shirley’s feelings.
Promoting Community‘s return to the air Alison Brie stopped by Late Night with Jimmy Fallon to talk about the show’s fourth season and do a little freestyle rapping.
The Study Group returns from Summer vacation (without show creator Dan Harmon) to begin their fourth year of community college only to find themselves forced to compete in Dean Pelton’s (Jim Rash) Hunger Games-themed competition to earn spots in the only History class offered this semester – The History of Ice Cream.
October 19th was supposed to mark the return of Community. Sadly, NBC has chosen not to air the Fourth Season premiere tonight. Instead, as the cast explains, the network will wait until for some unknown future date when the proper state of mind and feeling within us all (that is October 19th) will occur. Sigh.
The Third Season of Community, and final season with show creator Dan Harmon as show runner, is highlighted by a video game episode that features 8-bit versions of the cast working to save Pierce’s (Chevy Chase) inheritance from the evil Gilbert (Giancarlo Esposito), the introduction of Inspector Spacetime, the Air Conditioning Repair School, the Dreamatorium and Evil Abed, the study group being told Greendale isn’t a community college but an insane asylum, an all-campus war between pillow forts and blanket forts, and a near-perfect Law & Order parody.
The season starts out a little slow with a handful of good, but certainly not great, episodes. However, things pick up “Remedial Chaos Theory” which shows us how a single roll of the die could alter the future of each character in both big and small ways. We also get another Glee-ful Christmas episode, Annie (Alison Brie) moving in with Troy (Donald Glover) and Abed (Danny Pudi), and a disastrous attempt to make a new commercial for the school spearheaded by Dean Pelton (Jim Rash).
What happens when you take the cast of Community and digitize them as 8-bit characters and then let them loose upon a computer generated world? A awful lot of fun! Pierce (Chevy Chase) shows up with the study group to meet Gilbert (Giancarlo Esposito), his father’s longtime assistant and executor of his will who informs he before his death Pierce’s father created an old school 8-bit video game for Pierce and seven friends. Whoever wins the game will become the heir to the Hawthorne fortune.
Annie (Alison Brie) discovers the group’s the study group’s science project has been destroyed the group sets out to find the person responsible. In an attempt to salvage their grade the group begins an investigation and puts one of their fellow students on trial in true Law & Order style (complete with a parody opening and trademark beats).