Community - "Competitive Ecology"

Season 3, Episode 3

A study of internal dynamics

“What is happening at this school?

I’ve had so many conversations that don’t make sense.”

-Prof. Kane

“Your love is weird. And toxic.

And it destroys everything it touches.”

-Todd, He of the Big Head

Of the premiere a few weeks back, some critic – I really can’t remember who, but I wish I did – made an offhand comment about how they liked neither John Goodman nor Michael K. Williams’ characters, saying that they didn’t fit the rest of the energy of the show. It was a comment that didn’t make sense to me, because the critic didn’t really back up the assertion, because no one else really echoed the sentiment, and because I’m not sure that any character couldn’t “fit in” with the show. Community has become so known for shifting tones from week to week that it makes sense, to me at least, that there would a variety of characters with a variety of personalities to reflect that.

But even if Prof. Kane doesn’t fit the show’s vibe – and I at least consent that he’s a striking contrast to the study group, both as a whole and to each individual person therein – I think that’s the point, and “Competitive Ecology” proved that point perfectly. If this third season is going to be focused on the highlighting each person’s individual neuroses, as well as their group dynamics, then there is going to need to be some impetus within the show for these explorations to happened. While these impetuses could come from within the group, having outside character engender these explorations is not only easier, it makes for a larger variety of stories that can be told.

And oh, indeed, Kane is the impetus for tonight’s storyline when he assigns the group to lab partners that they don’t know. The group balks, and then begs Kane to let them work together. But even though the group gets what they want, they soon find that working together isn’t the best thing, because they can’t stand each other. Britta is annoyed by Shirley’s fawning over her baby, Troy and Abed realize that they spend too much time together, and Annie is repelled by Jeff’s general disinterest.

Which brings us to Todd. Like everyone who isn’t Jeff, Britta, Annie, Troy, Abed, Shirley, or Peirce, Todd is met with antagonisms by the rest of the study group. But unlike say Leonard or Gareth, who only encounter the group in passing, and thus get the least of their antagonism, Todd is forced on the group – or rather Pierce, but the group by extension – due to their odd number, and when the group decides that they need to switch partners, it soon devolves into a very nasty argument about who will be paired with Todd (and his recently acquired turtle).

What’s important about Todd, however, isn’t that he’s an outsider, but that’s he relatively normal and extremely nice. Unlike weirdoes like say Starburns or reprehensible people like Chang, there is nothing off-putting about Todd other than the fact that he is not one of the group. Now, in the back end of season two, it seemed as if Dan Harmon was intent on exploring the group’s easily fractured relationships, but it was sometimes difficult if doing so wasn’t itself just a dark joke. With Todd there, as a completely benevolent entity who somehow manages to bring down the group’s full wrath just by being there, we now understand that the group’s awfulness is no joke. The group in horrible just to each other and those around them, and Dan Harmon seems intent on figuring out why.

But that’s not the only thing that places a glaring light on just how nasty and unhealthy the group’s relationships really are. The center of tonight’s episode, which saw the group once again at each other’s throats, was another episode in the vein of “Cooperative Calligraphy” and “Paradigmsof Human Memory”, at least in an emotional sense. But unlike those episodes, “Ecology” doesn’t have the buffering layer that comes from deconstructing the bottle episode or clip show formulas. No, what we have here is a story of a group of relentlessly co-dependent malcontents, unfiltered by high-minded tricks. Your brain has nothing else to focus on other than the groups antics, and that makes their horrible actions all the more morally troublesome, as the characters we love become far worse in our eyes.

Tonight’s B-plot, meanwhile may have been less weighty than the A, but also manages to answer another criticism lobbed against the show, this one far more widely occurring. Last week, I discussed at some length the general critical worry that Community was leaving behind the reference episodes, those mainstays that made the second season such a thrilling ride. Yet despite all the show’s rumored move away from such episodes, Chang’s storyline was an obvious homage of the film noir, albeit one that sent up the idea of a loner who spend most of the time narrating his own life.

And that answers a much longer running criticism. We all know that Chang is crazy, but it’s made him something of a polarizing figure, as a good portion of the show’s audience find him too cartoony to exist in the show’s universe. Tonight’s episode may not lessen Chang’s cartoonishness, but it does help to place his behavior in a better context in the rest of show. By the show just outright acknowledging that Change is crazy, instead of having it implied by his actions, would seem to indicate that the show is more confident about his place in its universe going forward, and that Chang won’t be shoehorned into the gang’s storylines. And that’s probably a good thing; Chang’s cartoonishness was never more apparent last season than when he was forced to interact with the group. Also, by placing Chang and Dean Pelton on the same level of crazy (as evidenced by the penultimate scene), the show cements Chang as an ephemeral characters once again, and it’s on the ephemera that craziness can reside more comfortable.

“Competitive Ecology”, which manages to both deliver the laughs and tell us something about the characters, all while avoiding (too much) reference humor and remain generally entertaining, feels like the kind of episode that Harmon wanted for season three, and the kind of episode the last two were building towards. While perhaps not as wild – and satisfying – as the homage episodes of last season, it was still quite enjoyable, and if these are the kind of episodes the show is going to deliver on a weekly basis, then I’m more than okay with that.

Quotes and Other Thoughts:

In a weird bit of me reading something into the show that clearly wasn’t there, every time Todd’s name was mentioned, I couldn’t help but think of Todd VanDerWerff, perhaps the preeminent voice when it comes to weekly reviews of the show, which given how much praise he generally has for the show, makes it weird how much hate the character received tonight. (Fittingly, VanDerWerff had a similar thought.)

I like that Kane is so incompatible with the show’s vibe that he even puts down the universally beloved Magnitude. While John Goodman’s Vice Dean of Air Conditioner Repair is an antagonistic force from within the campus, Kane is a external force, and that should keep the external antagonism that the group experiences, from their perspective, will be varied.

“I’m married to the job…and to a mannequin leg I found in the boiler room.” “Homewrecker.”

 “You guys have weird reactions to stuff.”

“I had sex with Eartha Kitt in an airplane bathroom, and these are the only guys I ever told.”

“Second paintball.”

“I need to catch up on Breaking Bad, so….”

“I have a developmental disorder. Star Wars, Star Wars, cool cool cool, hm. You understand.”

“Don’t tell me what I’m thinking or feeling. It sounds petty.”

“She was a dame. Legs that went up to the bottom of her torso. The kind of arms that had elbows.”

“Matchbook. Something about it seemed clue-y.”

“While he was spying, I found a turtle!”

“So it’s agreed. Let’s go to the study room and deal with this Todd problem once and for all.” “Umm, did you want me to come?” “It’s called ‘The Todd Problem’.”

“Well, the hair color concept intrigues me because it’s how I distinguish you anyway.”

“And before you all go putting Todd down last, just remember he comes with a turtle. You’re halfway done.”

“I had to get some answers. I needed answers like a fish needs a bicycle.”

“What would happen in Nicholson was a gynecologist?”

“Don’t get your Number 4 stink on this, Todd!”

“If loving worms is stupid, I don’t want to be smart.” “It is, and you can’t be!”

“Pierce, wake up, Jeff is gonna heal us!”

“Oh no, she’s got her marijuana lighter!”

“I’m going home. I am going to hold my wife and my child, and I am finally going to take my insulin shot! Offense taken!”

“You know they’re laughing with you, right? I mean, that’s my theory.”

“You’re pathological.” “It’s too late for flattery.”

“How did this happen? And did I miss the firemen?”

“Racism?”