Community - "Virtual Systems Analysis"/"Basic Lupine Urology"

Season 3, Episodes 16-17

Given how varied episodes of Community can be from one another, it’s rare that any two back-to-back episodes will share a whole lot in common. (There is of course an exception for two-parters.) And given the ensemble nature of the cast, and the show’s fairly democratic use of them, it’s only slightly less rare that two straight episodes will have focus on the same characters. Yet looking over “Virtual Systems Analysis” and “Basic Lupine Urology,” it’s clear that such similarities do exist in both of these areas, at least to some extent.

Sure, there’s the simple fact that “Urology” and “Analysis” are both high-concept episodes, something that the show has tried to avoid doing too frequently ever since they front-loaded on them in early season two. In that respect, it’s perhaps a bit hard to take all of this seriously, given that so much of this season, especially the back half of it, has been so filled with the higher-concept episodes. But what makes this string of high concept episodes work better than the former batch is that the show is more consistent in keeping the focus on the characters. This is no doubt due to the overall focus of the season, that of showing the darkness that corrodes the group, but it should be appreciated not matter what the reason.

For “Analysis”, it was an episode that placed Annie and Abed at odds, in order to further explores Abed’s Asperger’s nature, and how that affects the rest of the group. Though the show will often sideline certain characters from the ensemble to keep an episode from seeing to busy – or in other cases, to make up for their alternative work schedules – this was the first time where that relegation seemed to make perfect narrative sense. By allowing the cast to appear mostly in the form of figments of Abed’s mind, we got to see just how Abed views the other members of the group, what he believes to be their most defining traits. It’s a move that required stealing the nuance away from everybody buy Abed and Annie, but it was the price to pay in order to get a substantial peek into Abad’s brain. (It was also a great showcase for the actors, as they got to play their characters as seen through Abed’s eyes, which sometimes including some of Abed’s own subtle mannerisms. Layers upon layers here, people.)

But the episode wasn’t just about Abed, as the show’s democratic nature made sure that Annie got equal character service within the half-hour. Given that Abed is the closest thing the show has to a breakout character (not sure that term’s correct, given the show’s low ratings), it would have been easy for the writers to just let this episode be the Abed Show and forget about everybody else, even his scene partner. However, towards the end of the episode, the focus shifted onto Annie, as we learned a few new things about her. Her pathological need for control isn’t perhaps the most surprising reveal, but the extent to which she engineers and believe that she can fix thing to her liking is certainly a darker aspect of her personality that I would like to see explore further. The more powerful reveal was the show’s explanation for why she still lusts after Jeff, in that she’s in love with the idea of being in love, and if she can nab Jeff, then she can nab anybody. The first part of that reveal is of course trite, but the second part, the reason why she focuses on Jeff specifically, in one of those beautifully sad character beats that the show does so well.

There was also, in the closest thing the episode came to B-plot, which saw Troy and Britta’s own relationship flowering just a little bit more. Apart from Troy’s immature fixation on his best friend, there’s not much to this, but it’s interesting to note that the show has set this up to go either way. Troy and Britta get together because they have chemistry, or they don’t because Troy can’t separate himself from his friend. (Personally, I hope it’s the former, because I’m a human being and I am capable of empathy, and just awwww, you guys.)

The character work wasn’t nearly as strong in “Urology”, which is fine given that episode’s aims, but it’s interesting that there was still a large Annie focus two weeks in a row. Granted, the character work was far more equitable this time around, but it was another Allison Brie spotlight this week, and another to focus on Annie’s darker tendencies. Much like with “Analysis”, the episode didn’t tell us anything we didn’t already know – in this case, concerning Annie’s perfectionist streak – but took that information to dark places. Seeing Annie berating Todd (who is practically the study group’s punching bag at this point) for the same tendencies she’s guilty of, I couldn’t decide whether it was an act of self-hate or hypocrisy, but it was frightening nonetheless. It was a ferocious display of faked moral superiority, one which undoubtedly alters how we view the character.

It also must be acknowledged that both of these episodes came to air under a large amount of anticipation and/or dread. For “Analysis” it was Dan Harmon’s pronouncement that it was the craziest episode that the show had ever attempted, and that even he wasn’t sure it was going to work. For “Urology”, it was fact that it was the episode in which a character was going to die, and then later that it was going to be a straight up Law & Order spoof. (For the longest time, these two facts were kept separate of own another, so it was sort of a pleasant surprise to see how the episode merged these together, even if I didn’t really buy the result.)

As far as “Analysis” is concerned, I’m not sure if I’m the best to pass judgment on the accessibility/mind-fuckery of the episode. As a fan of shows and movies that deal with high concepts and ask that the audience to pull their own mental weight in order to follow along, there’s rarely a piece of media that I find too confusing to follow. This isn’t meant as a brag – I’ve seen so many of these things that I’m sort of used to thinking about narratives in this way, and am thus desensitized to the alienating nature of such things. That being said, I found little about the episode to be confusing, and I was even drinking during the episode. The only part of the episode that could be knocked was during the height of Annie and Abed personality swapping, which nicely illustrated the chaos-inducing power of imagination, but became a bit too hard to follow in terms of who was impersonating who. (Though even that information could probably be teased out with a second or third rewatch.)

“Urology” by contrast was a much simpler episode, at least in terms of asking the audience to understand what was going on. Spoofs are among the easier things that the show has done, though nobody on the crew takes the task lightly. Spoofs tend to succeed or fail in part due to how faithful they are to the source material, and this episode managed to capture just about everything right. It wasn’t just the credits sequence, or the subtitle text used, or the use of the iconic “bong bong” sound, all of which other spoofs of L&O have faithfully recreated, that made this one so successful. No, it was also the way that the episode was shot, the way it broke for commercials, and most importantly, the way it was structured, making sure to give half over to the cops, and half over to the lawyers, that managed to make all of it work so well. (Even the title of this one worked as a brilliant play on words.) Sure, there was plenty of snide and ironic dialogue from the characters that managed to send-up many cop show clichés and point out that hey, this isn’t a cop drama that we’re watching. But I don’t for second believe that the “Thanks to Dick Wolf” was anything but sincere. This was an episode made with a lot of love for the subject matter, and it shows.

Given how divisive the Glee-spoofing Christmas episode of the show was, I sort of expected a similar reaction to this episode as well, given how both managed to usurp a lot of the traditional character interactions for the sake of the joke, but I think what made this one more successful to some may have been what I’ve already discussed above in regards to the characters and the spoofing. However, I do have wonder if it’s also because we haven’t really seen the show pick on cop show before (though they did pick on buddy cop movies in “The Science of Illusion”), so maybe the material feels fresher. Or maybe it’s because it feels less mean. Me personally, I prefer “Regional Holiday Music” by a hair, but I also recognize that may be due in part to the circumstances surrounding it.

Anyways, while “Analysis” seemed to live up and survive its status as the weirdest episode to date, I’m not sure that “Urology” was worth all of the promotion of the character death. When it appeared at first that it was the yam’s “death” that the promotions were referring to, and thus it was all part of some “screwing with the audience” joke that worked at the beginning, before growing old and stale with each iteration. However, when it turned out that it was Starburns who died, that was a joke that didn’t work at all. That is if it was a joke, even a really dark kind, like I suspect the episode meant it to be. (I mean, it’s not like we see or know enough about Starburns to care what happens to him.) Granted, it was a death that was setup earlier in the episode, but I’m not sure if there was enough setup to make it work. But I guess we’ll find out next Thursday how well the joke works next week when we see Starburns funeral. Until then, I’ll just ride the high of these two episodes.

Quotes and Other Thoughts:

“I use a mnemonic device: Kevin, Please Come Over For Gay Sex.”

“The manager and I are enemies. He said Die Hard was bad.”

“Come on Craig, get your life together.”

“You think it this just a room where Troy and I play Dinosaurs vs. River Boats Gamblers.”

“I can imitate all members of the group and a half-accurate Chang in over 6,000 situations.”

“And another thing I hate about Die Hard: Two FBI agents named Johnson?”

“Abed, you know how you wanted me to tell you when you were being scary-weird as opposed to cute-weird?”

“Damn the rules, damn the system, damn our two-foot height disparity.”

“I left my wife for you when she was pregnant!” “Who do you think inseminated her?”

“I didn’t get Inception…There were so many layers!”

“And there’s more where that didn’t come from.”

“Or maybe Leonard was watching from the bushes and told Abed all about it.” “I don’t have cable.”

“Meta meta.”

“Troy invents Dance Pants in 2019. Don’t tell him, he needs to stumble on it on his own.”

“Take that, Blorgon scum. You’ll blogon me for this for me later.”

“Sounds like a game changing day for all of us. Almost sat on my balls. But in the last second, I made an adjustment.”

“It hurt like hell. I saw eagles.”

“While you two were out playing Blazer Tag –“ “That’s lazer tag with sport coats.”

*************

“Move along, nothing to see here.” “First time those words have been true.”

“Now if you’ll excuse me, I was watching Mama’s Family.”

“It’s not a short straw, it’s a hot potato.”

“I fell asleep in a sunbeam.” “Likely story.” “Actually it is. It used to live with him. It’s kind of adorable.”

“What happened Todd? Cut yourself on an extra-sharp Oscar Wilde play?”

“I transferred, or downloaded, Todd’s picture to the computer.”

“That yam. Big deal, order some ketchup.” “That doesn’t make sense! You don’t order ketchup, it’s a condiment!”

“I’d say our hands are tied, but we don’t have any hands.”

“Okay, I swiped some supplies from the biology lab to build a meth lab in my trunk, but that’s all.”

“Well, well, well, look at this Abed. He weaves baskets and lies.”

“I’m inclined to agree with the man in uniform.” “Shocker.”

“It’s not a favor Mr. Winger. A man’s gotta have a code.” “…Awesome.”

“Stop disappointing me. Diffuse the IED of dishonesty.”

“'A man has to have a code.’ I can only assume there’s a female equivalent to that. A codette, or something.”

“I threw off the grading curve so she didn’t have to go to summer school and we could finally have sex in my parent’s cabin. God forgive me, I did it for love!”

“Troy and Abed, off to Dreamland, catching the train to Sleepytown.”