‘Community’ Recap (Season 3, Episode 17): Bong-Bong

Tonight’s episode of Community, a full-form Law and Order parody entitled Basic Lupine Urology (as a reference to Dick Wolf) was sheer genius. Week after week after week this show is captivating, touching and downright hilarious. The cast is the best on TV, and when they manage to incorporate fantastic guest stars such as Michael K. Williams (Omar of The Wire) like they did tonight it makes it all the more perfect. I think I use the word ‘perfect’ a lot when I talk about Community, but no one can disagree it isn’t totally deserved.

Megan Ganz, the brilliant writer behind the likes of Cooperate Calligraphy and Documentary Filmmaking Redux, two of the best episodes of the series, penned tonight’s episode. Rob Schrab, long-time writing partner and friend of Dan Harmon directed the episode, so in many ways this was a “close-to-the-heart” episode for serious Community fans. On with the summary.

The janitors discover that the study group’s yam they’ve been growing for biology has been knocked over and smashed. Shirley “assigns” Troy and Abed to the case, which leads them on a systematic Law and Order style investigation where all of the Greendale regualrs become suspects. From Leonard to Magnitude, every single one of the ancillary characters you’ve come to love is in this episode.

Troy and Abed take turns being the good cop and bad cop, and eventually turn their attention to Starburns, who blames it on Todd. When Todd’s honor is questioned, his uncle, a military general/attorney has a mock trial in the biology classroom where Annie is the prosecutor. In the final pre-credits scene of the episode, Greendale receives some bad news…a well-known student has died in a terrible accident.

The writers of Community know exactly when to pull the heartstrings and when to make light of dark situations. I’ve often wondered how the death of a character would be handled on the show and how it would impact it, and they made the right decision by making it a humorous moment. The show has had some thematically intense emotional moments over the past three seasons (The Psychology of Letting Go anyone?) but when you’re actually killing off a character, to not upset the viewers it has to be handled in a tasteful way. I think they chose absolutely the right character to kill off that no one would be terribly upset over and that also wouldn’t be greatly missed. The character who dies is a funny one for sure, and a fan favorite, but for the sake of comedy, I’m ok with that character leaving the show.

In all, another terrific episode, with heavy use of “Bong-Bongs” (Law and Order beat noises) throughout. I’m looking forward to The Rise of Chang storyline in the coming weeks. Is an Oceans 11 parody on the horizon?

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