Season finale review: Community ‘Advanced Introduction to Finality’ – Let Them Eat Cake

After last week’s flashback-ridden debacle, my hopes were high for the season finale: as the last episode Megan Ganz would ever write as part of the staff (now a writer on Modern Family), and as a potential series finale, I figured some closure was in order. Instead, the season goes out with two of its worst episodes ever (as opposed to just one with last week’s): ‘Advanced Introduction to Finality’ is everything I didn’t want to see in a Community episode.

The whole conceit of the episode doesn’t even make sense: the darkest timeline only existed in Abed’s head through season three. What the fuck is Jeff doing imagining the darkest timeline? Writing it off as a dream just doesn’t work, either: it’s supposed to represent a major emotional journey for Jeff, when he realizes that he can re-enter the world without fear, being a changed man who has learned to care about the people around him. Instead, the dark timeline is just an excuse to bring back a gag I thought felt over-extended when it returned for the season 3 finale.

It sums up the season as a whole, really: often, it’s felt like season four is a lot of fan service to jokes from the first two seasons, at times undermining a lot of the show’s foundation, both in terms of characters and multi-season arcs. ‘Advanced Introduction to Finality’ really doesn’t have much time to do this – it’s completely obsessed with Jeff, and nobody but Abed has any real presence outside of that – but when it can, it does, focusing on a piece of the show too many fans have grown obsessed with. The darkest time line served its purpose last season… why does it have to be the focus of this finale?

‘Remedial Chaos Theory’ is a memorable episode for a number of reasons – and this episode is an attempt to cash in on all that good will, under the thinnest guise of having some emotional basis. I suppose there’s a bit of redemption when Jeff says thank you to his friends at the end, but a good Winger speech does not save the mess that precedes it. It just all rings false, like when Abed says “we’ve found a way to make paintball cool again”, a phrase I find completely and utterly ridiculous -especially from Abed, who’d recognize how tired a franchise gets by its third film, and wouldn’t want to rehash old situations.

But the absolute worst of it all: like last season’s finale, it focuses on Jeff, and leaves everybody else floating in the wind. Did Troy mention air conditioning once all season? Has Britta tried to therapize herself? What’s going on with Abed not-related to Jeff? Is Annie even a person anymore?… All of this – literally ALL OF IT – is thrown aside, so the focus can be on Jeff’s dream adventures, which dredges up bad characters from last season (the anti-Dean, for example) and has them run around, shooting each other and causing special effects.

It all leads to Jeff’s graduation – a scene that lasts about a minute, and has all the emotional resolution of a fart in a sock. Jeff gives a nice little farewell, but after what we’ve watched to get to that moment, his graduation feels like an empty gesture to the audience. Jeff says some nice things, the Dean makes some gay innuendos, and Pierce comes in so they can wrap up his character in the easiest, least creative way possible (after no consideration, debate, or time spent with him making this HUGE character decision, he graduates. If he’s not going to cooperate, you should’ve just killed him off here). At least Jeff went through some kind of emotional journey (regardless of how laughably bad it was) to get to the end – Pierce just graduates because that’s what’s convenient. Maybe this is a bad complaint, but for a character who was once very, very important to Jeff’s emotional growth (forcing him to deal with his daddy issues), it’s a sad, sad way to end his run.

At least we’ll have the last shot of the episode to remember the Greendale 7 by. It’s about the only time they’re together the whole episode, which takes a poor, desperately pandering episode of Community, and makes it even worse by removing the feel of a community from it. Tonight’s episode didn’t feel like a group of people helping a friend enter the next phase of his life – nor did it feel like a culmination of the season’s events, which was completely void of the character and narrative arcs included in the previous three seasons. ‘Advanced Introduction to Finality’ just sums up my feelings for the season as a whole: Community‘s become afraid to be itself, and its reduction into the most contrived, gimmicky, self-referential form completed with this episode.

Grade: D

Season 4: C

Other thoughts/observations:

– this episode was very, very close to an F. Troy’s conversation with himself and the final image of the group together is the only thing that saved it.

– I really don’t want to see a fifth season of Community to further diminish its own earlier accomplishments – but how can a series end with an episode like this? There is NOTHING satisfying about this season finale, I don’t care how you cut it.

– what the fuck happened to the Chang/Dean Pelton story that was building for the entire season? Just totally dropped and forgotten, as is Abed’s speech to Chang about him being a part of the group (though he does save Jeff in the name of ‘friendship’, though nobody explains how the non-evil timeline version of him appeared).

– Jeff majored in Education; teaching in his future?

– …. so, does Jeff take the job or not? Abed’s speech seems to suggest he wouldn’t, but there’s never any indication either way.

– I’ll have a Troyjan Horse, hold the chocolate sauce.

– at least we can all pretend Abed’s still in his mini-dreamatorium, pretending to make Community into a broad, self-serving comedy for his own entertainment.