Review: Community ‘Herstory of Dance’ – Taking Back Britta

Signs were promising for Community when ‘Herstory of Dance’ opened with the best Dean costume gag of the season – and despite floating aimlessly for the middle section, it finds a great way to close the arcs of the episode, albeit in a sappy and slightly confusing fashion. Everyone knows what a fan I am of episodes that find a way to utilize Pierce beyond old person/racist jokes, and ‘Herstory of Dance’ does this quite well – and manages to execute a difficult Abed narrative in a charming way.

There have been numerous episodes about Abed dissecting Abed, and in ‘Herstory of Dance’, the writers do a good job incorporating the season’s overarching theme of personal growth into it, to keep it from feeling like stale material. It does feel a little like giving Abed a girlfriend (or at least, someone to date for a few episodes) is something the show’s only doing because the writing’s on the wall – but him showing interest in a girl for the first time (well, since the Secret Service agent) is a meaningful step forward for his character.

However, there’s a lot more attention paid to another story line: Jeff finally giving Britta a break, once Pierce points out how much she’s done for her. This provides the best moments of the episode – Jeff’s sappy but fitting text, Pierce’s speech – but it also is head-scratching at the same time. What happened to Troy and Britta? Again, they don’t spend any time together in the episode (save for a few lines about the party’s chip supply) and the final few scenes (and last few episodes) have done nothing but bring Jeff and Britta closer and closer together.

Of course, they could be going nowhere with this – but even if they aren’t, they’ve neglected Britta and Troy’s relationship (something that was slowly building for two seasons) and rendered it meaningless to the audience. We’ve only seen them in a handful of scenes together (a number of them sitting in bed during tags), and there’s only been a few half-hearted attempts at making their relationship interesting. It’s been one of the larger disappointments of the season, and the resolution of ‘Herstory of Dance’ suffers a bit from it, despite hitting a nice emotional beat between Britta and Jeff (and using Pierce as the catalyst, which is always great material).

Like many episodes this season, ‘Herstory of Dance’ isn’t terribly funny, and struggles at times to keep whatever external events are going on interesting. But there’s been a definite improvement in how episodes conclude, a trend that continues in tonight’s episode – character beats have hit the right notes more often than not in the last few weeks, which has gone a long way to cover the consistent flaws in other places.

Grade: B+

Other thoughts/observations:

– Sophie B. Hawkins. What a random cameo.

– Jeff’s coined the phrase ‘Brittatastrophe’, so prepare for a lawsuit.

– Annie talking while covering her teeth was the one moment I laughed out loud in the episode.

– What the hell was Britta wearing to the dance? Rain boots and a jean jacket?