Community, the tv show

Odds on Abed and Annie hooking up by the end of the season?

i don't think a story where abed magically learns what empathy is is a great look. points for trying, though, i guess. -- jim rash's two minutes were just fantastic, though.

like i feel like there's a lot closed down by going from 'abed is on the spectrum but not to such an extent you wouldn't just take him as being a weird kid sometimes' to 'abed is magically autistic'; it seems weird and distasteful that they retconned his being okay with girls. (in part i'm just not enamored of the narrative possibilities created by making troy and abed function as exaggerated/hyperreal troy and abed all of the time, which setting them up in a blanket fort kind of tends to.) (though i did really enjoy their 'being normal', so i dunno.) (i am sharing my thoughts about the sitcom community on the internet.)

otm

Odds on Abed and Annie hooking up by the end of the season?

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I dunno, I think they've been pretty overt about Troy being torn between wanting to be half of exaggerated/hyperreal Troy & Abed and wanting to be the cool guy who gets girls and is respected as a man by Jeff. But being torn between the cool guy and the nerd has kind of been Troy's thing all along.

i'm expecting the series finale to cross over with that of Fringe

like i feel like there's a lot closed down by going from 'abed is on the spectrum but not to such an extent you wouldn't just take him as being a weird kid sometimes' to 'abed is magically autistic'; it seems weird and distasteful that they retconned his being okay with girls.

Actually agree with this.

I was impressed by what they were doing but you're right: I never thought of him as devoid of empathy before. In fact, the s1 episode where he could make films that consistently showed what everyone in the group would do before they actually did it (because he was a "student of human nature") seemed to suggest quite the opposite. He also never really seemed to have the attitude that other people function at a lower level. They seem to be pushing him into Sheldon Cooper territory. (The "making high-pitched noises and going catatonic" thing seems to fit this too.)

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Perhaps. They made out in s2 and came close in s1. Annie's starting to get over Jeff now and Abed seemed impressed by her 'commitment' in the dreamatorium.

I want to type the word "seem" one more time.

Abed was dating some girl for a few eps too.

How did "Abed doesn't want other people to tinker with group dynamics because he's afraid everyone will outgrow him" get interpreted as "Abed is incapable of meeting or talking to women"?

Yeah where did i say that?

I think people are interpreting this wrongly maybe - the episode's as much about Annie as it is about Abed, I don't think it's really about Abed lacking and then magically gaining empathy at all. It's about the two characters not being able to relate to one another on a one-to-one basis - Abed gets butthurt because Annie accuses him of lacking empathy and then overcompensates by putting himself in the mind of the everyone else in the group. But in doing so he draws a lot out of Annie as well that we haven't heard before and maybe Annie hasn't realised and shows that Annie has her own empathy issues as well, with the two characters meeting in the middle at the end. We've already seen from the psychometric test early in the season that Abed's the psychologically balanced and least sociopathic one.

This was much funnier on the second viewing - Fake Troy on the truth serum cracked me up.

Jeff, Shirley, Pierce and Annie are all pretty lacking in empathy in one way or another.

truth serum Troy was def by far the highlight of the ep (aside from the dean)

i think you're right about a lot of the basic Abed/Annie stuff in the episode but that doesn't change the fact that Abed never bugged his eyes out and made a high pitched whine whenever someone sat in his spot on the couch something upset him in the first 2 seasons.

http://www.vulture.com/2012/04/seitz-community-is-tvs-most-ambitious-show.html

Abed/Annie stuff in the episode but that doesn't change the fact that Abed never bugged his eyes out and made a high pitched whine whenever someone sat in his spot on the couch something upset him in the first 2 seasons.

I haven't seen this week's episode but I swear to god I saw him do the whine thing before

he did it when the british show britta introduced him to ended and she turned him onto inspector spacetime to calm him down

I haven't seen this week's episode but I swear to god I saw him do the whine thing before

― da croupier, Saturday, April 21, 2012 2:32 PM (2 minutes ago) Bookmark

he did, it was in the first episode of s3 that also introduced Inspector Spacetime (aka the episode that i will forever shake my fist at)

ha yeah i had my issues with that episode, too. knock on wood i'll be able to stand in judgment of this one within the next 12 hours

I haven't seen the new Doctor Who shows but i imagine this was a parody of that. Was it really close, stylistically?

If anything it's a parody of old Doctor Who but not a particularly closely observed one.

I agree that Abed's whine is an annoying character development, as is his being borderline aggressive in his obstinacy. I prefer the Abed we saw in the Christmas episode and the first season or so. But I still don't think the writers are doing what Thomp and others are claiming with his character.

@Danharmon As we say on twitter: Squee! RT @KarenGillan2 Haha! Loving #inspectorspacetime on #community brilliant.

matt i think yr reading (oy) would be fine without abed's monologue at the end where he explicitly states he has 'learned how to enter the minds of others'

How did "Abed doesn't want other people to tinker with group dynamics because he's afraid everyone will outgrow him" get interpreted as "Abed is incapable of meeting or talking to women"?

― I need new, hip khakis (DJP), Saturday, 21 April 2012 16:27 (2 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

stuff like: the sight gag here which hinges on his being unable to visualise what a couple making out would look like. i would go back and look for other evidence of how they've done this but i mean, then i'd be a person who went back and looked for evidence to argue a point about the sitcom community on the internet

Abed's ability with women was demonstrated in S2, he just never decides to use it.

with eliza coupe, no less

I completely forgot that episode with Coupe!

(But, really his ability was demonstrated in the "billiards" ep in s1.)

[ / pedant]

i forgot about that bit with Coupe also. also never realized it was her! damn those shades.

Looking forward to a future flashback where Zardoz will feature prominently.

Imagine tuning in halfway through the episode, thinking you'll just try to get up to speed?
--Evan

This seems like an odd metric

the sight gag here which hinges on his being unable to visualise what a couple making out would look like.

Less a sight gag based upon inexperience and more a sight gag based upon the impossibility of showing a couple making out when you're playing both characters.

stuff like: the sight gag here which hinges on his being unable to visualise what a couple making out would look like. i would go back and look for /other evidence/ of how they've done this but i mean, then i'd be a person who went back and looked for evidence to argue a point about the sitcom /community/ on the internet

You mean the part where Abed was alternating playing the two people making out and was representing making out in an exaggerated manner because he thought the two of them together was a stupid idea?

Imagine tuning in halfway through the episode, thinking you'll just try to get up to speed?
--Evan
This seems like an odd metric

― BIG HOOS aka the steendriver, Saturday, April 21, 2012 7:59 PM (3 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

My comment was just referring to times that I've come into an episode late and had no clue what was happening. This one would have been no hope.

― Evan, Friday, April 20, 2012 11:49 AM (Yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

You mean the part where Abed was alternating playing the two people making out and was representing making out in an exaggerated manner because he thought the two of them together was a stupid idea?

i meant the awkward patty-cake stuff imaginary troy and britta are doing when they start that scene, before abed is playing either of them

i hope they don't turn that whine into Abed's catchphrase, and that last little speech to the camera was clumsy to the point where I wonder if it was tacked on (possibly as a sop to the folks who worry about new viewers wanting clarity and lessons and whatnot), but otherwise I liked the ambition of the episode a lot and saw the whole abed/annie thing as Matt DC did.

I know the "empathy" thing hits all the "wait is abed autistic or not" buzzers, but in context the lesson for abed could just be that his self-righteousness is not necessarily more valid than Annie's.

Abed's catchphrase is "cool" x 4 or 5

Abed isn't autistic, he's just weird.

You mean the part where Abed was alternating playing the two people making out and was representing making out in an exaggerated manner because he thought the two of them together was a stupid idea?

I couldn't really follow what was happening by this point but I'd assumed that one of them was Annie and the other was Abed and they were both still half-heartedly in the Dreamatorium and would have actually made out under those circumstances. But you might well be right.

WouldN'T actually have made out, I mean.

I think it's fairly clear that Abed was playing both of them. You can hear his voice when he mimics 'make out' sounds from each one. Both of them talk to Annie (still in her "Constable Leela" costume) when she asks "You think this is what I want?" (Britta asks "What do you want?")

Abed actually shows remarkable insight into Annie's own thoughts and feelings in this episode so, yeah, I don't really know what to make of the "empathy" speech.

One part I found affecting is when he reveals he thinks everyone's going to get sick of him. It's that thing where people feel free to act judgmental and superior because they can't imagine anyone being hurt by what they think. He plays mind-games with Annie to try and teach her lesson, comes away realizing he can be a dick. The speech is awkwardly written - I don't always get the difference between sympathy and empathy right either - but I think the episode was nuanced enough that I don't need to damn it for ruining Abed or anything.

It's that thing where people feel free to act judgmental and superior because they can't imagine anyone being hurt by what they think.

to be clearer, I mean people feel free to act superior because they can't imagine one cares what they think. It's self-loathing, not sociopathy.

ha actually i have no idea if that made anything clearer, sorry

what do u feel about the part where abed cuts annie off financially bc he wants to buy a lake house?

i feel u could have written the joke better

what a poorly formed analysis

buttered noodles