COMMUNITY: “Geography and Global Conflicts” and Annie 2

It’s another week and another class at Greendale. This time Annie is making a foray into a political science class, with Professor Cligoris (played by the lovely Martin Starr, whom I’ve loved in Party Down and Freaks and Geeks) joining the Community roster of instructors. Starting off an episode with historical references already has me in a good mood. Plus there were historically accurate uses of wheelchairs when discussing President Franklin D. Roosevelt.

However, all of those happy history moments were ruined by the arrival of Annie Kim, an Asian-American version of Annie. I had a moment of “OH DAMN!” as soon as she started talking, which kept going all episode long.

By the time the group has assembled more fully, it’s in time for Britta to talk about wanting to go back to her old days of protesting, which is a familiar trick from the show, and one that doesn’t always seem to pay off (this time, I’m thinking it did, but let’s not jump ahead).

The other storyline that somehow connects this whole episode together is introduced next–watching as Chang starts off his job as security guard for the campus–taking it as a serious job instead of the joke it really is. There’s something very scary about him as a cop, and I’ll just leave it right there.

Annie Kim walks into the study group and our Annie goes into a shame spiral. Shades of the Annie from high school (thanks for that reminder Troy!), but this time Jeff is there to be the slightly creepy older friend that he is.

In the only way that this show can do, the other two storylines combine into one and it’s a battle of wills between Britta and Chang, all set to Lionel Richie’s “Hello” over and over again. It got weirdly sexual as the episode went on, including moments where I swore the show was going to have them just kiss to resolve all the sexual tension.

Intercut with Britta and Chang’s battle for supremacy, Annie and Annie Kim were having a battle over Model UN, which resulted in a face-off of two Earths in parallel dimensions (thanks to Abed for clarifying that), solving similar problems. The end result, after another blow-up by Annie resulted in a moment that felt like Fringe, has our study group coming over to propose a compromise between the two of them. Thus, our group wins and Annie is vindicated against this other version of herself.

The tag found Troy and Abed playing Operation on Pierce (oh that’s hilarious); just another example of the joy of Troy and Abed together as partners in crime.

This episode felt more like two stories that could easily come together into one (and they really did), which after last week’s episode that felt all over the place brought me back into something that felt like a unit.

Community airs Thursdays at 8/7c on NBC.