COMMUNITY: Intro to Felt Surrogacy

Felt! Puppets! Secrets! Oh my!

We start out the episode with one very very very awkward silence between the study group that’s only broken up by Dean Pelton bringing in felt puppets to try and help the group ‘talk it out’. It’s a great tool to have Dean Pelton around to help the group out when needed, but at this point it’s also slightly awkward that they never give any thanks to the guy that keeps them relatively sane.

Pierce isn’t around for the share session, but there’s something about the woods and that seems like one more way the show has managed to get Chevy off the set. Turns out, Pierce’s absence has a place in the narrative, but let’s not get ahead of ourselves just yet.

With better felt puppets than the one Dean Pelton brought in, Abed and Troy had a Study Group Bingo for all their tropes and cliches in a given day, but then that sort of devolves into song and it all feels like the Muppets to me now. The song has the group trying to imagine where they can get away and they decide that a balloon ride is a good idea. Out in the open field, they meet their guide and start to get ready. Too bad their balloon guide didn’t make it into the balloon before they took off and now they’re trapped without any help. Pierce can’t seem to help them as the balloon goes higher and higher, and Troy’s worried about his grandfather knowing about Britta being his girlfriend, but everything else seems pretty dire for the group. They’re all so close to a growing storm and more than a few things cross my mind that might spell trouble, and they have nothing to do with pool.

There are now plenty of clouds, lightning and everything else scary and the balloon is sinking fast as things look bleakest. Just before they’re about to crash, Jeff manages to help them land. They’re safe, but lost. In the woods there’s a guy with a large stick. Said guy (played by Jason Alexander with hair!) was a Greendale graduate who gave up the consumerism of Greendale for the woods. Mr Mountain Man then hands the group each a berry and now the group’s gone on some very bad psychedelic trip.

This trip gets the group to open up about everything that’s bothering them, including Shirley saying that she left her boys at the grocery store when she thought Andre was there with another woman.

It turns out that everyone thinks that they each revealed a secret, and that was part of the awkwardness, but as soon as that reveal passes, there’s still something else at play.

Shirley wants to leave with her secret, but Jeff has the bright idea for everyone to share their secrets so they’re all on the same footing. Jeff admits that he likes a woman with a kid, who he flaked on. Britta’s never voted, despite her activist ways. Annie let Cornwallis rub her feet for the answers to a test. Troy set a fire in 2003 with an anthill.

Just as the balloon guide finds them, Pierce shares his secret (not sleeping with Eartha Kitt), and they all get back to Greendale, minus Pierce.

Annie realizes that Abed never shared his secret – he never had one in the first place – but he went along with the act because he’s that sort of guy.

Dean Pelton feels slightly used by the group for fixing their problems but not getting to go home with anyone, when suddenly Jeff’s puppet is off by another cough, pumping iron and looking hot (with his felt abs).