COMMUNITY: Advanced Advanced Dungeons & Dragons

As the title suggests, the group is back with a Dungeon and Dragons themed episode, only this time it’s to save Hickey and the poor relationship he has with his son (guest star David Cross). As only Hickey can be, he wants nothing to do with the game, but that all changes when he sees how serious his son is taking everything.

What unfolds next is a tangled web: Hickey’s son rearranges all of the character sheets from where they were originally (so he and his father are no longer father and son in the game) and so the game begins with some interesting developments. Shirley’s half-orc dies early on after two groups are formed from a fall down a bridge.

With these two groups, each half develops strategies (or lack thereof) and tries to get to the Tower and kill the Necromancer, all in the name of family bonding for Hickey and his son.

Like last time, the frame of Dungeons and Dragons provides rules and order for everyone to act around (going so far as to see the Pelton taking his role as Jeff’s son a little too seriously), but what the audience finds at the end is that Hickey and his son, despite all their differences, can’t seem to stop playing and trying to outlast the other.

They must hate each other too much to let one win and in the end of it all, the game reveals a truth about family and how we all interact. We can’t escape what we don’t like, no matter what. But we also can’t rely on everyone we’d want. Life isn’t perfect, but it can be close if there’s effort made.

That message is tempered by the tag where Abed’s playing D&D with Annie’s stuffed animals, and without them she can’t sleep. For an episode that revealed so much about Hickey’s family life, to see how Abed and Annie interact in their apartment is a nice juxtaposition.