Community/Recap/S1/E17 Physical Education

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.
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Jeff: "Are you gonna talk about clothes like girls or are you gonna use tapered sticks to hit colored balls around a cushioned table, like a man?"
Bogner: "Balls, like a man!"

Jeff learns a life lesson when he joins a pool class. The rest of the study group helps Abed out when they find evidence he has a secret admirer.

The Community episode "Physical Education" provides examples of:

  • Actor Allusion: Abed uses a dead-on impersonation of Don Draper from Mad Men to hit on Annie, played by Alison Brie, who is a recurring character on that show as well.
    • Also, Abed is half-Polish, half-Arab, similar to his actor, half-Polish, half-Indian.
  • Almost Kiss: Abed and Annie, when he shows off his Don Draper impression, only interrupted by the horrified reactions of everyone else.
  • An Aesop: Abed's self-confidence and willingness to change who he is so his friends can learn the lesson that he's okay as he is and superficial things don't matter inspires Jeff to kick ass at pool. In shorts.
  • Awesome By Analysis: Abed plays pool at the end.
  • Bad Job, Worse Uniform: Jeff hates the clothes he has to wear to play pool. It's a gym class, so he has to wear short shorts and a white shirt.
  • Be Yourself
  • Blatant Lies: "Whoa! That's her?! She's pretty! Which... is not... a surprise at all."
  • The Cast Showoff: Joel McHale is good at pool.
  • Chick Magnet: A lot of girls like Abed but he's used to them approaching him.
  • Covert Pervert: Everyone checks out Jeff as he disrobes. Once he's naked, even Annie takes a look.
  • Cure Your Gays: Shirley suggests this if Abed's admirer is male.
  • Fan Disservice: The old pool teacher strips naked with Jeff to win a pool game.
  • Ho Yay: A lot from the Dean.
  • Hypocritical Humor: Shirley telling Jeff to mind his business while she and the group continue meddling in Abed's love life.
  • I Told You So: Jeff doesn't scruple to shout it through cupped hands.
  • Identical Stranger: Joey, the White Abed.
  • Idiot Ball: Señor Chang comments on this when everybody, including Annie, forgets to check the front cover of a schoolbook to see who owned it last. (She blames Britta's pronunciation of the word "bagel" as "baggel", saying it was distracting.)
  • Just the Way You Are: Abed's comfortable with himself as he is, and he's okay if others want to try to change that to discover this trope.
    • Also, Jeff, when everyone starts pressuring Abed to go after the girl. He knows where they're going with this, and anticipates the eventual conclusion. For once.
  • Last-Second Word Swap: Every five seconds, when talking about Abed's love life.
  • Les Yay: Britta's go-to hot guy for Abed to use when hitting on Jenny is Jo, from Facts Of Life. ... Only the guy version.
  • Magnificent Bastard: The gym teacher calls Jeff a Magnificent Son of a Bitch.
  • Makeover Montage: Suggested by Abed when the group wants to get him to impress a girl.
  • Mr. Fanservice: Jeff, moreso even than usual.
  • Naked People Are Funny
  • Noodle Incident: Abed apparently had a friend who got frustrated when they couldn't help him, tricked him into buying them ice cream and then shoved him into a washing machine.
  • Older Than They Think: In-universe; Troy and Shirley believe Can't Buy Me Love to be a remake of Love Don't Cost A Thing when it's actually the other way around. Nudged into Hypocritical Humor territory when Shirley expresses outrage at the movie being "remade for white audiences."

Shirley: That's so offensive when they do that, I can't believe they didn't offend anyone!

  • Out of Order: In "Physical Education", Jeff tells Leonard he talked to his son on Family Day... a callback to the next episode's central event.
  • Palette Swap: The one difference between Abed and his Identical Stranger.
  • Race Lift: Regarding the white Abed, Pierce says, "He's like Abed, but employable!" Ah, Racist Grandpa.
    • Considering Pierce is a businessman who has probably hired (and not hired) a lot of people, this slips into Fridge Horror. How many Abeds has he turned down because they were non-white?
  • The Rainman: Abed demonstrated early in the episode when he intuitively knows the number of bagels in a bag.
    • It should be noted that he was giving the number of bagels in a bag, and his answer was a baker's dozen. Not an unreasonable guess.
  • Serious Business

"You know what, Jeff, one of us is about to win this game. But years from now when the story's retold all they're gonna remember that one of us loved clothes and the other loved the game."

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