Community/Recap/S3/E19 Curriculum Unavailable

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.
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Two months have passed since the "Greendale Seven" were expelled. Having spent the intervening time drinking, eating unhealthy meals at Troy and Abed's apartment, and generally dwelling on their years at Greendale to an obsessive degree, they are forced to face their situation when Abed is discovered in full Inspector Spacetime costume on the community college campus again. Taken into custody and insisting that the Dean has been replaced by a fraud, he is given the choice between therapy and jail time, and the entire group accompanies him to see a recommended psychiatrist (John Hodgman). Soon, however, they discover that all may not be as it seems and the therapy visit could change their lives forever.

Tropes appearing in this episode of Community include:

  • Actor Allusion:
    • It's not surprising that the camera cuts to Annie after Abed does his Don Draper impression again.
      • Also counts as a Call Back to when Abed used this impression to hit on Annie.
    • Dr. Heidi refers to Abed as "the Indian kid". Although Abed is actually Arabic-Polish, as Shirley and Abed point out, Danny Pudi is in fact of Indian-Polish descent.
    • Though he claims it was unintentional, it's hard not to think of the Judge John Hodgman podcast when Dr. Heidi says "I think I have everything I need to make my decision."
  • Adult Fear: Troy wants your nightmares to avoid this.
  • Arson, Murder, and Jaywalking: The reasons stated for various study group members being at Greendale include divorce, lost scholarship, pill addiction, and disbarment. Pierce's reason is simply stated as "old."
  • Bedlam House: The fictional Greendale Asylum; patients are crammed into locked, badly-lighted wards in straitjackets, while orderlies either watch their antics in amusement or abet sadistic experiments performed by the lab-coated doctors in charge.
  • Berserk Button: Shirley learns the hard way not to favourably compare Brett Ratner with Steven Spielberg in front of Abed.

Abed: You're a bad person. You're a bad person.

Dean: (through the library’s PA system) In order to increase awareness of the homelessness, security has been given binoculars. .

Jeff: I mean, if anything, Abed's more sane than any of us.

Annie: Troy, you can't bring that in here!
Troy: Yes I can! It's all-terrain, dummy!

  • Cordon Bleugh Chef: Troy's dish made entirely of junk food.
  • Cuckoo Nest: According to the psychiatrist, the group's experiences at "Greendale" are part of a shared delusion stemming from years together in an mental asylum. This turns out to be a load of lies, however.
  • Deliberately Monochrome: The Film Noir paintball flashback.
  • Department of Redundancy Department: The Dean mentions "Jeffrey" twice in his non-birthday song to the group in one of the flashbacks.
  • Died in Your Arms Tonight: The Dean and Abed.
  • Dramatic Thunder: Once Dr. Heidi reveals the awful truth. Which is a lie.
  • Dresses the Same: The Dean runs Darcy off due to her wearing the same clothes as Annie.
  • The Ending Changes Everything: Dr. Heidi tries to pull this on the study group, but they see through it pretty quickly.
  • Dutch Angle: Just before the revelation of Greendale Asylum, there are several rapid shots that use this technique. Troy also gets an individual one when he's the only one who buys into Dr. Heidi's suggestion that they're dead and he's the Devil before Jeff slaps him out of it.
  • Everyone Is Jesus in Purgatory: Dr. Heidi literally invokes this at one point but by this point no one's buying it.
  • Failed a Spot Check: While the group is remembering some of the deranged things Chang has done, Dr. Heidi sneaks out the window without any of them noticing.
  • Fake Nationality: Lampshaded. See Actor Allusion.
  • Fanfic Fuel: A proposed alternate history of the series in which all of the depicted events took place on some level... but in the locked ward of an insane asylum? A field day for speculative/AU writers.
  • Foreshadowing: Upon returning Abed to the apartment, Officer Cackowski mentions that it was the Dean who gave him Dr. Heidi's card and recommendation. Considering we saw the Dean get replaced by Fauxby in the previous episode, it's a pretty big clue for the audience (if not at that point the characters) that Dr. Heidi is not entirely on the level.
  • Freeze-Frame Bonus: The chalkboard behind Troy when he rides into the Study Room says:

1. They may not want to play with you any more.
2. It can lead to permanent buzz kill.
3. It could cause them to need meds the rest of their life.
4. Meth can turn present fun into future numb.
5. It turned Star Burns into Star Burned.

So if someone offers to tell you a "meth time story"...pass.

"If Grieving you is wrong...I don't want to be right." C. Hawk Bored

Britta: Sorry!
Troy: We just finished telling him about it, and then you grab it and squeeze it?!

    • At the potluck dinner in the beginning of the episode, Britta whines about all the "poison" food and how she needs organic food to help her hangover.
  • I Have This Friend: Britta is wondering how long peyote lasts, you know, for a friend.
  • I'm a Doctor, Not a Placeholder:

Dr. Heidi: I'm a fake psychiatrist not a fake ethnologist!

Troy: What are all these cameras doing here.

  • Mind Screw: Dr. Heidi pulls several of these on the study group. Subverted, as it doesn't take them very long to realize he's just making stuff up.
  • Mushroom Samba: In one of the flashbacks, Britta shows up to the study room with wild, frizzed hair full of various small items, ruined day-old makeup, and presumably a banana in her pants. As she sits down, she nonchalantly asks for a friend how long peyote lasts.
  • Nice Job Fixing It, Villain: Chang could have dealt with Abed by pressing charges and getting a restraining order. The alternate solution of getting Abed committed snowballs into an attempt to convince the whole study group that they're crazy and drive them away from Greendale. The session just serves to help them realize that Abed's right and that the Dean has been replaced with an impostor.
    • Keep in mind that even if the "Dean" did press charges against Abed, it could have blown up in his face too. Such as the study group confronting the "Dean" and realizing he was a fake by themselves.
  • Noodle Incident:
    • Due to Abed's aversion to doctors, the group had to prevent him from removing his own tonsils.
    • As with "Paradigms of Human Memory" all of the flashbacks are things which happened in episodes we didn't see.
  • Out of Focus: Lampshaped when Pierce doesn't get a "crazy-town banana pants" flashback and later complains that he isn't in most of the stories.
  • Psycho Psychologist: Garrett withholds treatment to see what reactions he can elicit by playing mind games with his patients.
  • Real Men Hate Affection: After Troy misunderstands "Little Miss adventures", he breaks off from putting his arm around Abed to shake with his injured hand.
  • Shout-Out:
  • Ship Tease: Annie once again looks very taken with Abed's "Don Draper" impression. Their kiss in the Season 2 finale is also called back to as seen in the Greendale Asylum scenes.
  • Skyward Scream: "Lame!"
  • Spotlight-Stealing Squad: Lampshaded by the psychiatrist regarding the Study Group.
  • Stealth Pun: Dr. Heidi, PsyD
  • Take That:
    • Dr. Heidi's example of a shared delusion is the swing dance music revival in The Nineties.
    • To director Brett Ratner.
    • "You have to understand about Abed; he's usually, you know, adorable-weird, like Mork from Ork. But since we got expelled, he's been creepy-weird like present-day Robin Williams."
  • Taking the Bullet/Died in Your Arms Tonight: During the paintball flashback, the Dean covers Abed with his body.
  • Teacher's Pet: Inverted; they don't do a lot of sucking up to him in this episode (or over the series in general) but there's a lengthy montage that establishes, if this wasn't already abundantly quite clear, that the study group are the Dean's favourite students in the entire school. It's what helps the group realize that there's something wrong at Greendale and that the Dean would never have stabbed them in the back like they were led to believe he did; he loves them too much.
  • Time Skip: The biggest one on the show so far, with the exception of past summer breaks. The narrative picks up two uneventful months after the cliffhanger at the end of the last episode, and the viewer is brought up to speed with a few seconds of dialogue.
    • A two month Time Skip also allows the show to get back to The Present Day, since the spring premiere was delayed by almost exactly two months.
  • Tomato in the Mirror: The ending essentially lampoons these and TV series that use them: Dr. Heidi reveals that the study group are in fact psychiatric patients, and their experiences at Greendale were all just a shared psychosis! Except they're not, they weren't, and it takes the group all of five seconds after leaving his office to realize that this makes no sense whatsoever. Then Dr. Heidi reveals that they're in purgatory and he's the Devil! Which they dismiss completely out of hand.
  • Tough Love: Shirley's kids eat some cookies that she made for the study group. As punishment she gives away their favorite possessions.
  • Umpteenth Customer: 10,000th Flush.
  • Wham! Line: Greendale Community College doesn't exist. Actually a lie.
    • Later, averted and lampshaded:

Troy: I knew it!
Jeff: [slaps Troy] Stop letting him make you realize things.

Annie: Worst pizza day ever!

  • You Must Be Cold: Jeff to Annie at the "Wigging Out" party. But immediately after giving her his jacket, he rattles off a lengthy list of care instructions to make sure it stays in good condition, and finally decides to take it back from her mere seconds after giving it to her in the first place.

Jeff: You're probably warm now, right?

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