They're ticking off the boxes as they work their way through the final season, and this week it was time for the "Abed Films a Documentary" episode. This year's subject: Changnesia.
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| By the time the episode was over, we all wished we had Changnesia. |
The people of Greendale all believe Chang is suffering from a horrible disease that's like amnesia, but weirder. They want to help him out and maybe even look for a cure, but medical studies cost money, so the Dean appeals to the MacGuffin Neurological Institute for a grant and has Abed film a video for their pitch.
Pierce, Annie, Troy, and Britta help out by making banners, but Jeff doesn't buy it. He believes that Changnesia is just a con and reminds everyone that Chang once tried to kill all of them. They don't really seem to care, so he goes to buy a sandwich and talk to Shirley. She seems relatively sane and doesn't believe Change either, but nonetheless she's hired 'Kevin' to work at the sandwich shop because the people like him and he's good for business.
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| Although he hurts a bit with the disgraced former lawyer demographic. |
With his friends all drinking the Kool-Aid, Jeff has but one option: He'll pretend to help with the grant proposal and then expose Chang for the fraud that he is. Because he's taller and more charismatic than the rest of them, Jeff quickly finds himself in charge. To sabotage things as much as possible, he makes Pierce the opening act for the documentary, and sends Troy and Annie off to find out where the hell Chang was for the six months he was missing. Meanwhile he gives Britta and Shirley a camera and tasks them with following 'Kevin' around and documenting his life.
Annie's investigative work finds that Chang was working as unpaid labour at a trout farm for three months, Britta's horrible camera work catches him dialing a phone and hanging up, and Pierce puts together a delightfully racist Blackface Señor Wences act.
At the grant proposal presentation, rather than helping, the truth is revealed: Chang has been calling his ex-wife Alessandra even though he doesn't know her or how to use a phone or what a number is. Jeff brings her in to try to jog Chang's memory.
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| He also sticks his tongue down her throat to try to make him jealous. |
His plan fails, though, and the MacGuffin people grant Greendale the grant. Afterwards, Jeff becomes a pariah and is forced to eat lunch alone. Kevin sits down with him and says that he realizes that Chang was a bad guy and probably deserved everything he got, but Jeff's not a bad guy, he just did a bad thing. Jeff apologizes and all is forgiven.
Later, when he's alone, Chang makes a phone call to someone (in all likelihood, the City College Dean), and tells him that everyone finally bought it and he'll be awaiting further instructions. The episode closes as he walks off, cackling maniacally.
What I Liked
-Blackface Señor Wences. I liked it, but the idea was far, far better than the execution.
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| One understands why Chevy was upset that his character was becoming overly racist. |
What I Hated
-Since it's a documentary episode, a lot of it was shot with shaky handheld cameras.
-They called it the MacGuffin Neurological Institute. I'll bet that sounded hilarious around the writers' table. I'll also bet that everyone who knows what a MacGuffin is groaned audibly when they saw the name.
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| If they wanted to go for a jokey name, they should've called it the Alan Smithee Institute. |
-The end credits on Abed's documentary. The 'the same person is credited for every job on a film' joke has been done infinity billion times.
Final Thoughts
Why did they even bother with the tag showing that Chang was faking? No one on the entire planet thought that he really had Changnesia and it wasn't just some sort of con. Community isn't the most realistic show to begin with, but now it's fairly clear that it exists in a universe where everyone is a fucking moron.
This is probably the third time I've mentioned it, but Chang was only good as a character when he was the Spanish teacher. Now he's just a weird vortex where comedy and interesting plot lines go to die. He's been used sparingly this season, which is good, but now that he's back in school, I worry that he might get more screen time. That's seriously the last thing this show needs right now.
I haven't really been a fan of any of the 'Abed makes a documentary' episodes, and this one was no exception. It was by far the worst and least funny episode so far. The show's been in a gradual decline this season, but this episode was a fairly significant fall off an already short cliff. The jokes were bad and the plot was seriously underdeveloped; all the characters were given something to do, but none of them were given enough time to do it, and half the stuff didn't matter anyway. Nothing was done with the fact that Chang was used as slave labour by a trout fisherman for three months, and Pierce's racist comedy didn't affect the grant proposal at all. It's like the episode ran incredibly short and they had to pad it out with a bunch of filler.
Beyond that, I have to say that even though he was kind of a prick about it, Chevy was right. Blackface Señor Wences is a funny idea, but I laughed at it because it was so racist it was just absurd. Then they actually showed Pierce performing the bit, and I think that may have come close to crossing the line. They're teetering on the edge and if future episodes go a little further, then Pierce goes from being a 'ha ha, laugh at the old fool' racist to being a genuinely disgusting and cruel racist, and as an actor, that's got to suck a little bit. So, seriously, fuck this episode: It made me agree with Chevy Chase.
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