What's The Good Word

"Remedial Chaos Theory" is the first great episode of Community this season--an instant classic.  The complex plot should have been hard to pull off in 20 minutes of screentime, but it all clicked.

The idea is the gang comes to a housewarming party for Troy and Abed's new pad.  Jeff tosses a die to determine who goes downstairs to pick up the pizza. In doing so, as Abed notes, Jeff is creating six different timelines, and messing with their world.  Actually, there's a seventh timeline, where Abed catches the die to prevent chaos and makes Jeff get the pizza.

We get to see all seven timelines.  The same things often happen (Jeff hits his head on the fan, the Indiana Jones rock is let loose, Pierce makes a joke about sex with Eartha Kitt), but with telling variations, showing what happens when you remove one member of the group.

What's most interesting is when Jeff is gone. He's the leader of the group, not to mention the nominal lead of the ensemble cast.  Yet we see he's poison.  His mocking ways, and control over others, often makes them feel bad and prevents them from showing their true feelings.  So with him out for just a little while, everyone is happiest. (Meanwhile, when Troy--the sweetest, most trusting member--is gone, there's complete disaster.)

Of course, Abed, the meta character on the show, is the only one to recognize the different timelines.  In fact, in the Troy timeline, where everything falls apart, Abed decides the group should grow goatees and become evil versions of themselves, get back to the prime timeline, kill their doppelgangers, and take over.

Actually, I wasn't planning to write about the episode, but there was something odd I noticed on the closed captioning.  There's a moment when the gang is shouting imprecations at Jeff.  We see all the lines faithfully reproduced on screen...until I read "asshole" but didn't hear anyone say it.  I even replayed the scene and couldn't catch it.

I'm never sure if the captioner just listens and write what she hears, or if she's given a script to follow.  But I like the idea of someone at the keyboard just fed up with Jeff and throwing in an "asshole" of her own.