It's an A or A- for me.

I agree. This album is of such sustained quality. At the moment it's fighting it out with Heathen for my the lion's share of my Bowie-since-Berlin affections.

Yeah, well put. But that's what really good writing feels like - it offers satisfaction at any level of engagement.

@avclub-d287ab72140b44071e69e6255b859cec:disqus I don't hate Try Some, Buy Some. But my god… Looking for Water? Fall Dog Bombs the Moon? Relegating Fly to a bonus track to make room for those two really depresses me.

My interpretation is that Bowie and Tilda are middle-class nobodies who are tormented by celebrities who feed off them and toy with them like Greek gods. All witnessed by actual Bowie, who just moved in to the house next door with his/her band.

Yeah. Underrated track, that one. Undermined by some kitschy production in the verses, if you ask me - big problem in Reality.

It's a fantastic Wakeman contribution. I love this version of Wakeman handling the whole song as an instrumental: spotify:track:2oNjOaoeeVz7UItNAZsSto

I think a lot of this analysis is fair - but I don't think it's about Harmon "not caring that much". For example. the story goes that he decided to push the 'Jeff's dad' storyline back from season 3 to season 4 when NBC started freaking out that his plans for the reunion would be too dark and depressing.

As political television goes… it's on a par with the West Wing. Not sure what else I can meaningfully compare it to.

My god, is that really the tagline? Haven't seen any sign of that here, and yes it is (I think) hugely inappropriate. Bordering on false advertising.

This is funny. You are funny.

There were plenty of sly winks and inaccessible self-references here. Notice how Annie handed Britta a hair curler in the cold open? Callback to season 2, episode 3: "I'm Britta, I get up an hour early to ever-so-slightly curl my hair!"

Yeah. This was certainly better than the season opener. I think all this negative comment has had the effect of some professional-feeling expectations framing, and now this episode feels fine. A lot of the jokes landed, Annie was adorable (even if also two-dimensional), Matt Lucas didn't get in the way too much. I…

Also I guess:

Yeah, but there's a reason for that.

I think killing Russo was perfectly clearly motivated. The man's middle name was 'liability'. His weaknesses were what made him so helpful to Frank as a pawn, and I rather suspect that some part of Frank always suspected that Russo would need to be 'put down' before the end. It's fabulously pre-echoed by Frank dealing…

Yeah - this was a marked improvement on last week. Principally because there were a couple of interactions that made me smile with genuine fondness, and there was one (one! count it!) laugh-out-loud moment (secret dogs!), which is a 100% improvement on History 101.

The inception parody didn't work for me. It wasn't developed enough, kind of half-assed. Actually the whole episode felt rushed.

This.

Intellectually, I know you must be right. But in my gut… this episode of Community really, really didn't feel right. It's like there's a layer missing, somehow.