You know what the textbook story needed? John Oliver.

That was the Dean's first costume this season, wasn't it?

God, yes, that final scene between Cameron and Chase was one of the show's lowest moments up to that point. Awkward, weirdly judgmental, and poorly thought-out.

I have an argument to run by the roundtable:
House should never have had any over-arching storylines. The premise was so implausible that any lasting change in any direction would have thrown everything out of balance. That's why the show grew increasingly prone to wild, wrongheaded tonal shifts and clumsy stabs at…

I've always thought the MadTV impression of Ellen was a good deal better. (The material? Eh - about the same.)

They could join forces. Billy Corgan and Rick Wakeman present: Siddhartha - On Ice!

Very true, and all kudos to Laird for it. I just looked up the Xeric Foundation, and it turns out they stopped giving grants to cartoonists after 2012, but nonetheless, 20 years is a damned impressive run.
It's a shame that Eastman didn't have a better head for business - I really miss the Words & Pictures Museum. He…

Everyone's kvetching about how the darkest timeline/paintball fantasy made no sense.  But by god, it made more sense than the whole graduation-as-wedding theme, and that was supposed to be real.  Where did that connection come from?

I knew I had heard the Chewbacca joke before, so I checked, and it turns out it actually came from Dan Harmon.  He mentioned on one of the season 3 DVD commentaries that it was a gag they wanted to do, but couldn't find space for.

That was overly snide of me.  Apologies, Scrawler.

And the impression wasn't bad, either.

That shirt of Britta's is from "The Psychology of Letting Go." In the walkthrough of season two here at the A.V. Club, Dan Harmon was down on Britta & Annie's storyline from that episode, because he thought it was just about them "changing sweaters and doing impressions of each other", and that that was a cheap…

I agree with Lovely Bones.  But while you can argue whether or not Annie's continued crush on Jeff is logical or consistent, I think the more important question is, is it entertaining?  And it isn't any longer.  There's no point to a will-they-won't-they because we all know they won't, and shouldn't.  No matter how…

I figured out what bothered me about this episode.  Like Todd said, Britta was reduced to a passenger in her own storyline.  Think of the Blade episode - it showed that Britta was attracted to terrible, indifferent men because of her lousy self-esteem, but Troy had the wisdom to recognize that and could break the…

Gillian was great, agreed, but Britta was barely recognizable.  I don't mind them dialing Britta back a bit, given how dopey she got in season 3.  But the character is great because she's goofy and defiant, and it's no fun to see her be just sensible and understanding when she's acting as Troy's girlfriend, in this…

It's on the spectrum, all right.  Being able to deal with painful emotions only through elaborate recreations of pop culture tropes is perfectly in character - for Abed.  Not so much for Troy, unless Asberger's is contagious.

"Even an episode written by Jim Rash couldn't dismiss how much harder it seems for people to get the tone of this series."

No, not anymore.  He burnt his bridges with his old firm at the end of season 3.

Hell, how do most of them pay for anything?  Annie has no parental support, and we saw Britta at a job just long enough to establish that she's barely employable.

I liked this one, because it was heavy on snappy dialogue, and because it ratcheted up the pressure level for once.  The show used to constantly draw on the tensions within the group, but they've been avoiding that during this touchy-feely final season.  After the puppet episode, it was a relief to see that we're not…