You nailed something I was sort of waffling about, which is that banning people celebrating their own culture doesn't make any sense — which is why it could be incredibly hilarious with the right explanation/line. Something like "Ever since the [nationality group] celebrated [holiday] with [atrocious thing]…"

Danger 5! My friend and I used to run a bad SF TV night and that show was like manna from heaven for us. And I second the recommendation of The Diamond Girls.

I particularly liked everyone's matter-of-fact reaction to the Slobodan Milosovic line. "Oh yeah, now that you've told us all about how much this ventriloquist failed, I can totally see him becoming a genocidal maniac. Makes sense."

Because the famous writer wasn't introduced to them as such and they don't recognize her on sight (I mean, how many screenwriters/playwrights do most people recognize on sight?), and because no one expects a famous new work to randomly show up in their acting class.

But I think that's the point — Jess says she wants a guy who can talk about his feelings, and the show is like "OK, you can either have this guy who doesn't talk about them or this guy who does…because he's ridiculously intense and impulsive and creepy," as if there's no such thing as a guy who can open up without…

When Michelle went over to the piano I actually said out loud, "Wait, that's not Brad!"

Oh sweet Jesus this ad always shows up for me on Hulu and I hate it. Because I have to keep watching it. Over. And over. And over. And over. And over. And what the fuck is so great about chauffeuring someone around so they can fire the flaming arrows? Because if DirectTV is offering me crossbows with flaming…

Cannot like this enough. That would have been awesome!

Nailed it. Community used to be about somewhat normal people put in crazy situations, and now it's like the writers went "Community is about craziness, right?" and completely forgot where it was supposed to come from. Which makes everything feel sitcom-y and terrible and completely destroys the character beats.

I too am basically Britta without the leather wardrobe. I'm not sure how I feel about that, but since it's pretty obvious to me and to people I know, I've decided to embrace it.

I love this analysis! Going to watch future episodes with this in mind.

I was surprised that the answer to "Was Marilyn the predator or the prey" wasn't "Well, at that time men made all the decisions, so you had to cater to them to be successful." I really don't know much about Marilyn at all, so maybe I'm wrong on this, but I'm willing to believe she used the men in her life because…

Yes! He has the same kind of smarm and weird self-satisfaction. I guess actually it's less weird than Ellis's, given his in-show credentials, but it's no less grating.

Seriously, that part with Julia was so on the nose. The scenes with Julia are almost turning into some kind of Smash writers' therapy hour, and it's very annoying. Especially since we never saw any of the Bombshell book, so the viewer really only has the context to interpret those scenes as self-referential.

Agreed again, and thrice!

How do you know this?

Yes! I loved that part so much and was surprised not to see it called out in the review.

Artists being sentenced to Community service would be great. "Okay, today you'll be playing the writers' room to help get the parodic juices flowing, and you'll be helping to rearrange the theme song for this week's episode."

That's true, I had forgotten about that. I think the difference is in how the show treated it — the human chess game was a very quick gag in a flashback, and was specifically used for the show to demonstrate self-awareness about how utterly bizarre Greendale is. By contrast, the Hunger Deans felt like something big…

Yeah, upon watching the episode again I think that's true. The episode was really overstuffed, and I do think the writers need to do more work grounding the craziness in their characters, but I also think they deserve more credit than I gave them here.