5 Awesome things from Community: ‘Urban Matrimony and the Sandwich Arts’
Rejoice Greendalians, class is back in session. . After being left off the spring schedule Community made it’s triumphant return March 15th with “Urban Matrimony and the Sandwich Arts”, beating American Idol‘s ratings in the 8pm time slot.
Each week I will take on the daunting task of choosing five awesome things from the latest episode of Community. “Urban Matrimony and the Sandwich Arts” clearly belonged to Shirley, she’s a character who is often at the periphery of story lines and in this episode she was given a storyline that allowed the multi-faceted Shirley to shine. She was funny, kind, smart and was able to find a way navigate between wife and mother and making her professional aspirations a priority. Accordingly, the two top slots go to her.
1) Learning at Greendale, that’s Unpossible. Much to my (and the Dean’s) surprise, someone actually learned something from classes at Greendale. Somewhere in the midst of all the non-studying study group antics Shirley managed to learn enough at Greendale to put together a professional, viable business plan for her sandwich shop. Apparently Greendale can help it’s students achieve their goals. Shirley and Pierce may not have won this round with the sandwich shop, but it’s not over yet.
2) The Sexy Voice. We discover that Shirley’s high pitched voice is actually her sexy voice. Apparently that woman’s been doing a whole lot of flirting that we just weren’t picking up on.
3) Troy & Abed Being Normal! Now imagine that to the tune of “Troy & Abed in the Morning”. From normal turning into dressed in gray invisible on the sidewalk, to the 24 hour weird-down in the Dreamatorium, I loved this Troy & Abed story. Abed is always the outsider, but in “Urban Matrimony and the Sandwich Arts”, they got to be outsiders together. Often when Abed wants to fit in he takes on a character from pop culture that would best fit this situation, this was different, this dreaming duo couldn’t use their regular tricks and we got to see exactly what Troy and Abed think normal is. Love that it was Annie’s Boobs and Inspector Spacetime that snapped them out of it.
4) Britta the Wedding Planner. Britta’s name had long become slang for a little mistake (or a huge mistake), so it was awesome to finally find something where Britta excels. Too bad it’s planning weddings, one of the many institutions that Britta strongly opposes. Annie was clearly in awe of how naturally bouquets and wedding planning came to Britta which played perfectly into Britta’s anxieties that she would one day become a mindless Steppenwolf Wife like her mother, and her grandmother before her. Which brings us to…
5) The Dual Meltdowns. It wouldn’t be a party unless Jeff and Britta got wasted, made a scene and tried to scream each other into marriage, right? A wedding was the perfect catalyst to bring out Jeff’s daddy issues and Britta’s fear of conforming to stereotypical gender roles. As she says, it’s in her DNA, she comes from a long line of wives and mothers (as many of us do). With Troy and Abed being normal, someone had to fly off the handle.
Runners Up (a.k.a Bonus Awesome): Turtlenecks, Jeff’s X-Ray Chest, Pierce’s Father’s Hairpiece, Britta’s analogies, Pierce as a “wealthy murderer”, Church rules against; second weddings, tight jeans and Calico cats.
And another note: Chang was mysteriously missing this episode. Although I enjoy his specific brand of crazy it’s really best used sparingly. His scene-chewing presence would have taken away from this already jam-packed episode.
What were your favourite moments of “Urban Matrimony and the Sandwich Arts”? Let me know what you thought of the episode in the comments.
