COMMUNITY Recap: ‘Competitive Wine Tasting’

For our study group, it’s the last day to sign up for Spring semester electives, and the episode’s storylines largely revolve around which class each character signs up for and who they’re paired off with. So, let’s review…

Troy and Britta

Troy and Britta, on the suggestion of their dance teacher, signed up for “The Actor Inside,” taught by the professor who first appeared in the episode, “Conspiracy Theories and Interior Design.” Britta’s there because she wants to “reach deep inside herself,” while Troy is there because he couldn’t get off the waiting list for Foosball — though, little nerd that he is, he gets excited about it pretty quickly, debating with himself what his stage name should be—Trevor StMcGoodbody, or…David. His excitement might have something to do with another little interesting development: he notices Britta’s potential to join the StMcGoodbody clan. As a result, he lies to the acting class, telling everyone he was molested by his uncle when he was a kid. Britta, who has been diagnosed by Abed as being “attracted to pain, [because] it helps her believe she’s mentally healthy,” of course immediately rushes to Troy’s side, and even kisses him.

This is something that was foreshadowed way back at the beginning of this season in “Basic Rocket Science” when the two of them definitely shared a “moment” as the space shuttle/Kentucky Fried Chicken-mobile hit a bump in the road. And an interesting development it certainly is. I mean, other than their make-out session in the back of a car on Troy’s birthday, the Jeff-Britta romance/ego-fest has largely been put on hold for much of this season in favor of the always classic Jeff-Annie spats. I have no doubt they’ll circle back around to Jeff and Britta eventually—it’s difficult for sitcoms, even ones as offbeat as COMMUNITY, to completely abandon the couple they used as a jumping-off point—but I’m glad they’re taking the scenic route and allowing some wiggle room along the way, as was evidenced in this brilliant scene, these people are all far too attractive and friendly not to end up in each others’ beds every once in a while.

Abed

Abed signed up for a class called “Who Indeed: A Critical Analysis of Television’s WHO’S THE BOSS,” taught by former GLEE coach Stephen Tobolowsky. On the first day of class the professor asks what is meant to be one of those rhetorical academic questions (such as the ever-philosophical “Why are we here?”), in the form of “Who, exactly, is the boss on WHO’S THE BOSS?”

Abed, however, has an answer. And even though he gets laughed at in class when he first proposes it, he convinces (read: annoys) the professor into letting him teach the class for a day to prove it. And so he does, empirically proving to both the students and the professor that, in every accepted definition of the word, Angela is the boss.

Of course he proves it — he’s Abed. Who would dare challenge Abed’s media knowledge?

Jeff and Pierce

Jeff and Pierce are probably meant to be seen as the main storyline of this episode, so I saved them for last: Taking part in a course entitled “Italian Wine Tasting,” Chang is also there (to take advantage of the “drunk ladies, fancy bathrooms and room full of free coats”).

Jeff and Pierce meet an attractive Chinese woman named Wu Mei, and when Jeff heads over to work his charming spray-tanned magic on her, she immediately rebuffs him in the most polite way someone can possibly say the following sentence: “Please take [your] weird haircut, [your] stupid grin and go sniff another dog’s ass.” Jeff is, of course, highly befuddled; how dare she not notice his abs and fall for him immediately?! This is made extraordinarily worse by the fact that the next time he sees this woman, she is clinging to Pierce’s arm, announcing her engagement to the not-so esteemed Mr. Hawthorne.

Every viewer’s mind immediately jumps to the same conclusions as Jeff’s does: Is she in it for the green card? Is she a gold-digger? Is she just plain simple in the head? It’d have to be one of these, wouldn’t it, for Wu Mei not to notice that Pierce suffers from, as Jeff puts it, “imminent dementia and present incompetence”?

Upon grilling her, Jeff realizes it’s none of these things: She’s an American citizen, she comes from her own wealthy family and she doesn’t seem to be eating any glue. In fact, it’s something entirely different: the woman is a corporate spy, sent in by her family’s rival wet-wipes company to takeover Pierce’s empire. P.S., they managed to throw a VERONICA MARS reference into the scene where she’s outed. Kudos!

But even though she’s a corporate snake sent to steal all Pierce has spent his life building, Pierce wants her back. And Jeff, feeling bad about jumping to the conclusion that no one would ever want to be with Pierce, arranges it. It turns out Pierce’s former fiancé is actually a surprisingly good fit for the controversial character: she knows the moist towellette business, and is just as vaguely racist as Pierce is. They walk into the sunset together.

The Verdict:

Even though Annie and Shirley were mainly relegated to the background in this episode, it was a pretty entertaining half-hour. With only three more episodes remaining in the season, I’m eager to see what comes next — you know they’ll end it with a splash, or at least a (paintball) splatter.

What did you all think of last night’s episode? Do you support Britta/Troy? What do you hope happens over these next few weeks?