Quick Thoughts: COMMUNITY, "Advanced Gay"

"Advanced Gay" felt like an old-school episode because it had an actual story about the characters instead of having them just sit around and complain about one another. While it wasn't as good as the past two episodes, it was still a good effort from the show.

Some times this show focuses so much on being meta, or pop culture heavy, or dysfunctional that the characters can get lost amongst the hype. What I appreciated about "Advanced Gay" was the fact that we got to know more about Pierce and Troy.

I've never been a big fan of Pierce's, but he does serve a purpose even though it's hard to see what that is at times. He's always supposed to be the villain of the group, and while the show did a bang up job making him just that last year, it really hasn't given him a ton of depth. He's racist, crude, and insensitive because that's his character, but we have only gotten tiny glimpses of why he does what he does. This week, we got a better understanding of Pierce via his relationship with his father, and he in turn became more of a fleshed out character. While his daddy issues weren't anything new, I did like how he was pushed out of his comfort zone. Pierce is not going to become my new favorite character any time soon, but at least he's no longer one-note.

Speaking of my favorite character, I was glad that they brought back Troy's knack for fixing things. While I love Troy, he can easily become just as one-dimensional as the others because the show can focus too much on his innocent dimness. Thankfully, the writers have been giving him more to do and some development, and the story line that was introduced about him possibly defecting to the air conditioning annex could have a lot of potential.

I'm a fan of Community when it stops trying so hard to seem cool, and I appreciate it even more when we get some good character moments instead of endless reference jokes. I'm not saying it has to stop doing what it does best, but going back to the show's roots has its benefits too.