Community: Season 1, Episode 5 "Advanced Criminal Law" Review

 "The only difference between Señor Chang and Stalin is that I know who Señor Chang is."

-Troy Barnes

"Advanced Criminal Law" picks up with Dean Pelton (Jim Rash) announcing a statue dedication ceremony in honor of Greendale's most famous alumnus, Luis Guzman.  Annie (Alison Brie) is on the committee trying to create a new school song, but is having trouble with their composer.  Pierce (Chevy Chase) offers his services as he wrote the jingle for the Hawthorne moist towelette.  Annie convinces the Dean to let Pierce create the song.  However, Pierce struggles immensely and Annie becomes concerned that he won't be able to get the song done.  Pierce eventually confesses that he steals all of his songs and tries to quit.  Annie won't let him and gives him an inspiring speech.  Pierce manages to perform his song for the ceremony, but doesn't seem to realize that it's mostly stolen from Bruce Hornsby's "That's Just the Way It Is."

Troy (Donald Glover) realizes that Abed (Danny Pudi) has a hard time understanding sarcasm and decides to mess with him by telling Abed that he is related to Danny Glover and Barack Obama.  Later, Abed learns that Troy was messing with him and tries to get back at him.  His initial attempts seem to fail miserably, but Troy realizes that Abed is trying to trick him into believing Abed is an alien.  He writes in a strange language and makes odd noises.  Troy eventually catches Abed talking to another version of himself on a monitor and confronts him.  Abed admits to what he was doing and how he even brought Garrett (Erik Charles Nielsen) in to play another alien.  Troy and Abed agree to stop messing with each other.

Señor Chang (Ken Jeong) discovers a crib sheet that someone used on their most recent exam.  He tells the class if the culprit doesn't come forward, he will fail the entire class.  Eventually, Britta (Gillian Jacobs) claims responsibility.  The Dean tells Britta that she fill be facing a disciplinary tribunal and Jeff (Joel McHale) gets permission to represent her.  At first, Jeff tries to claim that Britta only claimed responsibility for the crib sheet to protect the rest of her class.  He nearly gets the case thrown out, but Britta changes her mind and admits that she actually did cheat.  

After water from the nearby swimming pool gets on the judges' table, Jeff is able to get a brief recess.  Britta accuses Jeff of only helping her because he wants to sleep with her.  Jeff says he's helping her because he likes her and is totally fine being friends, but didn't want to take sex off the table.  Britta tells Jeff that she is use to failing and may have psychologically left the crib sheet behind to get caught and get the failure over with.  Jeff uses this as an argument that Britta is crazy and that Greendale can't start kicking out crazy people because everyone there is crazy.  This moves the judges and they allow Britta to stay at Greendale as long as she gets weekly counseling with Professor Duncan (John Oliver).

The episode ends with Troy and Abed trying to see who can fit more pencils in their mouth.  Troy wins the first round and they decide to do a best two out of three.

What Works:

It's a small thing, but I love that this episode makes Luis Guzman an alumnus of Greendale.  That's so randomly specific.  Plus we get an actual statue of the actor.  It makes me laugh every time and it gets even better when Guzman visits the school in season 3.

I love the Abed pretending to be an alien storyline.  Danny Pudi's performance is absolutely perfect and Donald Glover gives the best reactions.  When Troy asks Abed what language he is writing in and Abed says, "Probably Arabic," it kills me.  Throw in when Abed jumps over a bench making alien noises and you have one of my favorite subplots of the season.  It also gives us the first time we see Troy and Abed do their iconic handshake.

The Britta cheating storyline is another fun one.  I love how Chang gets the entire class to turn on Britta instantly and pelt her with paper balls.  We also get to see Jeff put his lawyer skills to good use and the introduction of Leonard (Richard Erdman).  Jeff tells him to shut up in his very first episode!  

I also really like the emotional moment between Jeff and Britta in the locker room.  We get some more depth to Britta.  She's been a mostly flawless character up to this point and this episode definitely gives her some shading.  Plus Jeff's line about being psyched to just be friends with Britta, but not wanting to take sex off the table is just a very honest line for the character.  It's an exchange that really works for me.

What Sucks:

Pierce and the school song storyline doesn't really ever work for me.  It's just not very funny.  Pierce works better when he is conflict with other characters.  Maybe he should have been working with another character to write the song and it would have been funnier.  Having him by himself working on the song mostly falls flat.  I do like how he plays Annie out of the room though.

Funniest Moment: 

The funniest moment of the episode is when Troy sees Abed writing in a strange language and Abed says it's "Probably Arabic."

Heavenly Human Being:

The Heavenly Human Being: Award goes to the MVP of the episode.  For "Advanced Criminal Law," this Award goes to Jeff Winger for preventing Britta from being expelled.  This is his 1st time winning this Award, which ties him for 2nd place with Britta, Shirley, and Annie.

Verdict:

This is a very solid episode of Community.  I love the alien Abed storyline.  It's one of my favorite subplots of season 1.  Plus we get some good character development in the Britta cheating storyline, while still keeping it funny.  Pierce and the school song is mostly a flat note, but the episode as a whole has got it going on.

 8/10: Really Good