The Starburns Memorial Riot

Community, S03E18

The group decided to have a memorial for the deceased Starburns to handle the grief they were supposed to be experiencing from losing one of their classmates.  Annie and Greta insisted that they should feel something at Starburns' passing, but Jeff was impassive about it until he heard that his death prevented them from a complete Biology grade and guaranteed them a summer course instead.  At the memorial, Jeff began to speak about his displeasure with Greendale and the others in the group followed in suit, each sharing one of their personal complaints about the nature of the school.  The other students in attendance got fired up by the ideas the Jeff group were presenting and a riot broke out.  The dean panicked and allowed Chang and his kids to use force to stop them, including pepper spray.  The event caused so much damage and attention that the school board wanted a hearing concerning those responsible.  The dean agreed to use Chang a scapegoat to protect Jeff's group, but Chang countered that idea with a much more cunning one that was successful in getting the group expelled.

I agreed with Jeff that them wasting time on grieving for Starburns was pointless.  It was mostly a chance for Greta to use some of the crap she thinks she has learned in her psychology class.  Thus, I didn't expect the memorial for Starburns to be anything but a joke (but not in a funny way), until Jeff got up to speak and started bad-mouthing the school.  I really liked how everyone had something bad to say about Greendale, even Annie and Shirley who are usually good for spinning things in a positive way.  The dean has never had any control over the school (thus why things like school-wide pillow wars and paintball fights can break out), so it's little surprise that he would turn to Chang to bail him out.

I'm happy that Chang, who is usually in the background like a little crazy time bomb, has finally stepped into the spotlight again.  I really liked that his request for more force on campus was written in crayon with pictures as if a child had written it.  Later, when he sent his little army out to handle the riot, Chang was just standing around laughing like a maniac.  That was damn funny.  I actually felt bad that Jeff's group and the dean were going to blame him for everything that happened (when the dean could probably be looked upon the most guilty for his lack of managing skills) until Chang tranquilized the dean and replaced him with a lookalike.  Wow.  Then he showed up at the hearing in a nice suit (where did he get that from--he looks like he's never owned a suit in his life), acting like everyone's best friend.  I thought he was just a hop away from the looney bin, but he's actually a damn good evil mastermind.  As much as I like Jeff's group, I had to applaud and admire Chang's scheme.  I wonder how long he's going to keep that fake dean around.

The last scene where the group was gathered at Abed and Troy's was nice.  I liked that Abed brought up that amazing episode where they showed a different timeline each time someone rolled the dice, and Abed wondered if the current timeline was the darkest of them all.  However, instead of ending on a sad note with everyone worrying about what they would do now that they were expelled, they all seemed to accept what had happened to them because at least they still had each other.  That was much better to see than them having a pity party or a bitch fit about it all.  I guess there's still hope for them all.

I want to see what will happen with Chang's position now that he's gotten rid of Jeff and company (not that I think they were exactly in his way to "glory").  It would be funny if he tried to take over the dean's position somehow, but I know that with him in a position of power, he would quickly abuse it and cause his own downfall.  It will also be interesting to see what the group does now that they don't have to go to Greendale for school.  Hopefully they will still find a way to see each other and have some kind of wacky mishap like usual.  However, I'm mostly hoping that the real dean will come back and get the seven of them reinstated as students as they should be.