Who Are The Real Germans?

Community, S04E04

Jeff and the others had their study group room invaded by the German students at school who kept beating them to it.  When the gang came up with a plan to get the German's amenities usage at school suspended, their victory backfired and led to other students who had been coveting their study room for years to band with the Germans to protest Jeff and the other's monopoly.  Dean was also entrusted to look after Chang while he is recovering from his amnesia.

I realized that one of the reason I must have liked this episode a lot was because the conflict in this story wasn't internal in their group, but external.  When Jeff and the others work together to solve a problem they're having at school or somewhere else, I enjoy that better than their own personal squabbles.  Not to say those don't have their own comedic merit, but lately I haven't been feeling the issues within the gang.

So when the Germans returned (I don't exactly remember them from before, though) I was pleased to see them target the gang.  From the moment Reinhold opened his mouth, in a taunting and superior tone with a hilarious German accent, I was on board for this study room war and ready to laugh.  Reinhold had me rolling with his evil laughter in class and how he and his lackies kept beating the others to the study table every morning.  I liked the idea that they seemed to literally have nothing better to do than to make Jeff and company frustrated.

I also enjoyed that the gang's ruse to get the Germans banned from the study groups by tricking them into celebrating their own culture on campus actually made them see that they have always been the oppressors.   That's interesting because you don't think about how they've had to been hogging that room for years without consideration of the other students.  It's too bad that they failed their test in Cornwallis' class because they really learned first-hand the lesson he was trying to teach about history from different perspectives.  This was a lesson I hadn't expected them to reach, so I really liked the story from beginning to end.

Besides the story itself, there were several lines that I enjoyed throughout.  The first was when the gang was whining about missing out on the ice cream class:

[Troy] I don't get history.  If I wanted to know what happened in Europe a long time ago, I'd watch Game of Thrones.

[Annie] Troy, that show takes place in a fantasy realm.  This class is about the real world.

[Troy gasps excitedly]

[Abed] Not the show.

[Troy] You need to think before you speak!

Troy continued making me smile when he didn't respond well to their history professor's introduction:

[Cornwallis] I'm Professor Cornwallis.  I know what you're all thinking, and the answer is yes.  I am a direct descendant of General Sir Charles Cornwallis, who surrendered the British forces at Yorktown.[Troy] Was anyone thinking that?

Cornwallis seems like he's going to be funny (if he continues to be their teacher).  I liked how he doesn't quite fit in Greendale in so much as he doesn't abide to absurd ideas that seem common at the school.  When he heard that they thought it made sense that he could have possibly set up a ruse to teach seven of his students a lesson, he lamented over his new job:

My, God, I've made a terrible mistake coming here.

But my favorite lines came from when Jeff finished explaining that they needed to use a ruse to beat the Germans:

[Abed] You had me at "ruse."[Jeff] That was the last thing I said.[Abed] Good thing you said it.

I feel like this was the kind of episode I had been waiting for since October.  Well, at least something similar to this with more of a dramatic development than what was called for (like a war over blankets and pillows).

It was good to see that Chang has gotten back into the school again, but I'm eager to see him get his memories back.  A tame guy named "Kevin" doesn't have the same draw that the original out-of-his-mind Chang does.  However, maybe for a while he can terrify the gang who I know can't possibly forgive and forget his past deeds so easily.  The Dean has for sure, but I'm counting on those like Jeff to watch him carefully for the other shoe to drop.

 This is my top episode so far.  Knowing that this show seems to be picking up some steam, I'm hoping that there will be many stories to come that will blow this one away and make me even forget it.  I'd gladly welcome back the Germans again for any other beef they care to have against Jeff and the others--they were excellent rivals in the study room war.  It was a good twist that the group learned that they were blindly oppressing others at the school and did something about it to make up for their behavior.  I don't know what Chang could do to make up for all the atrocities he's done at Greendale, but his amnesia and seemingly pleasant attitude now gives him a chance to start over with everyone.  I'd rather he didn't because you just can't beat how hilarious Chang was as an antagonist--what would the school be like without their resident psycho?