Give me some rope, tie me to dream / Give me the hope to run out of steam / Somebody said it could be here / We could be roped up, tied up, dead in a year / I can't count the reasons I should stay / One by one they all just fade away

Those are the lyrics to the Community theme song, excerpted from "At Least it Was Here" by The 88. While they're performed over a bouncy, catchy, happy power-pop jangle-swing, they're also, like, very sad and much deeper than an NBC sitcom about a silly community college group has any right to be. That, right there, is the appeal of Community in a nutshell. Come for the character shenanigans, the rat-a-tat jokes, the wild genre parodies -- stay for the melancholy, the emotional complexities, the darkness and light existing in equal measure.

Created by Dan Harmon (Rick and Morty), the show first aired on NBC in 2009. Its original cast featured Joel McHale as sardonic leader Jeff Winger, Gillian Jacobs as wannabe activist Britta Perry, Donald Glover as star-quarterback-turned-nerd-goofball Troy Barnes, Danny Pudi as the meta-commentary master Abed Nadir, Alison Brie as type-A workaholic Annie Edison, Yvette Nicole Brown as ultra-Christian group mom Shirley Bennett, and Chevy Chase as out-of-touch millionaire Pierce Hawthorne -- all as a group of misfit study members enrolled at Greendale Community College. Other notable cast members throughout the run include Ken Jeong as wilder-than-wild Spanish teacher Ben Chang, Jim Rash as the delightfully melodramatic Dean of the school, and Jonathan Banks, Paget Brewster, and Keith David as new members to the team in later seasons.

The show ran for six seasons, facing trials and tribulations throughout all of them: From low ratings threatening every season finale as a series finale, to perceived inaccessibility to a general audience, to late-night shoots beleaguered by a temperamental showrunner, to a dramatic firing/rehiring of said showrunner, to regular cast members leaving regularly, to a move to a short-lived network called "Yahoo! Screen" in its final season. All the while, it delivered peerless, experimental, revolutionary, hilarious, entertaining television.

Now, all six seasons are available for streaming on Hulu and Netflix. And if you're looking for something to tide you over while you wait for the #amovie part of the hashtag, or are looking for an entry point to the Greendale world, here are my 20 favorite Community episodes, ranked.

20. "Investigative Journalism" (Season 1, Episode 13)

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Image via Sony Pictures Television

After the midseason break of Community’s first season (timed perfectly with Greendale’s winter break), the study group returns in an engine-revving, cooking-with-gas episode that gives us beautiful rat-a-tat banter and chemistry (the cold open is a thing of “knowing your characters and what jokes they would make” beauty), while subtly cracking open the door of “this show’s gonna fuck with itself.” In this case, using Jack Black as a delightfully meta guest star that no one remembers being there, causing the study group (and us as viewers? And the writing staff as writers?) to worry about his causing rhythm disruptions. How does the episode show these rhythm disruptions? By literally disrupting the editing rhythm -- the theme song kicks in in the middle of Black’s sentence, a beautiful omen of the filmmaking stylish muckraking to come. And in the B-story, Jeff and Annie run Greendale’s student newspaper, blowing the lid off a scandal and blowing holes into Jeff’s carefully crafted “cool guy who doesn’t care” persona. A brilliant episode that highlights and pokes at everyone’s character, by introducing a purposefully unnecessary character.

19. "Advanced Safety Features" (Season 6, Episode 7)

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Image via Sony Pictures Television

When Community moved to Yahoo! Screen (RIP) for its sixth and final season, the whole piece felt just a little “off” to me -- not gas leak fourth season “off,” but still “off.” Episodes ran weirdly long, the editing emphasized more silence, the shot constructions and lighting looked funky, every tag was like two minutes, and an undercurrent of genuinely icky bitterness lurked in the margins, colliding into the forefront in strange moments (i.e. every single fake TV show title screen gag, the weird Jeff fantasy in the finale). This is… a lot to say for a good season of television of a show I genuinely love, and still hits me in a lot of the good places it’s supposed to hit me. But only one episode of the season could crack my top 20 (though the paintball-through-spy-film “Modern Espionage” and the Matt Berry-starring “Grifting 101” came close). And it is, strangely, one of the more cynical-on-paper seeming episodes of the whole season.

Remember when Britta literally dated a person named Subway, whose sole existence was defined to promote Subway sandwiches, in the midst of the darkly serialized third season? Well, Subway is back, as Rick, a newly bearded, rugged, and more “normal human” seming man. Except… these are all affections for his new gig hawking Honda products. This doesn’t stop Britta from trying a new relationship with him, and the episode dissects her personality-definers of being an activist conflicting with her knack for selling shit with acute psychological panache. And, like, a boatload of laughs. I belly-laugh at the Dean buying everything Honda, I belly-laugh at Frankie (Paget Brewster is the underrated MVP of the whole series) trying her best to placate the Dean while not letting him off the hook, and I belly-the-hell-laugh at Billy Zane’s emotional commitment and physical comedy. Somehow, Harmon and his crew took mandated product placement and turned it into a tragic love story on identity with a million laughs a minute. “Advanced Safety Features” for the season six win.

18. "Basic Rocket Science" (Season 2, Episode 4)

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Image via Sony Pictures Television

Speaking of “spinning mandated product placement into gold,” “Basic Rocket Science,” from the show’s second season, is centered around a KFC spaceship. There’s just no other way to say it. But the episode leans not just into the central absurdity of a KFC-sponsored flight simulator, but the genre tropes of the Apollo 13/The Right Stuff space adventures it's mimicking, to provide that Community sweet spot of “absurdity and sincerity in equal measure.” The study group is stuck in this KFC space flight simulator -- minus Abed, who is of course our gruff-talking mission control -- and must work together to get out. Thus, the episode serves as an excellent purveyor of popcorn thrills -- meaning, in this case, the thrills of watching these excellent characters popcorn off each other -- before it takes a turn into darkness. I love the second season arc of “Pierce the villain,” and seeing his insanity here is a brilliant piece of foreshadowing. I also love the series arc of “Annie deserves better than Greendale,” and a midpoint twist puts that conflict into stark focus amidst the fun and games. There’s perhaps no better balance between “genre parody episodes” and “character episodes” than “Basic Rocket Science,” a basic template of excellence for the show.

17. "App Development and Condiments" (Season 5, Episode 8)

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Image via Sony Pictures Television

Social media is tough. Sometimes it’s a lovely resource of connection and memes. Sometimes it’s a place for Nazis to scream at everyone. And sometimes it’s a place to compare yourself to others unhealthily, a place that festoons ranking systems of success on everyone and every single thing that they do. “App Development and Condiments” takes this, as you might imagine, to a daffy, extreme, surprisingly dark, and out-and-out bonkers place. MeowMeowBeenz, of course, is the name of a new app developed at Greendale, where you can rank your fellow students on a scale of 1 to 5 MeowMeowBeenz. Naturally, this causes the school to fall into a Logan’s Run-esque society of enforced rankings, ego-driven mania, madness, and a particularly inspired turn from Arrested Development creator Mitchell Hurwitz as Koogler, a stereotypical party animal who becomes a 5 along regulars like Shirley, Abed, Chang, and Hickey. Beyond the episode’s inspired production design and costume work, this episode dives headfirst into the flighty, fragile ego of one Mr. Jeff Winger, and I love how much Community is willing to make its main character look like such an arrogant ass, rather than an “arrogant ass.”

16. "Geothermal Escapism" (Season 5, Episode 5)

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Image via Sony Pictures Television

One of the many meta-cracks in the series finale, wherein the characters (creators) summarize the thrust of their years at Greendale (series of television), comes from a throwaway joke that they were often “too immersive to be funny.” Indeed, much of the show’s commitment not just to episode-length genre parodies (i.e. the action direction in season six’s “Modern Espionage”) but to dark, deep seasonal arcs (i.e. Troy’s season three plumbing prophecy) often turns a corner from your typical “cut with a joke” focus of TV comedy into something baldly uninterested in cutting with jokes. I’d just argue that that commitment, in of itself, makes it funny. Case in point: In “Geothermal Escapism,” a cannily styled riff on steampunk post-apocalypse films in result of a campus wide game of “the floor is lava,” we’re given an uninterrupted close-up of new cast member Jonathan Banks, in full Mad Max regalia, staring just off-screen with “tired murder” in his eyes. Until he extends his hand… and finally gives a “c’mon” motion. It’s not a joke. It gives me a rush more akin to straight examples of this genre. And I freaking love Community for committing so hard to this immersion. This episode ain’t just well-crafted genre stuff, though. Like the best genre episodes of the show, it’s pinged directly to difficult emotional stuff -- Troy leaving Greendale, and especially leaving Abed, who’s subconsciously created this game as a way of dealing with his emotions. The final moments of Troy saying goodbye to everyone are wonderfully sentimental and surprisingly, maturely dark -- Community wearing its heart on its sleeve in the best way possible.

15. "Basic Intergluteal Numismatics" (Season 5, Episode 3)

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Image via Sony Pictures Television

So, I love “Basic Lupine Urology,” the season three Law & Order parody that mimics the beloved procedural with peerless accuracy, down to the downbeat twist ending. But goshdarnit, when it comes to “Community episodes that spoof crime television trends,” season five’s “Basic Intergluteal Numismatics” takes the edge in just about every way. It sets its sights on “prestige true crime-based fiction” kinda stuff (especially David Fincher’s Zodiac) from its desaturated and sickly color correction, to its modified opening credits, to its frankly beautiful sequence construction. From frame compositions to interesting editing choices, this episode feels heavy and syrupy in the best way possible. Perfect, then, that the crime at the center is so goshdarn silly. The Ass Crack Bandit is the menace wreaking havoc on Greendale, named so because they put coins down people’s ass cracks. It’s great! I’m giggling just typing about it! The episode generates such delicious clashes of context with its seriousness over such silliness -- and such phenomenal performances from returning guest stars like John Oliver -- until a third act twist. Suffice it to say, someone very real happens to a beloved cast member, and the episode’s handling of it is simply perfect in writing, cinematography (a shot of an empty chair got me!), and calling back to what might be the greatest episode of the entire series. What a pleasure this episode is!

14. "Virtual Systems Analysis" (Season 3, Episode 16)

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The Dreamatorium, created by Troy and Abed in their apartment, is a place where those two weirdos can let their freak flags fly, imagining all kinds of delightful strangeness in the comfort of an all-black with white tile linings room. But in “Virtual Systems Analysis,” when Troy goes on what might be a date with Britta during a three-hour lunch break cramming for exams, Abed is stuck in the Dreamatorium with Annie. It starts with some ham-fisted Inspector Spacetime (Community's take on Doctor Who) fan-fiction. And it cascades into perhaps the strangest half-hour of television Community has ever produced, a headfirst descent into how Abed and Annie view each other and themselves. It’s both a delightful treat for long-watching fans of the show, as Abed and Annie’s “versions” of their fellow study group-mates are howlingly funny in that perfect meta-way. But it also turns into what I might call “a cyberpunk psychological horror character study”? With vulnerability and ruthless courage, the show pokes and prods at how we view our loved ones, and how our sources of comfort might cause others discomfort. Plus, Donald Glover delivers one of the funniest uninterrupted monologues you’ll ever see.

13. "Conspiracy Theories and Interior Design" (Season 2, Episode 9)

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Image via Sony Pictures Television

“Conspiracy Theories and Interior Design” contains, I think, the single greatest act one break of any television show ever. Jeff is in an obviously fake class: An independent study about conspiracy theories, taught by a “Professor Professorson.” Clearly a way for Jeff to skirt past his requirements and get back to his law firm as soon as possible, right? Well, when the Dean confronts Jeff about it, Professor Professorson… shows up. In the form of brilliant guest star Kevin Corrigan. Reminds Jeff of some homework due. And satisfies the Dean that the class is actually real. But when the Dean walks away, Jeff admits something about the interaction to Annie. And it is… wild. I don’t want to spoil it to anyone who hasn’t seen it, but it provoked an audible gasp the first time I watched it. And this twist spins out so satisfyingly in the rest of the episode until it intersects brilliantly with one of the best Troy and Abed B-stories: The pillow fort. They create a pillow and blankets fort that takes over the entire school, creates factions and sub-societies within (the Britta sight gag gets me every time), and provides the perfect backdrop for an A-story chase scene. This episode is a marvel of television writing, structuring, and directing -- all in a 21 minute episode! With jokes! Community is great!

12. "Introduction to Film" (Season 1, Episode 3)

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Image via Sony Pictures Television

In exactly episode three of the entire dang series, Community delivers one of its most sensitive, insightful reads on one of its most inscrutable-by-design characters. Abed is an aspiring filmmaker who has difficulties fitting in to normal life. Hence, he views the world through a “film and television tropes” filter not just in the films he makes, but in his everyday life. His father, a wonderful Iqbal Theba, doesn’t understand him or his decisions, and wishes he would pick a more practical course of study -- especially considering his mother just left the family. But when Abed decides to make a documentary film about himself, his lack of fitting in, and his coping mechanisms -- all aided by a fiery Britta -- well, let’s just say I’ve seen this episode many, many times, and the revelation of the film and Theba’s reaction always prompts tears. It’s heartwarming stuff, but isn’t overly saccharine -- rather, its authentic sincerity and communication of something I’ve never known how to communicate is what gets me. Also, let’s not ignore the B-story: Jeff’s attempts to “win” a “seize the day” classroom taught by a wonderful John Michael Higgins are just as incisive into Jeff’s persona, flaws, and idiosyncrasies, and when the two stories intersect near the end, look out!

11. "Mixology Certification" (Season 2, Episode 10)

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Image via Sony Pictures Television

I admire Community’s commitment to digging deep to the difficult cores at the center of typically sugary sitcom formulas. “Mixology Certification” takes this artistic mission and weaponizes it to its fullest form, resulting in maybe the darkest episode of Community (for Office fans, it’s the “Dinner Party” of Community). And yet, I wouldn’t call it cynical or performatively edgy. Rather, it feels friggin’ real. Y’see, Troy has just turned 21, and the study group is ready to celebrate with a night of hard-drinking at the bar. But when they arrive, shit goes south, quickly. Annie invents a new identity to correspond with her fake ID, and realizes what she hates about herself. Shirley’s troubled past as a rowdy drunk is revealed. Abed leads a poor Paul F. Tompkins on for much too long. Britta and Jeff won’t stop making bad decisions about each other. Pierce is… stuck in a door. And Troy, who’s ostensibly there to have fun, is left to pick up the pieces and get everyone home safe. It’s an episode about how plans never quite go as well as they seem on paper -- and how growing up means making new plans on the fly.

10. "Contemporary American Poultry" (Season 1, Episode 21)

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Image via NBC

As far back as I can remember, I always wanted to watch a Goodfellas parody episode. And “Contemporary American Poultry” knocks it out of the park and thensome, taking such a pleasurably relatable premise -- the cafeteria serves chicken fingers once a week, and they’re weirdly good -- and running it past the point of logical absurdity. The Community crew gets every facet of Scorsese and Schoonmaker’s formalism and narrative shape downpat, from the exhilarating highs of “criminal power” to the crashing lows of infighting and punishment, with every random freeze frame and stylish camera push perfectly placed in between. Based on its placement in the first season, this episode might have been conceived as a trial run for later “pure genre parody” episodes, but its execution rises it to the cream of the crop of episodes -- not to mention its delightful deconstruction of established character dynamics.

9. "Intermediate Documentary Filmmaking" (Season 2, Episode 16)

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Image via Sony Pictures Television

In 2011, when “Intermediate Documentary Filmmaking” first aired, the prestige TV comedies du jour were mockumentaries. The Office, Parks and Recreation, Modern Family -- all of these were collecting critical notices and audience eyeballs, by allowing their characters’ eyeballs to freely notice the camera filming them. The device became so popular that we still invoke the name of Jim Halpert to describe it. All of this meant it was ripe for the parodying by Community. But while “Intermediate Documentary Filmmaking” gets its licks in and thensome on the popular format, it’s mostly interested in, you know, brutally and painfully cutting its characters down to their most fearful cores. Pierce, from a hospital bed, pretends he’s dying, and imparts final gifts on all his study buddies -- with Abed filming the whole thing as a documentary. But these gifts are less “gifts” and more “psychological weapons of revenge.” As one example, Pierce promises a meeting with Jeff’s estranged father, which naturally freaks him the hell out. It is, like all of Pierce’s “gifts,” fake, and leads to the explosion of one of my favorite season two storylines -- Pierce’s need to be taken seriously. It’s a dark-ass episode that bites the medium that feeds it, as it absolutely would not be as successful were it filmed in any other way.

8. "Modern Warfare" (Season 1, Episode 23)

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Image via Sony Pictures Television

Ah, here she is. The mother of season one episodes. One that defined what Community is for the rest of its run. One that, I’d argue, allowed for other comedy shows in its wake to be more adventurous in their filmmaking, genre-mixing, and narrative experimentation. “Modern Warfare,” directed by Fast and Furious alum Justin Lin, might be better known as the paintball episode. Indeed, the members of Greendale get swept up in a campus-wide game of paintball that turns into, of course, a John Woo-styled action-adventure epic with tight shootouts, slow-mo, and more plot twists than a damn episode of 24. Among the episode’s many filmmaking pleasures comes quite the confrontation of the initial tension of the entire series: Jeff and Britta’s desires for each other. By pinning this big story move to such well-worn, well-loved action tropes, the Community crew manages to make something surprising by virtue of its using unsurprising storytelling components. It’s an absolute pleasure of a television episode to watch.

7. "Digital Estate Planning" (Season 3, Episode 20)

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Image via Sony Pictures Television

What if the Community study group was in an 8-bit video game? Fun, but too easy. What if this 8-bit video game was also a gnarly, knotted, piece of chamber drama set upon primal daddy issues and a barn-burner of a dramatically pitched performance from Giancarlo Esposito? Now we’re cooking with “Community gas!” That’s my new catchphrase, what do you think? “Not good”? I agree, but it’s still hurtful to hear you say it. Anyway, “Digital Estate Planning” flings our beloved cast into a delightfully authentic 8-bit video game experience via the promise of Pierce’s dad’s fortune through his last will and testament. Whoever beats the game -- a piece of software designed basically as a “fuck you” to one of Pierce’s many interests -- gets the money. But Esposito, playing Pierce’s dad’s longtime caretaker, ain’t going down without a fight. And from this conflict, we’re off to the races, the episode zipping through expert mode jokes on the tropes and trappings of video games while making sure to pause for the oppressively real emotional stakes at the heart of the matter. “Digital Estate Planning’s ending, too, is one for the books, a piece of satisfying storytelling that will expand your emotional health meter by at least one heart piece.

6. "Epidemiology" (Season 2, Episode 6)

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Image via NBC

What are your favorite zombie movies? George Romero’s works, Shaun of the Dead, 28 Days Later? Valid ones, all. But may I humbly introduce a half-hour episode of network television comedy into the canon? “Epidemiology” is an absolute banger. A Halloween episode with more production value, scope, and genuine ferocity than many horror TV shows I’ve seen. The food at a Greendale Halloween party is a little off. And by “a little off,” I of course mean, “causes everyone to lose their minds and attack people just like a zombie.” Thus, Greendale devolves into a full-fledged zombie apocalypse -- all scored, beautifully, by the dulcet disco tunes of ABBA. The resulting chaos, lensed in phenomenally dusty, dingy, expansive wides, hits that horror-comedy sweet spot perfectly, providing more abrupt genre thrills than your average comedy Halloween episode while still being crammed with excellent jokes. Nuclear Take: This episode of Community is better than every episode of The Walking Dead combined!

5. "Cooperative Calligraphy" (Season 2, Episode 8)

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“We’re doing a bottle episode!” screams Jeff at the end of “Cooperative Calligraphy’s cold open. In character, it’s a pained surrender to Abed’s constant framing of real life as a television show. Extratextually, it’s a flag to any savvy viewer that a show with one of TV’s best casts is about to do a type of episode perfect for showing off casts. If you don’t know, a bottle episode refers to one where the characters largely stay in one location, allowing for the creative side of things to delve deep into character interactions, and for the business side of things to, ahem, save money. In “Cooperative Calligraphy,” produced during an obviously expensive season two (see: the giant zombie movie made two episodes earlier), all of Greendale is going to a puppy parade, of course. But the study group has a problem. Someone stole Annie’s pen. And nobody’s leaving the study room until they figure out who took it. This painfully simple, contrived-by-design setup begets all-out psychological warfare between the members, giving one of TV’s best casts the chance to play all kinds of nuanced comedy and conflict. Also -- the physical shit that happens to the room in this episode can’t have been “not expensive.”

4. "Abed's Uncontrollable Christmas" (Season 2, Episode 11)

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Image via NBC

I watch “Abed’s Uncontrollable Christmas” every Christmas. Ostensibly the show’s fun take on the classic 1960s Rankin/Bass claymation Christmas specials like Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer, the season two episode is, of course, a darker-than-dark look into the psychological coping mechanisms-turned-disorders regarding very specific traumas. The stop-motion look of the episode isn’t just a fun formal device. It is literally how Abed is seeing the world. And that concerns his friends -- so much so, they agree to Professor Duncan’s transparently opportunistic immersive therapy idea to try and return Abed to his normal stasis. What results is a fantastical, hilarious, emotionally honest, delightfully musical, and emotionally complicated journey into the heart of what this time of year means to everyone -- especially those whose tinsel decorations reflect melancholy memories. It gives every character a chance at unprecedented vulnerability, it takes full advantage of its new visual language, it makes me tear up in the most unexpected places (watching Britta listen to “her song” will never not get me), it is my new favorite holiday tradition. And that’s what Christmas is for.

3. "Remedial Chaos Theory" (Season 3, Episode 3)

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What a monster of an episode this motherfucker is. A sheer testament to all caps CRAFT. An utter flex. A piece of television that belongs in a damn museum. “Remedial Chaos Theory” introduces its viewers to the concept of, well, remedial chaos theory. How? Well, the study group has gathered in Troy and Abed’s apartment for a housewarming party. But when the pizza arrives, no one’s willing to budge and go get it. How can they decide fairly? By Jeff assigning a number to each member and rolling a six-sided die. Simple, right? Not so much, as this decision splits the episode into different timelines that, according to remedial chaos theory, exist simultaneously. Thus, we see every one play out, with similar gags deliciously popping in with sharp variations, emotional revelations becoming either tampered or exploding, and sharper-than-sharp character dynamics expanding or contracting based on who leaves the room. This episode also introduces “the darkest timeline,” a phrase played largely for laughs here (fake goatees abound, and Troy’s unbelievable reaction to a room full of chaos when he comes back), but the seeds of which generated lots of conflict in episodes to come -- and has, in our uncertain times, permeated our general lexicon. All of this, in a GD network sitcom episode! What a world! What several worlds!

2. "Foosball and Nocturnal Vigilantism" (Season 3, Episode 9)

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Image via Sony Pictures Television

This episode hits all my buttons. It’s Community firing on all cylinders effortlessly, yet still surprisingly. It’s the perfect intersection of silliness and sappiness. It takes such simple beginnings -- a foosball competition, a broken DVD -- and sprints them to their logical, emotional, and comedic peaks. It makes me belly laugh from my guts, it makes me tear up from my heart. It explodes into an abrupt anime sequence, and it’s absolutely earned! God, “Foosball and Nocturnal Vigilantism” is such a good episode! The “foosball” half stems from Jeff and Shirley getting into a foosball battle with some enthusiastic German students (led by, of course, Nick Kroll). As they gear up for battle, we learn a lot about Shirley and Jeff’s past, the traumas they’ve worked hard to move past, the strange intersections they’ve buried, and how they can move forward together. The “nocturnal vigilantism” half stems from Annie accidentally breaking Abed’s Dark Knight DVD, and trying desperately to frame someone else to throw Abed (now dressed in character as Batman, naturally) off the scent -- all the while Troy delivers some of the finest “exasperated voice of reason” comedy work I’ve ever seen on television. It’s an underrated episode in the Community canon, one incredibly close and special to my heart, one that speaks directly to Community’s power of community.

1. "Advanced Dungeons & Dragons" (Season 2, Episode 14)

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Image via Sony Pictures Television

For all of Community’s playing with genre, with self-contained explorations, with experimentation, with budget-busting comedy television filmmaking, its finest half-hour comes simply from its characters sitting around and talking. It makes sense, given what the episode is centered around. If you’ve never played Advanced Dungeons & Dragons, first of all, try it, it’s very fun! Second of all, it’s a game centered around friends sitting around and talking. Yes, you play fantastical characters in fantastical worlds fighting fantastical beasts, and yes you roll a bunch of dice. But at its core: Friends talking. Community understands this central emotional need not just at the core of the game of D&D, but of television storytelling. And, as both of these things are representations and explorations of regular human life, it posits that regular human life’s problems can be soothed by sitting around and talking, too. Quite beautifully, in fact. You see, Neil is a student at Greendale who’s been given the insensitive nickname “Fat Neil,” alongside relentless teasing from his schoolmates. It’s too much for him, and Jeff (always kinder than he lets on) notices it might be triggering some suicidal ideation. So he gathers the study group to play one of Neil’s favorite games: Advanced Dungeons & Dragons. What results is just remarkable. Action (and sex!) sequences told only through hand gestures and sound effects, incredible character-swapping performances from dungeon master Abed, and a jaw-droppingly acidic central battle between Jeff and the villainous Pierce, a storytelling move that stuns with its audacity, its willingness to go grim, its emotional commitment. We learn so much about each character, and we learn so much about the importance of empathy. Of sitting around and talking, yes, but also of listening, and honoring what we hear. That’s community.