Troy and Abed switch bodies in a successful episode.
How much fun you’ll have with “Basic Human Anatomy” depends almost entirely on how much you’d enjoy watching Donald Glover do a Danny Pudi impersonation and vice versa. If you’re anything like me, you’ll eat this episode up.
“Basic Human Anatomy” follows one of those Freaky Friday body switching arcs that almost uniformly suck. Yet, somehow, last night’s episode surprisingly and gratifying did not. I’m baffled, considering the average quality of this season’s high-concept shenanigans, by how good and fresh “Basic Human Anatomy” felt.
In celebration of Troy and Abed’s three year anniversary of the first time they watched Freaky Friday, Troy buys Abed a whole stack of body switching movies. On the spur of the moment, the two decide to try and invoke a body switch. Minus a janitor doing a “routine light switch check,” the experiment seems to have failed.
That is, of course, until the next day when Troy wakes up as Abed and Abed wakes up as Troy.
Where Community succeeds when so many other shows have failed is all down to Abed. Instead of the rote “we now understand each other’s differences” moralizing that drags down so many other takes, Community teases some actual dramatic tension out of the plot.
We never truly know if Troy and Abed have actually switched bodies and have lost that DVD (not the strangest development for this show) or if Troy’s going along with this bit because he’s concerned about Abed.
“Basic Human Anatomy” also manages to rope Britta into the proceedings. This freaky Friday also happened to be Troy and Britta’s one year anniversary, so Britta ends up taking Abed (as Troy) out to lunch in the hopes of getting some therpizin’ done.
Meanwhile, Jeff, fed up with Troy and Abed’s shit, tries to enlist the Dean’s help in reverting the two back to normal, only for the Dean to “switch bodies” with Jeff via another Freaky Friday DVD.
The other subplot, involving Shirley and Annie’s takedown of Leonard, balances the tricky line between entertainingly diverting and distractingly arbitrary. We get just enough out of it to be a least a little invested in Shirley and Annie’s blight while never getting too sidetracked from the main events unfurling nearby, like many of this season’s weaker episodes.
It helps that Yvette Nicole Brown and Alison Brie have a wonderful, woefully untapped rapport. Their buddy cop hijinks were a high point of season 1, so it’s been disappointing how little we’ve seen of this pairing.
Back at “Troy” and Britta’s lunch date, things take a dour turn when Britta starts probing Abed as Troy for information on what Troy’s been saying about their relationship. It’s an impressively organic, if not altogether unexpected, narrative feint, turning what seemed to be an Abed-centric plot thread into a reflection upon Troy and Britta’s stilted relationship.
In one of the most affecting moments of the season, Troy as Abed point blank tells Jeff he wants to break up with Britta while Abed as Troy delivers the same news to Britta. Of course, this being Community, we get a terrific sight gag of a leather, diamond-studded man-collar right as Troy/Abed start monologuing.
If I have any niggling issues with the episode, it’s that Jeff seems to have reverted back to his prickly, graduate-or-die season opener state. Admittedly, the characterization isn’t too far off – the weird crap does start going down on a Friday afternoon – but it’s a little disheartening to see most of his character’s growth this season negated.
It’s a minor quibble that doesn’t diminish the rest of the episode. Next to “Herstory of Dance,” “Basic Human Anatomy” has the best guffaws to sentiment ratio of the season. Last week’s underwhelming Rope-homage deflated my anticipation for the season finale, but “Basic Human Anatomy” filled that right back up.
Tidbits:
-The way Annie seemed strangely into Dean as Jeff slayed me. Jim Rash also deserves props for both writing a stellar episode and giving a fantastic performance as Jeff.
-“We have murder mystery nights during the day.”
-“Shut up Leonard! I’ve got a picture of your old nose. It was a lateral move.”
-Yeah, so I haven’t watched Rope. Still doesn’t make the bizarre homage in last week’s “Intro to Knots” any good.
-Danny Pudi did a good job with the Troy-isms, but Donald Glover killed it as Abed, from his monotone voice to the way Abed carries himself in public. Fantastic work.
· Troy and Abed doing outtakes.
-Also, thank god they killed the Troy and Britta relationship. The writers have proven themselves unable to do anything halfway decent with it, so all the better to ditch it before the finale.
-“No one was inside of anyone!”
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