I’m usually not a fan of a show trying to replicate its success. By that I mean, I typically don’t like it when a show takes a story or a concept that it’s already had success with, and does it again. For instance, Community’s two-part second season finale, “A Fistful of Paintballs”/”For a Few Paintballs More,” pales in comparison to season one’s “Modern Warfare,” something that Abed alluded to in last night’s “Curriculum Unavailable,” a sort-of sequel of “Paradigms of Human Memory.” (Keeping up?) The original fake clip show episode, “Paradigms,” is one of my favorite episodes of the series, and once I caught on to what “Curriculum” was doing, I was worried. It didn’t help that it seemed like Abed, a character I’ve found increasingly irritating this season, and his crazy town banana pants ways were going to be the focus of the episode.
But then “Curriculum” did something unexpected: it became less Abed and more about the effect Greendale has on the Study Group. Did Greendale make them crazy, or did Greendale become crazier because of them? That’s an interesting ongoing question, but more importantly: the fake clips were just as funny as they were during “Paradigms.” So, just like what I did last year, I’ve taken screencaps from every would-be story, and ranked them by how excited I would be to read their plots in an episode synopsis. I can replicate myself, too!
#25. “Abed freaks out about Daylight Savings Time”
#24. “Chang gets addicted to snorting corn chips”
#23. “Shirley gives all of her kids’ toys away”
#22. “Chang tasers himself in the balls for 22 minutes”
#21. “The Greendale Seven takes Advanced Breath Holding”
#20. “The Greendale Seven takes Ladders”
#19. “The Greendale Seven takes Baby Talk”
#18. “Annie discovers that she has a fashion doppelganger at Greendale”
#17. “Abed narrates Pierce’s life”
#16. “The Greendale Seven takes Can I Fry That?”
#15. “Greendale runs out of pizza on Pizza Day”
#14. “Greendale celebrates the 10,000th flush for one of its toilets”
#13. “Troy buys an all terrain vehicle”
#12. “Abed begins filming Annie while she’s sleeping”
#11. “Students are forced to compete in a game of Human Chess for job fair parking spots”
#10. “Paintball: Part III”
#9. “There’s a fire at Greendale, and it’s up to the Dean to save the school”
#8. “Greendale holds an Anime Party”
#7. “Abed attempts to convince Shirley that Brett Ratner isn’t the new Steven Spielberg”
#6. “Chang makes Garrett act as a pre-cog in an elaborate Minority Report parody”
#5. “A crazed gunman is on the loose, and it’s up to the Greendale Seven to find him/her before it’s too late”
#4. “Annie joins Abed and Troy in the Morning”
#3. “The Greendale Seven find a drunk hobo on their table”
#2. “The Dean makes an episode-long announcement”
#1. “Britta tries peyote”
