Crucial new characters are introduced while the old favorites go a little nuts on the Community season 6 premiere. Check out our recap and share your thoughts on “Ladders” and “Lawnmower Maintenance and Postnatal Care.”
Community began it’s sixth season early this morning at 3 a.m. ET, with two new episodes. Now that you’ve had some time to watch let’s recap both.
‘Ladders’ Recap
To watch Community is to be actively engaged in its own creation. Community may have gone through more behind-the-scenes string-pulling and drama than any other show in recent memory. It seems like the first thing showrunner Dan Harmon does each season is to immediately factor in the offscreen universe into the onscreen universe of the show. Hell, “Ladders” is basically all about reconciling reality with the far more interesting fiction.
When we open, Jeff is still a teacher, Britta is homeless, Abed is composing self-aware monologues and Annie is forgetting one crucial task from their Save Greendale campaign. She got around to 534 areas of self-improvement but the missing 535th is a doozy: Frisbees. The Frisbee-clogged roof of Greendale collapses and it’s all back to square one.
Enter Shirley’s replacement Fracesca “Frankie” Dart (Paget Brewster). Dean Pelton is forcing her on the study group for her financial expertise to save Greendale. Jeff, Annie and Britta are not fans of Frankie because she is like a more efficient Annie and has the audacity to make them do stuff. Abed, however, is intrigued by this frustratingly normal woman who doesn’t own a TV. (“You’re the only person who’s said that who I didn’t immediately ignore.”)
Abed is at first concerned that Frankie’s arrival spells the end of their “show.” Shirley has “spun-off” to the Bayou to look after her ailing father* and be a personal chef to a detective in a wheelchair (leading to the excellent end tag: “The Butcher and the Baker”). And Frankie doesn’t check off any interesting demographic boxes. She’s actually too much like Annie, as previously mentioned. Dan Harmon likes to call attention to his slightly lazy writing more than anyone in the world. But Abed soon realizes that her aggressive insistence on being normal and business-like is indeed a bizarre character trait befitting of Greendale’s universe
*That bit is a nice touch as that’s why Yvette Nicole Brown actually left the show.
Abed goes to work for Frankie sending a flurry of emails in one of the episode’s many montages. Soon enough, however, he begins to miss Jeff, Annie and Britta, who have created a fully-operational 1920s speakeasy in the backroom of Shirley’s Subs. Abed lives a double-life as a 1920s alcoholic and a 2010s community college student sending emails before Frankie finally decides to put a stop to this speakeasy (turns out when you construct a full bar in a college cafeteria, it’s pretty hard to hide from the law).
Frustrated by the school’s lack of progress, Frankie quits, which leads to a third, most disastrous montage where everyone at Greendale is drunk. The professor of the “Ladders” class climbs a ladder while intoxicated and falls, injuring both himself and Annie. The Greendale crew realize that they need Frankie back. She might not be completely weird enough for Greendale, but her abrasive, business-like style is also no fit for the real world and she decides to come back.
“Ladders” is a pretty stellar beginning to what could have felt like a tacked-on sixth season.
‘Lawnmower Maintenance and Postnatal Care’ Recap
“Lawnmower Maintenance” isn’t quite as good as “Ladders” but has its moments.
Dean Pelton has very reasonably decided to switch out all the school’s computers with a virtual reality operating system, the VirtuGood. Predictably Pelton becomes addicted to feeling like a God within the system’s very basic, barely 3-D construct (And Jesussssss wepppptttt!). The display is deliberately awful and looks like the virtual reality from the film Lawnmower Man, hence the episode’s title.
Jeff has teamed up with Frankie and the two know they need to get Pelton to return the software. The God-like Pelton rebels, however, and destroys the contract in the virtual world. Jeff’s only option is to find the creator of the software, Elroy Patashnik, played by season six’s second big casting get: Keith David.
Jeff finds him living in a Winnebago (“I’ll never get out of here, will I?” “I haven’t met many who do.”), working on all his various virtual reality items. Elroy doesn’t seem to belong in his own reality, which makes David and his otherworldly voice an interesting casting choice. Jeff tries to get Elroy to accept the return and he doesn’t at first, but later arrives to help Dean Pelton. Pelton seems too far gone, but Elroy enters the virtual reality and convinces him that he can live out virtual reality every day by using a mouse and a computer.
Once saved, Pelton makes a goodwill offer of returning $500 to Elroy. This entices Elroy to enroll at Greendale and the cycle continues. No, Jeff, you’re never getting out.
Meanwhile, Britta is struggling with the news that her parents have been paying off all her debts to her friends. Britta is not only embarrassed but also upset she now must interact with her parents Deb (Lesley Ann Warren) and George (Martin Mull) again.
At first it seems like Britta’s hatred of her lovely and nice parents is just another Britta quirk. But George and Deb admit to being bad parents when Britta is younger and have only learned to start doing their jobs correctly now.
Britta finds solace in an unlikley place: Frankie’s car. While she’s squatting there, Frankie arrives and while surprised, assures her that she’s not crazy to dislike her parents. Seeing one’s parents as people is hard and Britta can take her time with it. Absolved, Britta heads back to her new place with Annie and Abed and spends the night watching a knock-off Portuguese Gremlins.