Advanced Gay, which premiered last night on NBC and is now available on Hulu for all interested parties, featured a “gay bash,” an astronaut making paninis and a wig of ivory. Here’s our recap, but be warned, it’s filled with spoilers for those who have yet to watch yesterday’s episode.
Advanced Gay revolves around two plot lines: one, where Troy has to decide whether to join the league of men who fix air conditioners or not, and another, where Pierce has to decide whether he will stand up to his father and be a gay rights advocate (for profit) or succumb to his almighty dad.
The episode opens on Troy telling the janitor, Jerry, how to fix a broken appliance in the cafeteria. Jerry begs Troy to fix a toilet with him, “and tell me you don’t feel something.” Troy begrudgingly agrees. Cut to the gang at the lunch table. Pierce is approached by two gay men, who beg Pierce to sign their Hawthorne Wipes. Upon scouring the internet, Abed finds a Hawthorne Wipes commercial created by a drag queen. Pierce vows he will sue the queen and the adorable song “a pocket full of Hawthornes.”
*Cue theme song* We love this catchy little jingle; it always makes us feel like smiling for some reason. We’d love to hear your thoughts on the diddy, but onto the recap.
Pierce becomes an advocate for gay rights, due to the increased sales of his product. He decides to host a pride party, which he woefully calls a “gay bash.” (We had a good chuckle with that one.)
Meanwhile, Troy is kidnapped and tested to join Greendale’s Air Conditioning Repair School. Best parts of this scene: John Goodman plays the leader of this legion, and in the testing room, there is an astronaut making paninis and a Black Hitler. Oh, Community.
Pierce preps for the party, when suddenly his uber-racist father, Cornelius, appears (with a wig made out of ivory…for purity purposes of course). Cornelius hates everyone but himself, and the party is called off. Pierce continually acquiesces to his father, but Jeff thinks the party must happen. Britta, the burgeoning psychologist, diagnoses both Pierce and Jeff with the Oedipal Complex, claiming they both have the urge to love but kill their fathers. Jeff hosts the party, and Pierce ends up returning as VIP. They chant his name, and he joins the crowd.
Cut back to Troy. He is the prime candidate for the air conditioning group, surpassing all opponents with his mechanical gifts. Goodman asks Troy to join them, and shows him the “room temperature room.” This was our favorite part of the episode, and it featured the best quote from Troy:
I can’t tell where the air ends and my skin begins
Troy has 24 hours to decide if he will join them or if he will be a plumber like Jerry. Troy returns to the party, and Abed inquires where he has been. This leads to a fabulous back and forth between the two:
“Are you superman?”
“No”
“Would you tell me if you were?”
“Of course … I never understood why he cared who knew!”
These are the quotes that make Community one of the wittiest shows on television, in our humble opinions. Back to the recap: Troy tells Abed of his dilemma, and Abed advises that he follow his heart.
Just then, Cornelius appears to break up the party. Pierce denounces the gay community and fakes a heart attack to please his father (like you do). Jeff confronts Cornelius about being a bad father with a particularly dark and intelligent tirade. Cornelius has a heart attack and actually dies.
At the funeral, both plot lines wrap up: Pierce once and for all separates himself from his father, and Troy tells Goodman that he is choosing to be neither an air conditioning man nor a plumber, but instead to sit and watch television with Abed. (Heartwarming, isn’t it?) Finally, Britta has her victory as a psychology major, because she was right about Pierce’s and Jeff’s respective Oedipal complexes.
The show goes out with Abed and Troy, reunited once more, shooting balls of paper at Jeff. And really, what could be better?
Overall, loved the episode, and we were actually partial to Troy’s plot line. Our only complaint: was the Pierce plot line too reminiscent of last season’s Parks and Recreation‘s episode where Leslie becomes a gay icon, because she accidentally marries two male penguins at the local zoo? What are your thoughts? And what did you think of the episode as a whole?
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