Community: ‘Basic Intergluteal Numismatics’

I think it’s fair to officially proclaim the return of Community. Sure it may never be back to its glory days of early seasons, but for a comedy that is five years in, episodes like ‘Basic Inergluteal Numismatics’ don’t deviate far from the mean.

It didn’t take long into return of Harmon for him to dip into his bread and butter of homages. The high concept episodes work so well in this world, and with this cast, that even something like a very serious investigation of a murder can be flipped into something goofy like the Ass Crack Bandit. The closest one movie/show I can relate this episode to would be Zodiac, especially based off the ending, but it definitely had the feel of drawing from multiple similar sources.

I thought this episode was an especially good showcase for Jim Rash as Dean Pelton. The bit where he kept snapping his fingers at his secretary to “trace the call” while she just stood there staring at him was brilliant. His desperate solution to figure out the murderer: “Abed you’re special, can’t you just stand at the scene of the crime and see what happened?” Also, his interactions with Hickey made for a great dynamic, first when he asked him if he had anything and Hickey simply replies “heartburn”; and then when he tests out his creepy plan of having Chang wear a backwards ass costume and justifies it by saying the butt was free Hickey chimes in with: “I think you just admitted you already owned a fake butt.”

If the last two episodes are any indication it looks like season five will have much more focus on some of the teachers at Greendale. John Oliver made his triumphant, and long overdue, return as Professor Duncan and the fantastic Ben Folds guest starred as the Biology teacher trying to hide his marijuana plant. Not to mention that Jonathan Banks is seemingly sliding into the Chevy Chase role now that Pierce has officially been killed off. As far as that goes, it was obviously an ugly divorce between Chase and the show but at least they were able to work something out so he could appear in the first episode of this season and gave his character a somewhat dignified standoff.

Other moments of note:

• The “Ass Crack Bandit” made it a week of bandits on sitcoms this week since Andy Samberg was dealing with the Porsche Bandit played by Craig Robinson over on Brooklyn Nine-Nine.
• “He should be called the run-on sentence bandit.” – Shirley after hearing the Bandit’s note.
• “I am the bringer of change. I am the filler of cracks.” – ACB
• Starburns lives! After his good friend Dan Harmon was fired from the show, Dino Stamatopoulos decided that they were a packaged deal and wouldn’t come back without. He’s such a weird character though and of course he has been living in the stables trying to build a cat car. Welcome back Starbu- I mean Alex.
• Speaking of Starburns, the Dean keeping him locked up in an actual cage in the middle of his “we caught the Ass Crack Bandit dance” was probably my favorite part of the episode.