Community is one of my favorite shows ever, and while it has many, many episodes that mean the world to me, but this one is at the top of my list. It's mainly centered around Annie & Abed, and that's a good thing. While the entire cast of community is amazing, Alison Brie and Danny Pudi are the ones who steal the show, episode after episode. (Donald Glover's Troy is a close third) Yet, we've never really gotten any insight into their relationship. Annie is such an underrated character. She doesn't have many big moments or plot lines like Jeff or Britta, but she has great chemistry with almost every other character on her show, and her relationships with them are often integral to the story. Abed, on the other hand, Community's Sheldon or Barney, the breakout, "quirky" character who is the face of the show. But he is a much more meaningful character, because he real depth. I'm autistic, and Abed is by far my favorite character on the spectrum. Most characters with autism in movies or tv use their condition as a superpower when it's convenient to the story, with no investigation of how it affects their lives in literally any other way. Abed feels much more genuine to me. In the first season, there were several episodes, along the best of the series, that dealt with his condition, "Introduction to Film", "Physical Education", and "Contemporary American Poultry". Then this because less of a focus in the second season as the series became more conceptual and we got some of the best episodes in tv history like "Conspiracy Theory's and Interior Design" and "Remedial Chaos Theory" While I love those episodes to death, I missed the earlier episodes about Abed, as he was the only one not growing or changing with the show. He finally gets the chance to here. The Dreamatorium is a plot device that appeared in several previous episodes, but remained largely mysterious as to what is really was or it's significance to the show. Its easy to see the show taking a more straight-forward approach to this episode, one that squeezes the entire cast into the Dreamatorium, and it would probably be more popular and well-received for it. However, the showrunners decided to take a much different, and in my mind much better approach, and I'm very glad they did. The episode starts out normally (or at least, normal by community's standards) with Abed and Annie acting out a sci-fi show. However, the stimulation quickly falls apart as tensions arise between the two. Normally apartment episodes go allot smoother, as Troy is there to mediate the relationship between Abed and Annie, but since he's out of the picture having lunch with Britta, there's nothing stopping their very different personalities from clashing. Abed is an unemotional nerd with poor social skills who isn't good with women, and Annie is a headstrong young women who doesn't entirely understand guys. Annie really wants to get to know Abed better, so she can fix him and make him more empathetic, but she doesn't realize that she's hurting him in the process of doing so. Abed points this out by be different members of the study group. However, we're seeing them through Abed's eyes, so it make sense that he would know allot about Troy, for example, but have much less insight into the other members. The best part is the introspective ending, where Annie and Abed turn into each other and realize that their not so different. It's a great psychological investigation into the shows best character, one that I can relate to allot. Abed's pop culture obsessions aren't just because he's a nerd, they are a way for him to understand a world which is alien to him, just as he often seems alien to other people. But while, as per usual, there are a slew of references to the likes of Inception and Carson Daly, at its heart this episode has very little to do with pop or nerd culture, and much more to do with feelings and relationships- you know, girl stuff. Sure the way the episode wraps things up might be a bit unrealistic, and it's not for everyone, but since when has community ever been? Virtual Systems Analysis is, in my opinion, Community at its best. It brings back the relationship driven drama of season one without sacrificing the conceptualness of seasons two and three. Community would go downhill soon afterwards as Dan Harmon and various cast members leave in the later seasons, so it's really good that we got this great episode before that happened.
Review of Virtual Systems Analysis
