Review by Slewo

After five tumultuous (both in-universe and real life) seasons, you’d have never expected Community to be able to live up to the fan-generated promise of “six seasons and a movie.” And yet here we are, on a sixth season. As per usual with Community though, there’s some stark differences, and in this case the delivery format is a brand new one. While Community was cancelled by NBC at the end of last year’s season, the show was picked by Yahoo for its Yahoo Screens service, and while I may had some initial trepidation on how this would change the show, I’m happy to say those fears were unfounded. The show does its best to swiftly catch people up on the events of the last season, but it doesn’t waste any time getting back to business and continuing where we left off.

While it was inevitable that the gaping hole left in the cast by the departures of Chevy Chase, Donald Glover, Jonathan Banks, John Oliver, and now Yvette Nicole Brown would leave wounds in the makeup of the cast, the script does what it can to address these problems. Thankfully, it leaves the door open for any of the exiting cast members to return (even the vanished Pierce hologram!) in the future and doesn’t sweep the show’s history out the door, and while it is always awkward to attempt to introduce new cast members to fill voids, Community thrives off such conflict and makes that the central conceit for the episode… along with ladders and prohibition era speakeasies.

That being said though, despite having to spend some time managing the logistical issues such as departing cast, the episode is amazing. Joe and Anthony Russo, late off their victory lap from Captain America: The Winter Soldier return to Community to direct the premiere episode of this season, and even on whatever budget exists for the show on Yahoo; they make the most of it and open the episode with a bang. Unlike Repilot, the show doesn’t suffer from having to overcompensate with hand waves. As for the cast themselves, everyone is in prime form. After 5 seasons of playing these characters, Joel McHale, Gillian Jacobs, Allison Brie, Danny Pudi, and Jim Rash have long passed breaking in their character and embody what makes the show so great.

The episode’s story itself is fairly standard for community, aside from the transitional nature of the episode which helps it stand out. Where season 5 suffered from having to walk back previous events, season 6 excels at acknowledging its flaws and attempting to move forward while having some stealing glances back. While Frankie is not an immediate squeeze into the group from the eyes of the characters, she’s slowly revealed to be a person more at home in Greendale than previously suspected, such is the transformative nature of Greendale (and television for that matter). It also helps that with Greendale constantly in a state of havoc and disrepair, eventually the topic of how there is even an insurance policy would have to be broached. I won’t give away too much about the specifics of the episode itself, but there’s plenty to be had here. And for the people who were worried about whether Community has finally hit its breaking point, I can say with all certainty that there’s plenty left to be said on the men and women in Greendale. If every episode has quality like this, go beyond six seasons and a movie.