Friday, February 28, 2014

5x07 "Bondage and Beta Male Sexuality" (Of Pettiness, Manipulation, and Handcuffs)


"Bondage and Beta Male Sexuality"
Original Airdate: February 27, 2014

I don’t think that anyone likes to believe that they’re a petty or manipulative person. I really don’t. But what’s funny is that children are petty and manipulative (don’t get me wrong, they’re also adorable and often pretty wise) without ever having to be taught those characteristics. My mom is a pre-school teacher and I’ve visited her classroom on multiple occasions. If you enter, you’ll find children playing and coloring and building with blocks. And, nine times out of ten, you’ll find one child playing with a toy longer than another. Then there will be inevitable complaints and children whining about how they don’t WANT to share. My mom is a great teacher, so she reminds the children about how sharing or, alternatively, not sharing actually has nothing to do with the toy. It has everything to do with how selfishness makes the other person feel. She’ll tell the children to look at their friend and apologize. Children never have to be taught to be selfish, you see. It’s this innate quality they possess that lingers with us through adulthood. Here’s something else about children: they don’t like time-outs. They really don’t. If you’re around children long enough, you’ll realize that they don’t like punishment, even when they know they’re in the wrong (who does, really?). So here’s what children do: they say the magic words in hopes that through apology, their parents will lessen the punishment. They do this into their teenage years and adulthood and it’s this subtle little form of manipulation that we see play out in Community’s first post-Olympics episode titled “Bondage and Beta Male Sexuality.” In this week’s episode, say goodbye to Shirley and Annie who disappear at McDonald’s, but say hello to potential ghosts, the ghosts of Britta’s past, and cartoon ducks. That’s right – only on Community.

Cards on the table: I didn’t really enjoy this episode. It took me a while to pinpoint WHY I had an issue with it and why I’ve felt like this season has been a bit off for me, personally. But after talking with Jaime last night, she articulated exactly what the series’ issue is at the moment: there’s a lot of episode “growth” but that growth is never really arced over the seasons and is, instead, isolated to an individual episode. It’s this stop-and-start momentum that Community does a lot of the time where they say “Oh! This episode will focus on Shirley growing” and “Now this episode will focus on Jeff and Annie growing” or “This episode will be devoted to Abed growing,” and while that is great – while I applaud the show for trying, at least, to dedicate episodes to character growth – there is an inherent problem there. The problem is that this “growth” dissipates between seasons. This emotional nugget of character growth is extracted in an often rather heavy-handed way for a short period of time and it makes us believe that Jeff has grown and matured from the pilot to season five and it makes us believe Abed now understands that actions have consequences but… the problem is that since the growth is isolated to only an episode, it allows for Bobrow to tell us that Jeff doesn’t really believe he can be happy in a relationship, right? Because the fact of the matter is that Jeff MAY have grown in an episode by learning to become a better person or something, but the writers clearly don’t see that growth as significant enough to arc from season to season.

This is the problem I had with “Bondage and Beta Male Sexuality.” The A-storyline provided us with some beautiful Britta Perry moments, but the Jeff “resolution” felt a bit flat to me. Suddenly I’m meant to believe that Jeff is just as petty as he was during Community’s first season. While I could have easily been aboard that belief in season one, it’s four years later and I now see Jeff differently but… am I not supposed to? Am I still supposed to, as Bobrow said during the Jeff/Annie Twitter debacle, believe that Jeff sabotages himself and relationships? Jeff Winger will always be selfish but it’s an area he’s grown in and this week’s inferred message regarding our antihero-turned-hero is that Jeff really HASN’T grown up that much. It’s a rather jarring message for me to try and wrap my head around, and the episode attempts to resolve the arc (slightly) by showing Jeff backing off from pursuing Britta to let Duncan do so. I guess that the message was a bit murky for me and required a lot of inference and maybe I was just too tired to try and do that last night, but either way this aspect of the A-story (as well as the rather befuddling and straight up weird resolution to the C-story) were why I couldn’t entirely connect with the episode.

So “Bondage and Beta Male Sexuality” focuses on a few different plots, each of which seem to center on the notion that there is something within us that drives us to be selfish, but also something within us that is uncertain of who we really are. And the fact is that maybe those two things are inextricably linked. The episode opens with Duncan asking Jeff how to best pursue Britta. The professor wants to seduce the blonde and it’s mostly just because he knows how much Britta detests him. So Jeff lays the groundwork for Duncan to get together with his former bed-partner by explaining that in order to get with Britta, you need to THINK like Britta. It’s a nice trip down memory lane when we remember how little season one Jeff cared about the causes Britta supported (“Spanish 101”) and how much he only cared about getting with her.

So when the study group is sitting around the table and Duncan explains that there is a benefit at a local theatre to help starving children with cleft palates… well, Jeff knows that his British friend is in with Britta. It’s important to note that at this point, Duncan doesn’t really care about Britta or the cause or anything except tricking her into being with him. A slight problem arises when the rest of the study group, sans Abed and Hickey, agree to go to the benefit too. Duncan panics and Jeff panics and Duncan doesn’t help Jeff in that state of panic by providing him with a way out. What have I always said the most important thing to remember about Jeff is? Answer: Jeff has an ego. We’ve seen his ego before and I can guarantee that we will see it present itself again. So when Duncan flounders and cannot help Jeff look good with an excuse as to why he can’t attend the benefit, Jeff’s ego becomes bruised and damaged and he does what he does best in those circumstances – he fights back and decides that he WILL attend the benefit after all. Ah, sabotage and manipulation were both key pieces in New Girl and Community this week. And just like New Girl’s episode, Community’s finds manipulation and deceit causing a snowball effect in the storylines.

At the event’s after-party, Duncan is chatting it up with Britta until the young woman notices some friends across the room from her anarchist days. She fears that they’re going to realize that she’s now a sell-out and decides to stride across the room anyway and talk to them. Britta is, admittedly, a character I’ve always underestimated. But every now and then, Community recognizes how integral she is to the study group and they center episodes around that notion. But what was great about “Bondage and Beta Male Sexuality” was this: it focused on Britta’s identity apart from the study group. It focused on her as a PERSON, not her as 1/7th of an entity. I think that’s probably the thing I enjoyed most about this episode, to be honest, and probably why I felt emotionally connected to Britta throughout it. So as Britta mingles with her friends, Duncan prepares his move and Jeff prepares to ditch the rest of the party.

… Until Michael, anarchist friend of Britta, decides to pull the young woman into the middle of the floor and heap compliments upon her. And when Britta decides to deliver a speech, it is sweet and heartfelt. She talks about living from your heart and to being true to that person. What happens next is interesting, to say the least. Jeff suddenly becomes entranced (it’s really the best word to describe his reaction) with Britta and with the idea of having her again. Now, it’s important to note a few things about this: 1) Jeff wants Britta partially because she’s suddenly popular at the after-party. He wants the things that other people like. He made Troy give up the prospect of wearing turtle necks so he could keep that option open for himself in the future (“Urban Matrimony and the Sandwich Arts”). Jeff is like a child with a toy; he doesn’t want the toy necessarily, but he also wants to be in control of whatever happens to it. 2) Jeff wants Britta partially because he is mad at Duncan. I fully believe that if Duncan had spared Jeff at the beginning of the episode instead of making him into a scapegoat, Jeff would have had no interest in Britta. But, as it were, Jeff needed to win and to crush Duncan and knew that if it was a choice between himself and the professor… well, obviously Britta would choose him.

It’s something that Jeff has practiced since “Anthropology 101” (this selfish desire to beat other people and use Britta to do so), and I’m rather disappointed that Jeff’s motives for pursuing the blonde (I should say “pursue” as he doesn’t actually do anything) were never explicitly stated. As such, I’m going to just assume my two-fold reasoning is correct and leave it at that. I would have hoped that Jeff’s character would be a bit more defined in this episode than this but I guess I’ll let it slide, writers. I’m not happy about it though. (Note my unhappy face.)

Elsewhere in the episode, there is an Abed/Hickey story that is both sad and poignant and ultimately pretty well-handled. Abed is headed to see the reboot of the Kickpuncher franchise and he’s missing Troy pretty terribly. We, too, miss Troy when we see Abed dress up with no one there to enjoy this with. So Abed hears Hickey groan in frustration in his office and enters to determine what the professor is up to. Abed is bored. But it’s more than that – Abed is LONELY. And he chooses to isolate himself in this episode by going to the movie, rather than spend time with the rest of his friends at the theatre. He consciously makes the decision to go alone, because I think there’s a part of him that feels like Troy is still with him, and it’s not until this episode that Abed realizes this isn’t true. It’s like… it’s like Abed has the phenomenon that often happens to amputees when they lose an arm or a leg. It’s something they often describe as having a “phantom limb.” Though that particular part of the body is missing, they still FEEL it.

It’s when Abed is in the hall that he realizes that this phantom limb is what he’s been avoiding addressing. He still feels like Troy is with him, but his best friend is gone. And so, like most of us, Abed busies himself with trying to make a new connection to fill the void. His attempt to bond with Hickey goes awry when his costume accidentally sprays foam all over the professor’s papers. Hickey is really upset. Like… REALLY upset. And while Abed looks a bit horrorstruck at the damage, he prepares to bolt to get to his movie on time, until Hickey handcuffs the young man to a filing cabinet. It’s then that Hickey brings up the subject of how people treat Abed: they treat him delicately, tip-toeing around the consequences of his behavior because they’re afraid he will snap. It’s a subject I explored rather vigorously in my “Contemporary Impressionists” review. DOES Abed ever have to really face consequences for his actions? Do people treat him like he’s damaged and automatically exempt him from paying for his crimes? The answer is yes, people DO tip-toe around the filmmaker and it’s evidenced in the fact that he behaves exactly like a child does when they’re being punished for the first time. Even after Abed apologizes later on in the episode for his actions, he still just presumes that his words will exempt him from totally paying the price of his mistake. And instead of just punishment, Abed sees Hickey’s action as “control.” Oh, how I could write a novel about my feelings regarding Abed and control (and I almost did in my “Virtual Systems Analysis”) review, but it is SO important to understand that this is how Abed sees punishment. He sees it as someone trying to control him.

Now, neither Hickey nor Abed were entirely right in their actions throughout the episode (Hickey is vindictive, while Abed is dismissive), but that is to be expected. After all, they’re both flawed. Hickey accuses Abed of being careless – of merely doing things and then “apologizing” because he knows he’ll never face consequences for his actions. And Abed accuses Hickey of punishing him just for the sake of being mean. And when Hickey reveals that everyone walks on eggshells around Abed and Abed counters with the accusation that Hickey is bullying, the professor lets it slip that Abed destroyed drawings of his. After a moment, Abed realizes that he might have actually done something unintentionally hurtful and caused damage to something valuable to Hickey. (For the record, I thought the development between Hickey and Abed as individuals and friends was rather flawless, albeit painful at times.)

Speaking of flawed, back at the after-party, Britta is talking with her friends and confesses that she sold out on being an anarchist and a rebel and a social justice crusader. Her friends admit that they actually were the ones to sell out and got into real estate. As it turns out, they own the theatre. Here’s what’s so great about the Britta part of this story in a nutshell: Britta is brave. Throughout this entire episode, she could have shied away from talking to her friends and avoided their questions, but she is brave and honest and though she’s ashamed that she’s not successful by their standards, she doesn’t lie about who she is as a person. She takes her own words to heart and for someone who told Jeff in “Modern Warfare” that she was afraid of not being compassionate, Britta has sure learned to face her fears and to be who she is. Meanwhile, Jeff and Duncan have regressed into a childlike competition, because Jeff claims he now wants Britta because she’s wanted by everyone else. Excuse me a moment. Duncan and Jeff then argue about how the other is a bad friend for competing and you know what? They’re both right because they’re both bad friends. Shame on  you both for being so petty (and that realization will come back around at the end)!

Nevertheless, Jeff withdraws from the competition for one hour and tells Duncan that he has until then to woo Britta or else he’ll step in. Back at Greendale, Abed is irritated that he has to be chained to the filing cabinet and Hickey is growing more snarky by the minute, so he shows Abed his drawings in order to prove that he isn’t ashamed of his art. It’s important to remember this about Hickey: he’s proud and he’s gruff and he likes proving himself to people. Abed actually likes the cartoons and the two begin to form a bond over them.

Back at the party, Britta is energetically discussing a billboard for perfume that she hates with her former co-conspirators and discusses how they all should go vandalize the thing and stick it to the man like the good ‘ol days. Proving your worth is a common theme in Community and it’s a common theme in this episode: Hickey wants to prove he’s tough, while Britta wants to prove that she’s not a sell-out. But who, exactly, does she want to prove this to? The answer, of course, is her “friends.” As it turns out, these friends don’t truly respect or care about her. They think that because they’re wealthier, they’re somehow better than she is. They grew from the same place; they fought in the same fights and Britta is crushed when she learns that they believe she can take risks because she has absolutely nothing to lose. They view her as rock bottom and they view themselves as somehow above her because they’ve made more out of their lives than she has. They’re wealthy, successful people who pose as activists. And poor Britta – poor, beautiful tropical fish Britta Perry – spent her entire life pretending to be an activist and fighting causes just for the sake of fighting. She’s finally headed down a career path and trying to make something out of the mess that was once her life and… yet there are road blocks: there are these “friends” who try to convince her that she’s still not good enough and she never will be until she rises to their level.

This visibly crushes Britta and Duncan – ready to take advantage of her vulnerability – swoops in and offers her a ride. At the bar, Jeff looks at his watch and it beeps, indicating that an hour is up as Duncan and Britta leave. The reaction that Jeff has is interesting because it’s not one of defeat or even resignation. It’s accepting; it’s understanding and he actually laughs a bit under his breath and smiles. And that’s what somehow makes me believe (maybe in my #pathological heart) that Jeff was never interested in Britta again and was just interested in the chase.

So here’s what’s happening back at Greendale: Abed is lying because – as he will reveal in a moment – he doesn’t think Hickey’s drawings are really good but he knows a plot resolution if he sees one and is itching to say whatever it takes to get himself out of the handcuffs, even if he doesn’t mean it. Hickey apologizes and then Abed apologizes and… Hickey keeps Abed in the handcuffs. This is what finally sets the filmmaker off as he rails against Hickey and touches a few nerves in the process. Essentially, what Abed pinpoints is the idea that Hickey isn’t happy and he isn’t joyful and he isn’t creative and his WORK reflects that. Abed would know a lot about creative work, of course, and there’s something Abed is missing from his own life that Hickey adds: severity and worldly experience. Abed also pinpoints how lonely Hickey is  (while explaining that he can neither feel nor understand loneliness – a lie, of course, as the reason he sought Hickey out in the first place was because of that emotion). The fighting then escalates to yelling, which culminates in Abed shouting: “You made me miss my movie!” He then repeats it slowly and quietly to himself and we realize what Abed does in that moment: he wounded Hickey because he was being selfish and stupid over a MOVIE; because he COULD. He did exactly what Hickey had done throughout the episode. Abed didn’t punish Hickey for something he did wrong, necessarily. He hurt him because it made himself feel better. Hickey then decides to let Abed go.

In the car, Duncan is trying to get on Britta’s good side but the young woman is wrecked from her earlier conversation with her so-called “friends.” It’s then that the young woman begins to have her own existential crisis about WHAT she has been doing her entire life. Britta, as she reveals, has been defining herself by reactions to and from her friends her entire life. She’s done and said things because she wanted them to approve of her or to cheer for her or to LIKE her. But as she sits in the car, Britta reveals how worthless she feels in relation to those people. And if she feels worthless to them, then that means they’re not really her friends. (I felt so bad for Britta during this moment. We rarely get to see Britta’s insecurities surface like they did in “Modern Warfare” and “The Science of Illusion,” but Britta is always seeking the approval of others and they’re always dismissing her. How would that weigh on a person, do you think?)

But when Britta asks Duncan who his friends are and the professor mentions Jeff, Britta interrupts: she vocalizes how she often forgets that he and Jeff have known each other for so long, longer than anyone in the current group has known anyone else. She explains that this is probably because Jeff and Duncan don’t ACT like friends. And it is then that Duncan has his own beautiful moment of realization: even if Jeff wasn’t acting like friend, it didn’t matter. HE – Duncan – wasn’t treating Jeff the way that friends should throughout the episode. And in a lovely turn of events and bit of growth for Duncan, he drops the vulnerable Britta off at her own home and then returns to the after-party to seek out Jeff. I loved seeing this moment of character growth in Duncan. I think it exemplified to Jeff and to us all that Duncan DOES care about people other than himself and things other than merely getting Britta to like him. And it was certainly a nice way to re-bridge a friendship (Jeff/Duncan) that we never really spent a lot of time establishing in the first place.

Abed returns to Hickey’s office with an apology and an offer – he wrote a script and needs “substance.” That’s where Hickey comes in, as Abed extends the offer to him to become film partners on a movie about a cop on the edge. After all is said and done, Abed apologizes to Hickey and the professor does likewise. But here is the most significant thing about those apologies: they’re real and genuine. They were given when there was nothing to gain for either party and THAT is what makes them beautiful.

The study group reconvenes after the events of the night before, bonded together in new pairings and ways (Shirley/Annie had a McDonald’s story together apparently; Hickey/Abed; and Jeff/Duncan enter the room after having had a “bro’s night in”). I think that if there is anything to take from “Bondage and Beta Male Sexuality” it would be this: you don’t HAVE to be selfish. You don’t have to be manipulative. Heck, you don’t even have to be trapped or confined or controlled by anyone. What Britta said in this episode is true – you need to focus on who you are and who you REALLY are as a person. Act like the person you want to become and eventually that’s who you will be.

Additional de-lovely aspects about the episode include:
  • There’s a WHOLE Chang story that I didn’t even go into, but it’s about ghosts and Chang doing a one-man show. It goes about as well as you think it would.
  • “Have you met the people that DO like me, Jeff? Neither have I but they’re bad people.”
  • “We’ve had our share of focus lately.” “M-hmm. Speak for yourself.” META COMMENTARY ABOUT LACK OF SHIRLEY STORIES. BLESS.
  • The tag was the best thing ever.
All right, friends. Thank you so much for sticking around for this review. I’ll be back next week when I review “App Development and Condiments.” Until then! :)

6 comments:

  1. Good Review and I agree. I did not like how the writers wrote Jeff in this ep. It felt like a step way back. (Though I did love Abed/Hickey story arc and John Oliver was really good as well.)

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  2. Others have speculated that the whole Jeff thing last night was mostly to get Duncan to act on his feelings. After rewatching I think I agree (if you listen to when he's first "interested" in her you'll notice that his voice is awfully flat for someone so overcome by desire). And after Duncan goes off with Britta he smiles as he looks down at his watch, which I took to mean as a sort of "my job here is done". It would be such an odd choice otherwise (They dropped the Britta/Jeff storyline seasons ago after all). I don't think they were reverting to season 1 Jeff there.

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    1. Thanks for your response, Derek! I can begin to wrap my head around the idea that Jeff was merely trying to get Duncan to make a move but... there's something still a bit unsettling and unclear in that. He DOES smile as he looks down at his watch but then there's the whole confession scene about him wanting Britta now that everyone else wants her. It's a bit more difficult to dismiss that entire scene as Jeff lying to himself when - mere minutes earlier - Duncan was about to act on his feelings anyway until Jeff decided to stay at the bar. If Jeff hadn't actively decided to leave until Britta's little moment of triumph, I would be wholeheartedly aboard the notion that he was helping Duncan by feigning jealousy. As it were, I know the show's history of flip-flopping with this pairing (I know they dropped JB and YOU know they dropped JB but in the back of my mind, it seems like they're still priming them for us -- the new Thursday night promo featured a clip from an upcoming episode that has Jeff putting his arm around Britta while saying "we're getting married." Out of context, of course, this could be anything but still.)

      I appreciate your comment and feedback! I sure hope we've dropped the petty!Jeff from season one completely, but this episode just unsettled me in regards to that notion.

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    2. It's sort of a shame because it did detract a bit from the really wonderful Britta storyline no matter what the intention was. It was such an A episode for me otherwise. The one thing I hate the most about the 13 episode seasons is that they have to compress so much into those episodes that a lot of plot points fly by. Maybe in a 22 episode season the Duncan/Britta story would've had more nuance. Another thing to blame NBC for

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    3. I agree! That is literally the most I have connected with Britta in years and she was an absolute stand-out. The B-story was very solid but yeah, for me it was just that unfortunate fact that when you try too hard to compress the characters into these stories with the episode restrictions, sometimes you just can't make it work. And for me, the non-resolution is what did it.

      I agree -- if they had 10 more episodes, there could be a LOT more that could be improved upon and done. But alas, NBC. :|

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  3. Another great review (as always). If you were to hazard a guess, how do you think things are going to go with Jeff and Britta over the rest of the season? I'd love to think that this is just a momentary lapse but I'm feeling very apprehensive about it all. If anyone needs me I'll be in my corner chanting (pathologically) "that's where the power is, that's where the power is".

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