I LOVE BROAD CITY

HI GUYS! It's now a new year! Well, it has been for a while, but this is the first time I am posting in it on this here blog. Television is, basically, back with a vengeance now - most broadcast shows have returned from their winter breaks, and there's a slew of shows on basic cable that have just started new seasons. One of them is Broad City, which is currently my favorite show on television, a show that resonates extremely deeply with me despite it being, mostly, an incredibly silly comedy. But if you can't tell from everything I've posted about this blog, I really, really love comedy (I know, how boring), so to see it executed so freely and so perfectly on a weekly basis is kind of like, the best thing ever.

But what ultimately makes me love and connect with Broad City so much is because it's one of the few shows on television that lets its character be totally and completely free. The Abbi and Ilana of Broad City (which I assume are at least slightly different than the Abbi and Ilana of real life)  live completely by their ids, never worrying much about how they come off or societal pressures or how other people want them to live. They live for them. This is so refreshing not just because characters, and especially female characters, rarely get written like this, but because hardly any people actually live like this. Of course, there's good reason to - to be a functioning member of society, you need to think about other people, and concern yourself at least a little bit with what those other people think of you. But holy shit, is it fun to sit down and watch a show where no one cares about any of that. Even better, Abbi and Ilana aren't concerned with making their characters "TV ready" in terms of how they act and behave - they're honest, they're real, and they make you feel a little bit better about being a human being. So much of TV or film or art in general is often centered around the idea that there's a best version of yourself that you should be living, which is a nice idea but just winds up making you feel shitty in your moments where you're kind of falling apart. Broad City is here to remind you that there is no best version of yourself. There's just you. And that you is sometimes great, sometimes awful, sometimes a mess, sometimes covered in pepperspray while you're standing on the subway holding a shower pole. It wants you to know that all of that is okay, and that being you is okay. Even when it's not. And that's why I love Broad City.

Also, it's hilarious!

The weirdest, most wonderful TV moments of 2014

In our viral, millennial culture (ugh, someone punch me for that please), it's more important than ever to create individual scenes and moments that stick out and stay in our brains. 2014 saw so many oddly creative, completely weird, and totally surreal moments that have stuck with me, in some cases, for months and months, so I thought I'd make a quick list compiling the best, weirdest, most memorable TV moments of 2014 in no particular order.

Orange is the New Black - Morello's Backstory

(From Season 2, Episode 4: "A Whole Other Hole")

Through out all of the first season, we heard tales of Morello's fiance on the outside, sort of wondering why he never visited but nevertheless generally accepting her tales of a happy future outside of Litchfield. All of that was devastatingly destroyed in a single montage, which revealed that Morello's fiance is an ex that she spent years stalking and is continuing to do so, using the prison van to find his house, put on his real fiance's wedding dress, and live out the fantasy that she's convincing everyone is real. I couldn't find a clip of the actual scene, so just use this YouTube clip of "Almost Paradise", a cheesy love ballad that the show scored the scene with, turning it into a terrifying and heartbreaking cry for help.

Mad Men - Bert Cooper Serenades Don Draper

(From Season 7, Episode 7: "Waterloo") 

Some fairly major spoilers for Mad Men Season 7 follow, so if you haven't caught up, don't read. If you do read, then it's your own goddamn fault.  Some shows might put a tense cliffhanger as the close to the first half of their final season, but Mad Men, instead, decided to have a recently deceased character come back from the dead and serenade its protagonist about the soul-sucking contract he has just signed. And we wouldn't have it any other way.

Too Many Cooks

Too Many Cooks is an 11-minute short that premiered on Adult Swim's "Infomercial" block at 4 AM, got uploaded to YouTube by a bunch of stoners, and completely captivated the country for a few weeks. I don't need to explain why. I can't do it justice. I just need you to watch it. 

Community - Dean Pelton's Peanut Rap

(From Season 5, Episode 9: "VCR Maintenance and Educational Publishing") 

The Dean has had many different costumes over the years, but the best of them all came this season, when he dressed up as a peanut and offers an apology rap that quickly turns racial and disturbing. This is perhaps Jim Rash's best work ever, including that movie he won an Oscar for.

Rick and Morty - "Saturday Night Live of the Future" 

(From Season 1, Episode 8: "Rixty Minutes")

The "Rixty Minutes" episode of Rick and Morty is probably my favorite TV episode of the year, and part of that is due to the completely improvised intergalactic TV show ads. One of the best was what Rick and Morty imagines a futuristic SNL would look like, starring a bunch of inanimate objects and Bobby Moynihan. 

Bob's Burgers - "Work Hard or Die Tryin', Girl"

(From Season 5, Episode 1: "Work Hard or Die Tryin', Girl") 

Bob's Burgers produces some of the best music around, and that all came to a head when the show had Gene produce a musical that puts together Die Hard and Working Girl, creating the beautiful speicman known as..."Work Hard or Die Tryin', Girl."

Broad City - "Eight Fucking Thousand Dollars"

(From Season 1, Episode 9: "Apartment Hunters")

When Broad City opened its ninth episode with an elaborate music video parody, I was confused and thought I had changed the channel or something. Then I realized: nope. This is a music video, that they created, to showcase Abbi's $8,000 check from a dating service that used one of her drawings. It's wonderful, as is the snap back to reality after the fact.

Best TV of 2014

With a vast array of television shows to choose from each year, it seems a little bit redundant to declare each year the "best one" for the medium. And yet, every year it's hard not to do that, as the huge amount of content available to us produces so much amazing material that you have to get excited about it. The past few years of television have felt especially vital, too - they've been years of change, both in the television shows we consume with old stalwarts like Mad Men, 30 Rock, Breaking Bad, and Parks and Rec either ended or ending soon, to the way that the consumption of television is rapidly reinventing itself. This list features shows from network television, cable, and streaming services - a variety that would've been unthinkable even five or six years ago. So here I break down the top 20 shows that best captivated my interest this year. I went with 20 because there was so much good stuff on this year that I felt too bad leaving anything out. I know I'm indecisive, okay?! LEAVE ME ALONE.

ONE NOTE: I didn't put Last Week Tonight with John Oliver on this list because I always forget to categorize it as a TV show and not just, like, a way of life. But rest assured I love it. It's the best news-comedy hybrid on television right now, which is not nothing in a world with The Daily Show and the swan song of The Colbert Report. SORRY, JOHN OLIVER, but I love you anyway. Oh, and the same can be said of The Chris Gethard Show, which I also love but forget it's a television show and not just a hangout with some old, weird friends. I LOVE YOU TOO, CHRIS GETHARD. I LOVE EVERYTHING. Actually, I'm hoping to do an individual piece on The Chris Gehtard Show sooner rather than later so I'll give it the love it's due then. Until then, enjoy this list, if you want to!

20. Parks & Recreation

Now in its sixth season, it's only natural that Parks & Rec has lost some of the element of surprise from the time when it was a transcendent and refreshing spin on the old workplace comedy chestnut. But although this past season was probably the show's weakest, it still managed to be a funny, entertaining and consistently delightful half-hour, and considering the amount of affection we've stacked up for these characters over the years, that's enough to keep enjoying our time in Pawnee. Especially impressive was the shows' finale, which changed up its game quite considerably for its upcoming final season and proved that maybe it did have a few more tricks left in its bag after all.

Standout Episodes: "Ann and Chris", "Galentines' Day II", "Moving Up"

19. Black-ish

In a season that has made a strong case for the idea that cable has completely replaced network as the go-to for good comedy on TV, Black-ish has remained an important "except for...", as it's the only new network comedy this season that shows any sort of promise for the future of the medium. But Black-ish didn't earn the distinction of the seasons' best new comedy by default - it's a hilarious and creative family sitcom, one that balances social issues and family hijinks better than any show has managed to do in probably decades. Not only that, but the Johnsons are just a genuinely awesome family, the kind of TV family that you look forward to spending some time with every week. Shows like Black-ish are perhaps the last remaining argument for the worth of the network sitcom. Also, it's just really funny.

Standout Episodes: "Crazy Mom", "The Prank King", "Black Santa/White Christmas"

18. Archer

At the beginning of its fifth season, Archer unexpectedly blew the lid off of its entire premise, ditching the spy agency that had been so kind to it in the past four years and sending its characters on a crazy quest as newfound cocaine dealers. While the season didn't quite live up to the tall order that its premiere set up, it was still a reinvigorated season for the show, with a lot of interesting twists on character dynamics that were beginning to feel a little bit stale. As it heads into its sixth season with a return to the status quo mixed with some new surprises,  Archer feels like it's in solid hands, and it can thank some of the experimental done by Archer Vice for it.

Standout Episodes: "White Elephant", "Baby Shower", "Arrival/Departure"

17. New Girl

In the second half of its third season, New Girl showed some signs of losing its way. The Jess/Nick relationship, while entertaining, was beginning to push the other members of its ensemble out of the picture, and the show seemed to be struggling to balancing it with all of the other changes it integrated in the third season, such as the addition of Coach and new endeavors for Winston. Luckily, the show seemed to realize this and quickly course corrected in its fourth season, which might just be the most consistent season of the show yet, even if it doesn't reach the heights of the all-timer that was Season 2. Still, Season 4 of New Girl has managed to be a reliable dose of well-executed farce week after week, with a sprinkle of the characterization that made the show jump out in its early seasons. It may not be the world beater it once seemed to be, but damn if it isn't still one of the funniest shows on TV.

Standout Episodes: "Basketball", "The Last Wedding", "Background Check"

16. Community

With Dan Harmon back at the helm, 2014 was a comeback year for Community after the deep trenches of the gas leak year. While the show has definitely begun to feel like a late-in-life sitcom at times (see also: my Parks & Rec write-up) it still manages to pump out episodes that rank among the most daring things I've seen a half-hour sitcom attempted, and given how much experimentation the form recieved this year, that's actually a pretty big statement. The 5th season also turned out to be the final one of the show's run on NBC, as it moves to its new home on the internet next year, where it has always seemed destined to be. As long as it continue to pump out ideas as fresh and hilarious as commemorative sperm jars and MeowMeowBeenz, I'll support it wherever it goes.

Standout Episodes: "Cooperative Polygraphy", "Bondage and Beta Male Sexuality", "App Development and Condiments"

15. The Middle

Year after year, everyone forgets about The Middle when it comes time to do year-end lists, despite the fact that it has been one of the most consistently great network sitcoms for at least four seasons now. The show continuously manages to breath new life into the family sitcom format, portraying characters who are unique both for the form and for television in general, and by not pulling any punches when it comes to its honesty about the Hecks' financial situation and almost constant sense of conflict. As its characters age, The Middle is finding more and more ways to dig comic honesty out of the world of small-town America characters its created, and it's only continuing to be an absolute joy to watch.

Standout Episodes: "Major Anxiety", "The Sink Hole", "The Christmas Wall"

14. Brooklyn Nine-Nine

After a strong start last fall, Brooklyn Nine-Nine solidified its place this year as one of the best ensemble shows on all of television, with a cast that completely pulls its weight in every direction and an array of characters that are diverse not just in their ethnicity but in their approaches to the world in general. The second season of the show has done a great job of deepening the roots between these characters and examining their bonds while beginning to experiment a bit with longer-term plotting, even successfully toying around with the idea of romantic arcs (though not going too far in that direction yet, thankfully). Like Black-ish, Brooklyn Nine-Nine is proving the strength of a show with a great group of characters that you look forward to spending 22+ weeks a year with.

Standout Episodes: "The Bet", "The Road Trip", "The Pontiac Bandit Returns"

13. Louie 

After a too-long hiatus, Louie returned this year with its more ambitious season yet, a season that almost completely abandoned the shows' previous structure of short, contained stories and instead focused on developing longer and even feature-length arcs. Still, the shows' sense of hard truth and deep-rooted emotional turmoil continued as Louie explored his relationship with the various women in his life, from his daughters to longtime companion (and new girlfriend?) Pamela to his past relationship with his own mother. While this was arguably Louie's most inconsistent season yet, what it lacked in consistency it made up for in sheer ambition. 

Standout Episodes: "Model", "So Did the Fat Lady", "Into the Woods" 

12. Transparent

The first great show to be produced by Amazon Prime, Transparent - not unlike fellow streaming exclusive Orange is the New Black  - uses its niche delivery method to tell a story that would struggle to get attention from a major television network. In this case, it's the story of Maura Pfefferman, a transgender woman who has recently settled upon officially making the transition late in her life. Transparent's groundbreaking story of Maura alone was enough to make it one of the most captivating shows of the year, but the way it used Maura's revelation to deconstruct the rest of the Pfefferman clan's assumed gender and sexuality roles only added to the fact that this was one of the most intriguing new shows of the year.

Standout Episodes: "The Wilderness", "Symbolic Exempar", "Best New Girl"

11. Nathan for You

Nathan for You was one of the strangest and most delightful pieces of pop culture I consumed this year, constantly keeping me on the edge of my feet more than most drama series are capable of doing. The shows' unique mix of cringe comedy, mockumentary, and reality show spoof continuously come together to produce some of the most hilarious television I've ever seen. In Season 2, the show began to hit on points of genuine pathos, as it gradually turned into the story of desperate inclusion for its lonely host. There's absolutely nothing on television like Nathan for You, which is what makes it something you absolutely need to watch.

Standout Episodes: "Souvenir Shop/E.L.A.I.F.F", "Dumb Starbucks", "Daddy's Watching/Party Planner"

10. Doctor Who

It's hard for me to remain unbiased with a show like Doctor Who, a show that appeals so directly to each and every one of my personal preferences, but I don't think it's my bias speaking when I say that this season was one of the very best seasons the show has done to date. Peter Capaldi as the 12th Doctor has brought a new energy to the character, one that gets down to the anger and ache that always exists under the surface but is finally being brought out to the light. And also adding to a great season was Jenna Coleman, whose character Clara rebounded from some spotty characterization last season to become a really great antidote to the smarmy darkness that Capaldi brought to the table. The show used this perfect pairing to create a season that constantly put the very fabric of the show into question and reinvigorated the series to heights I wasn't even sure if it was still possible to reach. Capaldi is thankfully signed on for another season, and hopefully he can keep pushing the show into uncharted and exciting territory. 

Standout Episodes: "Listen", "Kill the Moon", "Flatline"

9. Review

2014 was full of great, alternative comedies that ripped apart the sitcom structure and created something new and meaningful out of it. Out of all of the shows, the one that went to the most delightfully weird places was Review, a show about star reviewer Forrest MacNeil and his quest to review everything that his shows' viewers throw at him. Review would be great even if it was just the satire of critics that it appeared to be on the surface, but it soon became a dark, morbid tale of a man destroying his entire life for the sake of a silly television show, become one of the funniest shows of the year, as well as one of the saddest, darkest, and most disturbing. If 2014 is remembered as the year alternative comedy came to dominate the cable airwaves, Review will be a proud, strange and beautiful artifact of that movement.

Standout Episodes: "Pancake, Divorce, Pancakes", "Best Friend/Space, "Road Rage/Orgy"

8. Veep

After two seasons of portraying Selena Meyer as a comically inept narcissist, Veep took it to the next level this year by portraying her as something truly disturbing: a possible presidential candidate. This gave the show an added levity to its already near-constantly firing machine of beautifully crafted insults and nihilistic political humor, as all of the massive and terrifying fuck-ups Selena and her team encountered now actually mattered. It also allowed the show to cover some heated topics like abortion and equality with its trademark dark humor that doesn't even try to fix anything but instead points out just how massively screwed up it all is. With a surprise twist at the end of the season, the next season of Veep proves to be even more of a depressing, hilarious and painful journey to political turmoil for Selena Meyer. 

Standout Episodes: "The Choice", "Alicia", "Debate"

7. The Americans

In Season 1, The Americans was a gripping spy thriller, an unprecented role reversal that took a deeper look into what we always perceived were the "bad guys" in the Cold War. In Season 2, the show took a leap and became not just a spy thriller (though it was still very good at being that) but an analysis of what its characters value, how much they value it, and a test of how far they were willing to go to preserve it. Kicking off with a gruesome murder in the season premiere, constant fear crept around the surface of The Americans this year as Phillip and Elizabeth began to wonder whether their career was putting their childrens' wellbeing at stake. It all cultivated in a huge, unprecedented twist in its season finale that will make the shows' third season answer some very, very tough questions.

Standout Episodes: "Comrades", "Behind the Red Door", "Martial Eagle"

6. Orange is the New Black

It was going to be nearly impossible for Orange is the New Black to top its first season, a total surprise that burst onto the scene and practically made us rethink the way we all watched television. And yet...Season 2 somehow managed to, or at the very least, managed to match it. The second season expanded upon the shows' already giant universe, filling in the backstories for beloved characters like Taystee and Suzanne while simultaneously giving shades to characters that fell under the radar in the first season but came into prominent fruition in Season 2, such as cancer patient Rosa - nearly an afterthought in Season 1 that wound up being one of the key heroes this year. Between the addition of Vee and the divide she placed in the prison to the continuing saga of Piper and Alex to the isolation of Red from her prison family to the shocking dismantling of our perceptions of Morello to the strange friendship of Healy and Pennssatucky, Season 2 continued to do its job of making each and every inmate at Litchfield feel like a fully-rounded person that truly matters, and that mindset is what separates Orange from nearly anything else on TV.

Standout Episodes: "A Whole Other Hole", "You Also Have a Pizza", "We Have Manners, We're Polite"

5. Rick and Morty

In a year of amazing comedy, Rick and Morty was a true highlight, a show bursting at the seams with creativity. Centered around the Back to the Future-esque adventures of grandfather Rick and his grandson Morty as they travel through time, space, and reality, Rick and Morty blended comedy and hard science fiction more successfully than any show this side of Futurama. Week after week, Rick and Morty took us to heights that seemed more ridiculous, more exciting and more amazing than anything we'd seen before, all while grounding itself in some genuinely moving family drama. That kind of balance is so incredibly hard to pull off, but Rick and Morty did it with aplomb, making me extremely eager to see what the show can come up with next.

Standout Episodes: "Lawnmower Dog", "Rixty Minutes", "Close Rick-counters of the Rick Kind"

4. Mad Men

Thanks to AMC scheduling tomfoolery, Mad Men only aired seven episodes in 2014, but those seven episodes were something of a revelation. After the turmoil of last years' finale, Season 7 dealt with an exploded status quo - one that spelled out a dark end for our "hero" Don Draper. And yet, these seven episodes turned out to be more than just Don's death knell. They were the start of what I'm sure will be a doozy of an ending, a collection of episodes that brought together seven seasons worth of relationships and put a magnifying glass to them, showing which relationships were true and once were sprinkled with the artificiality that the characters of Mad Men treat as a second language at this point. The final absurdist scene, featuring a dead Bert Cooper singing to Don about how "the best things in life are free", brought everything this season was to a close: strange, surprising, a little disturbing... and yet somehow making perfect sense.

Standout Episodes: "A Days' Work", "The Strategy", "Waterloo"

3. You're the Worst

Romantic comedy is an old chestnut at this point, so that only makes it even more surprising just how excellent You're the Worst turned out to be. By putting its leads together in the pilot and slowly deconstructing all of the expected romcom tropes, the show was able to focus in on its characters and create two people that we didn't just want to see get together, but that we just wanted to see, because they were both relatable, funny, and well-drawn characters. You're the Worst also benefited from being more than just Jimmy and Gretchen's story - Lindsay and Edgar served as supporting characters that gawk at the idea of just being supporting characters, demanding that Jimmy and Gretchen treat them on their own accord. Additionally, characters like Becca & Todd, Allan, and a special bookstore cat added to the mix to prove that You're the Worst wasn't just about Jimmy and Gretchen's relationship, it was also about the comical, screwed up world that they both inhabit, which only added to the richness of their compelling hook-up. Renewed for a second season, I'm really excited to see where You're the Worst will take that world when it returns next year.

Standout Episodes: "Sunday Funday", "Finish Your Milk", "Fists and Feet and Stuff"

2. Bob's Burgers

Another year, another string of amazing episodes with the Belchers, my favorite TV family with some of my absolute favorite TV characters. Bob's Burgers continued to deliver total acceptance in form of warm, weird, occasionally gross but always hysterical comedy, and this season saw the show produce some of its strongest and most creative ideas yet, from the My Little Pony spoof The Equestranauts that had some interesting things to say about cartoon fanbases, to a Working Girl/Die Hard musical entitled Work Hard or Die Trying, Girl, to a new and improved(?) use for baked beans. As you can see, I love a lot of television shows, so it means something when I say there's no show whose world I look forward to joining more than the loving and twisted world of Bob's Burgers.

Standout Episodes: "Mazel-tina", "The Equestranauts", "Dawn of the Peck"

1. Broad City

I've mentioned several times what an amazing year this was for comedy, and I don't think there's a show that represents that better than Broad City, which was the show I laughed at the most in 2014 and also introduced me and the rest of the world to the comic stylings of Abbi Jacobson and Ilana Glazer, whose humor offers a worldview that differs from anyone else's making television - both in terms of how upfront and honest it is about the struggles of young women in a big city (what other show would coin the phrase 'pussy weed'?) and in terms of just how beautifully, amazingly strange it is at every turn. The humor of Broad City is unlike any other - it's surreal yet grounded in some deep-rooted truth, it's smart and yet unafraid to appeal to its dirtiest impulses, and most importantly, it's just so fucking funny. This year in TV will be remembered as the year so many unique comic voices received a platform to share their stories, and the year that television proved there wasn't one specific way to tell a comedy story. And there's no better show that exemplified all of that than the fearless breath of fresh air that was Broad City.

Standout Episodes: "Working Girls", "Destination Wedding", "The Last Supper".

THERE'S MY LIST. Have a wonderful holiday season and watch all of these shows if you haven't. DO IT NOW.

ALERT ALERT BROAD CITY SEASON 2 TRALIER ALERT ALERT

EVERYONE STOP WHAT YOU'RE DOING. CANCEL ALL JOBS AND CLASSES ACROSS THE WORLD. THE BROAD CITY SEASON 2 TRAILER IS HERE.

If you haven't watched Season 1 of Broad City, DO IT NOW. Call in sick. Tell your friend that you died and can't go to lunch today. Or just tell them you have a bad case of diarrhea or something because it's only 10 episodes long and you could finish it in a day if you really tried! Broad City is the funniest show on television right now and one of the most original, creative comedies I've ever seen. If you still haven't seen it, it's not too late! You have two months to rectify that mistake before Season 2 premieres in January. So do it! Go! GO AND DON'T LOOK BACK.

Episode Reviews: Broad City - "Destination Wedding", Community - "VCR Maintenance and Educational Publishing", Parks & Recreation - "New Slogan"

Whoa! Three episode reviews in one! I really am trying to take this thing seriously, aren't I?!


Broad City - "Destination Wedding"

Due to its beginnings as a web series, Broad City came out more fully formed than most shows do. Right from the first episode, it had an incredibly clear sense of what it wanted to be, and its characters were fully realized people pretty much from the first time they appeared on screen. And yet, Broad City continues to impress me more and more each week. The past few episodes, in particular, have seen the show starting to make a lot of interesting experiments with its direction and editing. Add that to the experimentally hilarious humor that solidified the shows' status in the first place, and you have one of the freshest and most unique shows on television. All of that coalesced incredibly well in "Destination Wedding" - the shows' strongest episode yet, and one of my favorite episodes of television so far this year.

"Destination Wedding" was great for many reasons, but what made it such a stand-out was that it hit so well on all of the aspects that Broad City is best at. The show works so well as a twisted love letter to New York City, lovingly exploiting everything that makes the city such a unique place to live - both the good and the bad. "Destination Wedding" got much of its best material from doing just that, whether it be the dignified rush of Grand Central Station, or the deeply unpleasant establishment that is Penn Station, or the unique traveling method that is Citibiking, or the horror of a Chinatown bus...whatever it is, Broad City knows exactly how to take it and turn it into something unique to its own comic voice, whether it be by having Abbi's boyfriend break up with her when she tries to take him to Penn Station, or having Abbi get drenched in a bunch of rancid fish on the Chinatown bus, or whatever twisted and beautiful comic scenario Broad City comes up with that manages to sum up city life in the most weirdly perfect way possible. But the best part of the show - and what elevates the show to "truly great" status, I think - is the bond it forms between Ilana and Abbi. Broad City is full of so much purely comic material that the show could work just fine without it, but the genuine friendship that its leads share adds a layer of vulnerability to the shows' zany humor, and those two aspects conjoining makes for some really compelling television. I don't know if any moment highlights this better than when Ilana finds out about Abbi and Darcy made out. It's funny, sure, but the sound dropping out managed to add to the humor and make us feel Ilana's hurt in the situation. That the show then led that into a scene that made the dumping of rancid fish both funny and emotionally upsetting is a testament to the unique, hilarious and weird that makes watching Broad City such a special experience.

* * * * * (5 stars out of 5)

Community - "VCR Maintenance and Educational Publishing" 

The scene pictured here is one of the funniest scenes Community has ever done, and one of the hardest I've laughed all year. Seriously. Any doubts that Community is still funny should be eliminated by that scene. I could not stop laughing. If you haven't seen it, do it. You owe it to yourself. YouTube "Dean rap" or something. It was so funny that the rest of the episode could've been...I don't know, the puppet episode, and I could've still liked it a little bit.

Luckily, the rest of the episode was pretty good, too! I especially liked the Abed/Rachel material - Rachel is such a perfect match for Abed and Brie Larson is such a great match for Community that it bums me out that she has to go film movies and can't just be a permanent member of the study group (or you know, Save Greendale committee, or whatever). Ever since "Herstory of Dance" (pretty much the only S4 episode I can integrate with the rest of the show), I've been impressed with how the show uses Rachel to challenge Abed and force him to more carefully consider the feelings of others. That worked incredibly well here and also tied into how Abed is being forced to confront himself now that Troy is gone. Troy connected with him despite his difficulties connecting back, but he can't get as lucky with Rachel, and the results are proving to be interesting. I'm hoping we can get Rachel back for at least a few more episodes next season (assuming/hoping there is one), because it's a really fascinating dynamic.

I was slightly less sure of the rest of the episode. I liked Annie attempting to reconcile with her brother, but I wanted more of it. That's a plot that deserves its own episode - Annie being separated from her family is quite a sad story, and I've always wanted to hear more about it. I wasn't really a huge fan of the textbook plot, although it had plenty of funny moments and lots of great Shirley lines. It just never quite made an impact the way I like my Community plots to. It didn't have enough time to get to the bottom of the character work it was trying to, and the result was a fitfully funny plot that seemingly existed just to full some time and so we didn't spend the entire thing in Annie and Abed's apartment. Still, the Annie/Abed material - and the Dean in the cold open! - were more than enough to make this another solid addition to a very enjoyable season.

* * * * (4 stars out of 5)

Parks and Recreation - "New Slogan"

"New Slogan" had a lot of little moments that I really enjoyed - from the pictured cold open where the Parks department discovered the joys of Ben's new site for the city, to Andy's discovery of Duke Silver, to some sweet material with April, Donna, and Tom, but it felt like yet another episode of Parks that was just biding time. It regretfully followed the "Leslie faces a silly problem that she has to try to make right" formula that has been repeated ad nauseam on this show lately, and this time it seemed to realize that it was treading no new ground here, treating the entire "oh no, the slogan everyone's voting for is a joke written in by a radio show!" crisis as more of a ridiculous joke than a serious plot (and not a particularly funny ridiculous joke). The show tried to tie it into the overarching plot of Leslie considering leaving Pawnee for the National Parks Department, but it didn't really feel natural, and the episode itself didn't do much to advance that plot forward at all.

I still get some joy from watching these characters, and I'm genuinely interested to see where Leslie goes next, so I'm not going to stop watching this show or anything. But the more time goes on, the more it becomes obvious that Parks is just waiting around until it can start setting up its endgame here. Honestly, I wish the show would just start it already. I would love to have Leslie decide to take the job and have the next (and likely last) season follow her to Chicago (perhaps taking the Parks department with her). It would give the show a much needed refreshment.

Still, an episode like this does prove that there's fun left to be had with these characters. The cold open and Andy's rant were the hardest I've laughed at this show in quite a long time, and a visit from Duke Silver is never a bad thing. I wish there was a little more to Parks than light fun right now, but light fun isn't always the worst thing in the world.

* * * 1/2 (3 1/2 stars out of 5)

The Olympics are over and so is my social life

Hi, guys/girls/no one! The long, cold Sochi Olympics are finally over, meaning we get the warm embrace of television back into our lives. I thought I'd post a few quick thoughts about the shows that have returned over the past few days.

Hey, let's talk about Archer! Archer is having a really strong season and I'm impressed by how it continues to scope out new territories with its characters this far in its run. This weeks' episode was close with the last pre-Olympics one as my favorite so far this season, all thanks to the comedic stylings of the new, skinny Pam. The great thing about Pam is that, with all of her ridiculous antics (and there's a lot!), she really is the optimistic center of an often cynical show. That makes her a crucial part of the ensemble, and it also makes her such a delightfully unique mix of the "crazy one" and the emotional center. Pam/Archer has proved to be a surprisingly excellent pairing in the past, and they really shined in this episode, with Pam's earnest incompetence managing to both a) cut through Archer's cold, cold heart and b) cause the gang to lose 100 more pounds of cocaine. I am pretty sure they are not going to sell any cocaine this season, and that's fucking amazing. Archer Vice has been such a refreshing experiment, and while it hasn't been 100% perfect, it's been so much fun to watch that I'm willing to forgive all of its weaknesses. (Though I'd like some Lana development soon, please).

What's next? How about...New Girl? New Girl has widened its increasingly huge ensemble for a few episodes to make room for Jess's sister Abby, played by Linda Cardinelli, who possesses the strange ability to change ages depending on what show she's starring on. I didn't love the first episode she was appeared on (mostly because of an incredibly weak B-story that she had no part in, to be fair) but I thought tonight's was much better, even if it still felt a bit too busy. I enjoy the way Abby brings out some of Jess's less admirable qualities - it's a dynamic that brings back fond memories of the early standout episode "Jess and Julia" - but I feel like I need to see a bit more of it to make the impact the show wants it to make. What I really liked about this episode, though, was the dramatic stakes it raised for Winston. The show has quietly been putting together a really compelling arc for Winston this season (even if it's been a little hidden among all of the Jess/Nick and Coach going-ons) and it feels like it's starting to come to a head. New Girl is often at its best when its characters are at their worst, so having Winston truly hit rock bottom may prove to be really fruitful for the character. Even when New Girl isn't getting everything right, I appreciate the way it manages to dig into the emotional root of its characters.

That's a good segway into Brooklyn Nine-Nine, a very good show that is showing signs of becoming a great one. Brooklyn Nine-Nine roared out of the gate as a fully formed and immediately hilarious show, but as the shows' acclaim accumulated, I noticed that the show started to coast a little bit. It was never bad, but it sort of just let its characters be, not pushing them forward as you expect a comedy at this stage would. Luckily, the past few episodes (starting with the excellent episode surrounding around Holt's birthday) have started to change this, and tonights' episode was one of the strongest examples of this thus far, simply because it introduced some interesting new concepts about its characters. The most interesting choice the show made was pairing Jake and Gina together  - as the two more outlandish members of the precinct, you'd expect their story to be grating and over-the-top, but instead it wound up bringing out some of the better qualities of both of them, and introduced new directions for both characters to go in. Showing Jake's desperate financial situation gives his character a weakness we haven't seen before (and one a lot stronger than the shows' constant reminders that hey, Jake was a little sad as a kid!), and I really love the way the show is allowing Gina to be weird but also be a functioning human being. I hope we get more stories from these two in the future, especially since APPARENTLY THEY WERE CHILDHOOD FRIENDS. (Has the show ever mentioned this before?!). The other stories were also fairly excellent - Santiago admitting she cares too much about what Holt thinks of her was something we've all known, but having her admit it was kind of an interesting character move. (But not as interesting as her SHAME CIGARETTES!) And I like that the show seems to already be moving on from the Rosa/Boyle romance with no looking back. Let's keep that, please. It's refreshing.

And finally, I need to give a shout out to two new shows that have really been killing it lately - Broad City and Rick and Morty. Broad City is a legimiate contender for the funniest show on TV right now, and it's made my life a lot brighter by introducing me to Ilana Glazer and Abi Jacobbson. I cannot properly express how hilarious they are, and the show itself is a really interesting and unique look at what it's like to be broke in New York in a way that is much better than 2 Broke Girls (obviously) and a bit more endearing than Girls. The show takes a Louie-style approach to the "two girls trying to make it in the big city" style, and it ends up with a constant feed of weird, hilarious, and even occasionally poignant (though usually through perfectly surrealist gags) commentary on getting through daily life when you're young and broke and a little bit lost. As for Rick and Morty, while I haven't seen all of it yet, what I have seen is a pretty fucking crazy spin on the old Back to the Future formula. It manages to make me laugh while blowing my mind with its legitimately intriguing sci-fci concepts. In the most recent episode, the show actually reset its own reality by suggesting that it was now taking place in a new, but parallel, universe - because its protagonist died in his previous one. ALSO, ONE EPISODE HAD A DOG AND IT WAS GREAT.

That's all for now. Oh, also, I watched About a Boy and it wasn't that good. That's all!