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"Advanced Introduction to Finality" is the thirteenth episode and the season finale of the fourth season of the NBC sitcom Community. It originally aired on May 9, 2013.
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In this episode, Jeff is set to graduate and expects things to go quietly. But when the darkest timeline breaks through, the evil counterparts try and make things messy.
Synopsis
Jeff's old partner, Mark, offers Jeff a partnership, saying his skills as a lawyer are as sharp as ever. Back on campus, the study group reveals they made a party in Jeff's honor because he is graduating and suggest having a wedding-like party. Jeff meets with Britta and reveals that he is conflicted about leaving Greendale. He then hatches a plan to bring out Abed's instability by leveraging his delusions about multiple timelines.
Jeff suggests rolling a die to determine who will bring soda to the party. When he rolls the die it lands on the seam between tables, not landing on any number. When this happens, Evil Jeff appears in the Dean's office. In order to push Jeff toward taking the new job, Evil Jeff sets out to alienate Jeff against the rest of the study group. Evil Jeff first insults Annie who then runs away upset when she later encounters Jeff. When Jeff tries to apologize to Annie he unknowingly meets up with Evil Annie, who accepts his apology but steals his phone during a hug.
Abed walks into Evil Jeff and immediately knows who he truly is. Evil Jeff shoots Abed with a paintball gun, sending Abed to the darkest timeline. Abed meets his evil counterpart (who is no longer evil). Evil Abed gives Abed some paintball guns in order to shoot the doubles and transport them back to the darkest timeline.
Evil Jeff goes on to insult and "unvite" the rest of the group to his graduation ceremony. Jeff arrives at his ceremony and is surprised to find no one there until the Dean (in a wedding dress) shows up crying and throws his diploma at him. Evil Annie arrives holding Jeff's phone and says that he has a message from his old partner and that he should return the phone call. When he decides to go after his friends instead, Evil Jeff shows up and threatens him with a paintball gun.
When Jeff arrives at Troy and Abed's apartment, he tries to explain his behavior, but nobody believes him until Abed shows up and convinces the others that Jeff is actually telling the truth. Meanwhile, the Evil Study Group (minus Evil Abed) arrive in the prime timeline and meet Evil Pierce who apparently faked his death, and now has a metal unicycle leg and crutches. They discuss their plans for the study group until Evil Pierce and Evil Britta accidentally shoot themselves and are sent back to the darkest timeline. The real study group then shows up and proceeds to eliminate their evil doppelgangers one by one.
With only Evil Jeff left, Abed explains to Jeff that he was stressed about graduation because he thought that Greendale didn't change him; however, thanks to Abed, Jeff realizes that he now has friends and that made his life better. He manages to defeat Evil Jeff and send him back to his own reality. The scene then reverts to the moment that Jeff decided to throw the die (revealing that the events of the episode took place in his own mind), and he instead decides against tossing it. His graduation ceremony then takes place in the study room with the group (sans Pierce), Dean Pelton, the Greendale Human Being, Magnitude, Quendra, Leonard, Garrett, Todd, Fat Neil, and Vicky.
Jeff gives a heartfelt speech about his time at Greendale but during the ceremony, Pierce breaks in, announcing his intention to graduate first. Jeff announces that he will not be taking the job with his old law firm, but will seek a job at a smaller firm close by so he can stop in on the group whenever he wants.
In the tag, "Evil Troy and Abed In The Morning" check in on timeline 5 and show us that Britta and Troy have a baby named Chewbacca (an "African" name meaning "He who hunts bounties"). Evil Jeff appears, saying that the show Evil Troy and Evil Abed host is not watched by anybody and does not exist anymore, to which Evil Troy and Evil Abed shrug in agreement, but smile to the camera and sing their theme song anyway.
Continuity
- Jeff talks to his former work colleague about not trying cases other than "yams and sandwiches." This is a reference to both "Basic Lupine Urology" (Season 3, Episode 17) where Jeff is in a mock trial over who destroyed the study group's yam experiment, and Introduction to Finality where Jeff spoke for Shirley against Pierce in an another mock trial ran by Dean Pelton over who own's Shirley's sandwich shop.
- The study group's evil doppelgangers cross over and return from the Darkest Timeline. The timeline plot point was introduced in Remedial Chaos Theory after the roll of a die to decide who would collect the delivered pizza.
- In the "darkest timeline" Chang still runs the school with the "Doppledeaner" still posing as Dean Pelton as seen in The First Chang Dynasty.
- When revealing to Jeff that the events of this episode after his die roll have taken place in his imagination, Abed asks him not to use logic because "we finally found a way to make paintball cool again." Paintball was previously featured in the episodes Modern Warfare, A Fistful of Paintballs and For a Few Paintballs More.
- Greendale is listed in the closing scene right after Jeff's graduation as being "Est. 1974" which conflicts with episode 11 of the season, "Basic Human Anatomy", where it is revealed that Leonard had been at Greendale since 1968.
Cultural references
- Jeff and Mark refer to each other as Tango and Cash, respectively.
- Evil Jeff teleports across timelines in a style similar to that used in The Terminator[1]
- Jeff stops a paintball bullet in mid-air like Neo does in The Matrix[2]
- Evil Abed tells Abed that The Cape has been running for at least three seasons. In reality, it was cancelled after its first.
- When Troy shoots evil Troy, the latter has enough time to say "almost.. ballin'" before he disappears. This is then followed by Troy saying "baller". In his music, Childish Gambino (Donald Glover, Troy's actor) constantly refers to being "baller".
Production
The season finale aired as the thirteenth episode, but was the eleventh episode produced.[3]
This is the second "Introduction to Finality" episode of the series, following season three's finale, "Introduction to Finality".
During Jeff's graduation ceremony, "SIX SEASONS AND A MOVIE" is seen written on the chalkboard as the first words of several sentences. The show's production code of #411 is seen in the upper right corner.
Reception
In its original broadcast the episode was viewed by 3.08 million.[4]
Eric Goldman of IGN rated the episode a "good" at 7.6, saying, "as far as being a fun, nostalgia-packed episode, that may be the very last one, it mostly worked."[5] Gabrielle Moss of TV Fanatic was positive, saying, "this episode was an excellent tribute to the slow-burn character development of Jeff Winger."[6]
Alan Sepinwall of HitFix was less favourable, stating, "The actual non-dream graduation ceremony was sweet, but nearly everything leading up to it was a mess."[2] Todd VanDerWerff of The A.V. Club was negative and rated the episode a D, saying it was, "no longer a show that's capable of much beyond repeating elements it thinks the audience will like over and over again."[7]
References
- ^ Umstead, Ben (May 9, 2012). "Review: COMMUNITY S4E13, ADVANCED INTRODUCTION TO FINALITY (Or, Is It?)". Twitch Film. Retrieved May 9, 2013.
- ^ a b Sepinwall, Alan (May 9, 2013). "Season finale review: 'Community' - 'Advanced Introduction to Finality': The folly of evil". HitFix. Retrieved May 9, 2013.
- ^ Ganz, Megan (November 12, 2012). "Day one of shooting the finale". Twitter. Retrieved May 8, 2013.
- ^ Kondolojy, Amanda (May 10, 2013). "Thursday Final Ratings: 'Big Bang Theory', 'Grey's Anatomy', 'American Idol', 'Vampire Diaries', 'Two and a Half Men', 'Wipeout', & 'Elementary' Adjusted Up; 'Glee' Adjusted Down". TV by the Numbers. Retrieved May 10, 2013.
- ^ Goldman, Eric (May 9, 2013). "Community Review: Not Without My Study Group". IGN. Retrieved May 10, 2013.
- ^ Moss, Gabrielle (May 9, 2013). "Community Review: Not Without My Study Group". TV Fanatic. Retrieved May 9, 2013.
- ^ VanDerWerff, Todd (May 9, 2013). ""Advanced Introduction to Finality" S4 / E13". The A.V. Club. Retrieved May 9, 2013.