Community “Digital Estate Planning”

Community excels at satire of pop-culture.  The best episodes are the paintball episodes (action/western/etc.), the Pillows/Blankets War (war documentaries), Abed’s Christmas, the list goes on.  “Digital Estate Planning” sticks to this strength and delivers a satire of 8-bit videogames while taking the study group on an interesting adventure that strengthens their friendship.

Pierce’s father has left instructions for Pierce in his will; bring seven friends to this warehouse to claim your inheritance, so obviously he brings the study group even though that leaves them down one.  At the warehouse they find daddy Hawthorne’s right hand man, Gilbert Lawson, who brings them up to speed on the situation.  In 1980, Pierce suggested the family company start making videogames, he predicted they would become popular, but his father dismissed his prediction and as punishment created this videogame so Pierce would have to compete against his friends to get his inheritance.  The first one to reach the throne in Hawthorne Castle gets the inheritance.  This pits the group against Gilbert in an 8-bit world that Gilbert help create.  They are in unfamiliar territory against a man who can bend the game to his will, forcing the group to work together to get Pierce’s inheritance.

Most of the jokes worked in this episode.  The scene in the blacksmith’s shop with Annie and Shirley was hilarious.  They want to buy weapons to defeat Gilbert, but they don’t have money so Annie accidentally steals a torch and sets the blacksmith on fire setting off a chain of gut splitting events that eventually lead to Abed falling in love with a character in the game and having tons of digital slave children.  The jokes on Pierce are getting a little old.  Sometimes the jokes work, like when Pierce couldn’t figure out how to control his character, but how many “Pierce is dumb” jokes do I have to listen to.  He’s barely a character anymore, just a punching bag for the show to beat around.  He did have a nice moment at the end of this episode.

Gilbert beats the group to the throne room by cheating and is about to take Pierce’s inheritance when Jeff and Pierce get up from the game and confront him in person.  He tells Pierce that he is daddy Hawthorne’s son too, when their dad had an affair with a colored servant, so he feels entitled to Pierce’s inheritance since he was closer to their father and hadn’t received an inheritance of his own.  When he reaches the throne the digital projection of his father implores him to sign a digital agreement not to tell anyone of his true heritage because he didn’t want a black man, let alone a bastard, in his family.  In a heartbreaking moment Gilbert declines the inheritance and creates the final boss.  Mr. Hawthorne uses the castle to create giant stone body for himself and starts to wreak havoc in the game.  The group arrives with Abed, who had chosen to stay behind with the woman he loved and they created an Abed army, to help destroy Pierce’s father.  In the end, Pierce gave the inheritance to Gilbert because he had been a better son.  And in a truly touching scene at the end he tells Gilbert he always wanted a younger brother as they leave to get drinks with their new friend.

After a couple of disappointing episodes Community comes back strong with a satire of a category that I love.  As much as I love the satire episodes I do wish they would get back to the original adventures of the gang like in the first two seasons.  The satire episodes were few and far between then, and I think the show was much better.