WARNING: THIS POST DISCUSS SENSITIVE TOPICS READER DISCRETION ADVISED
Most TV shows go on way too long and end up being disappointing or confusing. It’s way easier to do a bad ending than to end a show appropriately. This is why there are so many terrible finales to beloved shows. But the ending of Community is the best finale of a sitcom that I’ve ever seen. It operates on a formal level and an emotional level, and the result is a satisfying conclusion.
At its core, Community is a very meta show, and the ending stays on brand. Most of the episode takes place in a bar where the study group meets to celebrate the end of the semester and the fact that they have saved Greendale Community College. In this episode, the characters know it’s the finale, but they afraid of the future, so they play a game of imagining scenarios for a hypothetical season 7. Each character send-off is the pitch that they make for season 7, and each pitch reveals details about the characters.
Community is very much a show about confronting morality, and this is also shown in the series finale. Behind the pitches, is the character Jeff confronting that his community is maturing and leaving. In Season 1, Jeff’s goal was to get his bachelor’s degree in law and move back to being a lawyer again, but in the finale, he realizes that he will forever remain a teacher at this community college as his community drifts away, and this really gets to him physiologically.
The meta nature of the show continues in the finale with the characters acknowledging the theme song. For such a silly show, the idea of the theme song ringing through Jeff’s head is very unnerving, and the repetition of the theme song calls into question the existence of the show itself—
“I can’t count the reasons I should stay
One by one they all just fade away”
When Jeff hears that Annie is leaving, he hears the theme song ringing in his head as he imagines everyone leaving him behind and he questions the reasons he should stay and one by one they all just fade away. Jeff knows he missed his chance with Annie so when she moves he pitches to himself a world where Annie is his wife and they have a son, this dream falls apart on him when he realizes that he doesn’t know what she wants.
Jeff realizes that even Abed—the character obsessed with being in a TV show—will leave him behind. Abed looks at life through a meta-lens, so when he moves on and develops as the show goes on, Jeff is confused and continues to see him still as the meta television-obsessed kid as he was in Season 1, but in the finale it’s clear that Abed is moving on and starting his life.
The audience is a character in most sitcoms, and at the end of most sitcoms, it often feels like you as an audience member are being left behind while the characters go on to do bigger and better things. But with Community, it is the character Jeff that gets left behind while the audience and other characters move on and move forward.
Their work is done, and Jeff realizes that he will be the last to leave and move on. The last thing that Jeff says to all his college friends is “I love that I got to be with you guys, you saved my life and changed it forever. Thank you.” Even though this is Jeff’s last verbal statement when he is saying goodbye to Abed and Annie at the airport, he hugs Abed twice, and I believe this is his way of saying thank you. In the pilot, Abed invites everyone to the study group and tricks Jeff into becoming a better person. Because of this, Jeff owes his life to Abed. In the first episode, Jeff dismisses Abed and wants him to leave in the finale he is thankful he stayed. When we first encountered Jeff, he was a terrible and manipulative person, but through the study group has a grown to be a better person.
And the song that plays in the last scene shows Jeff wanting time to stop and for the show to go on.
“Oh, there’s a river that winds on forever
I’m gonna see where it leads
Oh, there’s a mountain that no man has mounted
I’m gonna stand on the peak
Out there’s a land that time don’t command
Wanna be the first to arrive
No time for ponderin’ why I’m-a wanderin’
Not while we’re both still alive”
Jeff’s dilemna is a mirror of creator and writer Dan Harmon’s internal state. The episode tag is a commercial that displays the cynical view that life is a game and that we are not created by God but instead by a cosmic joke. The discretionary warning, voiced by Dan Harmon, quickly turns into a meta-emotional-breakdown.
Dice not included, some assembly required. Lines between perception, desire, and reality may become blurred, redundant, or interchangeable. Characters may hook up with no regard for your emotional investment. Some episodes too conceptual to be funny, some too funny to be immersive, and some so immersive they still aren’t funny. Consistency between seasons may vary. Viewers may be measured by a secretive obsolete system based on selected participants keeping handwritten journals of what they watch. Show may be cancelled and moved to the internet, where it turns out tens of millions were watching the whole time. May not matter. Fake commercial may end with disclaimer gag which may descend into vain Chuck Lorre-esque rant by narcissistic creator. Creator may be unstable. Therapist may have told creator this is not how you make yourself a good person. Life may pass by while we ignore or mistreat those close to us. Those close to us may be those watching. Those people may want to know I love them but I may be incapable of saying it. Contains pieces the size of a child’s esophagus. —Dan Harmon (last scene of Community)
This ending takes the sitcom mold and snaps it with the inevitability that time will move on. As I realize that I have to move on and grow up, I identify with this ending greatly. You make friendships and relationships over a few years and then you have to move on. My favorite endings are bittersweet endings because they replicate the bittersweet qualities of life.
In the end, life goes on.
#sixseasonsandamovie
Levi Jacobson Reviews 