Review roundup for 3x06, Advanced Gay
Hi, bitches! Here are the reviews for last night's episode. They are pretty varied, though most of them are in the okay-to-great range. I found no real stand-outs, though most people appreciated both Pierce's father's offensiveness and John Goodman's performance.
- Todd VanDerWerff of The A.V. Club gives the episode a B+ and praises it for showing us for the first time this season that "these people really do like hanging out with each other". He praises both Chevy and Joel's dramatic and comedic acting. His main annoyance with the episode is that "it doesn’t really end". He's also liking the tendency (as seen in Ecology) to have "normal" A-stories and "ambitious, genre-happy stuff down in the B-stories".
- Alan Sepinwall at Hitfix.com liked the main story, how it took Pierce seriously and made good use of Britta as a psych major. However, he thought Mr. Hawthorne was "about three degrees too ridiculous". He praises John Goodman in the Troy storyline, saying he made "even the silliest parts of [the story] seem believable enough".
- Jesse Carp of Television Blend, on the other hand, loved Cornelius, and went from unsure to "laughing uncontrollably" in his opening speech. He thought the chemistry between Glover and Goodman was "pretty great" and loved their final scene. He also praises the tag and how fast the dialogue is on the show.
- "I admired last night’s Community more than I flat-out liked it," says Steve Heisler of Vulture. He adds that Advanced Gay was "a comically sound episode that tackled some touchy-feely stuff to clumsy effect", particularly the daddy issues. He did like the Troy story line, calling it "pure, unfiltered fun".
- Andrea Towers does her usual double-duty this week. First, she gives B+ to the episode over at The Voice of TV, calling it "a nice change of pace" and a "fabulous and hilarious offering" that was a great showcase for Pierce. In TV Overmind, she does more of a recap, and ponders what this episode meant for the "Jeff has daddy issues" arc.
- Emily Cheever of TVology recaps and calls it "a solid episode but nothing revolutionary". She wanted it to go even deeper into "offensive territory" and preferred the Troy subplot to the Pierce one. The episode gets a 7/10.
- "'Advanced Gay' wasn’t terrible, it just feels like a bit of a letdown after the fantastic 'Remedial Chaos Theory' and the hilarious 'Horror Fiction in Seven Spooky Steps,'" says Kelsea Stahler of Hollwood.com, who prefers the high-concept episodes this year. She thought it was "kind of fun" to see Pierce's new open-mindedness. The Troy parts of the episode made her both happy and skeptical - she liked the callback to Troy's plumbing abilities, but thought it was "just a little much".
- Leigh Raines over at TV Fanatic thought this episode was plenty offensive enough (though she does mention that at least the homophobic and racist comments seem to have prevented the group from being at each other's throats). She loved Britta and her edible issues, but doesn't believe that Dean Pelton never threw a gay pride party before. The episode gets 3.5/5.
- Robert Canning of IGN thinks "both storylines delivered on the laughs" and liked the character development of Pierce and Jeff. He calls Troy's plotline "surreally fantastic" and the episode gets an 8/10.
- The TV Obsessed gives the episode 8.9/10 even though they don't like Pierce: "The introduction of his father shifts part of his personality problems away from him, but it also makes Pierce seem very weak". They thought the Troy story was "hilarious stuff" and end the review by wondering "Advanced Gay what?".
- Luke Gelineau at Daemon's TV thought Mr Hawthorne was hilarious and says "it's a shame he died so soon". He mentions wanting to see more of Troy and less of Shirley (?!). He also comments on the title, saying that it "crosses the line of believability" as a class name.
- Daniel Carlson of the Houston Press Art Attack blog adored it. He says the episode "wasn't one of the series' more groundbreaking installments" but "was wonderfully timed and perfectly executed", adding "most shows would kill to do just one episode this good a year". He liked that the Troy story addressed the show's post-school concerns, and thought it was "a fantastic idea" to have Pierce's dad show up.
- Sean Gandert of Paste Magazine thinks "Advanced Gay" avoided the usual "normal episode" pitfalls by "bridging the show’s wackiness with the seriousness of these characters lives" adding that it was the first episode this season in which the characters "felt like people". He calls Pierce's father a "wonderful character" and enjoys the parallels between Troy and Pierce's stories - both of them ending the episode in a place of transition.
- Kelley Dunlap at Character Grades gives an A to Troy ("With any luck, their burgeoning rivalry between Troy and Vice Dean Laybourne will be the driving arc for the rest of the season"), an A- to "declared-major Britta" (though apparently her hair is bad), a B to Pierce ("It’s a nice change of pace for Pierce to be something other than the oppressive, domineering father figure.") and a C+ to Jeff, who's "on notice". This reviewer should schedule a fight with Luke Galineau because the review ends with "Can we bust Yvette Brown out of the sidelines?"
- Yiannis Cove at Sound On Sight mostly recaps the episode, but adds that he loves the Inspector Spacetime references and that the show is allowing various characters to mature.
- Hallie Cantor at Splitsider recaps the episode, adding that "it was great to see some regular old storytelling this week on Community". Mark D Curran at TV Geek Army recaps the episode too, noting that "things are getting dark on Community".