This Isn't a Game

Joel McHale might not have given any Twitter love to my Annie Edison Halloween costume, but I'm still a die hard Community fan. As others who claim that title can attest, the show gets very little love from the big media outlets, and this won't do much to change that. If you never miss an episode of Troy and Abed in the morning or you've never visited a little Colorado community college, read on for a recap of one of the finest modern paintball games since Spaced.





Well I’m calling it. ‘A Fistful of Paintballs’ earned a spot in the all-time great pantheon of Community episodes, right up there with the first paintball war and that one with the blanket fort. This is especially welcome after a slightly uneven second season that owed more to the self contained references of Contemporary American Poultry than it did to the slice of Greendale life that defined the high points of a nearly flawless season one.

I doubt any viewers minded opening on Annie’s badass, smoky voiced gunslinger fending off Anthony Michael Hall and his homoerotic homies. The Queen of Hearts effortlessly dispatches Fat Neil, even after he begs her to spare him – after all, they did play D&D together (who could forget her turn as Hector the Well-Endowed? Do I have a bit of a girl crush? What’s going on here?). ‘That was a game,’ she smolders, turning away on her booted heel. Behind her back, Neil cocks the only pistol she left him. Annie blasts him with both barrels, finishing, ‘This is paintball’.

They spared no Western reference, in case anyone missed the theme of this episode during the paint drenched, Sergio Leone-esque credits. I particularly liked Shirley’s nun costume at the end of the year cowboy creamery sponsored picnic. While last year’s battle turned Greendale into an apocalyptic wasteland, this year’s $100,000 prize (what the hell kind of ice cream place is this?) sent our heroes back to the Wild West, when everyone’s nicknamed after a playing card, Asians banded together, and beans are a prized commodity.

Abed slipped past Annie’s defenses in the…Greendale saloon?...and the cowboy smack talk flew fast and furious. The ominous paint splatters on every surface and Annie’s lack of pants signify that much has transpired since the giant ice cream cone announced the prize and armed the ever-volatile population of Greendale. Abed proposes a truce with the gang holed up in the library. Chang, of course, turns coat within the first ten seconds, leaving the always popular Jeff Winger-in-a–cowboy-hat to fend for himself before Abed and his poncho come to the rescue.

After some vague forshadowing of Pierce’s legendary dickish tendencies, Josh Holloway makes the scene. The size of his gun provokes Abed to veer into that’s what she said territory, but I’m sure any males in the audience missed it while frantically rewinding Annie’s slo-mo sprint away from the well armed interloper. His ‘network TV good looks’ distracts the gang long enough for Britta, Shirley, and Oscar the Grouch to get the drop on them. Scratch that – Oscar would never light up like a birthday cake at the sight of his supposedly heterosexual life partner.

Apparently Cattle Baron Pierce has put a bounty on Jeff’s giant forehead. The captives are led into Fort Hawthorne, the only safe haven in the school. Starburns looks like he’d be more at home fetching brains for Fronk-en-steen rather than guarding the door to the idyllic and improbable stronghold behind the freezer where Vickie dances for Twinkies. Pierce might not have as much paint as a French kindergarten, but he knows where to get it, a move necessary to take out the Black Rider who doesn’t actually ride anything.

Annie continues her badass streak by taking down the entire cheerleading squad in an act of vengeance, before engaging in some serious sexual tension and the best exchange of the episode with the Black Rider.



After promising to shoot her in the foot – chivalrous, no? – the stranger is attacked by Jeff and Abed, who discover that Pierce loaded their guns with blanks. The other half of the study group find a splattered and Daisy Duke’d Dean hiding in his own cabinet and demand to know the whereabouts of last year’s stash. In the Paintball Cabinet, of course! Annie takes Chang’s old Tigre-patterned gun to rain down some multi-colored vengeance on the duplicitous Pierce.

Fort Hawthorne has been invaded, but Vickie dances on to the tinkly piano. Annie sets Pierce to dancing a merry tune before demanding that he stand and face her like a gentleman. He, of course, refuses. Troy is apparently a Western version of the Man with the Big Yellow Hat from Curious George. Pierce’s villainy – THIS TIME – is the direct cause of a card game several days prior, alluded to in crazy vague flashbacks, that he was not invited to. It wasn’t a game, Annie clarifies, it was a vote. A vote to determine whether or not Pierce would be invited back into the group next year. Annie and her red card caused a hung jury in his favor, but she’s done being nice.

The gunslingers stand at twenty paces, their hands at the ready. They are interrupted by the sound of spurs. Jeff, rankled that anyone could find the Black Rider more attractive than he, asks for clemency to let them duel. The Black Rider gives them a momentary reprieve, only to be taken in by Pierce’s heart attack diversion and takes a yellow bullet at close range.

Turns out the Black Rider is really an online student brought in as a ringer to win the prize for his boss. He peaces out to a Coldplay concert leading to my second favorite exchange-

Annie, Disney eyes all aflutter – “Coldplay?”
“Too late, Bean Allergy, you blew it.”

Chang, who has survived this long by a combo of epic treason and sheer dumb luck, is dropped by a Paintball SWAT team who answer to the giant mascara-wearing ice cream cone. Sadly, we have to wait till next week to find out what Operation Total Invasion entails, which makes resistance as pointless as a Greendale degree. I’d be pissed but it means that there’s another episode before this season comes to a surely awesome end. What, no Tranny Dance?