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After leaving off on a rather mediocre episode before the Winter Olympic break, it’s nice to see that Community can come back with another great installment. ‘Bondage and Beta Male Sexuality’ may be short on the gimmicks that people have come to expect from Dan Harmon, but it definitely excels in the character development department. As a Community fan that had grown despondent over the state of the characters on the show, I am glad that someone out there feels the same way that I do and has taken steps to ensure that the characters we know and love are being turned into real people again.

The main story this time around follows Britta and most of the group as they head to a charity event. Professor Duncan has decided that he wants to seduce Britta and tries to act like he’s some sort of big charity-loving guy. So Britta ends up running into some of her old anarchist pals only to discover that everyone has sold out. In the background, Duncan and Jeff battle over who gets to hit on Britta. And Chang runs around being tormented by ghosts.

Meanwhile, Abed is getting ready to attend a movie premiere. But when he accidently destroys some of Professor Hickey’s drawings, he ends up handcuffed to a filing cabinet. The two face down, with Hickey trying to teach Abed a lesson about being irresponsible and Abed trying to talk his way out of the handcuffs so he can make his movie.

There was no shortage of jokes and clever little gimmicks this time around (particularly the whole deal with Chang and his ghosts), but the real focus was definitely the characters. We get to see Britta coming to terms with the fact that all her friends have changed and that maybe she’s not such a slacker after all. We see Jeff and Duncan get some bonding time. And Hickey becomes a sort-of replacement to fill the hole in Abed’s life that was created when Troy went away.

It was good to see an episode that relied purely off the interaction of the characters and their development. They tried this several times during season 4, but the lack of Harmon’s super-joke-powers usually made those episodes too bland to appreciate. With this week, however, everything came together to create what I would consider to be one of the better episodes this season.

Next week, ‘App Development and Condiments’ promises a Community-esque look at the wonders of social media. No trailer, yet again, but you can check out a summary and some other goodies here.

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Community courtesy of heavemedia.com