(S01E23) I'm starting to feel woefully unprepared for 'Community' each week. This week, I should have boned up on every action and war movie ever made. Then I could have caught the zillions of references to each of them throughout this incredibly unexpected and entertaining episode.

'Community' has never strayed away from the absurd when looking for "the funny." This, however, is the first time that they've essentially destroyed the entire set to do so. That we are to believe this was all for a game prize ... well, that actually works.

Over-the-top is what these characters do. From the '28 Days Later' nod with Jeff waking up to a post-apocalyptic campus, to the brilliant directing by Justin Lin ('Fast & Furious') and framing of all the action sequences, there was a true love for the action genre pouring forth onto the screen.


Every staple was covered, from tragic death (Shirley) to the guy who doesn't even know he's done for (Abed). The kamikaze soldier willing to take everyone with him (Chang) to the brave soldier who sacrificed everything to take him down (Britta). Even the final showdown in the dean's office was classic 'Rambo'-style vengeance. All this loss! And for what? And for what!?!

In the midst of all the paintball carnage and chaos, the writers even managed to address the long, awkward, forced sexual tension between Jeff and Britta. Thankfully, they went ahead and rode that pony just to get it out of the way. Abed, who's the most attuned to the fiction of their reality, knows that something has changed ... other than Pierce's choice of underwear.

The beauty of this union was that it wasn't about bringing the characters together, and possibly destroying the show in the process. It was about getting out from under that albatross of sexual tension. Just get it out of the way and put it in the past so these characters can move forward.

The chemistry between Britta and Jeff never came off naturally, so the audience wasn't clamoring for them to wind up together. If anything, we were getting annoyed whenever the issue would come up again. Cleverly, the writers put that in there as well by having the rest of the study group represent us, the audience. They just wanted the two of them to have sex and move on as well.

The tension is there, it was built into the pilot. It's not going to go away until you have sex. By having the sex come as part of this warfare story, it's layered with deception and mistrust, which works even better for the relationship they've established all season.

We now need to find out if Abed is right and things will change, or if the writers will keep trying to force feed us tension. Maybe one final blow-up to establish once and for all that they are just friends. After all, I'm still exploring the sexual tension between Pierce and Shirley. I know he's feeling it.

Like most action movies, there isn't a whole lot more to say about the plot. But, like action movies, it was a hell of a lot of fun to watch it all go down. The seriousness in which the characters took the situation -- nobody cheated and shot someone after they themselves had been eliminated (Come on! ) -- kept us in the hyper-reality established from the moment Jeff woke from his nap.

Classic moments of awesomeness included Abed's run up the wall to take out the old dude, the girls taking down guys while their flies were open at the urinals, Pierce's betrayal of Starburns and his subsequent "death" orchestrated by Jeff telling him not to come over. They even connected the guy bringing back disco and roller skates with a pretty awesome sequence in the cafeteria.

Yes, they were huddled over a fire in the cafeteria as if madness had consumed the world. Embrace the surreality of it, because it makes it so much better when you do. 'Community' is ridiculous but it works. Tonight was an absolutely brilliant example of going crazy without going too far. The characters were true to who they are throughout, and in the end Shirley got the prize Jeff had won. Because he is a decent guy, after all. And that's the moral of every episode.

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