10 Best Community Episodes
1. Mixology Certification
The best episode of Community delivers a major swerve from the show’s by then-tried and tested formula. It’s not littered with pop cultural references, it doesn’t ape a film or TV show and it doesn’t involve any wacky hijinks or crazy situations. It just takes a group of sad folks and sticks them in a bar for a collective dark night of the soul.
If that sounds a little depressing for a primarily colourful, chirpy sitcom, it sort of is, in the way Dan Harmon is so good at. The characters of Community are lost souls, and in “Mixology Certification” they’re dealt an important lesson - getting plastered doesn’t solve those problems (in the long term, anyway).
It’s a great episode for Donald Glover, too, who by this point is becoming the moral compass of the show. Set around Troy’s birthday, his intention is to enter the world of adulthood with a bang, but a night of watching his friends descend into drunkenness is enough to put him off for the time being.
It’s a sad, sweet, but ultimately hopeful episode which captures everything that’s great about Community - the surrogate family, the joy found in the little things, the highs and lows of everyday life.