10 Greatest Ever Community "Concept" Episodes
5. Modern Espionage
Paintball was definitely in danger of becoming a gimmick for Community. While it worked well for the season one episode, and slightly less well for the two part season two finale, the paintball episode that deserves a spot on this list is the most recent one, for no other reason than the fact it managed to sidestep the fourth season's awful paintball misfire, and genuinely "make paintball cool again".
Naturally, after three larger than life paintball battles that destroy the entire campus, doing yet another school-wide game of assassin would have been pretty dull for everyone involved. Thankfully, the writers came up with a way to breath new life into the idea: Instead of using paintball to riff on action movies, why not use it as a framework to riff on spy films?
It was a gamble that paid off in spades, as the very notion of the entire school managing to pull off a secret game of paintball is classic Greendale, as is the ball honoring the chief Custodian, and Frankie's model of what Greendale could "look like in our heads". Also, big shout out to the climatic battle that takes place in the Museum of Custodial Arts, replete with a model steamy pipe and rows of fake janitors for the Ultimate Spy Showdown.