Community: 10 Worst Things Abed Has Ever Done

After Jeff sends the current glee club into a collective nervous breakdown by revealing their use of copyright infringing material, the director of the club attempts to convince the study group to take on the mantel. Everyone unanimously agrees this is a bad idea. Despite this, Abed is drawn to the choir director and very quickly agrees he will help him convince the rest of the study group.

Right away, this is a problem because Abed is going against the unanimous decision of his friends. However, things are just getting started.

One by one the study group is convinced to join, each through highly manipulative means. Shirley is convinced through religion, Jeff through sexuality, and Pierce through nostalgia and validation of his opinions. In one of the stranger and more troubling cases, Abed convinces Troy by telling him it’s okay that he does a Christmas pageant as a Jehovah Witness, because he would actually be infiltrating the pageant like a spy. It’s a weird and flimsy case of deception that only works because of how well Abed knows Troy.

Not all of these instances of manipulation are directly acted upon by Abed. However, you have to assume that as the instigator and puppeteer he probably had his hand in how to convince everyone. Abed knows everyone in the group tremendously well. He would know exactly how to get them to do what he wants. That is exactly what the troubling factor is here.

We then see that, when he’s had enough and realizes that this is not the temporary gig he wanted it to be, he sabotages the whole thing by telling Britta to sing. It’s a painful moment because not only is Britta a bad singer, it’s an awful thing to do to her as a friend. In order to stop the thing he no longer wanted to do, he embarrassed his friend and sabotaged the group.