Community: 10 Worst Things Abed Has Ever Done

When Abed’s father will not pay for his film class, Britta jumps in to pay for it. Apparently at this Community college at least, courses are reasonably priced. In any case Abed decides to make a documentary about his father and as is par for the course with Abed, things get weird and meta fast.

When Abed’s real father says he’s out, Abed casts Jeff in the role of his father, and unknowingly to the both of them casts Britta in the role of his mother since they are essentially the “mom and dad” of their study group. He begins a guerilla style filming regiments of the two, even stalking them in the courtyard during a fight to get the right shot.

This is all strange enough behavior, but it’s when he starts to manipulate the two of them, Britta in particular, to fulfil the goals of his film that things start to get very strange. Abed buys an expensive new camera and begins flashing money around and buying everyone’s dinners. Sometimes he would even wave his money, which was in fact Britta’s, right in front of her face to her clear discomfort.

Eventually Abed pushes Britta to an outright breaking point simply for the fact that it’s the scene where she leaves, and he needed the shot. She begs for an explanation of his behavior, and he gives none, because he needed it for his shot.

We eventually do see the film he’s making, and how it was all an attempt to reach out to his father. And, in fairness, it did. That being said, the manipulation, cruelty, and simple Kubrick-ness of all of his behavior doesn’t really justify it. To make it worse, this is only the third episode making it very early on in his friendship with everyone. On the one hand you could say he didn’t know any better at this point. On the other hand that’s a pretty awful thing to do to people who at this point you’re just getting to know.