Community: Every Paintball Episode Ranked Worst To Best

Towards the end of the first season, Community introduced audiences to its soon to be signature "paintball episode." The penultimate episode of season one, Modern Warfare, saw Greendale Community College transform into an all out battleground filled with flying paint pellets in a spoof of action movies, but with the protagonists playing paintball.

This episode sparked a Community tradition. Nearly every season features at least one episode where the study group, the Greendale 7, the Save Greendale Committee, or whatever the Community cast call themselves play a huge, all encompassing game of paintball (or a paintball adjacent game).

These episodes quickly became fan favourites. Not only was the paintball action engaging, the episodes tended to feature humour, heart, and actual character growth and development.

While fans see some paintball episodes as all time greats, joining the ranks of Remedial Chaos Theory, Advanced Dungeons and Dragons, and Emotional Consequences of Broadcast Television as some of the best Community episodes ever, others, much like many action movie sequels, fell flat and proved unnecessary.

Here is every paintball episode from Community ranked worst to best.

The Season 4 finale functions as that year's paintball episode, though the characters don't technically play paintball. Instead, the characters the episode firing specialised paintball-like guns which send their targets to different timelines at their Darkest Timeline counterparts. Its shootout style climax gives the episode a paintball-esque feeling, allowing it to make this list.

Advanced Introduction to Finality rounds out season four, aka the notorious "gas leak year," reviled by fans and show creator Dan Harmon alike. Unfortunately, the season finale may be the weakest outing in the show's weakest season.

Its premise is all wrong, as Jeff spends the entire episode dreaming up a scenario about the Darkest Timeline, which no one but Abed ever takes seriously. Additionally, the episode borders on sci-fi territory before telling the audience it's all been a dream. As it does so, you can almost hear the show revving up its motorcycle in preparation to jump the shark.

Plus, the paintball action isn't as cool as usual, with most characters taking out their alternate timeline selves with a joke rather than through actual paintball skills.