Ten years after Community’s final episode, many viewers are discovering the iconic sitcom for the first time. Others are rediscovering the show’s best episodes, hilarious scenes, and even moments and jokes that went over people’s heads the first time around. With the help of streaming, audiences can now re-watch their favorite shows multiple times, paying attention to other characters, subplots, and background scenes that they might’ve missed when the show first aired on TV. This is especially true for Community, a show filled with pop-culture references, TV and movie homages, and scenes that might fly under the radar the first time around. And such is the case of Community’s Season 2 episode, “The Psychology of Letting Go.”
“The Psychology of Letting Go” is the third episode of Community Season 2, and first aired on NBC in October 2007. This episode follows the study group, which consists of Jeff, Troy, Abed, Annie, Britta, Shirley, and Pierce, as they learn about Pierce’s mother’s death, and, in particular, about what Pierce’s faith believes about death. “The Psychology of Letting Go,” which was directed by one half of the Russo brothers, Anthony Russo, gave audiences iconic moments such as Pierce carrying a lava lamp he believes has his mother’s vaporized remains, and Annie and Britta wrestling in oil. But there’s a bigger storyline hidden in this episode, one that many fans of Community missed, and that makes this Season 2 episode one of the show’s best.
“The Psychology of Letting Go” Brings Back Pierce’s Cult
Image via NBC
Community has never been afraid of making social commentary or being meta, and this was particularly true with Pierce’s character, who was very obviously part of a cult. Pierce’s strange religion is first mentioned in the Season 1 episode “Comparative Religion,” where Shirley decides to throw a Christmas party with the study group, but everyone has different views of the holiday season due to their different beliefs and religions. Pierce, in particular, informs the study group that he is part of the “Reformed Neo Buddhism” religion, but as he explains what this entails, the entire study group warns Pierce that his religion sounds more like a cult.
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In “The Psychology of Letting Go,” Pierce’s religion is brought back to the table after Troy, who has been living with Pierce, finds Pierce’s mother dead. Troy is visibly upset as he arrives at Greendale Community College and tells the rest of the study group what he saw, but Pierce doesn’t seem affected by his mother’s death. This is when they find out that, in Pierce’s religion, anyone who is at his mother’s level in the church only gets vaporized when dead, and stored in an “energon pod” until such time when technology can bring back his mother to her physical form.
The episode then sees Troy and Jeff trying to understand and reason with Pierce about his religion and his mother’s death. Meanwhile, Annie and Britta are trying to raise funds for the Deepwater Horizon oil spill, and Shirley is upset that she wasn’t asked to be part of Annie and Britta’s plans, so she spends the rest of the episode watching as Annie and Britta get into petty fights and disagreements. But while the rest of the study group seems to have their major storylines for the episode, Abed seemingly disappears into the background for a hidden storyline many viewers missed.
Abed’s Secret Storyline Has Its Roots in a Season 1 Episode
Image via NBC
Throughout the entire Season 2 episode, “The Psychology of Letting Go,” viewers can see Abed in the background interacting with a pregnant girl and her boyfriend. This is a hidden storyline that many viewers missed the first time around, as most of the scenes happen as other major characters are talking or having bigger moments, creating a distraction from Abed’s subplot. But even if some noticed Abed’s hidden storyline in this amazing Community episode, many might still feel confused and wonder what Abed had to do with the pregnant couple.
The answer to Abed’s connection to the couple can be found in the Season 1 episode, “The Politics of Human Sexuality.” In this episode, Annie and the dean promote Greendale’s STD fair, while Troy and Abed find themselves in different athletic competitions after Troy realizes Abed might be better at sports than him. The STD fair ends up being a disaster after too much alcohol gets everyone even more interested in sex, and the dean’s condoms are punctured after he got the idea of printing text that says “Greendale!” on them.
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Troy eventually accepts that Abed’s better at him in sports when the dean needs someone to run over and make an announcement about the defective condoms before it’s too late. So Abed is the one in charge of warning everyone through the PA system that, if they are going to have sex that night, they should “not use the condoms.” And right in the background, a couple can be seen making out, and they throw away the condom right after Abed’s announcement. All that in mind, if there was any credence to the theory that Community is in Abed’s head, this episode is a great example.
While there’s no direct confirmation that this couple is the same one from the hidden storyline in “The Psychology of Letting Go,” it makes perfect sense for more than one reason. Firstly, “The Psychology of Letting Go” aired 10 months after “The Politics of Human Sexuality,” with “The Psychology of Letting Go” airing in October 2010 while “The Politics of Human Sexuality” aired in December 2009. And even though most people associate pregnancy with nine months, the full term is considered to be 40 weeks, which is ten months instead of nine, the same number of months between both episodes.
The second reason is that, if the couple threw away the condom and became pregnant due to Abed’s announcement, it makes perfect sense that the couple would then be angry at Abed. In “The Psychology of Letting Go,” Abed can be first seen talking to the pregnant girl, who seems to be upset and pointing at him, apparently blaming him for her pregnancy. This is even clearer once the girl’s boyfriend shows up, who seems ready to fight Abed before Abed is able to run away. In the background, there’s a completely different genre being played out with a drama between Abed and the couple, and it’s so easy to miss.
In the entire hidden storyline from Community’s “The Psychology of Letting Go,” Abed is first confronted by a pregnant girl before the girl’s boyfriend tries to fight Abed. Then, while Jeff contemplates his choices in the cafeteria, the girl’s water breaks, and Abed helps them as they leave. But the best scene happens as Annie and Britta wrestle in oil, where audiences get a glimpse of Shirley watching disapprovingly at Annie and Britta with a shot of Abed in the background, helping deliver the baby.
Image via NBC
Community was a show that was clearly ahead of its time, as the sitcom would’ve found bigger success if it had been released during the streaming era, as proven by the resurgence in Community’s popularity a decade after it ended. These hidden storylines and callbacks to previous episodes work much better in streaming, where audiences can binge-watch an entire season and re-watch their favorite shows multiple times, catching new jokes, references, and callbacks they missed the first time. Watching on television meant missing a lot of what made Community great, such as Abed’s hidden storyline that was not only a callback to an episode from Season 1, but that also became more relevant in one of the final episodes of Season 2.
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“Applied Anthropology and Culinary Arts” is the 22nd episode of Community Season 2, the last episode before the two-part paintball finale. Throughout Season 2, Shirley becomes pregnant, which is a major storyline in this season, and her water breaks right during their Anthropology finals in “Applied Anthropology and Culinary Arts.” This is where Abed’s hidden storyline comes into play, as he directly mentions he delivered a baby earlier that year in the back of an SUV, and helps Shirley with delivering hers.
Abed’s hidden storyline is one of the many reasons why Community stands out as one of the best sitcoms of all time, and one of the most overlooked and underrated during its run. It’s even possible that some hidden details and references are still waiting to be discovered in other episodes of Community, making this sitcom one of the best to binge-watch. And while waiting for the promised Community movie, fans can re-watch “The Psychology of Letting Go” to catch Abed’s hidden storyline, as well as the rest of the series, on Hulu.
Jeff Winger (Joel Mchale) is leaning against a blue car with many boxes stacked on top, as well as the characters Dean Craig Pelton (Jim Rash), Chang (Ken Jeong), Annie Edison (Alison Brie) and Abed Nadir (Danny Pudi) and the sign for Greendale Community College on the poster for Community.Image via NBC
Release Date
2009 – 2015-00-00
Network
NBC, Yahoo! Screen
Showrunner
Dan Harmon
Directors
Tristram Shapeero, Joe Russo, Anthony Russo, Rob Schrab, Jay Chandrasekhar, Adam Davidson, Justin Lin, Steven K. Tsuchida, Kyle Newacheck, Victor Nelli Jr., Nat Faxon, Michael Patrick Jann, Anthony Hemingway, Ken Whittingham, Steven Sprung, Tricia Brock, Jeff Melman, Gail Mancuso, Duke Johnson, Fred Goss, Bobcat Goldthwait, Richard Ayoade, Seth Gordon, Beth McCarthy-Miller
Writers
Chris McKenna, Hilary Winston, Andrew Guest, Tim Hobert, Karey Dornetto, Stephen Basilone, Emily Cutler, Annie Mebane, Alex Rubens, Tim Saccardo, Paul Isakson, David Seger, Maggie Bandur, Monica Padrick, Matt Murray, Liz Cackowski, Lauren Pomerantz, Dan Guterman, Matt Roller, Ryan Ridley, Carol Kolb, Jon Pollack, Dino Stamatopoulos, Donald Diego