Community/Recap/S3 E13 Digital Exploration of Interior Design

He's going through some stuff right now.

Still angry over Dean Pelton giving the sandwich shop contract to Subway, Shirley and Pierce send Britta to seduce and get dirt on the company's representative at the school, also named "Subway." The plan gets complicated when Britta and Subway develop feelings for each other.

Abed and Troy plan to build another fort, but differ over whether to build a pillow fort or a blanket fort, and Vice Dean Laybourne stokes resentment between the two.

Jeff finds that he offended a student named "Kim." Annie tries to help him atone when they find out that Kim is dead.

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Tropes appearing in this episode of Community include:

• Aesop Amnesia: Taken to new heights (arguably spoofed). Jeff makes big speech about how it was wrong for him to have been so oblivious to Kim. About two minutes later in the episode, he's already forgotten about him.
• Anguished Declaration of Love: As Subway is being hauled away by his corporate masters Britta yells: "Subway I love you!"
• Badass Decay: The Beard of Evil is actually more intimidating than his previous appearance, but Laybourne also has a new braided ponytail which he's sheepishly ashamed about.
• Beard of Evil: Since last we saw him, Vice-Dean Laybourne has grown a rather sinister-looking goatee.
• Berserk Button:

Dean: Watch it, Star-Burns. Star-Burns: My name is Alex!

• Blind Seer: The trope is invoked by Subway when talking to Harry.
• Call Back:
  • Abed vocalizes a few notes of "Daybreak" (the song from his story in "Horror Fiction in Seven Spooky Steps").
  • When Subway describes the handicapped animals in his dream shelter, Britta asks "one-eyed cats?"
• Completely Missing the Point:

Troy: (after Subway shows his driver's license) I don't believe this! Come on, Subway, there is no way you're 5'10". Britta: You should try reading Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four! Subway: I have! It's a great book. Really awakened me in high school. I think kids should be forced to read it. Britta: Me too!

• Doing It for the Art: Troy wants to make a blanket fort because it's faster to build and he means to aim for a world record. Abed simply wants to build the perfect fort, with pillows.
• Double Standard: Subverted. Annie initially believed Jeff shouldn't apologize to Kim simply because he turned out to be a guy. But later on she acknowledges that she has issues with gender roles and that it was unfair of her to take it out on Kim. Not that Jeff realizes who or what Annie is talking about.
• Fake Memories: Pierce goes slightly loopy and claims Britta has these.

Pierce: You never lived anywhere! You're a weapon designed for sex! You only think you lived in New York because I implanted your memories!

• Foreshadowing:

Pierce: Corporate espionage--I like it. Microphones hidden in lipstick, lipstick hidden in microphones.

• Gender Blender Name: Kim.
• Getting Crap Past the Radar:

Dean: I was googling the record length of things...

• • Look at the title of this episode. Now you know what Britta and Subway did.
• Girls Love Stuffed Animals: Annie, who gets around a one-stuffed-animal limit while sleeping in the Greendale sleep-study centre by taking Ruthie, a stuffed kangaroo with a pouch that enables her to sneak in Nathan, a tiny stuffed frog.
• Go Seduce My Arch-Nemesis: Pierce and Shirley try to convince Britta to do this. She says no, but winds up falling for Subway anyway.
• Guinness Episode
• Hair of Gold: Subway
• Head-Tiltingly Kinky: Whatever Britta and Subway did that gives the Subway exec pause.
• Hey, It's That Guy!: Subway is actually Keith Dudemeister.
• Hidden Depths:
  • Vice-Dean Laybourne plays trumpet in a band and is surprisingly familiar with Inspector Spacetime.
  • It's hinted that the Subway executive also has some passing familiarity at least with the kind of 'explorations' Britta and Subway were getting up to:

You know, I was raised in the Bay Area but I'm a father now!

• Hollywood Midlife Crisis: In between growing a goatee (and an ill-advised ponytail) and joining a band, it would appear that Vice-Dean Laybourne is currently going through one of these. If so, then he at least seems aware of it:

Laybourne: I'm going through some stuff right now... I'm a bit insecure.

• Honey Trap: Pierce and Shirley want Britta to be one in their plot against Subway. Pierce calls it a penis flytrap.
• Hypocritical Humor/I Resemble That Remark:

Britta: (after Pierce and Shirley ask her to seduce Subway) I am not a whore. And ... not that I've done the math, but if I were, I'd be the super-classy kind.

• • Upon discovering Kim's hate-letter to Jeff calling him 'inconsiderate':

Jeff: Clearly she doesn't know me. [Annie sneezes] Girl offscreen: Gesundheit. Jeff: [oblivious] I didn't sneeze.

• Ignored Epiphany: By the end Jeff has forgotten who Kim was.
• Let's You and Him Fight: Dean Laybourne with Troy and Abed.
• Magnificent Bastard: Laybourne
• My God, What Have We Done?: Troy and Abed share a look with each other right as the first skirmish ends of hurt, betrayal and sadness. Then they both return to their forts, Abed declaring forcefully, "To Be Continued."
• Mundane Made Awesome: The pillow fight at the end is accompanied by epic battle music.
• Nightmare Fuel: Subway II, with a dose of Uncanny Valley for good measure.
• Noodle Incident:
  • What the hell were Britta and Subway doing?
  • Don't worry about Garrett; we saved him.
• Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: The Dean's innocent suggestion that Troy and Abed go for a world record with their pillow fort ends up causing a lot of trouble.
• The Nth Doctor: In-universe. At the episode's end, Subway has been replaced by a new Subway.
• Product Placement: Taken to some kind of absurdist extreme. In addition, the Subway restaurant location is and will be visible in every scene in the cafeteria from this episode on.
• Pun-Based Title: Britta's high school newspaper column was named Britta Unfiltered, although she apparently doesn't realize it's a pun.
• Raging Stiffie: The presumable reason why the Subway exec can't get up and grab his coat.
• Reasonable Authority Figure: The Subway executive is trying to be reasonable when he hears the tape of Britta and Subway having sex. He is not a prude and is not going to punish two people for falling in love. Then he hears the rest of the tape and it's too much even for him.
• Ribbon-Cutting Ceremony: The Dean tries to cut a ribbon at the opening of the new Subway stand in the cafeteria but the giant scissors break. The Dean then tries to bite through the ribbon.
• Serious Business:
  • Blanket fort versus pillow fort.
  • Then there's this:

Pierce: You know what I think? I think you're falling for [Subway]! Britta: I am not. Who do you think I am?! I lived in New York!

• Shout-Out:
  • Dean Laybourne's combination of beard, black suit, and long ponytail copy Robert Deniro's Louis Cyphre look from Angel Heart. Without the ponytail, it also shares some similarity to the look of The Master from Doctor Who (particularly as played by Roger Delgado) — fitting, given how Laybourne uses Troy and Abed's shared love of Inspector Spacetime to drive a wedge between them.
  • Laybourne also gives a thumbnail version of the John Galt speech to Abed.
    • Abed is also willing to destroy his own building rather than compromise to mediocrity like the hero of Ayn Rand's other novel The Fountainhead.
  • Britta and Subway's romance is similar to that between Winston and Julia from Nineteen Eighty-Four.
  • Pierce telling Britta she's a weapon designed for sex and that he implanted her memories. Is Pierce working for the Rossum Corporation?
• Suspiciously Similar Song: During the initial scuffle between the blanket and pillow factions, the background music sounds suspiciously like "He's a Pirate," from Pirates of the Caribbean.
• Suspiciously Specific Denial: Britta claims to have never done the math on how much money she could make as a prostitute.
• This Means War: The cliffhanger.
• Traitor Shot: After Britta smiles and tells Shirley and Pierce "That's me! The girl who's going to destroy the big sandwich company with the dreamy eyes!" the camera closes in on her as her expression suggests she's fallen for Subway and is starting to have second thoughts.
• The Unfair Sex: Annie is immensely sympathetic to Kim initially, only to immediately lose sympathy upon discovering that Kim is a guy and not a girl as they'd initially believed. It's subverted, however, as Annie ends up realizing that this is just her own issues around gender expressing themselves and she had no right to take them out on Kim.
• What Do You Mean It's Not Political?: The debate of corporate personhood is ongoing in the United States, the most recent federal case being Citizen's United v. FEC.
• Whole-Plot Reference: The Subway subplot could be seen as one long reference to Nineteen Eighty-Four, specifically Britta and Subway's affair reflecting Winston and Julia's affair.