Line #45 Recap/CommunityS2E02AccountingForLawyers


1	%% Administrivia/ZeroContextExample entries are not allowed on wiki pages. All such entries have been commented out. Add context to the entries before uncommenting them.
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3	[[quoteright:350:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/accounting_for_lawyers.jpg]]
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5	->"''God, it's a sea of Wingers. This whole place reeks of [[AmoralAttorney moral ambiguity]].''"
6	-->-- '''Britta'''
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8	Jeff reconnects with Alan (Creator/RobCorddry), a lawyer from his old firm. As he drifts away from the group, Chang makes an attempt at joining the study group by helping them win the school Pop-and-Lock-athon. Annie realizes that she has met Alan before, and that he was, in fact, the one who got Jeff disbarred. She tells Jeff, but he refuses to believe her. While Jeff attends an office party at the firm, the rest of the study follow him in an attempt to prove it, leaving Chang alone at Greendale.
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10	Has a [[YMMV/CommunityS2E02AccountingForLawyers YMMV page.]]
11	----
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13	!!The ''Series/{{Community}}'' episode "Accounting for Lawyers" provides examples of:
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15	* TheAce: It's implied that Jeff was this at his law firm, with a notable cheer when Ted announces Jeff's presence at the party, and his praising Jeff's skills as a lawyer.
16	* AesopAmnesia: In last episode Jeff learned about mutual respect but here he's right back at [[TheReasonYouSuckSpeech calling his friends out]] for being codependent.
17	* TheAllSolvingHammer: Annie's [[NewAbilityAddiction latest]] solution to everything: chloroform. After Jeff gives a speech about how caring is bad, and walks away from the group:
18	--> '''Shirley:''' It's like watching a soul slipping through our fingers. But what more can we do? \
19	''[Annie applies chloroform to rag]''\
20	'''Troy:''' Would you ''stop''?!
21	* AlternateTooniverse: Abed's cartoon tunnel.
22	* AmoralAttorney: Everyone in the law firm. Except for Thompson, apparently.
23	* BigNo: Chang, when [[spoiler:they lose the competition.]]
24	* {{Blackmail}}: Jeff reveals to the Study Group that he didn't let Alan have it over getting him disbarred, because he'd just made partner & Jeff was planning to use this information to get his job back after his graduation by using it against Alan.
25	* BrainBleach: After Annie returns to the group to tell them she got Alan to tell her the suite number of his office:
26	-->'''Annie:''' ''[looking nauseated]'' Fourth floor, 470. First, he said it was [[LOL69 69]]. I wanna rub Purell on my brain.
27	* BreadEggsMilkSquick: While hanging out with the lawyers, Britta, Shirley, and Pierce stumble upon worse and worse "opportunities": Britta can use a lawyer’s beach house if she sleeps with him once a month, Shirley can sue the stripper her husband left her for, and Pierce can [[HuntingTheMostDangerousGame hunt people]].
28	* BrickJoke:
29	** Jeff notices that a lot of people are wearing green hats and wonders if the Greendale hat club is still struggling to survive. The Dean explains it's Oktoberfest. Cut to Jeff and Abed at the food machines, where they run into Alan.
30	--->'''Alan:''' What has this place done to you?\
31	'''Jeff:''' You have no idea...\
32	'''Random Guy:''' Hat club! ''[puts a ridiculous hat on Jeff]''\
33	'''Jeff:''' ...Now you have some idea.
34	** Near the beginning of the episode, Jeff and Abed discuss how things seem to have gotten [[DenserAndWackier more cartoony]] around Greendale and Abed mentions that he painted a tunnel on a campus wall in hopes that it might become real. We see him using the painted wall to play a prank on Troy in TheTag.
35	* BrokenAesop: In-universe.
36	-->'''Alan:''' Jeff, you know what lawyers call someone who defrauds the state bar, cheats on his [=LSATs=], and cons his way into a firm? Best lawyer EVER.
37	* ButtMonkey: Jeff's opinion of strippers.
38	-->'''Jeff:''' Shirley, don't sue a stripper.\
39	'''Shirley:''' Why not?\
40	'''Jeff:''' She's ''a stripper''. Life sued her and she ''lost''.
41	* CallBack: Chang's EvilLaugh from [[Recap/CommunityS2E01Anthropology101 Anthropology 101]], resurrected by the group rejecting him again. It doesn't help that this happened after [[spoiler:he danced for ''hours'' by himself on the group's behalf in the Pop-and-Lock-athon, only for the Study Group to throw it away within a ''minute'' of their arrival]].
42	* CassandraTruth: The entire group tries to warn Jeff that it was Alan who got him disbarred, but he refuses to believe them.
43	* CharacterDevelopment: Jeff really was exactly like Alan in the past, if a bit less hammy.
44	* ClapYourHandsIfYouBelieve: In TheTag, Abed plays a prank on Troy by painting a cartoon version of himself on a wall and claiming that Troy can enter a cartoon universe just by running at the wall and believing hard enough. He's not quite prepared for Troy [[IdiotBall to actually believe this]], however:
45	-->'''Abed''': All you have have to do is believe! ''[Troy gears up to run into the "cartoon world"; Abed pops out of a dumpster seconds before he does, alarmed]'' Wait! You don't have to believe.\
46	'''Troy''': [[BlatantLies I didn't!]] ''[clearly disappointed]'' I didn't...\
47	''[dejected, Troy slinks away]''\
48	'''Abed''': ...I may have done some damage there.
49	* ComicallyMissingThePoint: After Jeff spies his old friend and hides, saying, "This is all I need," Abed calls out to him, saying, "[[SarcasmBlind You’re all my friend needs.]]"
50	* CouldSayItBut: Played with, upon Annie realizing she knows Alan from her Narcotics Anonymous meetings. She blurts "NARCOTICS! I know where I know Alan from!" out but immediately clams up & declares she's not allowed to say, only for Britta to point that it's obvious that means she met him in Narcotics Anonymous. Annie is then talked into letting the rest of the group guess that Alan may have been behind Jeff's disbarring. She writes it down on a notepad & intends to mime it, only for Shirley to just take the notepad and read out what Annie wrote.
51	* DeceasedFallGuyGambit: Alan blames a former lawyer acquaintance of theirs who no longer practices for Jeff's disbarring. Jeff isn't buying it. Alan's lie gets an even darker tone when we learn that the other guy was actually a wonderful person. How wonderful? He adopted three at-risk teens and donated a kidney to a temp. When Alan points out that the guy left the firm shortly after Jeff was reported, Jeff replies it was because the man's ''wife passed away''.
52	* DenserAndWackier: Conversed, as Jeff observes to Abed in the cold open how much Greendale is becoming more like a cartoon.
53	* DescriptionCut: Shirley suggests telling someone that the group can't make the Pop-and-Lock-athon, while Pierce claims that nobody cares. Cut to Chang, signing in at the Pop-and-Lock-athon alone.
54	* TheDeterminator: Chang [[spoiler:dancing for five straight hours so he can join the study group.]]
55	* DistinctionWithoutADifference: Jeff's regression to his lawyer days causes him to invoke this.
56	-->'''Britta''': In other words, we're not cool.\
57	'''Jeff''': I never said that. You may have heard it, I may have thought it, and it may be true. But I never said it.
58	* DistractedByTheSexy: Annie complains to Troy and Abed that all she's been used for that night is bait and distraction. They're too busy [[MyEyesAreUpHere staring at her bouncing chest]] to catch what she says.
59	-->'''Annie:''' Go on your stupid mission; I hope it sucks.\
60	'''Troy:''' What did she say?\
61	'''Abed:''' I dunno.\
62	'''Troy:''' All I heard was 'suck.'
63	* FreakOut: Troy ''launches'' into one after Annie chloroforms the janitor.
64	* FunnyBackgroundEvent: During Troy's aforementioned FreakOut, Annie in the background accidentally puts the chloroform rag to her face and reacts to it.
65	* HonestyIsTheBestPolicy: Jeff's perfectly willing to associate with Alan even after receiving conclusive proof that it was Alan who stabbed him in the back by revealing his lack of qualifications and getting him fired, but when Alan can't even admit it to Jeff, instead weaseling out of it by blaming a fellow attorney, Jeff returns to his friends.
66	* HuntingTheMostDangerousGame: Conversed. Pierce believes it's badass. Jeff, not so much.
67	-->'''Jeff:''' Britta, you're not a whore. Shirley, Jesus turned the other cheek, he didn't garnish wages. Pierce, do I need to say this? IT'S BAD TO HUNT MAN FOR SPORT.\
68	'''Pierce''': Bad''ASS''!
69	* HypocriticalHumor: Parodied.
70	-->'''Pierce''': C'mon, Jeff's bush league. I gave seminars on manipulation, I can reach into a man's soul & unravel it with one tug.\
71	'''Alan''': Cool, hit me.\
72	'''Pierce''': (''beat'') You're bald.\
73	'''Alan''': (''shrugs'') [[InsultBackfire So are you.]]\
74	'''Pierce''': (''stands up'') [[DisproportionateRetribution I'LL KILL YOU, YOU S-- COME HERE!]]
75	* ICanExplain:
76	** Subverted; Troy doesn't actually have an explanation, he’s just [[HoldingTheFloor stalling for time]]. DoubleSubverted, it actually works.
77	** Also:
78	--->'''Jeff:''' I can explain. I'm a teacher. Wait, that's worse than the truth. I'm a student.
79	* IKnowWhatWeCanDoCut: After Annie chloroforms the janitor, Abed says he has an idea to get out of it. Cut to Troy, Annie & Abed lying on the floor next to the janitor, acting like they've been chloroformed too. But since they didn't get rid of the rag that Annie used, the janitor remembers what happened & Annie chloroforms him a second time.
80	* InstantSedation: The chloroform takes the janitor out in a matter of seconds. Twice.
81	* JediMindTrick: Troy tries this on the janitor when he and Abed are caught in Alan's office. Needless to say, it doesn't work.
82	* JerkAss: Jeff, even more so than usual since it's most likely because of Alan's influence making him revert back to how he was before he went to Greendale. The highlight is probably when, after they show him the email Alan sent that got him disbarred, he lectures them on how caring is bad.
83	* LampshadeHanging:
84	-->'''Jeff:''' Every day this campus gets more and more cartoon-y.\
85	'''Abed''': I know. I painted a tunnel on the library wall. As soon as it dries, I'm going for it.
86	* LaughingMad: Chang does this while lying on the floor at the end. The study group refuses to let him join even after he dances for hours representing them in the pop and lock contest.
87	-->'''Dean Pelton:''' Y'know what? He's bringing us down. Let's move him. Can we move him?
88	* NotSoAboveItAll: Abed, when Annie chloroforms the janitor. Lampshaded:
89	-->'''Abed:''' I usually have one foot out of reality, and even ''I'm'' freaking out right now.
90	* OriginsEpisode: For Jeff.
91	* ParodyDisplacement:
92	** An in-universe example. Britta does an impression of a bit [[Series/TheDailyShow Jon Stewart]] does frequently on ''The Daily Show'', which is itself an impression of [[Series/TheTonightShow Johnny Carson]], which comes off as a weird impersonation of Carson. When asked "Is that your Johnny Carson?" Britta is confused, and says no, it was her Jon Stewart.
93	** Another in-universe ones plays off the first in-universe one: when Alan does his Carson impression Troy says he's "got Britta down."
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95	* PowerTrio: Troy, Abed, and Annie (in a preview of their various dynamics [[spoiler:as roommates]]). In this episode, at least, Annie (and her bottle of chloroform) act as the [[FreudianTrio Id]], Troy represents [[CombatDiplomacyStealth Diplomacy]] (or tries to), and Abed is the [[NiceMeanAndInBetween in-between one]].
96	* {{Profiling}}: Abed and Troy assign Annie to lookout because if she gets caught, she gets taken to dinner as a young and pretty white woman; but if them, "Music/{{Kanye\|West}} and [[Film/HaroldAndKumar Kumar]]", get caught, they go to jail.
97	* ShoutOut:
98	** Alan calls Jeff [[Film/TangoAndCash Tango]], Jeff calls him [[Film/ButchCassidyAndTheSundanceKid Sundance]]. They worked with different partners.
99	** Abed explains that Alan is a bad influence on Jeff by referencing ''Film/BadInfluence''.
100	* SingleTear: Chang sheds one when the study group screw him over in the Pop-'n-Lock-a-Thon. [[JerkassWoobie Poor guy.]]
101	* TheTag: [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GlCN7sLh6Gk You have to believe, Troy!]]
102	-->'''Abed:''' Nothing's impossible in here. [[TalkingAnimal Animals can talk]], [[HeartSymbol your heart is shaped like a heart]], [[FollowYourNose and the smell of pie can make you float!]]
103	* TotallyRadical: Invoked and lampshaded.
104	--> '''Britta''': Jeff, Alan narced on you!\
105	'''Jeff''': But he's way too ''primo'' for that, ''Music/FrankZappa''!
106	* ToxicFriendInfluence: Alan's presence at Greendale causes Jeff to regress to the amoral and manipulative {{Jerkass}} he was at the beginning of the series.
107	-->'''Annie:''' Shouldn't we be happy that Jeff found an old friend?\
108	'''Abed:''' Our concern is that Alan is to Jeff what Rob Lowe was to James Spader in the 1990 film ''Film/BadInfluence''.\
109	'''Shirley''' ''[disapprovingly]'': He's a bad influence.\
110	'''Abed:''' [[ComicallyMissingThePoint You saw it?]]
111	%% * TrueCompanions: At the end, so much.

Context Recap / CommunityS2E02AccountingForLawyers