YMMV / Community S2 E11: Abed's Uncontrollable Christmas

• Crosses the Line Twice: Abed accidentally feeling up Chang thinking he's adjusting the buttons on a snowman, and Chang saying the experience will be the reason he'll be crying in the shower tonight. The clincher is Abed walking away and Chang complaining that now that he has gotten started he might as well do him a favor and spend 10 minutes on the "third button".
• Designated Villain: Duncan and Britta are cast as the villains despite being the only two people who recognise that Abed's delusions are unhealthy and/or try to help fix them rather than enabling them. Duncan, granted, is clearly doing so for his own self-serving reasons and clearly stops being 'designated' towards the end when he bullies Abed into catatonia out of little more than spite for Abed reminding him of his own unhappy Christmases. But nevertheless, the two have a point that there's something clearly wrong going on here.
• Fridge Brilliance:
  • A stop-motion episode, co-written by Dino Stamatopoulos. ^note  He created Moral Orel and Mary Shelley's Frankenhole, both shows are animated in Stop Motion
  • The episode's last scene shows the group watching a Christmas special on TV. In the final shot, the screen on the set goes blank and we briefly see a reflection of the characters in live-action form, signifying that Abed's breakdown has finally ended.
• Funny Moments: The tag: "Troy and Abed in stop motion!"
• Heartwarming Moments: Last Christmas Shirley stuffed Annie's menorah into the tree where no one could see it. This year, while everyone else is grabbing the tree from the 'holiday zone', she takes the menorah.
  • Word of God says Abed imagined Pierce as a teddy bear because he thinks Pierce deserves more love than he receives.
  • Pierce coming back, even though the cookies are gone.
  • Despite causing Abed's breakdown, his mother's letter is really sweet:
  "Dear Abed,
  I can't come this year,
  I have a new family now.
  You'll meet them someday,
  you're a man now.
  Take care of Dad,
  wash your dupa.
  Love, Mom.
  
• Jerkass Woobie: Duncan becomes more sympathetic once we see how unhappy his own Christmases were after his dad left.
• Moment of Awesome: The end, where everyone comes back to beat up Professor Duncan and sing about it.
  "Aaaand... Christmas pterodactyl! Initiate self-destruct." "Don't you think that's a little—" BOOM!
• Tear Jerker:
  • The reason why Abed's searching for the true meaning of Christmas: Every year his mother would visit on December 9th to celebrate Christmas with him by watching Rudolph together. This year, she didn't because she has a new family.
  • Abed's song about Britta when he leaves her behind:
    Britta-Bot,
    Programmed badly,
    Wires with fraying ends.
    Functioning
    Mad and sadly.
    No faith in herself
    Or friends.
  • Any sympathy gained by it is pretty much negated by his Jerkass behavior at the end of the episode, but Duncan's outburst about his missing father and terrible home life counts.
  • One that doubles as Fridge Brilliance: Of course Pierce is the only one to stay until the end: this is his first Christmas without his mom, too.
• Villain Has a Point: Everything Duncan says is perfectly true. It's just not a pleasant truth, and it's delivered without any consideration for its effect on Abed's already disturbed mental state. Additionally, it's delivered in a way that reveals Duncan's own self-serving motivations.