History Recap / CommunityS6E06BasicEmailSecurity

* AnAesop:
** The characters try and figure out the message of the episode for completion but just end up rearranging the words privacy, freedom of speech, terrorism and government. When the hacker is arrested they settle on "Crime doesn't pay".
** Warburton's "No one's free when they're one of anything," comment that immediately precedes the above seems to be an IgnoredAesop.

* WiseBeyondTheirYears: The 10 year old child in charge of the police cyber unit is considerably more cynical and world-weary than the adult cop he speaks with.

* FunctionalAddict: Frankie believes that Jeff is one. He doesn't even seem to understand the concept and is absolutely infuriating by her calling him that, with him even comparing the term to a "non-lethal murderer" or "armless javelin thrower."

** There's another one later where the "hope" is more that the characters will come out as the moral victors than anything else. After defying the hacker and hosting the performance, the gang meets Gupta Gupti Gupta and he earnestly thanks them for not canceling his act, causing Britta to happily declare that they did the right thing. Then it turns out that a) Gupta Gupti Gupta's act isn't just mean-spirited and offensive but also ''[[StylisticSuck amazingly bad]]'', and b) exactly one student showed up to watch it, because c) all the other students have been blackmailed into forming a mob and shutting the performance down. In the end, the gang is left not only feeling like they didn't do the right thing, but that they're not even sure what the right thing was even supposed to be.

* OhNoNotAgain: Abed just rolls his eyes when he realizes they're doing another dark secrets episode. He explains to Frankie and Elroy that the group went through this two times already.

* PoliticalCorrectnessGoneMad: The Dean got the notoriously offensive Indian-American comedian Gupta Gupti Gupta to attend Greendale. When the other members of the "Save Greendale" committee point out how terrible of an idea this was, the Dean tries to excuse himself by saying "How could he be racist?! Listen to his name!"

* MeanCharacterNiceActor: In-universe. Gupta Gupti Gupta is a perfectly friendly and polite NiceGuy in person[[note]]Most notably, not only does he sincerely thank the committee members for keeping him on since Greendale's the first school in ''six months'' to not cancel on him, but he even offers [[KnowWhenToFoldEm to just leave when he realizes how everyone will have their emails leaked if he stays]][[/note]], but his comedy act apparently consists solely of him rudely insulting his own audience.

* SoUnfunnyItsFunny: Gupta's act.

* BusCrash: According to the lunch lady's emails, [[spoiler:Buzz Hickey]].

** Neil is literally the ''only'' person outside of the "Save Greendale" committee to show up to Gupta's performance. Once he [[ScrewThisImOuttaHere tries to flee]] upon realizing that his emails will get hacked if he stays, the committee physically restrains him and forces him to stay. And, as if that wasn't bad enough, he then gets repeatedly made fun of for the entirety of Gupta's "comedy" act.

** Jeff's HeroWorship of astronauts can be seen as an allusion to how [[Recap/CommunityS1E01Pilot he told Troy in "Pilot" that "Astronauts go to the Moon to impress their high school quarterbacks."]]

* ClickbaitGag: After the lunch lady's emails are hacked and leaked to the internet, Elroy mentions that one website has put up a list of "Five Bacardi Cocktails Inspired By the Lunch Lady's Most Embarrassing Emails".
-->'''Elroy''': [[BitingTheHandHumor That's the future of the internet -- branded content.]]

--->'''Abed:''' If you follow a theme of "revealed secrets," the email hack is the third installment of a trilogy that began with [[Recap/CommunityS2E08CooperativeCalligraphy Annie losing a pen]] in what I've come to call "the golden age."

* MythologyGag: The music that Abed cranks up before Gupta's performance is "Daybreak," a musical RunningGag heard throughout the show and which was most prominently featured in Season 3.

* ResignedToTheCall: Jeff agrees to join Britta and the others in taking a stand against the email hackers -- not because he believes in the cause, but because he's learned by this point that he'll get dragged into it anyway.

-->'''Dean Pelton''': ''[shifting back to adult voice with hands up in resignation]'' Computer no worky.

** Frankie brings up Troy and Pierce's exits from the show with the line "I'm guessing [[ItMakesSenseInContext the second chapter]] would be when [[Recap/CommunityS5E06AnalysisOfCorkBasedNetworking your best friend vanished on a mysterious boat trip]] [[Recap/CommunityS5E04CooperativePolygraphy after the old one masturbated himself to death?]]"

* [[invoked]] CreatorCameo[=/=]DescendedCreator: The director for this episode, Jay Chandrasekhar, plays the insanely offensive shock comedian Gupta Gupti Gupta.
* DisappearedDad: Jeff emails astronauts in the desperate hope to gain positive fatherly figures in his life.
* DirtyOldMan: Elroy took naked pictures of the members of the "Save Greendale" committee to be used in a game he's developing without their explicit consent, much to their revulsion. Additionally, below is his reaction to the lunch lady's emails being leaked at the beginning of the episode:

** Britta is angered & offended by Jeff & Chang's emails about "Who looks hotter today, Annie or Britta?", but an annoyed Annie notes that Britta still memorized the number of times Jeff said Britta looked hotter.

** When the "Save Greendale" committee is furiously arguing with each other, it looks like Elroy's heartfelt confession regarding him pretending to be someone else's cousin will patch the situation up and let everyone get back to work. Then Annie brings up the naked pictures he took of the female committee members for his game (which he didn't tell them about beforehand) and everyone instantly starts bickering again.

* TheInternetIsForPorn: A variant; According to Jeff, the only thing he uses his Greendale email account for is "porn subscriptions and improv show mailing lists." Also, he "looked at boobies one time" on his work computer.

** Arguably, Chang and Jeff's daily "Who's hotter today, Britta or Annie?" email exchange is a nod to the fact that this is a not uncommon topic of discussion on the internet after each episode airs.

* ThePasswordIsAlwaysSwordfish: The hacker was able to break into Greendale's network by guessing their password: [[spoiler:"Changeme"]].

** After Greendale descends into chaos from everyone's emails being leaked, Jeff describes the situation as "going all [[Film/MadMax2TheRoadWarrior Road Warrior]]."

** A more subtle case, but Elroy's half-assed excuses for why he's using the naked pictures he took of the female committee members in his video game being that it's because "They're all strong, intelligent and powerful women on an emotional journey!" can be seen as one directed at male artistic creators who claim to be feminists and yet frequently fetishize women in art along with treating them as eye candy for the MaleGaze.

-->'''Frankie:''' She's ''dead!'' I pretend to write her emails as a journaling device, you wretched, invasive ''little GREMLIN!''\\
'''Britta:''' ...OK, why don't we just call that "rock bottom"? ''[Jeff nods]''

* FunnyBackgroundEvent: After Frankie angrily asks Jeff what he meant when he called her a "chapstick lesbian," Abed goes to offer her some chapstick.

* MeanCharacterNiceActor: Gupta Gupti Gupta is a perfectly friendly and polite NiceGuy in person[[note]]Most notably, not only does he sincerely thank the committee members for keeping him on since Greendale's the first school in ''six months'' to not cancel on him, but he even offers [[KnowWhenToFoldEm to just leave when he realizes how everyone will have their emails leaked if he stays]][[/note]], but his comedy act apparently consists solely of him rudely insulting his own audience.

* SarcasmBlind: When the HopelessWithTech Dean desperately insists to Elroy that there ''has'' to be a way to fix his computer being hacked in the episode's opening scene, Elroy sarcastically claims that he could "[[TechnoBabble go cut the hardline at the mainframe]]." It takes the Dean running down the hall and then slowly repeating Elroy's words back to himself to realize Elroy was kidding.

* StylisticSuck: Gupta Gupti Gupta's comedy act is hilariously terrible, with it basically consisting of him coming up with various mean-spirited and bigoted insults to throw at his audience. Furthermore, all of his "jokes" have no understanding of how to set up punchlines, subvert the audience's expectation, tastefully approach controversial topics, or even use clever wordplay.

'''Elroy:''' ''Exactly!'' Leave them alone!

* AffectionateParody: the episode's final scene is a nod to the existential dialogues Hart and Cohle of ''Series/TrueDetective'' would have while driving to assignments.
* AmbiguouslyGay: Frankie according to some of the study group.

* BigWhat: Frankie and Elroy share one when they learn Chang used to be a teacher.

* CallBack: Frankie brings up Troy and Pierce's exits from the show with the line, "I'm guessing the second chapter would be when your best friend vanished on a mysterious boat trip after the old one masturbated himself to death?"

* CovertPervert: Elroy, who is making 3D models of the female study group members.

* FunctionalAddict: Frankie believes that Jeff is one. He doesn't even seem to understand the concept, comparing the term to a "non-lethal murderer" or "armless javelin thrower."

** After pledging not to peek at the leaks, everyone (except for Abed, who kept his promise) is mad about what everyone else wrote.
** Britta is angered & offended by Jeff & Chang's emails about "Who looks hotter today, Annie or Britta?" but Annie notes that Britta still memorised the time Jeff said Britta looked hotter.
* HopeSpot: One where the "hope" is that the characters will come out as the moral victors. After defying the hacker and hosting the performance, the gang meets Gupta Gupti Gupta and he earnestly thanks them for not canceling his act, causing Britta to happily declare that they did the right thing. Then it turns out that a) Gupta Gupti Gupta's act isn't just mean-spirited and offensive but also ''[[StylisticSuck amazingly bad]]'', and b) exactly one student showed up to watch it, because c) all the other students have been blackmailed into forming a mob and shutting the performance down. In the end, the gang is left not only not feeling like they did the right thing, but they're not even sure what the right thing was even supposed to be.

** It's brought up for the first time in a long time that Chang used to be a teacher, "and frankly, [I] haven't been well-utilized since!"
** '''Abed''': If you follow a theme of "revealed secrets," the email hack is the third installment of a trilogy that began with [[Recap/CommunityS2E08CooperativeCalligraphy Annie losing a pen]] in what I've come to call "the golden age."
** Arguably, Chang and Jeff's daily "who's hotter today, Britta or Annie?" email exchange is a nod to the fact that this is a not uncommon topic of discussion on the internet after each episode airs.

* MeanCharacterNiceActor: Gupta Gupti Gupta is perfectly friendly and polite in person, but his comedy act apparently consists solely of insulting his audience.
* MythologyGag: The music that Abed cranks up before Gupti's performance is "Daybreak."
* OnlySaneMan: Britta and Abed share the role this episode. Britta is the only one at the beginning of the episode that can see how horrible what happened to the lunch lady was and Abed is the only one who didn't read anyone's email.

* RunningGag: Someone (in this case, Officer Cackowski) pointing at each member of the group and repeating a question (in this case, "You guys excited for [[Film/AvengersAgeOfUltron Avengers]]? Avengers? Avengers?").

'''Frankie:''' Oh, it's not cute, Annie!

* ThisIsForEmphasisBitch:
-->'''Frankie:''' A free government terrorizes privacy. That's all four, bitches.
* WhamLine: Chang mocks Frankie for writing long, "melodramatic" emails to her sister, who never responds.

'''Britta:''' OK, why don't we just call that "rock bottom"? ''[Jeff nods]''
* WiseBeyondTheirYears: The 10 year old child in charge of the police cyber unit is much more cynical and world weary than the adult cop he speaks with.

-->'''Frankie:''' She's ''dead!'' I pretend to write her emails as a journaling device, you wretched, invasive ''little gremlin!''\\

* LeaningOnTheFourthWall: It's brought up for the first time in a long time that Chang used to be a teacher, "and frankly, I haven't been well-utilized since!"

* AnAesop: The characters try and figure out the message of the episode for completion but just end up rearranging the words privacy, freedom of speech, terrorism and government. When the hacker is arrested they settle on "Crime doesn't pay".

* WhamLine:
-->'''Frankie:''' She's dead.

* HopeSpot: One where the "hope" is that the characters will come out as the moral victors. After defying the hacker and hosting the performance, the gang meets Gupta Gupti Gupta and he earnestly thanks them for not canceling his act, causing Annie to happily declare that they did the right thing. Then it turns out that a) Gupta Gupti Gupta's act isn't just mean-spirited and offensive but also ''[[StylisticSuck amazingly bad]]'', and b) exactly one student showed up to watch it, because c) all the other students have been blackmailed into forming a mob and shutting the performance down. In the end, the gang is left not only not feeling like they did the right thing, but they're not even sure what the right thing was even supposed to be.

* AnAesop: The characters try and figure out the message of the episode for completion but just end up rearranging the words privacy, freedom of speech, terrorism and government. When the hacker is arrested they settle on "Crime doesn't pay".
** Warburton's "No one's free when they're one of anything," comment that immediately precedes the above seems to be an IgnoredAesop.