"Greendale students: I understand you've unified and intend to draw this game out. Well, if it's a war you want, it's a war you will lose. City College is stronger, faster; our sperm counts are higher, even in our women. Resistance is as pointless as your degrees."
— Dean Spreck
Greendale is at war. The school has been all but destroyed by its own students, all playing paintball to win the $100,000 prize offered by Pistol Patty's Ice Creamery. But "Pistol Patty" is really Dean Spreck of City College, who has unleashed this scheme to destroy the Greendale campus and has employed ringers such as the Black Rider and his stormtrooper-esque White Clones — all of whom have been enrolled at Greendale for weeks — to ensure he doesn't have to pay out the prize. The only hope for saving the school is for one of its students to win the prize and donate it to the school, so the Study Group assembles a ragtag bunch of misfit students to fight back, stop Dean Spreck and save Greendale Community College.
The Community episode "For A Few Paintballs More" provides examples of:
- Action Girl: Britta, Shirley and Annie do a lot of impressive paintball feats for a bunch of ordinary college students. Especially the former two, who are the last Greendale Students standing (besides Pierce) and fire at City College troops from a golf cart in the climax.
- Affectionate Parody: Of the Star Wars model of a Ragtag Bunch of Misfits resisting The Empire. It's instead a bunch of community college students resisting their rival school in a do-or-die paintball war.
- Air-Vent Passageway: Would've been attempted by Troy's squad, had Garrett not gotten stuck in the duct.
- All Girls Want Bad Boys: Annie is attracted to Abed's Lovable Rogue Han Solo-type character and is visibly bummed when he drops the impersonation.
- Almost Dead Guy: After Jumping on a Grenade to save the rest of the rebels, Magnitude croaks out half of his catchphrase as Troy sobs over his body, begging him to complete it.
- Aloof Ally: Abed takes the role of Han Solo so Jeff wouldn't beat him to it.
- And There Was Much Rejoicing: Greendale students rejoice after Shirley wins the competition. And again after Pierce wins it for real and promises the money to Greendale.
- Armor-Piercing Question: When Pierce comments that it took the study group two years to kick him out, Spreck fires back, "What took them so long?"
- Attack Drone: City College sends a bomb attached to a remote-controlled car to the Greendale students' classroom hideout. Doubles as a Surveillance Drone, since Jeff picks it up and uses it to communicate with Spreck.
- As Long as There Is One Man: Double Subverted. Under heavy fire from the enemy troops, Jeff gives an inspiring speech to Quendra with a QU, telling her that City College might take out most of their troops, but someone will carry the fight to the end. He is then taken out by a Stormtrooper and shrugs off the loss, walking off the quad. Britta ends up being the last person on the field and visibly hesitates to charge... before Shirley arrives in a golf cart and the two of them go for the win.
- Badass Driver: Shirley drives an increasingly paint-splattered golf cart all the way to the enemy stronghold. She, essentially, single-handedly saves Jeff's plan when it fails.
- Batman Gambit: The entirety of the previous episode is revealed to be one of these by Dean Spreck of City College. Spreck sponsored the Spring Fling as "Pistol Patty", and offered the $100,000 cash prize, knowing the students would turn on each other and trash the school, and knowing full and well that the Greendale wouldn't have the money to fix it.
- Big Bad: Dean Spreck orchestrated the whole plan in order to destroy Greendale.
- Big Damn Heroes: When Britta is cornered by enemy troops and at a loss for what to do, Shirley triumphantly arrives in a golf cart and the two of them save Jeff's plan. The two of them are then taken out by the last two Stormtroopers...who are then taken out by Pierce Hawthorne.
- The Big Damn Kiss: Parodied. Abed and Annie have a Now or Never Kiss when cornered by Stormtroopers in the library just before Shirley pulls the fire alarm rigged with paint. The two are then bathed in paint, evoking a kiss in the rain intercut with Troy's Redemption in the Rain as triumphant music swells. Then Abed drops the Lovable Rogue act and walks away, visibly disappointing Annie.
- Big, Stupid Doodoo-Head: While improvising banter with Abed, Annie can only come up with "no-good, laser-faced, jabba scoundrel".
- Bittersweet Ending: Pierce wins the paintball competition and decides to donate the money to repair the school, but he comes to a decision to quit the Study Group.
- Black Dude Dies First:
- Averted, since a nameless student is the first to get taken out by the Stormtroopers (however, Magnitude is the first named character to "die").
- Also inverted in that Shirley ends up being the last full-time Greendale student to get taken out.
- Both Sides Have a Point: Jeff's plan to take out City College is to storm their Gatling gun in the courtyard and take it out. The problem is that this plan is a Suicide Mission. Troy retorts that if they set off the sprinklers after luring the City College Stormtroopers to the library, he can get them all at once. This is also a Suicide Mission for anyone left inside. Annie tells them to Take a Third Option and for Greendale's rebels to engage in both plans at once. It works in getting rid of most of the Stormtroopers except for the ones holding Pierce hostage.
- Troy's plan would have worked had Garrett not gotten stuck in the vent, thereby blocking the Greendale team's exit route.
- Brick Joke:
- Throughout the first half of the episode, Jeff fights with Troy over leadership of the resistance. The Dean even believes that Jeff will be the one to save the day. Guess who's the first member of the study group who gets eliminated?
- Early on, Leonard interprets "Hit 'em where it hurts" to mean "Just below their balls." Later, when getting ready to fight, his Battle Cry is "Let's kick some taint."
- Call-Back: Oh boy...
- Shirley's driving.
- Troy's super-plumbing abilities, and the return of the janitor.
- The poster of Dean of Admissions Pat Isakson.
- Quendra with a Q-U returns briefly.
- This is a bit more subtle, but as previously shown, it's really easy for someone to mess with the school's application system so that the City College students could double as Greendale students. In fact, that's how Chang got involved with the original paintball tournament.
- The Cameo: Busy Phillips and Dan Byrd from Cougar Town are seen briefly among the extras after Greendale wins. It's a Call-Back to the episode where Abed says he was a background extra on the set of that show.
- Camera Abuse: The camera screen gets paint on it during an action scene.
- Chekhov's Boomerang: Pierce's fake heart-attack ploy comes in handy once again.
- Chekhov's Skill: Super-plumbing. Troy uses it to take out the main Stormtrooper forces within the school.
- Collective Groan: Everyone groans when Abed says they've now entered a Star Wars motif.
- Comically Missing the Point:
- "Pop what, Magnitude? Pop WHAT?"
- Abed didn't understand that no one likes the Star Wars genre shift.
- Conflict Killer: After City College's sinister plan is revealed, virtually all of Greendale's true students band together and agree that whoever wins will give the prize money to the school to repair the damage done by the game.
- Cue the Falling Object: The last scene at the study room where everyone watches in silence after Pierce announced his resignation. Then a piece of furniture drops from the ceiling.
- Curb Stomp Cushion: Though he's the first one out, Jeff comes up with a viable plan to storm the Paintball Gatling gun and even gets in a few shots at the Stormtroopers manning it.
- Dare to Be Badass: Jeff prepping his team mates before Storming the Machine Gun.
- Darkest Hour: Jeff's party is down to two fighters and Abed's group is surrounded with no bullets left. Cue Shirley's Big Damn Heroes moment.
- Decoy Protagonist: The Dean and Jeff himself believe he is the hero of the story. Turns out Jeff is the first of the study group to 'die'. Really any of the other members could make a better argument for being the protagonist. The day, however, is saved by Pierce and Shirley, the last two standing.
- Dramatic Unmask: How Dean Spreck reveals himself as Pistol Patty.
- Dressing as the Enemy: Pierce at the end dresses as troopers and pretends to be on their side. Then he backstabs them.
- Dropped a Bridge on Him: Parodied. Jeff gives an inspiring speech and prepares to make a Last Stand... and is anticlimactically taken out with a paintball.Jeff: Well, I'm out. We lost.
- Evil Gloating: A confused Dean Pelton needs Dean Spreck to do this:Now, I understand everything! Now your whole evil plan is as clear as day!
(pause)
But if you need to explain it to your men I will understand! - Evil Plan: Dean Spreck explains his plan to the Dean. Troy and Abed are around to overhear everything.
- Face Death with Dignity: Troy's calm demeanor before being riddled with bullets.
- Faceless Goons: Dean Spreck's mooks are dressed in white paintball armor. It allows Pierce to win the game for Greendale.
- Face, Nod, Action: Abed and Troy have exchange nods before going on their Suicide Mission against the troopers.
- Faint in Shock: The Dean has spent the entire episode trying to ensure that he won't have to pay out the paintball prize. He faints when Pierce announces that the award money should go to Greendale.
- Five-Second Foreshadowing: Magnitude says that he works alone. A few seconds later, he goes out Jumping on a Grenade to save his classmates from the onslaught of paint.
- Gatling Good: The enemy "stronghold" is a paintball machine gun that puts the Greendale students at a massive disadvantage.
- Genre Shift: From Western to "Rebels vs. The Empire", as mentioned above. Lampshaded. (By meta-guy Abed, of course.)
- Golden Mean Fallacy: From the way that both plans develop, it becomes clear that trying to do both renders each too weak to succeed. They only end up succeeding because Pierce is a
Magnificent Bastard. - Heroic Sacrifice: Magnitude is the first of the rebels out because he jumps on a paintball grenade to ensure no one else gets hit."Pop... p..."
- Hidden Villain: At the start of the episode Pistol Patty is revealed to be Dean Spreck from the rival City College.
- His Name Is...: Magnitude dies trying to cite his catchphrase.Troy: "Pop? Pop what? What is he trying to say? Pop what, Magnitude?!"
- Hollywood Tactics: Jeff's plan to frontally assault a machine gun is called out as stupid, until Annie suggests combining it with Troy's plan to lure most of the goons away to the library.
- A House Divided: Dean Spreck's evil plan was for Greendale students to turn on each other and destroy the campus.
- Hypocritical Humor:
- Troy interrupting Jeff's "Greendale on three!" at the count of two, insisting every second counts, only to proclaim "Greendale on two!" and starting the count again.
- Towards the end, we get this.Jeff: They can kill most of us, but as long as nobody gives up, somebody will make it through. Understand?
Quendra: Yes.
Jeff: Charge! (gets shot) Well, I'm out. We lost.
- Imperial Stormtrooper Marksmanship Academy: The City College Stormtroopers make their kills through sheer weight of numbers (and a conveniently placed Paintball turret) rather than anything approaching accuracy.
- Ironic Echo: Within the space of ten seconds.Stormtrooper 1: [reading from a poster on a door:] "Welcome to Greendale: you're already accepted"?
Stormtrooper 2: Pfft. Losers.
[The Stormtroopers get shot through the poster by Annie and Abed.]
Stormtrooper 1: What the?!
Annie: Welcome to Greendale.
Abed: You're already dead. - It Has Been an Honor: Parodied. As Jeff hypes up his team for a high-risk paintball mission:Jeff: Greendale, it's been a pleasure fighting with you. Some of us won't make it. But there is a place where we will all see each other again... and that place is Denny's.
- It's Been Done: Annie and everyone else consider the idea of a Star Wars Whole-Plot Reference played-out.
- It's the Principle of the Thing: Pierce, among everyone else, is the one who could write a check for Greendale to repair the damages without blinking an eye. He wins anyway because it's more that City College was trying to humiliate Greendale by turning them into a bunch of paintball savages. As Jeff once put it, Greendale is their public toilet.
- Jumping on a Grenade: After scoffing at the idea of an alliance, Magnitude heroically jumps on a paint grenade to save the rest of the "rebels".
- Just Between You and Me: Invoked when the Dean learns his rival planned everything. He claims to suddenly understand the entire plan, "but if you need to explain it to your men, I understand." Spreck obliges, explaining that he set up the contest to destroy Greendale.
- La Résistance: The remains of the Greendale students.
- The Leader: Troy and Jeff squabble over the role, with Troy as a clear Type III and Jeff lampshading his role. They both end up being a Decoy Protagonist.
- Leeroy Jenkins: Vickieeeeee!!!! She goes charging just as Jeff is trying to figure out how to effectively storm the ice-cream truck. He goes with it and charges.
- May the Farce Be with You: A Downplayed example. There are definitely a number of references to Star Wars in this episode: Pistol Patty's entrance referencing Darth Vader's, the opening crawl, and Abed playing Han Solo. However it mostly plays off the general idea of Star Wars: a Ragtag Bunch of Misfits fighting The Empire.
- Mr. Fanservice: Much like Jeff in "Modern Warfare", Troy spends the whole episode in a muscle shirt.
- Ms. Fanservice: Take all of the Alison Brie fanservice from the previous episode and combine it with Clothing Damage and being covered in paint.
- Multiple Gunshot Death: Troy gets riddled with bullets from the troopers.
- Near-Villain Victory: Just as Shirley gloats about being the Final Girl, several Stormtroopers that were hiding shoot her. Then the Dean cheers that he won. Thanks to Pierce, the final Stormtroopers are gunned down.
- Non-Indicative Title: Like the previous episode, the episode title refers to a spaghetti Western. Unlike the previous episode, the actual episode isn't a Western pastiche in the least.
- Noodle Incident: Leonard is anxious to clarify which Denny's the participants plan to meet up at after the game.Jeff: We'll figure it out later, Leonard.
Leonard: Uh, the one near the 15 exit — I'm banned from there. - No Range Like Point-Blank Range: Pierce shoots the last two White Clones at the end.
- Not in This for Your Revolution: Invoked. Abed, having patterned his role this time around Han Solo, says he's not in the alliance to save Greendale. Apparently, he is Only in It for the Money.
- Now or Never Kiss: Abed and Annie make out after they've both run out of ammo and are about to be eliminated.
- Obligatory Earpiece Touch: Troy and Jeff touch their ear while communicating over their earpieces.
- Oh, Crap!: Troy upon being face-to-face with a squadron of Stormtroopers:Troy: I had a dream it would end this way.
- Old Soldier: Leonard:"Britta, I've been in a few real wars. This one is actually the most terrifying."
- Only Sane Man: The tag reveals that, for perhaps obvious reasons, the janitor is much less taken with the idea of the paintball war than the rest of the school.
- Opening Scroll: It's about four sentences long."Let's not draw this out."
- Operation: [Blank]: An increasingly passive-aggressive iteration between Jeff and Troy.Troy: Operation Troy's Awesome Plan is living up to its name!
Jeff: Squad B, commencing Operation Actual Operation. - Opposing Combat Philosophies: Jeff and Troy have two different plans on to how to defeat City College. Annie merges them into one.
- Orange/Blue Contrast: The final scene has this colouring all over the place, and it looks awesome. Annie, Abed and Troy have white clothes which have been stained with orange paint from the sprinkles, while Jeff, Britta and Pierce are dressed in blue of various shades.
- Outrun the Fireball: Outrun The Shower of Paint — Shirley after pulling the fire alarm.
- Paintball Episode: The paintball war from the previous episode continues in this Series Finale.
- Parallel Conflict Sequence: A standard editing technique from the Star Wars films is referenced when the scenes cut between Tory's and Jeff's mission.
- Persona Non Grata: Leonard was apparently banned from a specific Denny's, though it's never revealed why.
- Pre-Asskicking One-Liner: The end of the game.Stormtrooper: Who are you?
Pierce: Your mother's lover. (shoots him) - The Quisling: Pierce offers to give any information about Jeff Winger to Dean Spreck in exchange for not being shot. They turn out to be only things that Pierce made up to make Jeff seem gay, and not anything of real tactical value. Since he betrays City College in the end, this was probably intentional.
- Ragtag Bunch of Misfits: The study group and other Greendale students have to band together to fight the City College invasion.
- "The Reason You Suck" Speech: Shirley and Britta each give each other really nasty ones in a deleted scene after Britta catches Shirley trying to 'kill' herself on purpose so that she can go home.
- Redemption in the Rain: Troy welcomes the rain of orange paint from sprinklers with his arms open, smiling happily and looking relieved that the plan worked.
- Red Shirt Army: Jeff leads a band of scrappy students along with Britta and a few recurring characters against the ice cream truck. They are all summarily taken out except for Britta.
- Remember the New Guy?: Paradox, the British student dressed like a hobo who contradicts everybody. Fitting name, as the trope itself is very paradoxical.
- Reset Button: Unlike the previous paintball story, averted; the tag of the episode features the school janitor looking forward to a long summer of arduously cleaning all the paint away. He is about as thrilled with this as you'd expect.
- Romantic Rain: Annie and Abed (who has been channeling Han Solo) kiss while the orange paint falls on them from the sprinklers.
- Scenery Gorn: They really trashed the school.
- Screw the Rules, I Make Them!: Since Spreck is technically sponsoring the event, he makes it so that if someone gets paint on them, they're out rather than just getting hit by a paintball gun. Which Troy makes the most of by filling the school's sprinkler system with paint and employs a Beat Them at Their Own Game trope.
- Season Finale: The second one.
- Self-Deprecation:
- Dan Harmon shows up on an admissions poster and is called a loser.
- At the end of the episode, Britta suggested that they take Anthro 201 next semester, and Abed said it was too risky because 'sequels are always disappointing'. This can both be a reference to the Star Wars franchise, and the episode itself, which was a sequel to a Sequel Episode.
- Serious Business:
- Paintball was already Serious Business at Greendale, but somehow this episode managed to make it even serious-er.
- Dean Spreck apparently believes that the City College / Greendale College rivalry is so important that Greendale needs to be utterly destroyed.
- Ship Sinking: Annie and Abed have good chemistry throughout the episode, even getting a Now or Never Kiss, only for Abed to promptly shoot it down once he's finished playing the Han Solo role.
- Shout-Out:
- Literary Allusion Title: The episode title is taken from For a Few Dollars More.
- There's the Star Wars Whole-Plot Reference, of course... Although it's downplayed; apart from Abed taking on the Han Solo role and forcing the issue, there are actually relatively few direct references to any of the Star Wars movies as everyone else considers the idea hackneyed and played out. The episode as a whole plays out in a more general 'underdog rebels vs. an evil invading empire' way.
- A subtler Star Wars shout out is the fact that the City College soldiers call each other "White Clones". The Stormtroopers are dressed in white, and are all clones.
- To war movies. Britta sees people getting "killed" in slow motion like Saving Private Ryan. Troy poses like Willem Dafoe in Platoon.
- "Welcome to Greendale. You're already dead".
- Both Jeff's plan and Troy's refer to the climaxes of films: Troy's is to Constantine (Holy water in the sprinklers killing vampires), and Jeff's is to the classic Western The Wild Bunch (where the climax involves charging a machine-gun nest)
- Dean Spreck's intercom speech (this page's quote, in fact) is a nod to the female radio DJ from The Warriors who provided both coded messages to New York's gangs and plot summary to the audience, complete with a replicated close shot of the lower half of Spreck's face speaking into a microphone. His cadence is even similar.
- "Shut Up!" Gunshot: Annie uses this trope to make herself heard during a heated debate.
- Skewed Priorities: "Dammit, Shirley! Forget about your newborn baby and focus on the people who need you!"
- Sore Loser: Jeff does not react well to being the first person eliminated in the final battle, stomping off in a huff immediately after.
- Special Edition Title: Star Wars themed!
- Take a Moment to Catch Your Death: Everyone is celebrating Shirley's victory until a bullet strikes her In the Back.
- Telepathic Sprinklers: Shirley tips the fire alarm and the sprinklers turn on all over the place.
- There Can Only Be One: The only rule of this year's paintball game is that one person will win the $100000 grand prize.
- There Is No Kill Like Overkill: Troy is taken out by a squad of enemy mooks who serve him an extended Multiple Gunshot Death.
- Took a Level in Badass:
- Vicki was scared to leave the fort in the previous episode. Here, she was the first to charge the ice cream truck.
- Britta, usually the Granola Girl Butt-Monkey of the group, does most of the shooting in Shirley's final assault on the ice cream truck, and is the one who takes out the "machine gunner".
- Inverted with Jeff. After winning the first season Paintball Episode, he is next to useless throughout the entire A Fistful of Paintballs/For a Few Paintballs More two-parter. He doesn't unambiguously manage to shoot anyone, and the only possible kills he makes onscreen are in the charge on the gatling gun, where he fires wildly with Chang's automatic paintball gun, and a few mooks get hit. Even then they might have been shot by one of the others.
- Toppled Statue: The paintball troops pull down the statue of Luis Guzman on the campus.
- Trash the Set: Whatever didn't get wrecked the last episode gets properly destroyed here.
- Waistcoat of Style: Abed makes Star-Burns give his vest up to so Abed can better look like Star Wars's Han Solo. He gives it to Annie at the end as a memento of their paintball partnership, only for her to realize that Star-Burns stinks.Abed: He uses some kind of crystal instead of deodorant.
- We Need a Distraction: Troy and his group successfully lure troopers off the ice cream truck so Jeff's group has better chances at attacking it.
- Wham Line:Pierce: No thanks, I'm done with you guys.
- What Happened to the Mouse?: Star-Burns is shown as part of Troy's team, but vanishes partway through the operation with no explanation due to his 'death' scene being cut.
- What the Hell, Hero?: Pierce calls the group out on their treatment of him.
- Wounded Gazelle Gambit: Pierce. It's ambiguous whose side he'll be on all episode, and then when he's left alone with a Stormtrooper, "HHNNNNNNNG!"
- You Are Already Dead: Almost word-for-word to a couple of City College soldiers.Soldier 1: Welcome to Greendale, you're already accepted?
Soldier 2: (laughs) Losers.
Annie: (after both have been shot) Welcome to Greendale.
Abed: You're already dead. - Your Mom: Pierce's Pre-Asskicking One-Liner before taking out the last two enemy soldiers: "I'm your mother's lover."
