During a road trip to unload the latest ridiculous thing that Dean Pelton's bought with Greendale's money, Abed imagines the trip as a flashback-filled feature film.
The Community episode Basic RV Repair & Palmistry provides examples of:
- Actor Allusion: Abed sarcastically thanks Jeff for appealing his "well-known appreciation of athletics". Abed's actor, Danny Pudi, is a huge sports fan.
- Bottle Episode: The majority of the episode was done within the confines of an RV.
- Call-Back: The Dean claims that the only "human" among the Study Group is Abed, a reference to "Horror Fiction in Seven Spooky Steps", in which Abed was the only one of the group to pass a sanity test.
- Cell Phones Are Useless: Played With. The cell phones remain fully charged and have signal throughout the episode. Unfortunately, the only help within hundreds of miles is busy, and charging the phones killed the backup battery for the RV.
- Cerebus Syndrome: The final few minutes of the episode made what was a comical episode into a complete downer.
- Chirping Crickets: Discussed. The Dean hears crickets outside and notes it would be a terrible place to practice your stand-up routine. He does it anyway.
- Flashback: Played to hell and back, let's count the ways
- Played straight: When Abed remembers setting the flashback point during the reunion at Greendale.
- Subverted: When he starts remembering things that didn't actually happen, like the Dean randomly tasing Jeff.
- Discussed and Invoked by Abed, as usual.
- Deconstructed: When Abed is so focused on flashbacks that he makes no contribution to the present problem.
- Attempts to Reconstruction by fake remembering suggesting extra thick straps, but ultimately fails since flashbacks aren't time travel.
- Ultimately Inverted, Frankie gets Abed to cooperate by convincing him that the present is actually a flashback.
- Parodied, which is the combined result of all of the above.
- Hero of Another Story: After having been absent the entire episode, Chang comes back at the end of the episode, covered in feathers. The camera cuts away as he begins to tell the study group what happened to him.
- Hope Spot: For a moment there Abed really believed he could change the past through flashbacks, encouraging the Dean to flashback with him and "remember" their request to use extra-thick straps on the hand - but as the Dean says, he can't remember it because it never happened. Cue the straps snapping and the hand falling off, taking the Dean with it.
- How We Got Here: The episode is the rare one that doesn't start in Greendale, but rather with the cast in Elroy's RV running out of gas. Immediately lampshaded by Abed.Abed: Three weeks earlier.
Frankie: Huh?
Abed: You know how sometimes a movie or a show begins on a random, intriguing scene with no context given encouraging you to wonder whoa, how'd this crazy scenario come to be? And then it cuts to black and a title comes up and says three weeks earlier.
Annie: Huh.
Abed: Here we are. Sitting in silence, crammed into an RV. Winding through the mountain roads of Colorado with a 19 foot fiberglass hand tied to the roof. If there was ever a time to cut to three weeks earlier it'd be right now. Know what I mean? - Idiot Ball/Out-of-Character Moment: Considering Abed's knowledge of the tricks and tropes of storytelling, you would expect him to know that the point of a How We Got Here plot is to explain the character's current situation. Instead, he seems to think that it's about the characters travelling back in time to Set Right What Once Went Wrong.
- This also doubles as a case of Wrong Genre Savvy.
- Know-Nothing Know-It-All: Jeff wants to be in charge so much that he pretends he knows all about RVs, even though he apparently thinks that you can flood a battery.
- Leaning on the Fourth Wall: Jeff, for once. "Abed, insert dialog here about you dropping the fourth wall schtick." Abed approves.
- Mood Whiplash: The tag is awfully dark after a happy ending.
- Never My Fault: The Dean throughout the episode; even when the group apologizes for each of their own misdeeds during the trip, the Dean - who is arguably the reason they're on the road trip in the first place - simply says that he forgives everyone. The group finally has enough of the Dean refusing to accept any of the blame for his screw ups.
- Noodle Incident: How Chang got feathered and how did Britta get her black eye?
- Plot-Driven Breakdown: The RV running out of gas and the batteries dying. Somewhat Played With in that the secondary battery would have remained functional if everyone had unplugged their electronics after Elroy first informed them of the problem, but no one did, which drained both batteries to empty.
- Right Hand Versus Left Hand: Frankie and Annie try to call the same automotive service for assistance, but are repeatedly put on hold. Whenever they do, they hang up and try again. Only Abed realizes that the reason each is put on hold is because the other calls.
- Road Trip Plot: The gang is taking a road trip across the Colorado mountains to sell the giant hand the Dean purchased.
- Strangely Arousing: When Britta tries to squeeze between the thumb and the index finger of the giant hand:Jeff: What's wrong with me if that's hot?
- Took a Level in Jerkass: Jeff was notably less charming in this episode.
- The Unreveal: "The reason why I'm covered in feathers is-" cut to The Tag.
