The A.V. Club

Community is coming back tonight! Did you forget? If so, please see your way out. You have no place here.

Community is back with an A (minus)! The best part of this is everything.

AVC: Can you say for certain that you’re the first Oscar winner to ever be discovered by the Reno Sheriff’s Department with an “apparatus” strapped to your head?

JR: If everyone wants to apparently redress this, all they have to do is put a dildo on their head, wear skimpy outfits, and show a lot of midriff, and you too can get to the stage! [Laughs.] It is interesting. I was touched by NBC’s little promo after I’d won, just loving that they were promoting Community returning to the air—but the fact that they were congratulating me and using that tone of like, “Really! This guy did!” So that was very touching. But yeah, I can’t tell you that, when I was on Reno 911!, stuck inside a sex doll, I wouldn’t say, “Oh, this is where I’ll be next.”

Ladies and gentlemen, Jim Rash.

And now our commenters’ stunt to get the Community midseason review to 30,000 comments has paid off. Surely they can count this as a victory and lay their keyboards to rest.

The crying women of Community remind you how sad it will be if it gets canceled

“I’ve never worked with a group of people that have impressed me so consistently on such a daily basis.” -Gillian Jacobs

There can be no tears until we know for sure whether the show comes back. But if it does get cancelled, we’ll all be sobbing.

Community will return on March 15. Tell everyone you know right now! And please let’s not court trouble by making Ides of March jokes just yet.

AVQ&A grants everyone one pop-culture wish today (no, you can’t wish for more wishes). Our writers wanted greater civility and originality, which seems like a waste of a wish when you could make a Veronica Mars movie or grant Community six seasons and a movie. What would you wish for?

Speaking of which, let’s get to the news you care most about: MARISKA HARGITAY IS NOT LEAVING LAW AND ORDER: SVU, AND WILL IN FACT HAVE A LOVE STORY WITH HARRY CONNICK JR, a revelation that Todd relates caused “audible gasps” in the TCA audience. Indeed, take a moment. And when you’re ready, there is also some less thrilling news about Community—specifically that the show will return “in the spring,” which is still not a date, but that’s all you’re getting. Greenblatt apparently feels bad for not clarifying that the show wasn’t canceled, but not so bad that he’s bothered to establish a more concrete timeline for its return. Nor is he guilty enough to hint at any sort of decision about a fourth season, an announcement you can expect some time around the May upfronts, provided Greenblatt still has the will to get out of bed by then.

News from NBC. Bob Greenblatt is almost too dejected to be mad at. Almost.

So let’s start here: Community is going away for a while (and I fully expect you guys to get this one to 10,000 comments, or I won’t understand life anymore), but it’s going away with an episode that reminds me why I love the show so much. This is a very personal thing—since humor’s subjective like that—but for me, this was the funniest episode since the clip show. With all of the spirited musical numbers, Christmas trappings, and Glee bashing, of course I was going to like this episode, and of course I was going to think it was funny. But I was still duly impressed with just how funny this was and how the show turned its Christmas episode into, effectively, a horror movie. I laughed myself silly at this one, to the point where I was devolving into hiccups at certain scenes, and I’m glad we get to go out on an episode like this, one that plays around with form and makes me laugh.

Community more than proved why it deserves to be on the air forever with “Regional Holiday Music.”