Geothermal Escapism.

Wow. Holy crap. What a fantastic, incredible way to send off Donald Glover from the series. Seriously, that may be one of the five best episodes of Community.

I would be exaggerating if I said every single episode this season has been better than every single episode last season... but I’d only be exaggerating a little. This season is shaping up to be Community’s best – though it will be a lot harder with Donald Glover moving on from the show that made him a star.

These apocalyptic, adventure-type episodes have been popular with fans since the original paintball episode, “Modern Warfare” of season one (still the best episode of the series). Dan Harmon and co. responded to this enthusiasm by making several more paintball episodes. I burned out on the “paintball” episodes after the second season’s two-part finale, “A Fistful of Paintballs” and “For a Few Paintballs More.” By the time last season’s finale (which I hated), I never wanted to hear the “P” word muttered at Greendale again.

Thankfully, Harmon and the writers were able to capture the epic, cinematic feel of “Modern Warfare” without stealing its exact premise. Instead of a paintball war, we get “the floor is lava,” aka “Community: Lava World.” The elimination competition element is intact, but this doesn’t feel like a rehash.

Yet, what really makes this episode stand out is the emotional core which propels the plot. (This isn’t surprising – Community’s best “concept” episodes have great character moments as their backbone, like Jeff and Britta hooking up in “Modern Warfare.”)

I loved how the episode took time to consider Troy’s relationship with all six characters and give him a proper farewell in the final episode. That makes it two “goodbye” episodes in a row (after last week’s adieu to Pierce), each done excellently in different ways. But Troy is a more beloved character, and his moment to sail off into the sunset (literally) is a lot more sentimental and warm than last week’s outing.

Let’s jump into grading the characters:

Annie / Jeff B+/B+

Marked down for not having much to do. Marked back up for their great goodbyes to Troy.

Jeff is usually the one who is reluctantly pulled into these ridiculous fantasies. Here, he’s thrown himself into “Lava World,” which I buy for a couple of reasons. First, the previous episodes of the season have established that he needs the money desperately. Second, they’ve also drilled home that Jeff has embraced the lunacy of Greendale. He’s fully in this world now.

I’m suspecting that Community has Jeff and Annie getting together in its endgame, because this makes two out of three episodes where the show has called attention to them being paired together.

This season has done a great job of bringing the show back to its characters’ roots. That’s why I appreciated Annie’s goodbye to Troy calling back to her crush on him in high school. The show also often did a great job calibrating Jeff and Troy’s relationship: the former more clever and sensible, the latter spirited and possessing “the heart of a hero,” as Pierce put it.

Buzz B

Like Annie and Jeff, Buzz didn't have much to do. But, even though I’ve loved him as Pierce’s replacement, I am okay with his absence. He wasn’t one of the original seven and has no relationship with Troy.

Still, I thought he made the best of his limited appearance. He was amusing as the pilot of a steam engine-like locker cart. I hope the show doesn’t abandon the reluctant mutual appreciation between Buzz and Britta we saw here. It was a nice note.

Shirley B-

Of all of Greendale’s original seven, Shirley is the one the show has had the most trouble doing interesting stuff with. For awhile, her only real character trait was a judgmental Christian. We got an arc of her having a baby with her ex-husband, and another with her opening a sandwich shop, but not much beyond that in four and a half seasons.

Harmon and the writers have tried to push the sandwich shop angle so far this season, but too many of the jokes still seem to lean on Shirley’s Christianity and judging attitude. This continued in “Geothermal Escapism” when Shirley had separate whiteboard graveyards for “Seculars” and “Christians.” It bothered me.

Still, she had some good material this episode. I liked her role as the peaceful, powerful merchant sitting on a big and dangerous weapon – definitely a sci-fi/adventure story cliché.

Her farewell to Troy also seemed the least personal, but I was glad that it didn’t bring up the only connection the show has previously been able to make between the characters: their skin color.

Britta A

I was never a big fan of Troy and Britta’s fling. I never saw much connection between them other than the fact that they were two attractive single people. The fact that their relationship took place over the rocky fourth season added to the trouble.

But I loved the way that this episode handled their friendship. It never quite brought up the romance, but it acknowledged some lingering emotion.

Britta playing the Jeff role of being reluctantly sucked into the Greendale madness was also an inspired choice. Not only did it give more room for the writers to give Britta jokes – she’s been the funniest character for a while now – but her “therapizing” provided framing for the episode’s central conflict, Abed coming to grips with Troy’s departure.

I also liked how, once again, Britta stumbled into helping Abed face up to his challenges.

I legitimately choked up when Troy and Britta hugged for the last time and he whispered “You're the best, and I love you” in a way that seemed halfway between platonic and romantic. Perfect, perfect episode for Britta.

Abed A

Troy and Abed are the greatest TV bromance since Turk and JD, so it felt right that Troy’s final episode centered around that relationship.

“Geothermal Escapism” gave Abed not only a lot of fun material, but a legitimate amount of pathos to play. I always love the episodes that dig deeper into Abed’s character and give him some dramatic material on top of the comic.

I loved that Abed would turn on the group in minor ways and create a fantasy that would allow him to preserve his time with Troy as long as possible. The final bits about cloning Abed rung true, too, despite their silliness – Abed filtering real life through pop culture is a well-established character trait.

Troy A-

Let’s rewind eight years. I was a senior in high school at my friend Tyler’s house, hanging out in his room, and he told me “Hey, man, you have to see this video. It’s hilarious.” He pulled up a video he’d found on a comedy message board he frequented at the time. The skit was called “Daughters.”

We watched it three times in a row and laughed hysterically each time (even though I didn’t recognize at the time the specific beats from 24 it was spoofing). “You’re the most important daughter of all” is a line I still refer to every now and then.

From then on, we were fans of Derrick Comedy, an online sketch comedy troupe starring DC Pierson, Dominic Dierkes, and some guy named Donald Glover. I found these guys on Facebook, sent them messages telling them I was a fan, and friended them (DC and Donald accepted; Dominic never got back to me).

Before long, Derrick Comedy became Internet-famous, churning out raunchy skits on a regular basis and even producing a feature length movie, the under-appreciated Mystery Team. Glover, who I learned was a writer for 30 Rock, was the funniest of the bunch.

In 2009, I heard he had been cast in an NBC pilot for a show called Community, which would also star Yvette Nicole Brown, aka Helen from Drake and Josh. (I didn’t care much about Chevy Chase, the biggest name.) I was sold.

Lo and behold, not only was the cast great, but the writing was great, too. The show gelled together into something weird and unpredictable and… I don’t know, just perfect for me. I loved Community with all my heart that first season. It connected with me. It took only a couple episodes before I declared it my favorite on TV.

Even though I’ve fallen in and out of love with the show since then, it’s still an end-of-an-era type moment for me with Donald Glover leaving as Troy. At this point he’s not my favorite actor on the show (Joel McHale), nor does he play my favorite character (Joel McHale), nor is he the most attractive cast member (Alison Brie is what I’m supposed to say here, but… Joel McHale). But he’s the one who brought me here, and he’s certainly been essential to the show.

Before I share my thoughts on his presumably-final outing, here are my five favorite Troy moments in the show’s history:

Troy and Jeff’s “that’s racist” from the fifth episode went viral shortly after the episode aired, and was an early moment in the show becoming the internet’s favorite sitcom.

My favorite dramatic moment from Troy’s time at Greendale. The gang gets drunk and Troy witnesses how broken these people are, how stupid alcohol is as a method of fixing those problems, and – most of all – how these things don’t diminish the good in them.

Levar Burton’s encounter with Troy is one of the funniest moments in the show’s history. Troy crying never gets old. “Set phasers to ‘love me’!” And Levar returned tonight. Couldn’t be better.

This is still my favorite ending to a Community episode. It demonstrates how versatile Troy is – a good singer, playing a good dramatic beat (returning to Abed), and playing funny (his face and squeal when the mouse crawls up his pants).

And my favorite Troy moment is…

Obviously. This is from the end of the second episode. This was the point when I knew me and this show would be stuck together like, well, Troy and Abed.

In general, Troy’s funniest moments were when he was crying or losing his cool. I think I could watch this compilation on loop for the rest of my life, I think. (Even though it misses the essential “POP WHAT!?”)

Anyways, yeah, it’s kind of a big deal for the show (and me) that Troy’s leaving, which is why I was a little bit surprised that the episode didn’t deal more with Troy individually. It used Britta and Abed as surrogates for his sadness about leaving most of the episode.

Then we got to those final couple minutes, and all bets were off. Talk about a fantastic tribute to the character: He got his farewells in to everyone. I loved it.

As usual, it was a funny episode for Troy: I loved his intimidation stance, “Troy and Abed in a bubble,” and about fifty other small moments.

So while the episode didn’t knock it out of the park in terms of addressing Troy’s departure head-on, it did well enough by Abed and Britta that I didn’t really care, and then gave us a perfect chance to say goodbye to Troy and Glover with those tear-jerking last few minutes.