- Title: Community – Alternative History of the German Invasion
- tv.com: link
“Here at Greendale that is a big fat no-no. We frown on anyone celebrating their own cultural heritage.”
After missing their chance to register for The History of Ice Cream the Study Group begins their European History class with the annoying Foosball-obsessed Germans (Chris Diamantopoulos, Alex Schemmer, Alex Klein) and taught by Greendale ‘s newest professor (Malcolm McDowell) who was fired from Cambridge after a “little slip-up with a coed,” and who challenges the class to examine history from the view of the vanquished as well as that of the victors. Although Abed (Danny Pudi) makes a friend when he realizes they’re both members of the same MMO guild, tensions rise when the Germans claim a piece of the study room for themselves and refuse to leave.
Relegated to a far less pleasant study rooms around campus, and unwilling to appease the Germans, Jeff (Joel McHale) organizes a rebellion based on the logic of Hogan’s Heroes beginning by throwing an impromptu Oktoberfest in the Greendale cafeteria. When the ruse gets the Germans expelled from the study room the Germans form a protest with all the other Greendale students sick of the Greendale Seven hogging the best study room for the last three years.
After realizing they, not the Germans, are Greendale’s Nazis, the Study Group attempts to make a reparation montage before somehow reclaiming the study room in a manner that isn’t well explained. Chang returns to Greendale still suffering from amnesia. His psychiatrist recommends immersible therapy in the familiar surroundings of the Greendale campus. Dean Pelton (Jim Rash) is less than pleased by the news and sets out to prove Chang is faking his “Changnesia.”
Although there’s a good idea at the heart of “Alternative History of the German Invasion,” and some fun moments, the episode never quite realizes its full positional. The Hogan’s Heroes ruse is not very Hogan’s Heroes like, and pretty tame by Community‘s standards even if it does get Annie (Alison Brie) and Britta (Gillian Jacobs) in German barmaid costumes, and neither the group’s lesson nor the Chang subplot provide any real payoff.
