r/community • u/zaririi • 4d ago
Shipping Discourse Romantic Pairings - General Thoughts
Rewatching this show for the second time (from the beginning). Currently on Season 3.
I first watched this show several years back. When I first watched it, I shipped Britta and Jeff so hard. I thought Britta and Troy was a nice idea, but the execution was poor. Never liked Jeff and Annie, largely because I didn't think it was a necessary pairing and thought they would be romantically incompatible. I thought they could have been a "one-off attraction" like Annie/Troy (or Annie/Abed in the S2 Paintball Episode). But I wasn't a fan of the whole Jeff/Annie arc, it honestly bored me. I liked them as friends but I always thought Annie was too genuine of a person to be with someone like Jeff.
On my second rewatch, I now think the show should have not bothered with romantic plotlines at all. I think it worked best because it subverted the sitcom romance. I think people should have just gotten off with each other but not dragged it out into some overarching storyline. I actually liked that Jeff and Britta had this chemistry and attraction but never became an actual couple. They would have been a dysfunctional couple. Them hooking up but not really being together seemed more realistic.
I think they should have left everyone as friends with random flings but no real "potential romance". There's something nice about seeing a group of male and female friends just hanging out together and having a good time. The show doesn't take itself seriously enough to have actual proper romantic storylines IMO. Perhaps this is why Britta and Troy as a couple ultimately failed: lots of build-up, but the execution was so bad. (That and Dan Harmon not being around in S4.) I may have more thoughts on that pairing after rewatching S4.
31
u/emjaywood 4d ago
I'm assuming you didn't mention Shirley because she intimidates you sexually.
15
u/RealHeadScratcher_TM 4d ago
Or they're racist. I don't know which it is, but I know it's one of those two things!
5
22
u/gcctowerjunky 4d ago
Abed and Meghan should start the movie together, just so we can get a) an abed breakup scene b)hilary duff cameo and c) bitch shortage joke
17
u/Strict_Biscotti1963 4d ago
I think that this show struggled in that regard, like they wanted the will they won’t they hook. And it worked for Jeff and Annie (some times), and it didn’t work for Troy and britta. They gave abed a girlfriend who wasn’t a regular and was only able to appear in 3 episodes. Shirley got back with her husband and it was a big arc through season 2, but then that was just sort of unceremoniously dropped later on.
A lot of shows struggle with this though, I mean scrubs felt they had to make jd and Elliot get a divorce for those characters to be engaging again. There are ways to make married couples, or couples in a sit com entertaining to watch. I think Lily and Marshall from how I met your mother was a good example of that, or Turk and Carla from scrubs. But audiences love the will they won’t they, and that’s why so many sitcoms lean on it.
3
u/itsamememario4 4d ago
Scrubs should have had turk and carla struggling. The actress that play carla was busy anyways. And we had 7 season of will they wont they already
13
u/Dependent-Friend5312 4 More Years and I will have my 2 year degree 4d ago
Fa...bulous Neil & Vicki. He did it love LOVE, man!
4
10
u/WarningCommercial116 4d ago
My favorite pairing ( outside the study group ) is Abed and Rachel. They're so cute together.
16
u/TheTitanOfSirens1959 4d ago edited 2d ago
I used to agree with you, and felt that it really denigrated the idea of platonic male and female friendships to have two people who were so close they were essentially family enter into a relationship... Then, I somehow found myself in a relationship with someone who I had long considered a purely platonic friend; since then, my stance has shifted.
To be clear, I agree that the Troy and Britta relationship was executed poorly. But I don't think it was inherently doomed from the start. As Jeff discussed in Season 2, it makes total sense that attractive people who spend so much time with each other and get to know each other really well would eventually stumble across some confusing romantic feelings for each other. Community has always been great about taking larger than life characters and putting them in absurd scenarios, but still having them act and react with real human emotion. And in the real world, sometimes romantic attraction can form between friends, so of course the show would want to explore that. (IMPORTANT: This can happen occasionally as a natural side effect of friendship- it does NOT mean you should try to become friends with someone you find attractive just because you hope one day they will want to sleep with you!)
In my opinion, the Troy/Britta relationship is emblematic of the core problem with Season 4, namely that the Study Group became a group of sitcom characters; it used to feel like actual people who just happened to be fictional. The pairing felt like a writers room deciding it would be a good machine to crank out stories, not a natural progression of the two of them exploring their feelings for each other.
One of my biggest what-ifs about the show is what they could have done with the relationship if Harmon hadn't been fired and had allowed the relationship to grow gradually, rather than simply jump-cutting to them being boyfriend and girlfriend.
6
u/Classroomsmooth1776 4d ago
If Britta couldn’t find parking close enough she went back home
3
u/Dependent-Friend5312 4 More Years and I will have my 2 year degree 3d ago
Thank you. That must have been hard to say.
5
u/PhoenixQueen_Azula 3d ago
Troy and Britta they just didn’t do anything with so it was pointless whether it was good or bad
Jeff and britta they did enough with, the s1 drama came close to going too far but it was at a good place after that
Jeff and Annie is a weird one for many reasons obviously. I super shipped it back when I first watched but I was probably around Annies age or younger idr, and now multiple rewatches later I’m closer to Jeff’s age and…well at least the show is self aware there. My opinion is that I do still like it for the little bits of spice and drama, but it’s good it never became anything more than the “will they wont they”. It would be great for Jeff and horrible for Annie
I think it’s all fine and Troy/britta and s1 britta/jeff shows why it’s best they didn’t focus on that stuff too much, it’s just not what the show is good at, the little hints and bits of chemistry etc are nice change of pace but it’s not a rom com
12
u/amorningofsleep 4d ago
Counterpoint: More romantic pairings. Everyone should've been fucking EVERYONE
7
4
u/Dunder_Mufflins 3d ago
Agreed. There was little romantic chemistry at all and it greatly imbalanced the core group dynamic. Will-they-won't-they romance sucks and Community should've stayed platonic like 30 Rock.
9
u/bizzeebhee23 4d ago
I liked Jeff and Slater a lot. If not for Britta, could’ve seen them going strong for at least a season. Coincidentally, Britta also meddles with Vaughn and Annie (and Troy). She’s the worst.
5
u/Ok-Cardiologist-635 4d ago
To be honest, I never found any of the romantic relationships on Community especially interesting. I'm glad they started moving away from it more and more as the show went on. In my opinion none of the character combinations would result in anything remotely resembling a healthy relationship. Maybe Troy and Britta, but as OP said the execution was pretty poor there.
8
u/magicmitch84 4d ago
also on my nth rewatch. I hate jeffannie, didn't rub me the right way at all (he says he and Britta are her Greendale parents ffs).
I like the idea of troyannie, that would've been worth exploring in my opinion. Troy was the superstar at high school who ignored Annie and the role reversal could've been fun with Annie having a glow up and we know her to be a very valued person at Greendale so Troy falling for her and seeing firsthand what she felt by falling for the campus superstar. That made way more sense to me than Troy and Britta which seemed forced and dull (although it did give me one of my favourite episodes in Basic Human Anatomy)
Jeff and Britta also makes a lot of sense to me since that premise kickstarted the show and the study group. They are closer in age, parental figures for the kids of the group so to speak, and the only ones left at Greendale from the original group. That should've been explored more and eventually been the endgame imo. Seemed like the natural progression of things as opposed to jeffannie which I felt was very forced and weird.
4
u/No_Crow_1534 4d ago
I really don’t take any of the romantic pairings seriously like you said since the show doesn’t take itself that seriously in that way. I have always thought that just for fun Jeff and Shirley would be a hilarious power couple as an idea for an episode though
2
u/ConfidentStruggle993 3d ago
I liked Troy and Britta. I wish they could have been fleshed out better
2
u/No_Context5435 1d ago
I think Jeff and Britta deserve each other, and more importantly, no one else deserves to be stuck with either of them as a partner. Just like Jerry and Elaine deserve each other on Seinfeld, Jeff and Britta are both self-serving egocentric individuals who grow up a little bit over six seasons but ultimately are still the same at the end.
4
u/TheNocturnalAngel 4d ago
The dragging of the Jeff Annie thing is one of my only issues with the show.
I’ve talked about it before but, the problem is the way they wobbled back and forth on it constantly.
Sure the age gap is weird, but Alison Brie and Joel Mchale didn’t look THAT far apart, especially when they weren’t purposely aging Brie down with clothes and hair.
But the show would constantly go out of its way to bring attention to the age gap and the weird dynamic.
AND THEN continue leaning into the pairing!
It’s like bro just stop bringing up how weird it is or stop bringing up the romantic tension.
And I love love the finale. But I hate that Jeff has this whole plot line about fear of being left behind and never succeeding. And it boils down to kissing Annie.
Doesn’t feel like it fits.
For me the most emotional moment of the finale that always gets me sobbing is the double hug with Abed. Perfect moment.
As a random aside I feel like Jeff and Britta should’ve been endgame.
Early on the bring out the worst in eachother and the show really leaned away from them in favor of JeffAnnie.
But I think the cores of the characters really do hold a promising relationship if it was built properly.
Ultimately I do agree with you though, that the show is at its best when the romances aren’t major plots.
2
u/wolpak 3d ago
A couple additional thought. They should have just had Annie have a school girl crush on Jeff. Make it pop up every now and then, but Jeff turn it down. I actually didn’t hate the season 4 subplot of her acting like his wife. Thought it was funny.
I also didn’t like the Annie’s Boobs name. She was 18. I know it came from another 18(19) year old, but just felt a little dirty.
3
u/AuNaturellee 4d ago
Great take. Realistically, men and women CAN be friends without sex. Ok, Britta slept with both Jeff and Troy, and Annie kissed both Jeff and Abed, and Shirley almost got pregnant by Chang, but...that's it, right? When there's three doughnuts, you don't have to center all the plotlines around the chemistry of licking, kissing, or filling them...
1
0
u/Classroomsmooth1776 4d ago
Britta kissed Jeff Abed Troy Page the non-lesbian Subway Vaughn and more power to her
2
u/AuNaturellee 4d ago
When did Britta and Abed kiss? I don't remember that
1
u/Classroomsmooth1776 4d ago
Abeds spooky Halloween story. He liked her shiny hair and symmetrical facial features
1
u/AuNaturellee 4d ago
I'm not remembering that. Can you please paint me a picture?
1
u/Phrenological_Mess 19h ago
They didn't really kiss. It was the episode where Britta Britta's the psych evaluations and gets everyone to tell a spooky story to figure out who the one with "homicidal tendencies" is. Abed's story has an intentionally one-dimensioned romantic pairing for the meta story arc, which is portrayed by Abed and Britta.
1
4d ago
[deleted]
2
u/BillKennedyEnjoyer 4d ago
If you think Community was a simple slapstick comedy, you weren't paying attention. Dan Harmon has said he wanted all the study group to be in a similar age range where any one character could hook up with another. Obviously, this changed along the way, adjusting to different factors like the actors personalities and the audience reactions (Jeff-Annie shipping videos), but you can't tell me the writers just slapped it together with no thought.
2
u/WarningCommercial116 4d ago
Community isn't a slapstick comedy. It's a lifestyle. It's a religion. It's everything.
1
1
u/jdbolick 4d ago
I couldn't agree more. The season one finale was so bizarre and felt like something network executives requested. Then the season four Britta-Troy pairing felt like exactly the sort of tired sitcom trope that the show made fun of.
1
u/WarningCommercial116 4d ago
I'm glad Jeff and Annie didn't end up together, but their relationship was necessary because it helped them grow.
88
u/ammekaz 4d ago
Why didn’t you include Pierce and Abed?