Early 21st Century Romanticism

"Early 21st Century Romanticism" is the fifteenth episode of the second season of the American comedy television series Community, and the 40th episode of the series overall. It aired in the United States on NBC on February 10, 2011. The episode revolves around the study group's various Valentine's Day plans: Abed and Troy ask the same girl to the dance; Britta goes on a date with a lesbian; Jeff is coerced into hosting a party.

Plot

The study group is concerned over Pierce (Chevy Chase)'s reckless pill usage and Annie (Alison Brie) suggests they stage an intervention. However, Jeff (Joel McHale) disagrees that they should take action, and insults the Barenaked Ladies. This leads to a fight between Jeff and the study group. Taking advantage of the newly free Jeff, Prof. Duncan gets Jeff to let him watch the Manchester United game at his house. Overhearing their plans, Chang shows up uninvited to Jeff's house. Duncan lets him in, then Chang invites more people to Jeff's. To Jeff's dismay, he finds that Chang had an ulterior motive for starting a party at Jeff's house—to move in indefinitely. He is ready to kick Chang out, but Duncan shows him that he is actually enjoying the party. Jeff reluctantly agrees to let Chang stay for a while.

Troy (Donald Glover) and Abed (Danny Pudi) both fall for a librarian named Mariah. they ask her to choose one of them to escort her to the Valentine's Day dance. Because she doesn't know either of them very well, she agrees to go to the dance with both of them and decide which one of them to date. Once at the dance, Mariah is amicable with both of them, but chooses Troy as a romantic partner. When Troy asks her why she didn't choose Abed, he becomes upset to hear her call him "weird." He breaks it off with Mariah and returns to make up with Abed.

Britta is enjoying the fact that she is friends with a lesbian named Page, bringing it up often. However, Annie hears from Page's friend that Page only likes Britta because she thinks she's a lesbian. Annie tells her that Britta thinks the same about Page. However, Page and Britta both "don't care about people's preferences" so much that they never confront each other about it, resulting in an awkward kiss at the dance. When they realize that they are both straight girls who thought the other was a lesbian, they stop being friends with each other.

Jeff realizes in the end that his fight with the study group wasn't about the Barenaked Ladies; he concedes that he was afraid of admitting that he cares about six people. He sends them a text saying this, and that he loves them.

Pierce is shown to have passed out on a park bench, overdosed, in the last cut.

Cultural references

The whole group, except for Jeff, loves the Barenaked Ladies. Duncan and Jeff watches the Manchester United vs. Liverpool game. Abed tells Mariah that he has subscriptions to HBO, Showtime, Starz, and Starz InBlack. Mariah is taken aback at how long Abed talked about the Saw movies. Troy doesn't know who Nicholas Nickleby is. ^[1]

Reception

The episode's ratings were around 3.81 million.

References

External links

• "Early 21st Century Romanticism" at the Internet Movie Database