Advanced Criminal Law


"Advanced Criminal Law" is the fifth episode of the first season of the American comedy television series Community. It aired in the United States on NBC on October 15, 2009. The episode follows Jeff attempting to help Britta after she confesses to cheating on a Spanish test, as Pierce helps Annie by composing a school song and Abed attempts to convince Troy that he is an alien. It garnered 5.01 million viewers in its first broadcast and was met with mixed critical reception.

Plot

In Spanish class, Chang announces that he has discovered a cheat sheet somebody used on a test, and all members of the class will score 0 on the test unless the cheater confesses within a day. In the study room, the group accuse each other of being the culprit but reach no conclusion. The following day, Britta confesses in class as the culprit. She is sent to a tribunal held at a swimming pool with the Dean, Chang, and Professor Duncan, with Jeff acting as her counsel. Britta initially recants her confession, but then confesses again. After consulting with Britta during a recess, Jeff asks to plead insanity for his client, arguing that she is crazy because she went out of her way to fail due to lack of self-confidence, and Greendale is the place for crazy people. The Dean and Duncan vote for Britta to receive no punishment so long as she attends weekly psychological evaluations by Duncan, who has been looking for ways to attempt to seduce Britta.
Annie is stressed over a composer she has hired to design a new school song for an unveiling of a statue of Luis Guzmán on the campus, so Pierce offers to write the song. He struggles to write, but pretends to Annie that things are going well. After eventually conceding that he exaggerated his previous musical experience, Annie delivers a motivational speech based on one her mother gave her about cheerleading. At the statue unveiling, Pierce performs the song he has written. The song is near-identical to the song "The Way It Is" by Bruce Hornsby and the Range, though Pierce seems unaware.
Troy has been telling Abed obvious lies such as that he is Barack Obama's nephew. Abed believes him until Troy explains that he was joking. Abed finds this amusing and attempts making jokes. Later, Troy overhears Abed making a "transmission" in which he reports his interactions with Troy. In a storage closet, Troy observes Abed on a video call, ostensibly contacting a member of his alien species. Annoyed, Troy tells Abed that he does not believe him to be an alien and finds his level of effort weird.
In the end tag, Abed and Troy attempt to fit as many pencils as they can in each other's mouths.

Analysis

The episode was originally scheduled to air earlier in the season. Though posters of the Greendale Human Being are displayed in "Advanced Criminal Law", the character is not introduced until the following episode, "Football, Feminism and You". The recurring character Leonard debuts in this episode, eventually making 53 appearances across all six seasons of Community.

Reception

Upon its first broadcast in the United States, an estimated 5.01 million viewers watched the episode.
Emily VanDerWerff of The A.V. Club rated the episode a C+, criticizing it as the weakest episode of the series at that point. She praised the main storyline with Britta for "deepening" the previously undeveloped character, also enjoying the swimming pool setting and the character Duncan. However, VanDerWerff disliked Troy and Abed's storyline and Chang's exaggerated eccentricity. John Krakow of IGN reviewed the episode as 5.8 out of 10. Calling it "very flat and predictable", Krakow critiqued that the swimming pool setting "got old", the humor with Pierce's songwriting was repetitive and Troy and Abed's storyline had "no consequences". He later described it as "" for the first season.
Pastes Sean Gandert praised the episode for developing the community college setting and making it seem unique, enjoying Chase's acting, but commenting that Troy and Abed's storyline lacked a "payoff". John Young of Entertainment Weekly found that the episode started "in a mild fog" but progressed to "a solid conclusion", praising the dialogue between Duncan and Chang, Abed making "his first deliberate joke" and Annie's motivational speech to Pierce.