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Pilot

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PELTON: Good morning.

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Many of you are halfway through your first week here at Greendale, and as your dean,

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I thought I would share a few thoughts of wisdom and inspiration.

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What is community college?

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Well, you've heard all kinds of things.

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You've heard it's loser college for remedial teens,

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20-something dropouts, middle-aged divorcees, and old people keeping their minds active as they circle the drain of eternity.

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That's what you've heard.

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However, I wish you luck.

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Okay, you know-- Uh-oh.

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There's more to this speech.

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There's a middle card that's missing.

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Can we look around our immediate areas?

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Because I really wanted to--

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I'm only half Arabic. My dad is Palestinian.

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He's a U.S. citizen, he's not a threat to national security.

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A lot of people wanna know that because he has an angry energy.

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But not angry at America, angry at my mom for leaving.

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She did leave because he was angry and he was angry because she's American.

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My name's Abed. Abed, nice to know you and then meet you, in that order.

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Now about that question that I had? Oh, uh--

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Five after 11 when you asked.

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Abed. Yeah.

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What's the deal with the hot girl from Spanish class? I can't find a road in there.

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I talked to her once while she was borrowing a pencil.

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But her name is Britta, 28, birthday in October.

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Has two older brothers. One works with children who have a disorder I might look up.

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She thinks she's gonna flunk tomorrow's test.

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She needs to focus. She's sorry if that makes her seem cold.

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Holy crap. Abed, I see your value now.

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That's the nicest thing anyone's ever said to me.

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DUNCAN: Jeff Winger, genius at law.

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You gotta stop saying that.

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I will never do that. Sit down. Sit down.

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So, what is my lawyer doing here?

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I'm a student.

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Well, that cannot be an inspiring journey.

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Uh, I am in a bit of a jam.

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The state bar has suspended my license.

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They found out my college degree was less than legitimate.

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You had a bachelor's from Columbia?

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Now I have to get one from America.

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It can't be an e-mail attachment.

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Well, you've picked a fine school.

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Yes. And I'm hoping that our friendship will yield certain advantages.

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You know, academic guidance. Yes.

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Moral support.

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Every answer to every test for every one of the classes that I'm taking.

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Here's my schedule. Now, Jeff, just by asking that you have insulted the integrity of this entire institution. Oi.

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Waster. Not a bathroom. Not a bathroom.

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Okay. Duncan, you did seem less into integrity the day that I convinced 12 of your peers that when you made that U-turn on the freeway and tried to order chalupas from the emergency call box that your only real crime was loving America.

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I'll look into it. Thank you.

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Duncan, you are a good man.

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Jeff, are you familiar with the adage

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"Cheaters never prosper"?

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No. And if I wanted to learn something,

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I wouldn't have come to community college.

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[♪♪♪]

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Oh, hey, Spanish. Yeah, don't hit on me, okay?

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Whoa. Uh, I wouldn't dream of it.

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I just wanted to let you know about my Spanish study group.

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Oh, whoa, whoa. The guy playing "Bejeweled" on his iPhone all class has a study group?

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Can I sign up twice?

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I'm taking the class as an easy credit.

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I'm actually a Spanish tutor. Board certified.

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Can you say that in Spanish now?

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[IN SPANISH]

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I really need help with Spanish.

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I was willing to bet. I'm Jeff.

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Or jefe.

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We meet at the library at 4.

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Yeah. Britta. Thanks.

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[♪♪♪]

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[SPEAKING IN SPANISH]

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[SPEAKS IN SPANISH]

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Hey, all right, come on in.

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I rented the table.

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Yeah, here's the, uh, contact sheet.

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Just put your stuff there. That's--

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Man, the rest of the group is running late.

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But you and I can get acquainted.

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You may have noticed this morning, not so good at small talk. Yeah. I like big talk.

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What's your deal? That's not small talk?

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What's your deal, and is God dead?

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All right, you wanna know my deal?

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Mm. My deal is, above all else, honesty.

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Honesty. Yeah.

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You tell the truth, I'll like you.

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You lie to me, I will never talk to you again.

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That's a good deal. So, what's your deal?

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Uh-- I would have to go--

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I would have to say, um, honesty.

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Because I would say anything to get what I want, and I want you to like me. So, uh...

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Well, that's a very honest answer.

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For now, I like you fine.

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Really? Wow. You're easy. Hell, yeah.

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Abed. In the house.

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Whoo! Whoo! Whoo! Whoo!

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Whoo. Why?

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Britta invited me. Is that cool?

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Oh, I can't think of a single logical reason why not.

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ABED: Cool. JEFF: There you go.

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Put your info down right there.

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Cool, cool, cool. Cool, cool, cool.

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Hey, this is kind of like Breakfast Club, huh?

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We are in a library.

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I'm sure we've each got an issue balled up inside that would make us cry if we talked about it.

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Do you have something balled up inside you?

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I got doozy in the chamber if things get emotional.

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[CELL PHONE CHIMES]

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Hey, text message.

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Let's give this bad boy a read.

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Uh, er, it's probably-- It's just for your eyes.

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"Say you have to pee. I need to talk to you."

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"Say you have to pee." That is weird.

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Do you have to pee?

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No. That's so weird. Hmm.

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Well, I'm stumped. That's very creepy.

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[CELL PHONE CHIMES] That makes two of us.

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BRITTA: What's that?

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ABED: Does it say you have to pee?

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It's just someone with misguided grasp of abbreviation.

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I just need five minutes.

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So go ahead and study all the verbs in Spanish.

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[WHISPERS] Spanish.

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[♪♪♪]

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Suppose I was to say to you it was possible to get those test answers.

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I would say go for that.

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And could have said so in a text.

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I'm asking if you know the difference between right and wrong.

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I discovered at a very early age that if I talked long enough,

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I could make anything right or wrong.

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So either I'm God or truth is relative, and in either case, booyah. Oh. Interesting.

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It's just, the average person has harder time saying booyah to moral relativism.

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You don't have to play shrink to protect your pride.

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I accept you're chicken.

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I'm a professor. You can't talk to me that way.

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A 6-year-old girl could talk to you that way.

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Yes, because that would be adorable.

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No, because you're a 5-year-old girl, and there's a pecking order.

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Fine, I'll do it. Thank you.

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Yeah, with pleasure. Bye.

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Yes, good.

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Why am I still shouting? I'm drawing attention to myself.

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You guys aren't gonna believe this, but the rest of the group--

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Is here.

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Are you the board-certified tutor?

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That means you do my homework, right, Seacrest?

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I need to call my babysitter if we gonna be late.

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What board certifies a tutor? Where's Britta?

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Not sure. I invited people from Spanish class.

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Is that cool? It's the coolest.

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I'm gonna go to the bathroom.

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And bring my jacket, wallet and keys with me in case there's a fire.

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Should we go with him?

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Gonna leave my homework with Slumdog Millionaire.

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SHIRLEY: That's borderline racist.

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[♪♪♪]

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And busted.

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Listen.

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Now you know. I'm a smoker.

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Yeah, but they're filtered, so that makes them safe.

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You ready to get started? Looks like your group showed up.

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Not mine. I think Abed took out a page on Craigslist.

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And I was trained never to say this, but I think that group may be untutorable.

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Oh, really?

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Why don't you and I go study over--

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Dinner? Or drinks.

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I think, actually, we should prioritize here and study first and then go to dinner.

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And if they really prove to be untutorable, we'll slip out early.

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Oh, they will be untutorable.

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[♪♪♪]

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[♪♪♪]

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JEFF: All right. Look at this crew.

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All ready to study all night.

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I can stay till 10.

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But who studies with strangers, right?

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My name is Jeff.

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Jeff, it's a pleasure. My name is Pierce Hawthorne.

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And, yes, that is Hawthorne as in Hawthorne Wipes, the award-winning moist towelette.

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I was just gonna ask.

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I'm a Toastmaster. I should do the introductions.

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JEFF: Definitely. You know Brittles.

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Britta. Abed. Abed the Arab.

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Is that inappropriate? Sure.

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Roy, Roy, the wonder boy-- Troy.

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Little princess Elizabeth-- Annie.

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And this beautiful creature is named Shirley.

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Is that even close?

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ANNIE: I'd like to know why I had to find out about this group on accident.

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Way more like Breakfast Club.

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There's breakfast? We should get started--

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I've been a part of a lot of study groups that fell apart because of unresolved tension.

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Shouldn't we address Annie's concern? Did we not invite her?

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Well, Annie, sweetie, it's not behind your back.

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Can we stop with the "pumpkins" and the "sweeties"?

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Being younger does not make me inferior. if anything, your age indicates that you've made bad life decisions.

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Shirley has a response. No, no, no. Don't.

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It looks like you do. Shirley, go ahead.

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Okay, okay.

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I'm sure I've made some bad life decisions.

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And maybe Annie's decisions will be better.

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I think she needs to decide whether she wants to be considered a child or an adult, because children get pity, but not respect, and adults, they get respect.

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They also get their head grabbed and pushed through jukeboxes.

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Okay. Why don't we try learning "jukebox" in Spanish?

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What are you doing? JEFF: Pierce.

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Let's discuss this creepiness. Pardon you?

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What are you doing? I'm certified.

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Are you unaware that Shirley finds your advances inappropriate?

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What advances?

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You have been sexually harassing me since the very first day of class.

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Sexually harassing?

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What--? That makes no sense to me.

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Why would I harass somebody who turns me on?

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Saying she turns you on is the harassment, dude.

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Hey.

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I am a prominent business leader and a highly sought-after dinner guest.

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And I will not take courting advice from some teenage boy.

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This teenage boy is a quarterback and prom king.

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You're not prom king anymore, Troy.

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This isn't Riverside High. How'd you know I went there?

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Because you're still wearing your stupid letter jacket,

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Were you that girl that got hooked on pills and dropped out?

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You're little Annie Adderall.

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And you're a stupid jock who lost his scholarship by dislocating both shoulders in a keg stand.

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Keg flip. Very hard to pull off.

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ANNIE: Don't talk to me. You don't know-- I'm a legend.

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[GROUP ARGUING]

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You know what I got for Christmas?

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It was a banner year at the Bender family.

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I got a carton of cigarettes.

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The old man grabbed me. He said,

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"Hey, smoke up, Johnny."

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No, Dad, what about you?

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Well, that actually was from The Breakfast Club.

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Nobody puts Baby in the corner.

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[CELL PHONE RINGING]

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Dirty Dancing. Hello?

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DUNCAN [IN DEEP VOICE]: It's Professor Duncan.

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Come to the parking lot now.

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What's wrong with your voice?

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I'm disguising it. [PHONE BEEPS]

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I'll be right back. But while I'm gone, you guys need to hash this stuff out.

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No stone unturned. Go.

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[GROUP CHATTERING]

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[♪♪♪]

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Every answer to every test in your curriculum this semester.

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I knew you could do it, buddy. Thank you.

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Whoa, there, grabby grabby.

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What do I get?

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The satisfaction of being even.

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Even, fairness, right, wrong. There is no God.

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Booyah, booyah. What do you want from me?

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Your Lexus.

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My car for a semester's worth of answers?

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Will it be just a semester, though, Jeff?

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Won't you be taking the easy way out for the next four years?

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I want payment in advance.

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I want leather seats with built-in ball warmers.

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You know, bluffs this weak are how your people lost the colonies.

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Have a nice disbarment hearing.

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What am I supposed to drive?

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Take this car. It's good for the Earth.

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So is wiping your butt with a leaf, but it's not how a man gets around.

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JEFF: Golf cart.

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[GROUP ARGUING]

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It is a disaster in there.

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Yeah. Untutorable.

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You like Thai food? I love Thai food.

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Wait. So this is a game to you?

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You put human beings into a state of emotional shambles for a shot at getting in my pants?

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Why can't you see that for the compliment that it is?

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You're unbelievable. What do you want me to do?

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Maybe one decent thing could be to go in there and clean up your mess.

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TROY: I'm the Barack Obama of this room.

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Okay, if I do that, then dinner, right?

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[SCOFFS]

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Yeah, fine, whatever. As if there's a dinner on earth that could make me forget you are a shallow douche bag.

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Oh, you're gonna eat those words when you see my new car.

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[♪♪♪]

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[GROUP ARGUING] All right, everybody!

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I wanna say something. Sit down.

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Well, you don't have to yell.

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What makes humans different from other animals?

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Feet.

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No, no. Come on, bears have feet.

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We're the only species on earth that observes "Shark Week."

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Sharks don't even observe "Shark Week," but we do.

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For the same reason I can pick up this pencil, tell you it's name is Steve and go like this. Oh.

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JEFF: And part of you dies just a little bit on the inside.

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Because people can connect with anything.

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We can sympathize with a pencil, we can forgive a shark, and we can give Ben Affleck an Academy Award for screenwriting.

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PIERCE: Big mistake.

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People can find the good in just about anything but themselves.

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Look at me. It's clear to all of you that I am awesome.

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But I could never admit that. That would make me an ass.

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But what I can do is see what makes Annie awesome.

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She's driven.

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We need driven people, or the lights go out and the ice cream melts.

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And Pierce, we need guys like Pierce.

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This guy has wisdom to offer. The Dalai Lama and I--

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JEFF: We should listen to him. We wouldn't regret it.

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And Shirley, Shirley has earned our respect.

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Not as a wife, not as a mother, but as a woman.

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Don't test her on that, because that thing about the jukebox was too specific to be improvised.

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And Troy.

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Who cares if Troy thinks he's all that?

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Maybe he is.

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And Abed. Abed's a shaman.

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You ask him to pass the salt, he gives you a bowl of soup.

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Because you know what, soup is better.

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Abed is better.

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You are all better than you think you are.

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You are just designed not to believe it when you hear it from yourself.

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Soup?

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Look to the person to your left.

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Sorry. Look at the person sitting next to you.

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SHIRLEY: Look at her. Okay.

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This--? JEFF: Yeah.

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I want you to extend to that person the same compassion you extend to sharks, pencils and Ben Affleck.

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I want you to say to that person,

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"I forgive you."

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BOTH: I forgive you.

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I forgive you. I forgive you.

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You little twerp.

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JEFF: Pierce, I'd like you to say, "I forgive you."

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He didn't say it? I forgive you.

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You've just stopped being a study group.

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You have become something unstoppable.

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I hereby pronounce you a community.

00:16:33

Oh, that's nice. I like that.

00:16:36

[♪♪♪]

00:16:37

This isn't like Breakfast Club anymore.

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It's Stripes or Meatballs. Anything with Bill Murray.

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I agree with Abed that tonight has been very special.

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And now, if you'll excuse me,

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I have a dinner engagement with Britta.

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Britta? I lied.

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Thanks for calming everyone down.

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But since you're not a Spanish tutor, just a lying creep who purposely upset everyone in an attempt to get with me, I'd appreciate it if you left and stopped wasting all of our time.

00:17:04

Everybody ready? Fine.

00:17:08

And I'm happy to report that one of the benefits of being a lying creep is having all the answers to tomorrow's test.

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And I'm happy to share them with anyone whose time I wasted more than they wasted mine.

00:17:22

Jeff, if you have all the answers, why the hell did you start this study group?

00:17:26

I don't have a study group. I made it up.

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What about the speech? JEFF: That's what I do.

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I make things up.

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And I got paid a lot of money to do it.

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Before I came to this school-shaped toilet,

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I was a lawyer. [ALL GROAN]

00:17:38

SHIRLEY: Oh, man, this ruins everything.

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I thought you're like Bill Murray.

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But you're more like Michael Douglas.

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Yeah? Well, you have Asperger's.

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[ANNIE GASPS]

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What does that mean?

00:17:49

Ha, ha. Ass burger.

00:17:52

It's a serious disorder. It really is.

00:17:54

If it's so serious, why don't they call it meningitis?

00:17:57

Heh, heh. Yeah. Heh, heh.

00:17:59

Ass burger. Burger for your ass.

00:18:07

[♪♪♪]

00:18:20

[CHUCKLES]

00:18:22

Before you say anything, you might wanna think about the gift you've given.

00:18:26

An excuse to punch a hippy? No. No, not that.

00:18:29

An important lesson.

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You see, the tools you acquired to survive out there will not help you here at Greendale.

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What you have, my friend, is a second chance at an honest life.

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Give me my keys.

00:18:41

No, I have to keep your car for the lesson.

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Please don't hit me.

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Jeffrey? Jeffrey?

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Are we cool? Are we cool?

00:18:53

PIERCE: I like you, Jeffrey.

00:18:56

You remind me of myself at your age.

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I deserve that.

00:19:02

You know I've been divorced seven times?

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Sometimes I think I'm doing something wrong.

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You keep getting married.

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I never looked at it that way.

00:19:24

Shouldn't you guys be studying?

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Yeah, things got kind of boring after you left.

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Shouldn't you be rolling around on a bed covered in test answers?

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I don't have any of the answers. I'm gonna flunk the test.

00:19:42

If you just, like, study for an hour, it's not that hard.

00:19:45

You seem pretty smart. You got a sports coat.

00:19:47

Well, the funny thing about being smart is you can get through most of life without having to do work.

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So I'm not really sure how to do that.

00:20:00

[MOUTHING WORDS]

00:20:03

[MOUTHING] Please? So sad?

00:20:05

[MOUTHING] He makes me wanna:

00:20:10

What's going on?

00:20:11

Can you guys hear me? Am I deaf?

00:20:13

Can you hear me talking right now? Yes.

00:20:15

That's good.

00:20:18

You know what? Jeff, actually, we didn't get that far without you.

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So if you wanna come back upstairs--

00:20:28

Really?

00:20:29

Well, it is your study group, so--

00:20:32

Come on, let's study. Sounds good.

00:20:34

SHIRLEY: Come on. Pressure.

00:20:36

[THE 88'S "DON'T YOU FORGET ABOUT ME" PLAYING]

00:20:41

♪ Will you walk on by? ♪

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I'm sorry I called you Michael Douglas.

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And I see your value now.

00:20:49

♪ Come on, call my name ♪

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That's the nicest thing anyone's ever said to me.

00:20:57

♪ I say, la La la la ♪

00:21:00

♪ La, la, la, la ♪

00:21:02

♪ La, la, la, la, la La, la, la ♪

00:21:05

♪ La, la, la, la, la ♪

00:21:08

♪ La, la, la, la ♪

00:21:10

[♪♪♪]