The gang, minus Jeff, takes the new Greendale course Grifting 101. Which is itself a grift. So the gang convinces Jeff to grift the grifter. Or do they?
The Community episode Grifting 101 provides examples of:
- 419 Scam: Jeff sets up a grift where Elroy claims his aunt has died in Africa and left him a fortune but the money is tied up by the government. DeSalvo scoffs at the obviousness, saying this hasn't worked since the invention of the internet.
- Affectionate Parody: The Sting, right down to the interstitials and the score.
- As Himself: Ryan Ridley, a staff writer and story editor for Seasons 5 and 6, appears as the telegram man in the episode. He later shows up in the episode tag, as part of a promotional ad for a new show called "The Guy from Jeff's Gym", where he apparently plays himself, a guy who was saved by Jeff at the gym one time and now finds himself indebted to perform various tasks like refilling Jeff's glass of Scotch when it's empty or washing Jeff's car.
- Batman Gambit: Let's face it. DeSalvo could've avoided being grifted if he had just gone to another bar.
- Beat Them at Their Own Game: The rest of the study group talks Jeff into helping them do this after DeSalvo, quite predictably, cons them all.
- Blood from the Mouth: Happens to DeSalvo after he falls down the stairs, and Chang says he's faking it. Turns out, it was part of the grift.
- Briefcase Full of Money: Towards the end, a briefcase full of 50 grand is the target of both parties.
- Brooklyn Rage: Britta lived in New York, or so she claims, which might explain her violence toward DeSalvo after he accuses her of being a floozy from the Midwest.
- The Cloud Cuckoolander Was Right: Chang insists that DeSalvo's Blood from the Mouth is fake "grift blood". He turns out to be right.
- Conman: DeSalvo is rightly assumed to be one by Jeff.
- The Con:
- The episode is filled with them but the only one that genuinely works on by itself is the Grifting 101 class. The entry requirement is a simple briefcase that costs $150 (and no you can't bring your own). Surprisingly the only ones not duped by it are Jeff, Frankie and the Dean, who weren't even part of the class to begin with.
- DeSalvo also cons the Dean into giving him $50,000 for fake injuries after Britta attacked him. He was also going to con Britta out of her share but she stopped him from doing so.
- Jeff gets the ball rolling with a typical 419 Scam, which predictably fails. When DeSalvo confronts him about it, he tries a thinly veiled Lottery scam. Predictably these are used in an attempt to lower DeSalvo's guard, which DeSalvo knows. However, the real con was to simply get DeSalvo in the room and in the mood for a drink. When Frankie comes in and interrupts, he goes to the nearest bar where Britta is conveniently bartending. Britta then supposedly allies herself with DeSalvo, allows him to con Greendale out of 50 grand, then swaps the Briefcase Full of Money for one filled with fake money. The briefcase is then swapped out again, which prompts the Xanatos Gambit below.
- Flipping the Bird: Leonard does this to DeSalvo (uncensored, no less).
- Gambit Pileup: By the end, said pileup involves a couple of obvious internet scams, a Batman Gambit, Britta switching allegiences twice, DeSalvo faking an injury, a bunch of briefcases being swapped with one another and a good ole' Xanatos Gambit.
- Genre Savvy: Annie immediately realizes that "this is one of those things where Jeff gets jealous of something dumb", and Jeff immediately realizes that the Intro to Grifting class is a scam.
- Immediate Self-Contradiction: Jeff on whether he knows Ryan Ridley.Jeff: That man left this lottery ticket on the table!
DeSalvo: (annoyed) That was the telegram man.
Jeff: No it wasn't!
(Beat)
Jeff: I mean, "What telegram?" - Indy Ploy: Jeff is forced to admit to the rest of the group that he's making up the plan as he goes along.
- Irony: DeSalvo is defeated by the only trick he taught the class.
- I Warned You: Jeff's reaction to finding out the rest of the group was grifted. He drags out their admission that he was right as condescendingly as he can.
- It's All About Me: DeSalvo, and also Jeff.
- Kansas City Shuffle: Britta attacking DeSalvo, which sets off a chain of events that "injure" him. It looks as if the study group has finally lost but it was all a ruse to finally get DeSalvo's guard down enough for them to switch the briefcase with a phony.
- Leaning on the Fourth Wall: Abed. "You can't expel [Britta] with four weekisodes left in the seasonester."
- Metaphorgotten: Abed compares reading the course catalogue to being a kid in a candy store. Jeff doesn't have that feeling because he "works at the store", and "contracted diabetes". Chang agrees, and begins listing actual diabetes symptoms he's been having.
- Needle in a Stack of Needles: The briefcase with DeSalvo's cash in it is awfully hard to find, given such obstructions as Leonard dressed as a bellhop, pushing a cart full of identical briefcases, and an entire briefcase parade making its way down the halls of Greendale.
- Revenge: The plot is basically the study group getting revenge on a conman for grifting them.
- Running Gag: Two of the show's classics get called back to: Jim Belushi is used to describe something mediocre and Britta mentions that she used to live in New York.
- Series Continuity Error:
- Chang is taking the Intro to Grifting class despite ostensibly being a mathematics teacher.
- Chang briefly mentions only ever having "done it... in the back", which means there should never have been a question of who impregnated Shirley.
- Shout-Out
- The end tag parodies The Equalizer
- At one point DeSalvo says, "Because the Internet", which is the title of an album by Childish Gambino (a.k.a. Donald Glover, who used to play Troy).
- Smurfing: Elroy starts doing it with the word "grift" and thinks everyone else is doing it.
- Xanatos Gambit: Jeff winds up orchestrating a scheme that leaves DeSalvo with no way to get a win - if he goes with the story that he was victim of "thuggery" then there's $50,000 floating around Greendale that he was awarded for fake injuries & he now subsequently owes the school, or he can admit that the group outsmarted him & give up his claim to the $50,000.
- Unreliable Expositor: Elroy attempts to recap how the study group got started. He gets more than a few facts wrong.
