YMMV / Community S2 E14: Advanced Dungeons & Dragons

• Broken Base: About the episode being removed from Netflix and Hulu. Was taking it out from their platforms appropriate and respectable in light of heightened concerns and awareness of racism, or was it an overreaction, considering the execution of the scene and how tame it is compared to some other scenes and jokes the show has? The history of dark elves in real life Dungeons and Dragons, who have been accused of initially being based on racial stereotypes, doesn't help matters.
• Catharsis Factor: After Pierce drives Neil to tears twice and reveals that it's Jeff's fault that Neil was suicidal, Neil adopts a look of Tranquil Fury. He then says he pities Pierce, who tries to brush it off. Then everyone follows suit, calling him a sad old man that doesn't have anything better to do than torture a college student. Pierce takes the bait and unfreezes everyone so as to burn them, giving Neil an opportunity to turn the tide of the game.
• Genius Bonus: Hector was the greatest hero of Troy, so Abed's decision to make that character for Troy didn't come out of nowhere. The well-endowed part, on the other hand...
• Harsher in Hindsight:
  • Pierce having a fear of being excluded becomes this when Season 5 confirms he was banned from campus for some Noodle Incident. He then ends up Dying Alone and giving all his money to Troy, which is also harsh given some of Chevy Chase's comments towards Donald Glover that were brought to light a few years after the show ended.
  • Basically all of "Fat" Neil's prior moments of suffering given we get a much, much darker look at his life here.
  • When Chang shows up for the game in Blackface to play a drow, Shirley comments "So we're just gonna ignore that hate crime, huh?" In 2020, Netflix pulled the episode from its catalog over concerns of racial insensitivity due to this very scene.
• Hilarious in Hindsight:
  • Hector's seducing of the elf girl mutates into outright smut. Out of place at the time, but Critical Role would later have an in-universe smutty story turn into the show's most infamous Running Gag.
  • At one point, Britta (being Britta) questions whether the goblins might have understandable or sympathetic motivations for attacking them, refusing to believe that an entire race of creatures could all be evil. In 2020, Wizards of the Coast announced that future editions of Dungeons & Dragons would no longer define races as "good" or "evil", in response to this very criticism.
• Overshadowed by Controversy: Not originally the case, but this occurred when the episode was removed from streaming services due to Chang's dark elf makeup resembling blackface. Noticeably the controversy was less the subject of the removal, but rather the removal itself as detailed above.
• The Woobie: "Fat" Neil. Already sympathetic beforehand given his Butt-Monkey status and Embarrassing Nickname, we now see that Neil's suffering from depression and is heavily implied to to be considering suicide. When Jeff and the group try to help by playing a game of D&D with him, a jealous Pierce then relentlessly bullies the kind hearted Neil, and later reveals that his new friend Jeff was the man who christened him with such a horrible name. Luckily by the end, the group still pulls through to save Neil.

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