Basic Sandwich

Narrator:Russell Borchert, an eccentric inventor who believed that gold conducts emotions better than any other metal, spent his life savings on a suit made entirely of gold leaf.

Narrator:The Bionic Woman won an Emmy. That's how weird the '70s were.

Narrator:Some people said he hid money using a portal to another dimension.

Narrator:Those people were idiots.

Jeff Winger:The Goonies? Please. That movie is objectively inferior to our adventure.

Britta Perry:Jeff, you can't just say that. The Goonies is a classic.

Jeff Winger:Our production design was 40% more authentic. Our child actors showed 60% more range. And our soundtrack was performed by an actual orchestra, not just the theme from Cops.

Troy Barnes:We don't have a theme song.

Jeff Winger:Exactly. We're that good.

Jeff:We don't talk over each—

Britta:I know, we're actually really good at—

Jeff:—other anymore.

Britta:—listening to each other.

Jeff:Wait, is anyone else seeing what I'm seeing in these blueprints?

Britta:What? It's just the campus layout.

Jeff:Exactly. The campus layout. Look at it.

Troy:Oh my God.

Abed:That's a penis.

Annie:What? No it's not!

Pierce:I've seen enough to know where this is going.

Jeff:Hey, my penis doesn't look like a strip mall.

Dean Pelton:Well, I think we should all just accept that some buildings are going to be shaped like penises.

Jeff Winger:Or we could just make fun of you for saying that.

Jeff:Wait, what's the name of the school mascot again?

Dean Pelton:The Greendale Human Beings.

Britta:Oh my god.

Annie:That's... that's actually terrible.

Troy:I never thought about it like that.

Unknown:Desperate attempt to find meaning in random electrical sparks

Duncan:It's pronounced 'uh-LOO-mi-num'.

Duncan:See? I'm fine.

Jeff:Okay, look. A treasure hunt is just an elaborate way to waste time. We could be doing something productive.

Britta:Jeff, smiles are like cars with tinted windows.

Jeff:What?

Britta:You can't see what's going on inside, but you know something is.

Abed:That doesn't make any sense.

Britta:Exactly. And that's why we smile.

Britta:We're getting married!

Jeff:Wait, have you thought about the doves?

Britta:What doves?

Jeff:For the wedding. You need doves. Lots of them.

Britta:Jeff, that's not—

Jeff:I've been calling around. Nobody has enough doves. Nobody. We might have to cancel.

Jeff:We should probably acknowledge the marriage announcement.

Britta:Yeah, but have you seen The Office's wedding episodes? They're like two hours long.

Jeff:So?

Britta:So I'm not sitting through that.

Jeff:Does anyone have rope?

Shirley:Excuse me? What is that supposed to mean?

Jeff:What? I just need rope.

Shirley:You think I don't have rope? I always have rope!

Jeff:Okay, we need to figure out which key opens this door.

Abed:Have you tried them in order?

Jeff:In order? What order? Which one is first?

Britta:The first key you try.

Jeff:But how do I know which one I'm going to try first until I try it?

Troy:He's got a point.

Jeff:Exactly. So the first key is whichever key I try first, which means there is no first key until I've already tried a key, at which point it becomes the first key retroactively.

Abed:Or you could just try them.

Carl:Be careful with the door, Richie.

Richie:Don't worry, I got this.

Carl:Here, have a drink.

Russell Borchert:Oh, hello there! Lovely day, isn't it?

Jeff:Okay, so we're trapped in a 1970s time capsule. Let's stay calm and think this through logically.

Troy:What if we're here forever? What if this IS our life now?

Abed:According to these newspapers, disco is the future of music and it's here to stay.

Everyone:Agreed!

Britta:Wait, it's dangerous down there?

Jeff:Of course it's dangerous. It's a sex dungeon.

Britta:What? No!

Jeff:That's what they all say. Look, the key to survival is accepting that everything down there wants to hurt you, and just rolling with it. That's life, Britta.

Abed:If we encounter killer robots, how will we identify them?

Jeff:They'll be trying to kill us.

Abed:But how will we know they're robots?

Jeff:I don't know anything about the 70s. I was born in the 80s.

Britta:Well, I can help. The 70s were all about disco and bell bottoms.

Jeff:Right, so we're looking for some groovy cat in some far out threads who's really getting down with his bad self?

Britta:...That's not how anyone talked.

Jeff:My light is better, so I should lead.

Britta:That's ridiculous. My light is perfectly fine.

Jeff:No, it's not. Mine is objectively superior.

Britta:Oh, so now you're an expert on lighting? That's so typical of you.

Jeff:At least I'm not always wrong about everything.

Britta:You know what? You're being a total jerk right now.

Jeff:Well, you're being stupid.

Britta:I'm stupid? Says the guy who thinks his stupid light makes him a leader!

Jeff:It's not stupid, and you're the stupid one for not seeing it!

Jeff:Why are you crying?

Abed:These beanbag chairs... they're from my childhood.

Jeff:Oh man, you need better lumbar support? I know a guy.

Annie:I'm worried we're falling apart. We won't even be a group anymore.

Abed:We're not falling apart. We're a TV show that's losing viewers. It happens. We'll get cancelled, go to streaming, or get rebooted with a different actor playing me.

Abed:Jeff and Britta's Mediocre Adventure.

Abed:No wait - Jeff and Britta: A Study in Disappointment.

Abed:How about... Two Attractive People Make Questionable Decisions?

Abed:Or we could go with Jeff and Britta's Ongoing Argument About Whether They're a Couple.

Abed:My personal favorite: Will They? Won't They? Does Anyone Care?

Abed:Actually, it's 'Community.' The period is silent.

Abed:#Community

Abed:We've been going in circles. Paintball episodes, blanket forts, saving the school from administrative incompetence. But here's the thing about shows like ours—they don't really end. They just go into syndication in your heart.

Abed:The network wants closure. The fans want more seasons. And I'm just here, aware that I'm in a sitcom, aware that I'm aware that I'm in a sitcom, which is itself a tired trope at this point.

Abed:So here's what happens: We say goodbye. You stop watching. And then in six months, you'll rewatch the pilot, remember why you loved this show, and we'll all pretend this ending never happened. That's not cynicism—that's just how television works.

Abed:I know what you're thinking.

Annie:You do?

Abed:You're wondering if this is the moment where we finally get together. Where the will-they-won't-they ends and we become a couple.

Annie:I... wasn't thinking that.

Abed:Exactly. Because it's not. I'm going to stop you before you start, because I've seen enough TV to know how this ends, and spoiler alert: it doesn't end well for us.

Jeff:Okay, so we found a bottle cap, three pennies, and a sock.

Britta:I found a coupon for yogurt that expired in 2003.

Troy:There's a half-eaten sandwich in here. I don't know how old it is.

Abed:I found a photo of someone else's family vacation. Definitely not ours.

Annie:This instruction manual is for a VCR. Who even has those anymore?

Pierce:I found a glass eye. Just... a glass eye. No explanation.

Shirley:There's a restraining order with my name on it.

Dean:Is that... is that a live possum?

Troy:Track 127? That's the one that makes the jukebox skip ahead seventeen tracks because of a electromagnetic pulse it creates in the mechanism.

Abed:That's not how jukeboxes work.

Troy:You're right, I was thinking of track 128.

Jeff:So, uh, there's been some changes since the '70s. Michael Jackson turned white, O.J. Simpson killed his wife, and Woody Allen married his adopted daughter.

Jeff:But hey, at least we still have Woody Allen movies to look forward to... oh wait, no we don't.

Jeff:I'm sorry, I don't know what's happening to me. I can't control it.

Jeff Winger:I lose track of how big I'm getting.

Pierce Hawthorne:We're keeping very close track.

Jeff:Wait, what was that game called again?

Abed:Hawkthorne.

Jeff:Never mind, I'm out.

Chang:Who's a smart boy? You're a smart boy! Yes you are!

Richie:Stop it.

Chang:Does someone need a nappy change? Is it nap time?

Richie:They went to execute the plan.

Richie:We're meeting at that Thai place on 5th Street. You know, the one with the red awning? They have an excellent pad thai, but more importantly, their spring rolls come with three different dipping sauces, and one of them is a mystery sauce that I'm 73% confident is just mayo mixed with sriracha.

Richie:Troy's gonna create a diversion by pretending to be a health inspector. Abed will film it for his documentary about pretending to be things. Pierce will say something racist by accident. Shirley will get angry. Jeff will try to fix it with his face. And Annie will somehow end up with a clipboard.

Richie:It's foolproof. We'll all meet back at that Thai place by 7, split an order of the crab rangoon—which, again, inexplicably delicious—and nobody will ever know we were here.

Chang:I have stolen your brain! I have stolen your brain!

Carl:So how are you going to find all this equipment? It's impossible.

Chang:I'll find it. I always do.

Russell Borchert:Even down here, completely isolated underground, we couldn't escape the 1980s.

Russell Borchert:I've got some leftover money I can contribute to help save Greendale.

Russell Borchert:But I should warn you - this is from 2003, so it's only worth about 60% of face value now.

Russell Borchert:Well, money is worth what money is worth.

Chang:You hear that, computer? I've got a pickle, and I'm not afraid to use it!

Chang:That's right. A pickle. The computer's natural enemy.

Chang:Wait, where's my mask?

Chang:I'm not crazy. I'm just a little mentally ill.

Russell Borchert:Look! Look at that! Did you see that? It responded to my emotional output! The screen flickered just slightly. See? See how the pixels shifted infinitesimally? That's acknowledgment. That's connection.

Russell Borchert:What are these little faces people keep using?

Unknown:Those are emoticons. They help convey tone in text.

Russell Borchert:Ah, I see. So a colon and parenthesis makes a smile. How perfectly accurate but utterly pointless.

Russell Borchert:Oh my God. Oh my God, no. No, no, no, no, no. It's true. It's all true. The idiots... they've won. They've actually won.

Russell Borchert:You need to restart the computer with human emotion. I use nipple stimulation as my emotional baseline.

Dean Pelton:Everyone, meet our new Vice Dean, Russell Borchert.

Russell Borchert:Thank you, Dean. I'm excited to embrace this institution's digital future. I've been reading about this 'Facebook' thing. Remarkable innovation.

Britta:Facebook's been around for like fifteen years.

Russell Borchert:Precisely. Revolutionary.

Subway Rep:We've made the difficult decision to realign our institutional partnerships with a focus on core market optimization and stakeholder value proposition.

All Subway Reps:Eat fresh!

Jeff Winger:Yeah, well, Greendale's been on the chopping block since I got here. It's like our default state. We could probably get a bulk discount on the guillotine at this point.

Duncan:I wasn't electrocuted, I was shocked. Electrocution is when you're killed by electricity.

Jeff:Okay, but you're kind of proving my point about why nobody likes you.

Richie:Yeah, I was just thinking about hang gliders the whole time.

Jeff Winger:So what you're saying is, technically, none of us have a legitimate claim to Greendale because it was built on Native American land?

Dean Pelton:Well, yes, but let's not get into that rabbit hole.

Jeff Winger:No, no, I'm serious. If we're going to argue over who owns this place, shouldn't we at least acknowledge that the real owners were here first?

Chang:As a member of the school board, I'm going to use my newfound authority to demand that the cafeteria serve only foods shaped like my face.

Dean Pelton:Chang, you've been on the board for twenty minutes.

Chang:And? The people have spoken. Well, I have spoken. I am the people now.

Abed:We'll be back next year.

Abed:Unless the show gets cancelled.

Abed:Or unless NBC decides to move us to a different time slot, which would destroy our ratings.

Abed:Or unless our lead actor gets a movie deal and decides to leave mid-season.

Abed:Or unless the writers' room burns down in a freak accident involving a malfunctioning coffee maker and a stack of scripts.

Abed:Or unless the entire cast is abducted by aliens who mistake us for the Real Housewives cast.

Abed:But canon-wise, we're definitely coming back.