The best episodes of Community highlight the bonds between the characters and put them into some genuinely wacky situations. Community follows a lawyer (Joel McHale) who has to go back to school when it’s discovered that he doesn’t have a legitimate degree. While attending school, he creates a fake study group to impress a woman, but it grows into a real study group as he makes friends.

The best episodes of Community allow the comedic cast of the show to really show off their skills - especially in an ensemble. While any ensemble show will spotlight different characters as part of different storylines, Community’s strength really lies in how well the entire cast is able to work together. That’s why so many of the best episodes of the show feature storylines for the group as a whole.

Every episode of Community is named in the style of a college course.

10 Regional Holiday Music

Season 3, Episode 10

One of the things Community does best during the run of the show is riff on pop culture. While in a lot of cases, the show is paying homage to movies or television shows of the past (in much the same way Psych did themed episodes), not every riff is a loving homage. Sometimes, Community would parody or even skewer other shows and movies. That’s the case with “Regional Holiday Music.”

The episode is a send-up of Glee, the musical series about a high school Glee club staring Lea Michele. Here, Greendale Community College Glee Club all suffer mental breaks. The director tries to get the study group characters to fill in for the club , but they decline. Of course, that doesn’t mean the episode doesn’t have a ton of musical numbers, including ones that intentionally make the audience uncomfortable.

The episode does a great job at dissecting some of the more clichéd aspects of Glee and in parodying some of the things Glee became known for, like its mashing-up of two completely unrelated songs.

9 Intermediate Documentary Filmmaking

Season 2, Episode 16

Unlike The Office or Modern Family, not every episode of Community is shot in the style of a documentary. There are, however, a handful that use the idea, and this one stands out.

In the episode, Pierce pretends to be on his deathbed, and he convinces Abed to fulfill his last wishes with the study group - with everything being documented, of course. It’s a way for Pierce to manipulate the group, but also a storyline that demonstrates how left out from the group he feels.

One of the best parts of the episode is LeVar Burton guest starring and leaving Troy completely in awe. Burton has been game for a lot of guest-starring spots over the years, playing variations of himself, but this one is a fun one. Of course, beyond just being fun, the episode also does the more emotional elements, like Jeff being afraid to meet his father again, very well.

8 Emotional Consequences Of Broadcast Television

Season 6, Episode 13

It’s one of the most emotional episodes of the show...

When the show was canceled after season 5, Yahoo Screen picked Community up for a sixth, and what would ultimately be its final season. The streaming platform no longer exists, but the sixth season of the show does, and “Emotional Consequences Of Broadcast Television” is its swan song.

The finale takes a more meta approach than a lot of the episodes do. Jeff, afraid to move on with his life, encourages all of his study group to “pitch” him what happens next for them. They all give ideas for what a seventh season of the show could look like. Ultimately, however, he has to move on, and he its his love for Annie and allows her to move on as well.

It’s one of the most emotional episodes of the show, but it’s also an incredibly fitting way to say goodbye before the cast returns for their long-awaited movie.

7 Pillows And Blankets

Season 3, Episode 14

Troy and Abed are one of the best friendship pairings on the show. It might seem strange then for one of the best episodes of the show to feature the two of them at odds, but that is exactly what “Pillows And Blankets” is.

The episode is told in the style of a Ken Burns Civil War documentary, only this time, the factions are not the North and the South. Here, it’s those involved in building a school-wide pillow and blanket fort who have drawn battle lines. While Troy wants to use more blankets to get a bigger overall fort to break a world record, Abed is more concerned with achieving an artistic vision. The group chooses sides and smaller arguments break out as well as the school devolves into chaos.

It’s an incredibly fun way for the show to depict conflict. It’s also incredibly fun to see Jeff tasked with bringing the two friends back together.

6 Cooperative Calligraphy

Season 2, Episode 8

In the days when network television shows got 23 episodes (or more) in a season, one of the ways to help control the budget from getting out of hand was to do a “bottle episode.” In those episodes, only the main cast would be utilized so the network would not have to pay extras or guest stars. Most of the action, if not all of it, would take place in a single location so there would be no fees for location shoots and no need to prep additional sets. “Cooperative Calligraphy” is a throwback to those bottle episodes.

The study group ends up confined to the study room when Annie’s purple pen goes missing, and she demands it be found. Though the group searches the entire room (and one another), they never locate her pen. Instead, they get to know one another a little bit better and spill secrets. It’s the kind of episode that allows the show to provide commentary on the way TV works, but to also really dig into the characters.

5 Cooperative Polygraphy

Season 5, Episode 4

When Community, his character’s exit was almost overshadowed by behind-the-scenes drama. Rumors swirled about why he was leaving and whether he was difficult to work with. Despite all of that, the show found an interesting way to give his character a send-off while still delving deep into the characters that remained.

When Chase’s Pierce is killed off-screen, he leaves instructions in his will for the study group to give one another polygraph tests. Even in death, the character wants to manipulate the study group into itting their secrets. While that’s par for the course in the show, it also allows the characters to get more emotional.

“Cooperative Polygraphy” also lays the groundwork for Donald Glover’s exit from the series, which is why his character’s exit episode slightly outranks this one.

4 Geothermal Escapism

Season 5, Episode 5

Following the events of the previous episode, Troy is given the chance to take Pierce’s boat on a trip around the world. While the audience might not have wanted to see Donald Glover leave, the show allowed a fitting way to say goodbye to his character.

Abed struggles with the idea of his friend leaving the school behind to travel. In order to say goodbye to him, he organizes a school-wide game of “The Floor Is Lava” to keep himself and Troy entertained. Of course, as Britta points out, it’s also his way of dealing with his real feelings about Troy leaving. He does not want to say goodbye, just like the audience. Once he is able to understand that he has been pushing his own feelings away, however, he is ready to watch Troy quite literally sail off into the sunset.

Not only does it give Abed and Troy an emotional farewell, but it also works as a great homage to disaster movies with the idea of lava and just how Abed sees the world.

3 Paradigms Of Human Memory

Season 2, Episode 21

It’s a clip show format that is fresh...

This is the episode responsible for giving the Community fanbase its rallying cry of “six seasons and a movie” that has come true thanks to a sixth season pick-up after cancelation and the movie being made for Peacock’s streaming service. That alone is enough to make this episode a sweet spot for fans of the show. It also, however, happens to be one of the best episodes of Community.

This episode is a send-up of clip shows. Clip shows, like bottle episodes, were a way to keep a series in budget. The episodes would usually air close to the end of a season and would be comprised of clips from early in the show as characters took a trip down memory lane while looking at a yearbook or giving a toast or a similar circumstance. Here, Community has the study group argue about which of them is actually the worst.

The catch, however, is that it’s not a true clip show. All of the “clips” used in the episode are footage that the audience has never seen before. It’s a clip show format that is fresh and still gives the audience new information.

2 Modern Warfare

Season 1, Episode 23

If fans want to trace the reason so many of Community’s best episodes focus on the ensemble, they can trace the origin back to the season one episode “Modern Warfare.” The episode acted as one of the show’s first attempts to show homage to a movie genre as a whole (in this case, action movies), and it was also one of the earliest episodes where the ensemble seemed to gel perfectly. It also just so happens to be the first big paintball episode of the show.

Paintball is kicked off on the community college campus when the dean offers up priority registration as the prize to the last student standing. That leads to, essentially, war on the campus. Jeff and Britta end up being two of the last people standing, and they give in to the sexual tension that’s been building between them since the start of the show.

What’s great is that the writers took what worked from the episode, like the paintball war and shots that called to mind classic action movies, and incorporated it into future episodes of the series. They also learned that romance did not have to be a main focus for the show, and Community was better for it.

1 Remedial Chaos Theory

Season 3, Episode 3

It’s like the best seven mini-episodes of Community fans will ever get.

Those unfamiliar with Community would be hard-pressed to find anyone who does not think “Remedial Chaos Theory” is one of the best episodes, if not the best episode, of Community. It’s the episode that has launched many a gif set and meme, so even those who have never seen an episode might actually recognize it.

During the episode, the study group has a housewarming party for Troy and Abed at their new apartment. When pizza arrives, Jeff suggests using the roll of a die to decide who should go down to pick up the pizza. Each roll then provides a completely different set of circumstances for those who stay in the apartment as the removal of just one person changes the dynamic and what happens next. The audience gets to see every possible situation play out.

Technically speaking, this isn’t even the best single episode of Community since the episode offers up seven potential outcomes. It’s like the best seven mini-episodes of Community fans will ever get.