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Community returned last night, and with it, Jeff Winger and his sweeping speeches. Every few episodes, Joel McHale will get to stand up in front of a study room, classroom, or courtroom and spout the kind of wisdom that only comes when one is knocked off of one’s slick lawyer pedestal and thrown into the community college pool with the rest of the screw-ups. We’re looking back on our favorite orations by Greendale’s big man on campus.
“You are all better than you think you are. You are just designed not to believe it when you hear it from yourself.”
Jeff unites the misfits in his Spanish study group and prounces them a — you guessed it — a community. Aw … that’s nice.
“Origins of Vampire Mythology”
Don’t you wish you had a Jeff Winger handy to check you with a firm, “No, woman,” any time you felt the need to prostrate yourself for someone who treats you like crap?
“Cooperative Calligraphy”
Jeff: “What if a ghost took the pen?”
Abed: “Let him finish.”
Jeff: “I am finished. For real. Honestly, seriously, why not? Why not just ‘a ghost took the pen’?”
Troy: “Okay, I’ve been saying that for hours.”
Jeff: “And we should have been listening to Troy from the beginning. Guys, look in your hearts and answer this question honestly- what’s more likely, that someone in this group doesn’t belong in this group, or… ghosts? If we have to choose between turning on each other or pinning it on some specter with unfinished pen-related business, I’m sorry, but my money’s on ‘ghost.'”
It’s not a pen, it’s a principle. And Jeff spells out what this missing pen means in a classic Community bottle episode.
“Intro to Political Science”
We’d vote for him.
“Introduction to Finality”
“It’s that easy: you just stop thinking about what’s good for you and start thinking about what’s good for someone else … and you can change the whole game with one move. Now if you like this idea, you can make it true by doing something good for everyone here: throw this case out of court. It’s dumb. That is all.”
Jeff wraps up what could have been the very last episode of Community with this courtroom speech. Thankfully, he (and the rest of the Greendale Seven) lived to fight another day.
“Cooperative Escapism in Familial Relations”
Winger has got serious daddy issues, and in last year’s Thanksgiving episode, he got to lay him all at his father’s feet. Extra tears for that fake texting confession.
“Basic Rocket Science”
“We earned the right to pick on Greendale by going there every day. Our school may be a toilet but it’s our toilet. Nobody craps in it but us.”
That’s it. That’s the series.
