Using the structure of the game Leonard gets Sheldon to sing “Good King Wenceslas” and all three remaining players to play “Jingle Bells” using, the obvious instrument of choice, bells. Oh, and they ditch their respective girlfriends to play, which led to this scene, the last line of which was delivered excellently: Also Raj gets shot in the face with a cannon in the first few minutes of the game, highlighting the fragility of life in a world that values perception checks. Queue Sheldon’s disappointed face due to the fact that he a) loves D&D and b) hates Christmas. The game begins and Leonard, the DM, lets it drop that their quest is to rescue Santa Claus. Heck, as far as I can recall they spent more time playing Settlers of Catan than throwing around a 12-sided dice. Neil’s spirits are lifted and he finds the motivation to keep on living.Ī “guys’ night” is happening and the activity of choice is Dungeons and Dragons, which is territory you’d have expected these characters to have explored in-depth quite a few seasons back. Pierce is defeated, mostly through his friends forgiving him for his dickishness. Incensed at being excluded from the game he steals Fat Neil’s magical sword and runs away, later using D&D manuals to cheat and garner immense power to himself.Įverything ends, as usual, with a fairly warm and fuzzy conclusion. In this episode Pierce owns his most unpopular role: The Villain. The best parts, however, are when you discover a little something about the character you thought you knew, well-illustrated in the following scene with Annie: Once everything is set up, with Abed as the DM, things really get going.Įach member of the study group essentially plays a version of themselves, with the voice over near the beginning describing them as “Troy the Obtuse,” and “Britta the Needlessly Defiant.” They react to the situations within the game as they normally would, with Jeff impatient and unwilling to put up with nonsense as usual. The game is set up due to Jeff wanting to help out “Fat Neil,” a young man planning to end his life due to his new nickname. It also treats the source material the most lovingly, complete with a voice over and fantastically appropriate score. This episode has easily the most actual gameplay of the three, since essentially the entire episode consists of the Greendale Seven playing D&D in the library. You can catch it on Netflix, or here, though you didn’t hear that from me. The conclusion is tear-filled and, more importantly, immensely funny. Moss uses the game to confront Roy about the latter’s painful breakup, something he’d been avoiding talking about for a while. While the idea of entertaining a few rowdy businessmen with a little D&D is hilarious in and of itself, but there’s more to it than that. Moss has been preparing to DM and convinces Jen that it’s exactly what these gentlemen are looking for. “Jen the Fredo” is, if you’ve seen The Godfather films, a clear reference to the character Fredo, whose job it was to take out of town businessman and “show them a good time.” Jen takes on the role of helping to entertain a few business partners, but ultimately fails when she takes them to see “The Vagina Monologues.”Įnter Dungeons and Dragons. One of the best aspects of the show is that it brings you into the nerdiness of Moss and Roy, and in watching you begin to feel like you really relate to them, becoming equally frustrated when people ask them for help with their computers. It’s a show about two, well, nerds that work in the IT department of a large company and their boss, who knows nearly nothing about computers. Let me sum in up in that it is, in my ways, what The Big Bang Theory could be. I realize that most of you have not seen, or maybe even heard of, The IT Crowd. Spoilers for all three episodes past this point. As a role-playing game the players are able to reveal aspects about themselves that might not otherwise come out, and you can see this being done with various degrees of effectiveness in each episode. The thing about the D&D-centric episode is how it’s been used as a plot device. Both of these episodes were some of the best of their respective shows, so I was pretty excited for what TBBT had to offer. Last night The Big Bang Theory aired its 122nd episode, entitled “The Santa Simulation.” News that its premise hit the internet and avid television watchers everywhere began to cry what may one day become a familiar saying, “ Community did it first!” Every single one of them was wrong.Ī full year before “Advanced Dungeons and Dragons,” there was “Jen the Fredo,” the first episode of British sitcom The IT Crowd‘s fourth season.
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