Podcast

Thursday, October 22, 2020

Believe Care Invest: Community

Why Jeff might be hard to identify with: 
  • He’s a lawyer (who faked his law degree.)  He’s a cheater.  He’s a cad. He’s a liar.
Believe
  • I absolutely love it when the Dean realizes he’s lost the card that had the inspiring part of his speech and says, “Can we all look around our immediate areas?”, which is a phrase I know only from real life and not from TV. 
  • As for Jeff, though, he doesn’t feel particularly real to me. He explicitly states that one of his problems is that he’s stitched his personality together from TV shows, though, so I guess that’s kind of the point.
Care
  • The dean accidentally makes it clear to everyone that this is a loser school.
  • The state bar has suspended Jeff’s license. He has to admit over the course of the episode that he’s coasted by and he has no idea how to live in the world.
Invest
  • He’s a great talker: “I discovered at a very early age that if I talk long enough, I could make anything right or wrong, so either I’m god, or truth is relative, and in either case, boo-yah.” He’s good at hitting on Britta: She says she doesn’t want to make small talk. He asks “What’s your deal?” She asks “Isn’t that small talk?” He says, “What’s your deal and is God dead?”
Five Es: Our first ever five nos!
  • Eat: No
  • Exercise: No
  • Economic Activity: No. I mean, he’s kind of trying to get his job back.
  • Enjoy: No, he’s entirely jaded and doesn’t seem to enjoy much.
  • Emulate: No.
Rise above
  • He has no job to rise above.
High five a black guy
  • He stands up for various people of color.
Kind:
  • He shows some sensitivity to Abed. “That’s the nicest thing anyone’s ever said to me.”

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

So glad you're doing TV shows!

James Kennedy said...

If Jeff has "stitched his personality together from TV shows," doesn't that count for "emulate" in an attenuated way?

Matt Bird said...

Good point

Matt Bird said...

And I guess he does order a taco, but he never eats it.