Bottle Episode: An Advance Review of Community's Exquisite "Cooperative Calligraphy"

It's said that in a murder investigation, there are no secrets. The lives of everyone, from the victim to those around them, are laid bare under the harsh light of scrutiny. If you're concealing something, it will come out.

The same holds true for a different sort of investigation, this time surrounding a missing purple pen belonging to Annie (Alison Brie) on this week's genius episode of Community ("Cooperative Calligraphy"). While the episode is ostensibly about the quest to track down this errant stylus, it's the bonds of the study group that come tumbling down when the finger of suspicion is pointed at each of them.

Welcome, ladies and gentlemen, to the very best bottle episode ever produced.

For those of you who don't know, "bottle episode" is a technical term for an episode of television that's produced in one single location. It cuts down on the bottom line (something studios like quite a lot) as there aren't additional sets, location shots, or typically dayplayer actors either. And it helps balance the budget against an expensive episode (like, say, "Epidemiology") by being relatively inexpensive to produce. On other shows, this might be the episode where the characters get trapped in an elevator or an earthquake/tornado/Justin Bieber concert leaves them unable to leave the basement.

In the case of Community, it's where a seemingly mundane occurrence--the disappearance of Annie's gel-grip purple pen--ripples outwards to rupture the group's collective spirit amid a hot-tempered investigation. Would one of these people knowingly steal from one another? If it was an accident, would the culprit come forward? And why is one pen of such monumental importance?

Which is where "Cooperative Calligraphy" truly shines as the missing pen becomes emblematic of something far greater. As in the best type of bottle episode--and, yes, full use of that terminology is used, unsurprisingly, by Abed (Danny Pudi)--the MacGuffin of the plot isn't what's truly important here. In this case, the lockdown in the study room, an attempt by lead investigator Jeff Winger (Joel McHale) to get to the bottom of the issue, is a device that elevates the circumstances for the group. And when you put an object under such intense pressure, it often explodes dramatically, as it does here.

Look for everything to be swept bare, from the secrets harbored by several players to the characters themselves here as the investigation intensifies. Eccentricities, from Abed's, um, truly inspired behavioral chart of the women, to the larger-than-life handbag carried by Shirley (Yvette Nicole Brown) are placed under the microscope. The straw-enabled wheelchair (don't ask) used by Pierce (Chevy Chase)--following last week's trampoline accident--is used for comedic effect, while the holier-than-thou attitude of Britta (Gillian Jacobs) becomes a rallying cry for civil liberties in the face of a fascist state.

By the end of the episode, several uncomfortable truths will have been dragged into the light (no, I'm not revealing just what those might be), friends will turn on one another, bonds will be restored, and time will be given to an exploration of matters most mundane and miraculous. In fact, it's the resolution of the central mystery--brought about by a stray comment made by Troy (Donald Glover)--that unites those two polar opposites in dramatic and hysterical fashion.

"Cooperative Calligraphy" is about more than just what these characters have in their bags (though I do find that to be pretty damn interesting) or where that pen went. It's about how any collective can be derailed by suspicion and how it often takes something seemingly tiny and insignificant to magnify the issues of a group.

In a season overflowing with genre-busting hilarity, it's a reminder that Community can find the comedy in both the high-concept and the seemingly quotidian. In the hands of this inventive and imaginative series' talented cast and crew, zombie attacks and "space" travel can sit side by side with an entire episode about a missing pen. Heart and humor can co-exist quite nicely, thank you very much, as can pain and a puppy parade.

All of which goes to prove that this bottle (episode) is far from empty.

Community airs Thursday evening at 8 pm ET/PT on NBC.