Troped: Bottle Episodes – Community – “Cooperative Calligraphy” (S02.E08)

What happens when a TV show is going over budget, but still has more of its season left? Or, conversely, what if the show knows it wants to put more money into a later episode and is looking for ways to save up ahead of time? Usually either of these could mean trying to come up with an episode that sticks primarily to pre-existing sets (preferably only a single one), and uses few characters or extras who are not already paid as series regulars.

In other words, you make a bottle episode.

For a fun etymology aside, there seems to be two possible origins of the term itself. Either it was first used on the set of the original Star Trek to describe what they considered “ship in a bottle episodes” where the crew never left the Enterprise; or it was first used by Leslie Stevens, the producer of The Outer Limits who considered these types of episodes to be like “pulling an episode right out of a bottle like a genie”.

Just because the main purpose of these episodes is generally to save money, doesn’t take away what they can accomplish. For one thing, it takes a lot of creativity to find reasons to keep the characters in one place. For another, these episodes thrive on character drama between the regulars, because the definition leaves little room for outside forces. This makes them great for progressing relationships within the core group. In fact, one of my favourite episodes of Breaking Bad, “Fly”, (S03.E10) is a bottle episode. And even the last Troped where I wrote about time loops looks at a bottle episode.

As the title suggests, the bottle episode I am going to be talking about is possibly one of the most famous ones (as it is possibly the only one that calls itself a bottle episode in the episode), Community’s “Cooperative Calligraphy” (S02.E08), which pushes the concept to the point of spoofing it.

Qualifications

“Cooperative Calligraphy” takes place almost entirely in the study room, the main set that is in nearly every episode of the series. The only scenes outside of it are the final two scenes of the main episode, and then the end tag. The penultimate scene takes place directly outside of the study room just as they walk out, followed by a scene that begins in the study room but then moves into the air ducts. And the end tag is a quick moment in front of the college where we see multiple wagons with puppies (and one kitten) inside.

The Dean is the only character outside of the regulars who gets any speaking lines, and only appears in two scenes. As for extras, we see a couple outside of the study room window earlier in the episode, but even that window is eventually covered by blinds, so we don’t see them again until the group leaves in the end. Then there is also a handful for the puppy parade end tag.

The Setup

The episode begins in a way that could belong to any other: the study group is getting an assignment done in the study room. Very quickly we begin to hear about events the characters are hoping to attend, such as Jeff’s date and a puppy parade happening outside.

As everyone else makes their way to the door, Annie stops them. Her pen is missing, and this isn’t the first time someone has stolen one of them. When no one really takes her seriously, she starts screaming like a crazy person.

Here in the episode’s cold open we’re presented with the premise for this becoming a bottle episode: the group can’t leave until the find the stolen pen.

Getting Everyone Invested

Early in the first act Abed brings up that this is all beginning to look like a bottle episode, and because of this Pierce accuses him of stealing the pen to make their lives more like TV. Abed responds by saying, “I wouldn’t do that. I hate bottle episodes. They’re wall to wall facial expression and emotional nuance”. It is this emotional nuance he talks about that drives the drama in these kinds of episodes, but that can’t happen unless the characters feel like some investment in what is happening. Getting the characters invested one by one makes up the bulk of the episode.

Although it is Annie who kickstarts the situation, it is Britta who is the first to become completely invested in finding the pen thief. As the search for the pen is yielding no results, Britta decides it is time to give up and go do her photography homework. The group take her rush to leave as a sign that she must have stolen the pen and begin to demand her bag be searched. She refuses this at first, but eventually gives in, revealing the garbage and condoms inside. It is her embarrassment, brought on by dumping her bag, that she has her deciding she needs someone to blame; she needs to find the pen thief.

Jeff is the next character to become completely invested in the situation, and in his case, it comes down entirely to his own ego. Jeff is usually looked up to as the group’s leader, and so far in the episode that fact has been holding true. Annie doesn’t ask Jeff if he has her pen, she asks him to find out who does. When Jeff gives a speech where he says if no one comes forward it must mean that no one has the pen, he is accused of stealing it himself. The moment this single accusation is thrown at him, Jeff demands a complete lockdown of the study room, no one can leave until the pen is found.

As a side note, it is when Jeff goes all in that the first act ends. Though no one had been allowed to leave prior to this point, by locking the doors it is no longer even a question. And of course, Jeff acting as the group’s leader means his involvement pushes things far enough to make this happen. The show goes meta once again at this point by even having Jeff cancel his date by calling her and saying that he’s doing a bottle episode.

Abed is accused by Pierce early in the episode, but he just brushes it off. While he doesn’t want to miss the puppy parade, and doesn’t like bottle episodes, this isn’t enough to make him really feel for the situation. What finally has Abed invested is when he dumps his bag and his secret notebook is found. It turns out that he had been tracking patterns in the moods of the women of the group to better understand how to keep the group happy, only to eventually realize he had accidentally began tracking their menstrual cycles. Of course, all the women take this as a huge invasion of privacy and are deeply offended, and it is their reactions are what have Abed personally hurt by the whole situation. Now he to know who stole the pen.

Shirley becomes the third (and final) character to become invested because of their bag being search. At first, she tries to refuse, even though everyone else has already had to do it. Pierce tricks her to get ahold of her bag and toss it to the others. Inside, they find a pregnancy test. It is having this come out, and especially because of the judgement she gets from Britta, that she becomes fully invested.

It is also through the way this moment ties in with Abed’s notebook that we as an audience, as well as Troy, realize that Shirley must be pregnant with Senior Chang’s child. Not only does all of this create drama for the single episode, but it builds a dramatic irony that will continue further into the season.

Annie cares enough about her pen to begin the situation, but she doesn’t become fully invested until about midway through the episode. The fact that the pen isn’t found in any of their bags leads Jeff to start tearing apart the study room in order to find it, and Annie’s need to be good outweighs her need to find the pen. Annie tries to talk Jeff out of destroying school property by calling it “just a pen”, causing Jeff to begin accusing her of having had it the entire time. Now that everyone believes Annie might have the pen, she needs to prove her innocence. Annie, Jeff, and Britta start arguing over who has the pen, going so far as to start stripping to prove it isn’t in any of their clothes.

Pierce spends most of the episode doing what he usually does, egging things on. None of it seems all that serious to him. That is, until everyone strips to the point that they realize none of them have it. They look to Pierce and realize there is only one place left to look: inside his leg casts. Together Troy and Jeff cut off the casts while Abed keeps Pierce’s wheelchair from moving. Everyone’s reaction to the inside of Pierce’s casts is comparable to the reaction of inside Britta’s purse, and it shames him into really caring about finding the culprit.

And with that, act two comes to an end, after nearly every character has become fully invested in the situation, and they have run out of places in the room to search. 

Finding Catharsis and Leaving the Room

Everyone appears completely defeated, the entire dynamic of their group has been destroyed by their lack of trust in each other. The group feels like they can no longer work as long as they believe that any one of them could have stolen the pen and put them through all of this.

Troy never gets a big moment that pushes him to feel invested in the situation because he is too involved in another theory all together. Early in the episode Troy suggests a ghost stole the pen. At the time, it is completely dismissed as him being dumb, but come the end of the episode Jeff comes over to his side. Jeff argues that it is better for to believe that a ghost stole it than to have their group never able to trust each other again. And with that, Troy gets to give what he believes is the ghost’s reason for taking a pen and gives them all someone else to blame outside of their group.

It is only through deciding a ghost took the pen and that they can all trust each other that they finally become able to leave the study room. Even the audience is taken off the hook for worrying who may have done it, as we see Troy’s monkey from a prior episode has been hoarding pens inside the vents of the school.

Results of the Trope

The nature of bottle episodes is that they generally come into being for financial reasons, but that doesn’t need to prevent them from working on a creative level as well. In fact, it is often said that it is through restrictions that creativity can really shine.

This is a trope that when at its best can explore and develop the relationships between a show’s regular characters. One of the many ways this occurs is through the fact that secrets often come out in these kinds of episodes. These secrets are either ones that are limited to the scope of the episode (such as Abed’s notebook), or ones that can effect the arc of the entire season (such as Shirley’s pregnancy test). In either case, the sharing of these secrets can act to bring characters closer together, or even drive them apart.

In the end, “Cooperative Calligraphy” is an episode used as a test of the faith that the study group has in each other. Each of them is tested, and their group becomes stronger because of it.