Abed as Calvin from "Calvin & Hobbes" and Shirley as Princess Leia (NBC)

If a holiday-themed episode gets pushed to more than three months after the holiday it's meant to celebrate, the best time to air it is on another holiday for the sake of ironic weirdness. And when the show in question is centered around ironic weirdness, it's even better.

That's why airing the season four "Community" Halloween special on Valentine's Day helps makes the anachronistic sting of the late air date vanish. By intentionally drawing attention to the lateness of the episode and even branding the episode as a celebration of "Valloween," it makes it feel like this episode was meant to air in February from the start. Well played, NBC marketing.  

It also helps that while this episode isn't as strong as past "Community" Halloween outings, it is a significant improvement from the unwieldy mess that was last week's season premiere. In "Paranormal Parentage", the study group takes a detour from a Halloween party to help out Pierce, who has locked himself in his emergency bunker in his mansion. As they search the house for the code to the bunker, strange things start happening, and the group begins to believe that the house is haunted by the spirit of Pierce's deceased father, Cornelius Hawthorne.  

The group splits up Scooby-Doo style to search the house, but unlike last week, they are all trying to reach a common goal, which makes the episode feel much tighter and focused. Jeff and Britta in particular are lots of fun to watch, as Britta tries to psychoanalyze Jeff and make him open up about his relationship with his estranged father, William. Meanwhile, Troy goes off with Shirley, who tries once again to be a mother figure to him when she tries to give him advice on his growing romance with Britta, and tries to shield him from Pierce's BDSM sex room "special gym." Even though Troy's character is getting a bit too infantilized, the sight of him playing on a sex swing in a tiger suit like it is a normal swing is still incredibly funny.

Sadly, Annie is the loser in this episode as she ends up being just as weak in pretty much every category imaginable as she was last week.  She doesn't say anything particularly funny or interesting this week, and her jokes about her costume from "The Ring" fall flat. She gets so weak that eventually her house search partner, Abed, sneaks off in a secret passage without a word and finds the house's security room, where he happily watches the entire house on cameras and makes a glorious fourth-wall-breaking line from out of nowhere ("I remember when this show was about a community college"). 

In fact, this episode brings several of those hilarious sneak attack one-liners, which leave smarter viewers roaring with laughter and wondering how the writers came up with them. The perfect example is when Troy mentions that Pierce founded the emergency bunker on June 30, 1989, which Abed quickly notes was the release date for the film, "Do The Right Thing". These are the kinds of jokes "Community" has become known for, and it is good to see the new writers get that technique down.

READ: "Community" Review: History 101

The weirdest element of the episode is Pierce himself. This is an episode that centers around him, but Pierce only appears at the beginning and end of the episode, with most of the focus dwelling on how the rest of the group is reacting to the pickle he is in. As a result, this episode does not suffer from "Pointless Pierce Syndrome" like several episodes before it, but neither does it actively employ Pierce throughout the episode. Plus, Chevy Chase pretty much phones it in on this one, which only brings to mind his impending departure from the show. I would like to have one more episode where I can enjoy a good performance from Chase without thinking about the fact that he will be gone by the time summer starts, pretty please?

Regardless, "Paranormal Parentage" is a solid episode of "Community" that brings the laughs and gives us a deeper look into Jeff's relationship with his father and Troy and Britta's relationship with each other. It seems that these will be the two major story arcs that will be developed this season…well that and Chang's return to Greendale, possibly to be Pierce's replacement in the study group. While Annie and Pierce still struggle to find something interesting to do, the others are still thriving and turning in excellent performances, and we got a great surprise appearance from Giancarlo Esposito as Pierce's half-brother Gilbert, which was sure to bring out cries of "GUS FRING LIVES!" from any "Breaking Bad" fans that may have been watching.

Next week we will see the group join Troy and Abed at a fan convention for "Inspector Spacetime", a parody of the famous British sci-fi show "Doctor Who" that has become an internet meme amongst fans of both shows. Hopefully we will see a surprise cameo from Matt Smith and Karen Gillan. Fingers crossed...

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