Community: Season 1 Episode 12: Investigative Journalism
The Spanish club meets up for their first get-together after winter break. After sitting around the table they discover that Buddy Austin (guest star Jack Black), a classmate that no one knows from Spanish class, has joined the club. Buddy tries too hard to be liked by the group, making lame jokes and ends up kicking Jeff in the nose while showing off his martial arts skills.
Dean Pelton lures Jeff into his office to convince him to be the new editor of the college newspaper. Dangling an office and power in front of Jeff works and he takes to his new position quickly, ordering Annie to scope out school gossip, Abed to get to work and other newspaper students to get him pizza.
As the Spanish Club gets ready for their first class in Spanish 102, a woman standing in front of a make-shift memorial in the classroom tells them Senor Chang died over the winter break. The class is shocked and sad. Suddenly Senor Chang comes bounding in with blaring boom box with theme music, having faked them out by hiring a professional actress to announce his passing. Senor Chang, having shaken up the class, tells them he cannot die and to expect the unexpected from the class this year.
After Spanish class, Buddy tells the gang he will see them at study group. The gang wants to discuss if they should keep Buddy in the study group. Jeff, who is working on being more tolerate of others, says Buddy should stay in the group. Annie breaks an important story, telling Jeff she has found that someone used racial profiling to get students to a campus Toni Braxton concert last semester using texts messages sent only to the black students. Annie wonders how she can find out who the text message came from. Jeff suggests she call the number back on the text messages. When Dean Pelton answers the phone call he realizes the gig is up and disguises his voice. Annie sets out to discover who the mysterious voice on the phone was so she can become a major force in journalism.
The study group becomes annoyed with Buddy, who keeps interrupting them when they talk and is distracting with his self-serving antics. Jeff offers advice about improving the study group but Buddy thinks his ideas are better. The study group is tired of Buddy’s attention seeking and decides they want to vote Buddy out of the group. Annie discovers Dean Pelton is behind the text messages and confronts him. Dean Pelton thinks this will ruin his career and begs Annie not to reveal him in the story. Jeff gets angry and tells Annie he will not run the story and ruin Dean Pelton’s career, but Annie tells Jeff she will go with the story anyway.
As the study group walks into the classroom, Buddy is playing an “I’m sorry” song to them, apologizing for his behavior. Jeff tells Buddy the Spanish Club has voted to expel him from the group. Buddy breaks down and refuses to go, leaving Jeff no other alternative but to drag Buddy screaming and crying, with pants around his ankles, from the room. Jeff feels bad about booting Buddy from the group. Abed feeds Jeff a martini as he tells Jeff he is a leader and this is what he must do as leader of the group. Annie comes by and apologizes to Jeff, telling him he was right to get mad at her and not run the Dean Pelton story.
When the Spanish Club study group walks into the classroom they see Buddy sitting at the table. Jeff tells them he was wrong to dump Buddy and invites Buddy back to the group. Jeff tells the gang Buddy’s only fault was that he thought the Spanish Club was cool. Buddy is nervous and hopes the group will accept him. The group agrees to accept Buddy back into the study group. Another study group made up of the most popular students on campus (guest star Owen Wilson) stop in and tell Buddy he is accepted into their group. Buddy is estatic telling the Spanish Club they were his safety choice in case he wasn’t accepted into the really cool study group, then runs off to hang with the cool study group.
Abed and Troy interview for the cool group and are rejected. Pierce walks in during the interview and chastises them for wanting to leave the study group. As Abed and Troy run off, Pierce asks for an interview with the cool group, singing the “Britta is a B” song to impress the interviewer, but is soundly rejected.
