Community: we watched Advanced Dungeons and Dragons last night, and -- the show has finally gone past the point of credulity with why they keep Pierce in the group. Seriously.

Exactly my reaction. (Aside from hysterical laughter, because for a longstanding D&D geek, that was a great episode.)

Aside from hysterical laughter,

Oh, yeah, that too. God DAMN, it was hilarious.

I just watched that tonight. I forgot for a second there that the writers could control the outcome of the die, I think. I was very tense.

Prehensile tail totally beats giant ears, btw.

-t, first -- you are TEARING through those DVDs! Like the wind!

Second, after the tail-vs-giant-ears tag, Tim asked me that question, and my exact answer was "If it's prehensile, tail totally wins."

They are totally eating my life and I love it! I don't know what I'm going to do when I'm all caught up.

::Prehensile tail high-five::

I don't know what I'm going to do when I'm all caught up.

I know!

Pierce is reprehensible and logically, his continuing presence in the group is baffling. But narratively, I think his character brings interesting conflicts to the group dynamic. Advanced D&D wouldn't have been so brilliant without him as the chief antagonist ("I can't hear you over the sound of me rubbing his sword on my balls!"), and there are several other major episodes in the rest of the season 2 where he essentially drives the story.

I don't know. I hate him, but I also kinda don't. I just can't imagine the study group without him at this point.

Yeah, the meta reasons he's in the group for story telling purposes seem pretty clear. For in-the-world-of-Greendale reasons that he's kept around, well, they were all just the people who showed up for that first study group, nothing brought them together except that they happened to be taking the same class. The real foundation of their friendship is that they just keep showing up and spending time together, and he does that, too.

And Pierce needs the rest of them more than they need him, and he knows that and that's what drives so much of his really dickish behavior.

From my perspective of a little more than halfway through the second season.

Community Flash Mob Occupies NBC's Rockefeller Center. Ha! Also, I recognized a friend of mine in the video!

I really really hated Pierce last season too. The writers changed perspective this season to make the Pierce situation more tenable: by making the group less likable .