Chevy Chase leaving Community

Last week it was announced that Chevy Chase was leaving my favorite show, Community.  Community's fourth (and likely final) season will start airing in February, held back by NBC for no good reason whatsoever, in favor of lesser shows. The fourth is a short, thirteen episode season and they've already finished filming eleven episodes, all of which Chevy is in. Oddly enough, they've already filmed the season finale episode, so the two episodes without Chevy are the 11th and 12th. This is good because it will allow them to write Chevy's character, Pierce Hawthorne, out of those episodes and then he'll be back in the season finale.

I'm not happy about his leaving. While many Community fans say that if they had to pick someone to leave the show, it would be Pierce, I think it will be like getting rid of one of the group in Friends. Sure, you'd get rid of Phoebe or Ross, but the show just wouldn't be the same. Pierce may be obnoxious, sometimes racist and uncivil, but he brings a different perspective and outlook to the group. I'll miss him.

Before he quit the show, Chevy was recently in the news because of an outburst on the set. He angrily objected to Pierce's racist dialogue and said something like, "Next thing you know, Pierce will be saying "the N-word"." (He actually said "the N-word".  I'm too polite to.) There was a loud uproar and a lot of controversy which probably lead to his leaving the show. I think Chevy wasn't being racist, but was trying to make a legitimate point.

Pierce's character had a strong arc through the first three seasons of Community. He started off as a goofy, gruff, sometimes surprisingly wise, old, lonely guy during the first season and during the second season went through a long period of anger and intolerance. His character became pretty grim and unpleasant for awhile. But he moved through that story arc, lost his father, gained a brother, and actually grew. It was a really nice story and I thought the character had left behind most of his more archaic prejudices, like racism. When I heard about Chevy's outburst, I could sympathize because I thought the character was finally beyond that baggage.  Clearly, Chevy thought so too. I give him credit for that.

So, unfortunately, it's so long Pierce! Losing you is definitely not streets ahead.