Community S5E9 - "VCR Maintenance and Educational Publishing" Recap

Annie is assigning chores to people and Jeff, Shirley, and Hickey are assigned to clean out the storage room. Abed comes in with his new girlfriend, Rachel. The two are getting along well, having dated for a month. Abed has invited Rachel over to play an interactive VCR game and Annie will be having her brother over. Enter Dean, who unleashes a bizarre rap while dressed as a nut bar and become frightened upon getting out of control with it.

Annie's brother Anthony helps her to chop carrots and though he's not particularly expressive or cheerful in the slightest, he's handy enough to fix the apartment's broken refrigerator door. Annie proposes to Abed in private that Anthony move in with them but Abed wants to ask Rachel to move in instead.

While cleaning out the storage room, the group finds a hidden stash of unused Chemistry textbooks. They wonder if they're stolen but then they realise they could try to sell them for a profit to be split amongst them.

Unable to come to an agreement, Abed and Annie decide to play the interactive VCR game, Pile of Bullets, to determine who will move in with them. Of course the fact that a potential roommate is at stakes is all done without consulting Anthony or Rachel. The game begins and it proves highly difficult to follow. Anthony and Rachel would rather stop playing but Abed and Annie are too determined and competitive to quit.

The group brings Britta in on the deal and she wants half the profits in exchange for a hook-up to someone to sell the textbooks to. They talk her down to getting an equal 25% but they're interrupted by Chang. They hold him captive, since he's apparently seen too much. They force him to record a video claiming he stole the textbooks and threaten to release it if they talk. Jeff is put off by the stunt, saying they've gone too far and tells Shirley he will leave quietly and that they can split the money 3-ways. When he goes to leave, he is taken captive too.

As the game goes on, Abed and Annie have gotten the game down and are behaving in an erratic, crazed manner. Anthony and Rachel look on in boredom. When both Abed and Annie lose, they declare they want to play it again to get a winner. Rachel and Anthony say they want to go home but then Abed reveals that they are playing to determine which of them will be the new roommate. Rachel leaves, saying she doesn't like this side of Abed.

Jeff is tied up back-to-back with Chang. Britta tells the group that she has a guy lined up to meet her and she will take a small sample to determine a price. Jeff plants distrust within the trio saying that Britta will take more than her fair share. It works but then Britta is able to convince them that they should talk it out. The result of this? Everyone is tied up except Shirley, who makes off with the books to meet Britta's hook-up.

Annie apologises to her brother. He says that there are clearly unresolved issues involving Troy, who can be seen in several photos throughout the apartment. Abed approaches Rachel at her locker to apologise and begins a cinematic apology, complete with a random guy behind him standing on a stool pouring water on his head to simulate rain. Abed says that he has been accelerating their relationship because he was worried that he wouldn't pass the tests. He thought that her moving in would mean that he wouldn't screw things up with Annie around. She tells him not to manipulate or keep secrets from her, and they should be fine. They make up and a student slips and falls on the water puddle from Abed's rain.

Shirley meets with the guys who will only offer $20, as the books are misprints (they have no page numbers). She returns to the group and unties them.

Abed and Annie note that Troy kept them in check and they propose that they live with someone crazier than them. Britta enters the room, they look her over, and decide that they will look on Craigslist. Outside, the Dean tries to write out his rap and grows frustrated when he's unable to do so.

Community airs on Thursdays on NBC at 8PM.