This week’s Community felt like a cop-out. It got hyped as a Pulp Fiction parody, but it ended up being a My Dinner With Andre parody instead. Pulp Fiction is an awesome action movie. My Dinner With Andre is a movie (judging by this episode) about Abed wearing a cardigan. Such a letdown!

It’s Abed’s birthday, and he wants to celebrate by having dinner with Jeff. Just the two of them, at a swank restaurant. Jeff thinks this is a weird and awkward idea; he plans to get Abed to ditch the restaurant for a nearby diner, where the whole study group is waiting, in costume, to throw him a Pulp Fiction-themed surprise party. Shirley is in costume as Samuel L. Jackson, complete with facial hair. This is the best part of the episode.

Instead, Abed insists on staying at the swank place, and tells this long story about visiting the Cougartown set (that isn’t funny and, it turns out, also isn’t true). He is acting weird and jovial and sort of like George Clooney. Jeff doesn’t get what’s going on. Abed ends his story by saying that he’s stopped caring so much about pop culture and trivial things, and now he wants to have his first real conversation. Jeff is like, there’s no such thing as real conversation! Abed is like, yeah there is. Jeff is like, okay fine, I will confide in you and cry!

Then the waiter, who is in on Abed’s plan, slips up, and Jeff realizes that Abed was not transformed on the set of Cougartown—he is just trying to do an “homage” to My Dinner with Andre, which Jeff didn’t know because he hadn’t seen it. Jeff storms out, and the birthday party is “canceled.” But then Abed apologizes, lures Jeff back to the restaurant (which is now closed), and the whole Pulp Fiction party has moved there. It ends up being a surprise party, except for Jeff instead of Abed.

In other news, Jeff bought Abed the original Pulp Fiction briefcase, but Troy accidentally sets it on fire. Or something. Then it ended up not being the original briefcase after all. How’s that for a surprisingly boring subplot!