Warning: This article contains storyline and character spoilers from this week’s episode of Community.

As “Advanced Safety Features” shows, it doesn’t matter how cool you think you are, nobody’s cooler than Keith David. Well, technically, it’s his character Elroy — but ask any of the cast members and they’ll tell you it’s true in real life too. We also got to see Jeff Winger’s insecurities, which are emerging more and more as the season progresses. As it turns out, Jeff’s crisis of confidence — and, more importantly, his fear that he’s become trapped at Greendale — is something Community creator Dan Harmon understands all too well.

Is Jeff’s concern that he’s trapped at Greendale something that you feel about yourself with Community? Is that a question that you’re still answering for yourself?

Yeah, it definitely is. That’s where I’m at with Community. Is it, “Am I being punished or am I being rewarded? Is this heaven or hell?” And in either case, did I make it for myself or am I trapped there by someone else? Or put there as a reward by someone else? I don’t know because I’m such a creature — like Jeff Winger — of other people’s opinions, other people’s perceptions of me. I don’t know at what point I’m supposed to actively defy or actively support anything that’s happening any more. I just know that I’m needed here and that it makes me feel good when it’s going right. But I don’t know if I’m supposed to be here or not anymore. Definitely a lot of that being expressed through Jeff this season.

That sounds like the plot to Lost.

[Laughs.] I definitely won’t reveal that Greendale is Purgatory at the end of the season, because it’s already been done. But in a mythical sense, Greendale really is Purgatory. It’s a place that is neither heaven nor hell. It’s a place to which you’re sentenced by an impersonal cosmos to work your own s–t out. And there are people who have to keep working it out, like Jeff Winger. And there are people like Annie and Troy and Abed who are young and whose mistakes were early and who only had a slight sentence. You don’t want to see Annie stay at Greendale forever unless she becomes the owner of it or a teacher. You need to watch her grow. And yet your love of everyone being there is part of how you’re working things out. The comparisons to Lost are not invalid.

The cast seems to echo that ambivalence. Joel talks about how he’s ready to stay for 36,000 more episodes; he’s happy to be here. Some of the others, though, say they can’t see themselves here 10 years from now. I wonder how much of the show is leaking into them and how much is just who they are.

Certainly. I think a lot of the actors lives have bled into the characters. I mean, Joel McHale is a workaholic like myself. He has said — about the way he approaches his career — that if there’s money to be made somewhere out there and he doesn’t take the job, he feels like he’s setting [that money] on fire. So he’s happy to do it. He loves the idea of plugging away on Community forever. And he got my job back. He’s been a hero and a father figure to everybody on that show.

Story continues