Reprinted with permission from www.survivingcollege.com

The gang sits around their table, shocked, nervous, and out of sorts. Dean Pelton does not enjoy the awkward silence and demands an explanation. Annie says it’s too embarrassing. So…puppet therapy! Everyone gets a puppet made in his or her likeness, and this is the best thing I’ve ever seen on this show. Except for Chevy Chase, who is in the woods, and don’t ask because nobody wants to talk about it. Ha, Jeff’s puppet is topless and ripped.

Oh yay! The rest of the show is acted out in puppets! Abed and Troy are playing Study Group Bingo. When people say the predictable things they say, “square!” The group realize that they’re stuck in a rut, and there’s a yammering of other things people get stuck in: elevators, marriages, bottom of wells, your own emotions…..

They need a Ferris Bueller-style adventure, and the puppets break into song, which is surprisingly refreshing and makes me wish that the rest of the series was a puppet musical. The group decides to go on a hot air balloon ride but forgets the hot air balloon guide on the ground. Pierce starts “helping” by sending them even higher, and not in the good way. Eventually, they start to go down (also not in the good way), and land calmly and uncrashingly in a forest.

Lost references, prison, something about Blue Man Group, and they run into…Others! Or, a man in a flannel shirt who just so happens to be a Greendale graduate. He leads them in a song about how hard it is being a student in Greendale. Then, magical berries and wiggly special effects.  Shirley explains that the devilberries freed their minds…and skin.

It’s puppet confession time, and Shirley tells everyone about leaving her kids alone in the grocery store all night because she thought that she saw Andre with another woman. Nobody remembers Shirley telling that story, and as Troy says, “those berries made us real talky, but not real listeny.” They’re in the clear! No need to be embarrassed. Except…Shirley.

Because Shirley has told her embarrassing secret, everyone tells theirs to make her feel a little bit less horrible. Here are their secrets:

• Winger: She met the perfect girl, and then met her kids. He ignored them.
• Britta: She is an activist but never voted except for the Voice
• Annie: She struggles in History and let the professor rub her feet in exchange for answers
• Troy: Burned down Greendale
• Chevy Chase: He never slept with mumble mumble mumble.

Annie realizes that Abed failed to tell his secret to the group. But, since he never told a secret in the woods, he gets to keep it inside. Also, Britta’s secret is judged the worst. Finally, Dean Pelton does awful things to the Jeff Winger puppet.

Photo: www.nbc.com

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