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5 of Our Favorite Shirley Moments on Community
Oh, that’s nice!
Though Mother’s Day is in the rear-view mirror, it’s never a bad time to celebrate moms. In Community, Shirley Bennet (Yvette Nicole Brown) is not only a devoted mom to her two boys, but she also (sometimes reluctantly) plays a mother-figure role in the study group, whether the rest of the group likes it or not.
Here are some of our favorite Shirley moments on Community.
Guilting Jeff over Christmas
When Jeff schedules a fistfight with a campus bully, Shirley expresses her concern. No, not for Jeff’s safety, but rather, she doesn’t want him to miss her Christmas party. The moment is funny but also all too relatable for anyone who’s had to summon the courage to tell their mom they won’t be home for the holiday.
Stream Community S1E12 “Comparative Religion.”
Shirley’s spooky story
In Season 3’s “Horror Fiction in Seven Spooky Steps,” Britta administers a personality test to the study group for her psychology class and discovers that someone in the group is a potential psychopath. To determine who it is, the group takes turns telling scary stories. And while Shirley’s story doesn’t help her case, it’s nonetheless hilarious to see the study group through her eyes.
Stream Community S3E5 “Horror Fiction in Seven Spooky Steps,”
The birth of Ben Bennet
Shirley becomes a new mom in Season 2’s “Applied Anthropology and Culinary Arts,” where she gives birth just in time for the Dean to realize that the group’s anthropology class had been fake the entire semester. After an unfortunate one-night stand with their obnoxious ex-Spanish teacher Ben Chang in the season’s Halloween episode, Shirley worried the baby might be his. Upon the birth, she learns the baby is her husband Andre’s, but sweetly, she decides to name the baby Ben, grateful for Chang’s help.
Stream Community S2E22 “Applied Anthropology and Culinary Arts.”
Shirley Saves the Day
While Jeff, Annie, and Abed sign up for a pottery class, assuming it’ll be the “ultimate blow-off" Pierce, Troy, Britta, and Shirley decide to get an easy A of their own by taking a one-week sailing class. In classic Greendale form, the class just ends up taking place on a boat parked in the lot outside. In a fake storm scenario, Pierce accidentally falls off the boat, but eventually rows back in a little dinghy on wheels. When he crashes into a fire hydrant, it’s Shirley’s leadership that stops him from being the first person to ever drown in a parking lot.
Stream Community S1E19 “Beginner Pottery.”
Shirley becomes Jeff’s coach
While Shirley may be a sweet, religious lady now, in Season 3’s “Foosball and Nocturnal Vigilantism,” we learn she has a dark past as Jeff’s angry childhood bully. Back then, she used to go by “Big Cheddar,” and she so thoroughly humiliated Jeff at Foosball that he wet himself. To make things right and help Jeff Prepare for a match against the rowdy German students who loudly hog Greendale’s foosball table, she becomes Jeff’s tough-as-nails coach.
Stream Community S3E9 “Foosball and Nocturnal Vigilantism.”
Stream all six seasons of Community on Peacock and keep an eye out for the upcoming movie!
