Fans of Community rejoiced last night as the fifth season premiered on NBC. After a rocky fourth season, the show is back, and the cast is ready to reclaim Greendale Community College. 31-year-old Alison Brie, who stars in the show as perfectionist and former Adderall addict, Annie Edison, recently spoke with The Daily Beast about the return of Dan Harmon, her time formerly employed as a clown, and pre-gaming with her costars.

Some teasers from the interview:

So, Community is back. I saw the first few episodes, and it seems like the show has its mojo back. What was the first day of filming with Dan like? Was there a team-bonding night?

We like to pre-game, so the cast had gotten together with Dan and Chris McKenna, our other new-old showrunner, beforehand to—not hash everything out—but have a fun night where we addressed everything that needed to be addressed, and to more get ourselves pumped up for work. So by the time we started filming, it felt like the same-old. The energy all-round on set was better, and real positive.

Back to the pre-game party. What are we talking about here? Flip cup? Karaoke? How does the Community cast get down?

What was the worst experience you had as a clown? Any Damien-like kids?

The kids were not so bad! Honestly, the worst part—and again, it goes back to the Power Puff Girls—was being ogled by strange dads. That was weird. It’s like, “I have a huge head on! You don’t even know what I look like, so stop looking up my skirt!”

As far as Dan’s exit goes, and his dicey relationship with Chevy Chase, did you ever witness any of that hostility between them on set? And was it the sense of the entire cast that it was getting to be too much, and a change needed to be made?

Honestly, I don’t really have much of a take on it. I think it gets really blown out of proportion in the media. I don’t think Dan leaving was definitively something that had to do with Chevy, nor does Chevy leaving definitively have to do with Dan coming back. These were network-level decisions that were in a totally different realm outside of my working knowledge, but in the media, everyone wants to play it up like it’s this rivalry. And I wasn’t at the wrap party that year when some of that infamous stuff went down.

(Photo by Getty)

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Jewcy patron saint Alison Brie (née Schermerhorn) and her band Alison Brie and the Girls are back, performing a soulful, slowed-down cover of Robyn’s “Call Your Girlfriend”—and it’s pretty great.

Brie, who plays the comically oversexualized Annie Edison on NBC’s tragically overlooked Community as well as Trudy Campbell on Mad Men, is almost unfairly talented, doing that whole actress-with-an-all-girls-cover-band-on-the-side thing and totally pulling it off:

Previously on Jewcy: Alison Brie, Jewish Actress from Community and Mad Men, Totally Rocks
Watch Alison Brie Dance the Charleston During a Photo Shoot
Network Jews: Annie Edison from NBC’s Community

(Photo by Neilson Barnard/Getty Images for Irina Shabayeva)

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Rachel Berry moved to New York and we stopped watching, Annie Edison and the rest of Community was pushed to 2013 (though that didn’t stop us from getting our Alison Brie fill in other ways, and we’re still confused about how we feel about Shosh (but not Zosia, never Zosia) making 2012 very much the year of men for our Network Jews series (with sincere apologies to Hanna Rosin).

While there were many worthy candidates, here are the Top 5:

1. Schmidt:

Our first Network Jew is also our favorite. While we remain mixed about the merits of New Girl (even if it did lead to this) we can always rely on the real star of the show: Schmidt. He may have started out as a douchebag, but somewhere along the line he’s become, as Willa Paskin dubbed him, an “aspirational douchebag”—somehow going from disgusting to endearing.

Of course a major part of all this is his Jewishness. But perhaps the best part is that the actor who plays him, Max Greenfield, is up for anything, whether it’s dressing up as a Jewish Assassin or making in-character spin videos. Let’s just hope he stops guest–editing GOOP.

2. Saul Berenson:

Dov Friedman called Mandy Patinkin’s turn as the CIA Middle East division chief “the most accurate depiction of an American Jewish identity ever portrayed on television.” And for good reason. Homeland finished off it’s second season [spoiler alert] with Saul saying kaddish yet again as David Estes and a whole bunch of other characters were blown to smithereens. It isn’t just Claire Danes who thinks of challah (or was it holla?) when she sees our favorite bearded CIA agent. Just watch this video.

OK, we may be getting distracted, we’re talking about Berenson, not Patinkin, though it can be difficult to separate the two. Inspired by the Israeli show—and some would say superior—Hatufim, there’s at least one place where there’s no competition: the character of older, wiser intelligence officer. We only hope that in Season 3 they figure out some way to let him sing.

3. Max Blum:

Probably the most underrated show on this list, Happy Endings’ six-person ensemble is held together by Max Blum. I know, I know. We just talked about how great Schmidt is, and here we’re saying that Happy Endings’ anti-Schmidt is also our favorite. You know what, we can have our cake and eat it too … with Max, while listening to Mandona.

The pop culture-obsessed sarcastic slob of a gay best friend is everything you’d want in a pop-culture obsessed sarcastic slob of a gay best friend. Don’t just take our word for it, Emily Nussbaum thinks the man who brought us Boyz II Menorah is Amahzing too.

4. Eli Gold:

The Good Wife may have started out as an Eliot Sptizer-style, ripped from the headlines, procedural-style show, and it might still be that, but somehow it rises above. While there’s lots to say about the shows women, and even Jewcy favorite Josh Charles, the biggest surprise has to be Alan Cumming’s Jewish turn as Eli Gold.

As Abe Fried-Tanzer wrote, “It’s no coincidence that Gold has been compared to a real-life famous Jew with a similar profession. Rahm Emanuel, former Chief of Staff for President Obama … has quite a reputation for winning at all costs, and Gold has managed to earn that same status in what could easily have been (and originally was) merely a guest-starring role. Gold may reinforce the stereotype of Jews wanting all the power, but he’s definitely someone you’d want on your side.”

5. Ruxin:

There’s no getting around it: Nick Kroll’s Ruxin is a self-assured asshole. (In one episode, Ruxin defends a paint company whose cans explode by arguing that anyone buying such a cheap item should have “a reasonable expectation that that product will explode in your face.” “And, morally, you’re good with this?” asks his friend, Pete. “There was just one word in there that I am not familiar with,” Ruxin responds.) But, for Sala Levin, this is all the more reason to love him—and love him we do!

After all, “A man who coasts through life on his assimilated rudeness but maintains some iota of his people’s historical dread is, after all, every girl’s dream.”

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• Vladimir Nabokov’s Jewish BFF. [Tablet]

• Jack Black’s production company is working on a new paranormal web series called Ghost Ghirls. [THR]

• Am I a Jew author Theodore Ross describes Hanukkah with his wife and kids: “We skipped the prayers and ordered Chinese.” [The Atlantic]

• Drew Barrymore debuted her first child on the cover of People magazine, reportedly agreeing only after husband Will Kopelman suggested they give the money they made to charity. [NY Post]

• Alison Brie talks Save the Date, monkeys and Annie and Abed. [Vulture]

• David Letterman is confused about whether Carrie Brownstein and Fred Armison are dating (they’re not). [Splitsider]

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• This is awkward, but it looks like Hanukkah envy is the new Christmas envy. [Tablet]

• The company behind Peeps apologized for a holiday ad referencing shiksas. Not apologized for, however, was the nebbishy yarmulke-wearing Peep also featured in the ad. Low blow, Peeps. [Media Decoder]

• George Costanza is headed to Community—oh wait, it’s just Jason Alexander. [Vulture]

• Gwyneth Paltrow wants to help you be a better parent. Step one: stop watching TV in English. [HuffPo]

• A look at Joseph Gordon-Levitt’s new movie. [THR]

• The time Lena Dunham’s Girls character, Hannah Horvath, applied for a job with too little enthusiasm:

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While pouting and posing for a photo shoot, Community and Mad Men scene-stealer Alison Brie talked to Nylon TV about her weakness for the Real Housewives series and reveals she’s a little more like her buttoned-up Community character, Annie Edison, than she may appear—at least when it comes to dancing.

“Did you say the Dougie? I don’t know if I really know the Dougie,” she admits. “You know, the Carleston is like, my dance.” Trudy Campbell would be proud.

Previously: Network Jews: Annie Edison from NBC’s ‘Community’
Alison Brie, Jewish Actress from ‘Community’ and ‘Mad Men,’ Totally Rocks

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• 60 Minutes looks at Steven Spielberg’s new movie, Lincoln, which was apparently more than a decade in the making. Hope it’s good!

• Why sending The Big Bang Theory nebbish Howard Wolowitz might not have been the best idea.

• Jason Schwartzman likes clothing and Keith Moon.

• In today’s Homeland news, relive the glory of Mandy Patinkin’s Saul Berenson coming face to face with mini Darth Vader.

• The ladies of Community get NSFW—now will you finally premiere their show’s new season, NBC?

• Sarah Silverman and Lizz Winstead helpfully explain the difference between corporations and people.

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• Yiddish sure has a lot of mean names for non-Jews.

• Looks like Roseanne Barr will not be a Green Party presidential nominee.

• AMC’s hit show Breaking Bad: “Old Testament at its core.”

• Joseph Gordon-Levitt, of eternal 10 Things I Hate About You fame, talks about his new movie and playing a young Bruce Willis.

• Alison Brie continues to be our favorite person ever:

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Previously: Alison Brie, Jewish Actress from ‘Community’ and ‘Mad Men,’ Totally Rocks
Network Jews: Annie Edison from NBC’s ‘Community’

(Photo credit: Frazer Harrison/Getty Images)

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And as Community itself has gotten both progressively weirder and less easily classifiable, Annie, in turn, has begun to shed her Flickian skin. Season 1’s Annie was an academically focused but emotionally fragile innocent who proudly proclaimed that she was “totally comfortable being uncomfortable with [her] sexuality.” (Her only sexual encounter hadn’t exactly been worth writing home about: “I had relations with my high school boyfriend,” she told fellow Community members Shirley and Britta. “We did it to Madonna’s Erotica on the floor of his walk-in closet … He’s gay now.” Incidentally, this incident recalls one from Brie’s own past.)

Two years later, Annie hasn’t exactly learned to cut loose—but she has morphed into an infinitely more complicated character. The Annie we know today is still an ambitious, rule-abiding gunner who records all her classes to facilitate easier note taking. She’s also still more comfortable playing yenta with the members of her study group than taking charge of her own romantic destiny. But at the same time, Annie’s proven she has a wild streak that enables her to transform into, say, a badass, paintball gun-toting action heroine if need be. Season 1 Annie would have confessed immediately if she had broken her roommate’s priceless Dark Knight DVD; Season 3 Annie elects instead to stage an elaborate fake robbery, claiming that a mysterious stranger nabbed the DVD in question.

And though Annie still retains an aura of erotic inexperience, she’s somehow become Community’s most overtly sexualized character as well. See, for example, “Teach Me How to Understand Christmas,” an absurd and dirty number Annie performs in Season 3’s musical holiday episode. The thin premise is that Annie doesn’t get how to celebrate the season because she’s a Member of the Tribe. Though the song is obviously meant as a send-up of bawdy carols like “Santa Baby,” parodic suggestiveness is still suggestiveness; Annie performs the tune in a barely-there Santa costume that puts the “ho” in “ho ho ho.” By its conclusion, she’s straddling arrogant ex-lawyer Jeff and cooing, “Boopie doopie doop boop, sex!” (That’s literally the last line in “Teach Me.”)

Annie’s evolution is likely the result of the show’s scripts mining the discrepancies between Brie herself—the sexually liberated, worldly actress in her late 20s—and the character she plays. But there’s also an in-universe explanation for her development. It all comes back to Annie’s own fractured childhood: While she identifies as Jewish throughout Community’s run, in Season 2 she reveals that her dad—like Brie’s own—is actually a Christian. Before her parents got divorced, she explains, the holidays at her house were always “a minefield of overlapping rituals.” Annie reacted to the chaos of her broken home by prizing order above all other virtues—a choice that eventually led to an Adderall addiction, which is what landed her in community college in the first place.

But prolonged exposure to the nuttiness exuded by the rest of Community’s cast has thwarted Annie’s best efforts to stay disciplined. Now, with every episode that passes, she’s becoming more like them: unhinged and unpredictable. And as Annie moves away from personifying the archetypal brittle overachiever, she just gets more interesting. This shift means that as the show moves forward—hopefully all the way to a fourth season—we may be less likely to, say, see Annie bristle when her friends call her a Jew rather than Jewish (“Say the whole word!” she urges in Season 1’s “Comparative Religion”). Ultimately, though, it’s a positive sign of growth—even if in this case, growing up means growing progressively more unglued.

Last week on Network Jews: Schmidt from New Girl

Hillary Busis writes for EW.com and tweets here

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