Instead, Abed spends most of the evening with Jeff at an upper class restaurant and the two engage in what is seemingly a deep conversation about their life-changing experiences.
Jeff is trying to get Abed to go to the surprise Pulp Fiction-themed birthday party at the diner Britta (Gillian Jacobs) works at.
At the restaurant, Abed tells Jeff about his visit to the set of Cougar Town (of which he is an admirer) and how appearing as an extra in one of the episodes supposedly changed his outlook on life.
When the party still hasn't started long after that, her boss becomes annoyed and spitefully reveals to Annie and Shirley that Britta is an outcast at work, too, mocking her offer to give him her tips from her next shift.
When Chang blames him for the mishap and accuses him of "being a bad friend" to Abed, an enraged Troy attacks him, breaking some items in the diner in the process.
It was directed by guest director Richard Ayoade,[2] who had worked with series semi-regular John Oliver while in the Cambridge troupe the Footlights.
[4] The network ran many promo slots for the episode hoping to capitalize on the film's iconic cultural status, which was unusual for the show.
[5] Actor Danny Pudi made an actual cameo in the season 2 finale of Cougar Town playing the part of Abed.
Aside from the Pulp Fiction-themed birthday party set in the 1950s diner, it also spoofed the MacGuffin plot device involving the mysterious briefcase.
[5] The study group dressed up as characters from the film: In its original American broadcast on March 24, 2011, the episode was viewed by an estimated 4.46 million people, with a Nielsen rating of 1.8 in the 18–49 demographic.
Club praised the episode's strong emotional tone: "'Film Studies' demonstrate that, yes, these are characters who do care about each other and want each other to be well.
That takes some major-league huevos, and I applaud Pudi, Joel McHale, writer Sona Panos, special guest director Richard Ayode [sic] (from "The IT Crowd") and everyone else involved for both trying it and pulling it off.
"[8] In 2013, two years after its release, Rob Sheffield of Rolling Stone called it the best television episode of the 21st century.