"Foosball and Nocturnal Vigilantism" is the ninth episode of the third season of the American television sitcom Community.
The game brings back childhood memories for both of them, and they discover a previously unknown connected past.
Meanwhile, Annie accidentally breaks Abed's limited-edition The Dark Knight DVD and stages a break-in to their apartment to hide it.
Later in the night, Shirley (Yvette Nicole Brown) encounters Jeff practicing foosball at the student lounge.
The German trio show up again and agree to a game with Jeff and Shirley on Monday with the losers never getting to use the foosball table again.
Meanwhile, when Annie (Alison Brie) is cleaning the apartment, she accidentally steps on Abed's (Danny Pudi) limited-edition The Dark Knight DVD, breaking it.
A policeman arrives at the scene but finds no signs of forced entry and concedes that if stolen the DVD will be impossible to recover.
However, they perform a trick to make the ball land right in the middle of the foosball table where bar mounted figures can't reach.
The bumper scene depicts one of Leonard's YouTube frozen pizza reviews, which includes a Chuck Lorre-style vanity card.
[6] The main storyline shows that while Jeff and Shirley are opposite in many ways, both have morphed into their present personas under very similar circumstances.
[4] When they were children, Shirley was a mean foosball player; Jeff used the game to fill his loneliness and inability to connect with people.
[4] Despite Shirley feeling bad about bullying Jeff and his bitterness about it, the episode demonstrates that the process of growing up is often about giving up on painful experiences and realizing an ability to rise above them with the help of friends and family.
[6] In its original American broadcast on December 1, 2011, the episode was viewed by approximately 3.74 million people, with a Nielsen rating/share of 1.7/5 in the 18–49 demographic.
"[7] Leigh Raines of TV Fanatic gave "Foosball" a 4.5/5 rating, saying it was "full of love and awesome quotes.