The Rise and Fall of Ben Chang

Ken Jeong as Ben Chang

Great villains make for compelling stories. It gives the audience a reason to root for the protagonists. In Community, our protagonists are Jeff Winger and his study group, thrown together from various points of life as they try to pass a Spanish class at a community college. This doesn’t sound like a big deal until we meet Ben Chang, who essentially starts out as the villain. For the first three seasons, we see Chang slip further and further into insanity. In the beginning, Chang just seemed like a typical TV teacher with anger and control issues. He would give ridiculous assignments and freak out when a student cheated, but he was mostly harmless. This all changed at the end of the first season, when Chang’s lack of qualifications was discovered, causing him to get fired.

In the second season, Chang’s firing forced him to become a student at Greendale. He tried and failed to find ways to put his life together. In my opinion, this is the most likable Chang ever got. He had a burning desire to join Jeff’s study group, a goal he never quite reached, no matter how close he got. Despite this, he got himself entwined in the lives the study group. He briefly lived with Jeff, and most significantly spent most of the season believing he could be the father of Shirley’s baby. Luckily for the world’s population, Chang did not reproduce. He was still crazy, but he was trying.

Chang as Dictator with his pre-teen henchmen

The third season is when Chang’s insanity really got kicked up a notch. He ended up joining Greendale’s security department. This gave him a bit of his control and power back. Although a community college security guard doesn’t have that much power, Chang still allowed it to go to his head. This season is basically a story of how Chang went from crazy person to full-on evil villain. He even had his own army when he recruited a team of pre-teens to be his henchmen. In a dramatic turn, we find out his goal was to kidnap the Dean, get the study group expelled, become supreme ruler of the school, and burn it down along with any incriminating records. As crazy as it sounds, he almost succeeded, minus the destruction of the school of course. In the end, the school returned back to normal, our heroes were reinstated, and Chang escaped into the air vents like a rat.

Chang pretending to be "Kevin"

The first three seasons acted like a trilogy for Chang as he progressed from asshole teacher to creepy homeless guy to power hungry dictator. It was the rise and fall of Ben Chang and it was compelling to watch. The same could not be said for season 4. This season had many problems as it was the only season without show creator Dan Harmon in charge. One of the biggest flaws was Chang’s story. Chang came back seemingly with "Changnesia", had no memory, and called himself Kevin. I’ll be blunt, it was stupid. We eventually find out he was faking, but nothing came of it. I won’t waste more time on this, because it was a dumb idea that was executed poorly.

Chang with Buzz Hickey

The final two seasons of Community were pretty good as a whole, but they didn’t need Chang. I think he was played brilliantly by actor, Ken Jeong, but at this point he no longer had a purpose. Instead of being a villain, he was just kinda….there. This was the guy that almost burned down the school and no one seemed to remember that. It just never felt right to have Chang be a part of the group. Personally, I think Chang should have been written off the show permanently after Season three. They could’ve brought him back for a couple guest appearances, but Chang’s plot-lines in Seasons four through six were pointless and stupid. He felt out of place, which at Greendale is saying a lot.