Echoing criticisms that they've become hollowed-out caricatures of themselves, the ever-meta characters of Community will be transformed into actual puppets next month, rather than the metaphorical ones they’ve sometimes felt like this season. That revelation (and the above glimpse of what that will look like) was dropped at the show’s PaleyFest panel, during which it was spoiled that the April episode—featuring previously announced guest star Jason Alexander, as “a friendly mountain man”—will see the group attempting to one-up that one episode of Angel by turning the entire cast into puppets, which they'll use to confront a recent “awkward” experience in the woods in the adorable manner of all children's shows and children's sexual abuse cases.
Other things we learned from the panel: Jim Rash used his Oscar-winning abilities to draft a Freaky Friday-referencing episode in which Troy and Abed apparently switch bodies, Yvette Nicole Brown promised something “bigger coming than Malcolm-Jamal Warner playing my husband” (The guy who played "Cockroach" playing her baby?), and the cast and crew are still getting digs in at Chevy Chase even when he’s not around. Also, Joel McHale made a Firefly reference that caused a “nerd-jaculation.” Also, puppets.