'Community' Cast Says Donald Glover's Exit Is 'Very Sad' but Is 'Really Good, Really Funny'

Community's fifth (and apparently once-again funny) season kicks off on Jan. 2, 2014. While Dan Harmon is back to right the ship, Donald Glover will leave the show after its first five of thirteen episodes. There's been a lot of talk about why Glover is leaving Community — focusing on his musical career, burned out, etc. — but the question of how Community will handle Troy's departure is still unknown.

On Monday, TVLine published a story featuring several members of Community's cast giving their thoughts on Glover's farewell. The common consensus? It's going to be sad, but Harmon found a way to still be funny and do it right.

"It's not a 'happy ending,'" Joel McHale told TVLine. "Abed is losing his best friend and that's very sad. But within that sad thing happening, Dan Harmon puts in lightning bolts of jokes and it’s great."

"It's one of those really bold storytelling moves that you probably would never want to make as a writer, but when it's forced upon you, it's a good opportunity to write some epic episodes — which I think they did," Gillian Jacobs told TVLine. "We would never want to split Troy and Abed up, but it's probably good for Abed, to push him to see who he is outside of that friendship … It was kind of a crutch for both of them."

Funny to hear how after the people running Community spent an entire season trying to make Britta and Troy happen, the focus now seems to be entirely on how Abed will react to Troy leaving. This is a good thing.

Head over to TVLine to check out the entire article. From what we've seen so far, Community's upcoming season looks good again.