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Recently disbarred lawyer Jeffrey Winger (Joel McHale) is forced to attend Greendale Community College to redeem his illegitimate law degree, planning on exploiting his friendship with former client Dr. Ian Duncan (John Oliver) for test answers. He starts up a Spanish study group in order to score with attractive classmate Britta Perry (Gillian Jacobs), who invites her friend Abed Nadir (Danny Pudi), who in turn invites classmates Troy Barnes (Donald Glover), Annie Edison (Alison Brie), Shirley Bennett (Yvette Nicole Brown), and Pierce Hawthorne (Chevy Chase). After believing he has secured a date with Britta, Jeff stirs up conflict within the group in order to leave with her, only to be confronted by her about his ulterior motive. When he gives an inspirational speech to calm them down and finally go out with Britta, she reveals his true intentions and asks him to leave. Jeff storms out, only to find out the answers obtained from Dr. Duncan are actually blank. As he is leaving campus, Jeff runs into Pierce and Troy who are encouraged by his advice. Jeff resigns himself to flunking the test, but Britta, speaking for the group, reluctantly invites him back, saying the group didn’t make much progress after his departure.

The Spanish students are paired to create simple dialogues; Jeff is stuck with Pierce after an attempt to be paired with Britta backfires. Shirley and Annie mount a student protest after Britta tells them of anti-journalist violence in Guatemala.

Jeff signs up for an "easy A" class taught by Professor Whitman (John Michael Higgins), where all they have to do is "seize the day" to receive an A. Though Jeff soon realizes it will not be as easy as it seems. Meanwhile, Britta helps Abed by paying for a course where he can study film. Abed’s father is angered when he finds this out, and Abed creates a film documenting his life and how people do not understand him, including that he feels he is to blame for his mother’s abandoning the family. His father is moved by his film and agrees to pay for his classes.

Jeff begins to bond with Shirley over their mutual distaste for Vaughn (Eric Christian Olsen), Britta’s new boyfriend, a laid back hippie. However, in a effort to show that he and Britta could be friends, Jeff tries to refrain from making fun of Vaughn, but can’t help himself from sharing a poem that Vaughn had written for Britta. The incident breaks up the relationship and brings up the question of dating and intimacy within the group. Meanwhile, Annie joins Professor Duncan in a psychology test that tests people’s patience, which has Abed, Troy and Señor Chang (Ken Jeong) as test subjects.

Señor Chang discovers someone has cheated on their Spanish test, and will fail everyone unless the cheater comes forward within 24 hours. When Britta comes forward, Jeff represents her when she is facing expulsion for cheating. Meanwhile, Annie enlists Pierce to help write a new song for Greendale and Abed messes with Troy.

The dean blackmails Jeff into convincing Troy to join Greendale’s football team, over the objections of Annie. Shirley teaches Britta proper ladies room etiquette. Pierce and the dean devise a new school mascot, the Human Being.

Annie hosts a Day of the Dead party for Halloween. Jeff hits on his statistics professor, which upsets Shirley but not Britta. At the party, Pierce goes on a bad trip and has to have Jeff and Abed help him.

Jeff is kicked out of his condo and moves in with Abed temporarily, until Britta helps him move on and look for apartments. Annie helps Troy prepare for his date with a different girl. Pierce briefly joins Vaughn’s band.

The dean solicits Jeff to join Annie in a debate competition, where they will compete against star debater Jeremy Simmons to debate whether Man is intrinsically evil or good. Abed’s latest student films show a prescient tendency that frightens Shirley, whose predicted behavior includes being chased by a werewolf. Pierce offers his services as a hypnotherapist to Britta in her attempts to stop smoking.

Jeff becomes friends with Señor Chang and helps him get back with his wife. Pierce helps Shirley with her public speaking class. Abed and Troy work on a biology experiment.

Annie and the Dean sponsor an STD-awareness fair. Britta and Shirley help Annie prepare for her big condom usage demonstration. Troy and Abed compete to see who is the better athlete. Jeff and Pierce go on a double date to the fair.

Shirley plans a Christmas party for the study group, hoping to celebrate in her Christian ways, but learns everyone else is from a different religious background–Annie is Jewish, Abed is Muslim, Troy is a Jehovah’s Witness, Britta is an atheist, Pierce is in an odd cult but believes that it is a Buddhist community, while Jeff is agnostic. Meanwhile, Jeff stands up to a bully named Mike (Anthony Michael Hall) that harasses Abed in the cafeteria. The study group comes to Jeff’s defense when they fight Mike and his friends on the college campus. Later after the fight, the group celebrate the holidays and learn they all passed their Spanish final, meaning they will all move on to Spanish 102.

The group returns from their winter break, and realize a new student named Buddy (Jack Black) has inserted himself into the study group. They must decide whether or not to allow him to stay. Meanwhile, Dean Pelton (Jim Rash) makes Jeff the new editor of the Greendale Gazette Journal, where Annie discovers a story about racial profiling in the school.

Jeff tries to keep his relationship with Professor Slater (Lauren Stamile) a secret from the group, but they eventually discover the truth. Meanwhile, Britta and Troy try to keep a secret from the group that they are taking dance lessons.

Britta and Jeff conspire to break up Vaughn and Annie by attempting to reignite her feelings for Troy. While, Pierce tries to get some genuine laughs during Troy and Abed’s bad film night.

On Valentines Day, Britta gets drunk and leaves an embarrassing message for Jeff which causes Abed to point out that Britta has lost her power and that Jeff needs to leave her an equally embarrassing message so she can get it back. Annie and Shirley try to pull a prank on Señor Chang after he embarrasses Troy and Pierce during class.

Jeff eagerly anticipates his billiards class, but his hopes fall down when he discovers that the instructor demands the use of clothing that, in Jeff’s opinion, are not fitting into his style, which turns into a battle between the instructor and Jeff. The girls find a passionate sketch in a Spanish textbook resembling Abed’s face, and they happily begin to search for the author of the book, while testing Abed’s skills regarding relationships with women, with humorous but intriguing results.

During Family Day at Greendale, Pierce tries to re-connect with his step-daughter Amber (guest star Katharine McPhee) who becomes attracted to Jeff. Britta gets caned by Troy’s nana and Shirley’s sons cause havoc for Abed’s father.

Jeff signs up for an easy pottery credit taught by a man (Tony Hale) with only one rule: no re-enactments of the pottery love scene from Ghost; however, the class becomes complicated by Jeff’s obsession with proving one talented classmate is a ringer. Shirley and others sign up for a boating class taught by Admiral Slaughter (Lee Majors) in the school parking lot, but find land-boating harder than it sounds.

Britta pulls an April Fools prank that backfires on her. Annie and Shirley become on-campus security guards with both fighting to be the "bad cop."

Jeff’s plan to get chicken fingers from the school cafeteria for the study group quickly evolves into a mafia film-style endeavor with Abed calling all the shots. The episode features several cultural references from mobster films such as Goodfellas and The Godfather.

Shirley gets Pierce kicked out the study group, Jeff and Britta plot revenge on a group of high schoolers who make fun of them for attending community college, and Troy helps Abed accomplish some of his film-clichéd social goals.

After the Dean announces the prize for a friendly game of paintball, Greendale sinks into a state of all-out paintball war, with every student battling for supremacy. During the chaos, Jeff’s study group teams up in order to last longer in the game. Meanwhile, Jeff and Britta confront their unresolved sexual tension.

Señor Chang reveals to Jeff that he does not have a teaching degree and asks him where he got his. The conversation is inadvertently recorded by Annie, who records all classes for taking notes. When Dean Pelton finds out, Chang is replaced by another, much stricter professor who has the class take a much harder Spanish final. Meanwhile, Troy discovers he has a natural talent for fixing plumbing, and must ward off a persistent maintenance worker (Jerry Minor), who wants him to use his talent to become a plumber. As everyone faces the fact that they will have to retake Spanish, Jeff realizes that Annie was the one who turned in Chang, remembering that she records every class, and Chang’s confession. As everyone shuns her, she tries to redeem herself by making things better with Chang, who finds that his life is better for it, and she helps everyone study for, and pass the final.

After Britta is nominated for queen of the Transfer Dance, Professor Slater admits to Jeff that she misses him and wants to get back together. Troy’s dad asks him to move out of the house, and Troy begins hoping to move in with Abed, although Abed rejects the idea. The next day, at the Transfer Dance, Pierce offers Troy a place to live, but he still wants to live with Abed. Abed later explains to him that their personalities would clash if they roomed together and they would "jump the shark". Annie reveals to the group that Vaughn has been selected for a competitive Hacky Sack team in Delaware and will be leaving for the summer, but she secretly tells Jeff that the move is permanent and she will not be coming back to Greendale. In a separate storyline, Chang plans to beat up Duncan, who mocked him for being fired when Chang turned to Duncan for help cheating his way to re-obtaining his degree. Chang however cannot go through with the beating, since he would be expelled for hitting a member of the Greendale staff. At the dance, however, Duncan becomes drunk and broadcasts Dean Pelton’s "dalmatian fetish", resulting in Duncan’s suspension. Chang seizes the opportunity and punches him in the face with a roll of quarters. During the dance, Britta publicly professes her love to Jeff. Professor Slater then makes the same statement. Jeff, unsure how to respond, leaves the dance only to bump into Annie who changed her mind about leaving. After the two each share their respective conflicted emotions, Annie gives Jeff a small kiss, and Jeff responds with a bigger one as the two embrace.