Who is Troy Barnes in Community?

Show

Community

Played by

Donald Glover

First episode

“Pilot”Season 1, Episode 1, aired September 17, 2009

Role

Main cast

Network

NBC

Occupation

Former quarterback and Greendale student

Show run

2009 to 2015Its sixth and final season streamed on Yahoo! Screen.

Also known as

Troy

Troy Barnes arrives at Greendale as a letter-jacket-wearing football star and becomes one of the sweetest, silliest members of the study group. Played by Donald Glover, he is Abed's best friend and one half of Community's most beloved duo.

On Community, Troy Barnes's story runs through Abed Nadir (Best Friend), Britta Perry (Ex-girlfriend), Pierce Hawthorne (Former Roommate), Annie Edison (Roommate), and Jeff Winger (Friend).

Who is Troy Barnes?

Troy was the star quarterback and prom king at Riverside High before he lost his football scholarship by dislocating both shoulders doing a keg flip. He eventually admits he did it on purpose to escape the pressure of being a star. He shows up at Greendale still wearing his letterman jacket, working hard to look cool.

Troy joins the study group in the pilot and spends his early days hanging around Pierce and trying to impress Jeff. He has a soft heart, a long list of very specific fears, and a lifelong idol in actor LeVar Burton, whom he cannot meet without freezing up completely.

Personality and comedy

Over the first two seasons Troy sheds his jock persona and embraces his playful, nerdy side, largely thanks to Abed. He is earnest, easily distracted, and quick to cry, and he holds strange beliefs with total confidence, such as the idea that all dogs are boys and all cats are girls.

Troy and Abed's friendship is the comic heart of the show. The two run a pretend morning show, become roommates, build a blanket fort, and close many episodes with an absurd little bit together. Donald Glover's warmth and timing helped make Troy a fan favorite.

Key storylines

Troy turns out to have a natural gift for plumbing and air conditioning repair, which makes him a target of Greendale's secretive Air Conditioning Repair School. In season three he is courted by Vice Dean Laybourne, and the pull between that destiny and his friends runs through the year, alongside a pillow and blanket fort war with Abed that nearly breaks up their friendship.

In season four Troy dates Britta, and he ends the relationship on their first anniversary. In season five, after Pierce dies, Troy inherits Pierce's company shares on the condition that he sail around the world, and he sets off with LeVar Burton in "Geothermal Escapism." It was his last regular episode, as Donald Glover left the show to focus on his music career.

Behind the scenes and legacy

Donald Glover played Troy as a main cast member for the first five seasons and left early in season five. Troy's farewell, in which Abed turns the campus into a game of The Floor Is Lava, is one of the show's most emotional episodes, built around Abed struggling to say goodbye to his best friend.

Troy's Spider-Man pajamas in "Anthropology 101" helped inspire Marvel Comics to create the Miles Morales version of Spider-Man, and Troy appears in those pajamas on a TV screen in the 2018 film Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse. Glover has said he is on board for the planned Community movie.

Troy Barnes: frequently asked questions

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