Community’s Annie Edison seems like the archetypal Smart Girl: she’s super intelligent, laser focused on her goals, and can get a little intense.

“You’re really mean.” “Put it in a letter, Jane Austen!”

But Annie is particularly interesting because she shows us a side of the Smart Girl that we don’t see as often on screen: her life after she hits rock bottom. Most Smart Girl stories focus on the increasingly immense pressure she’s under and how it eventually leads to her breaking down; but we meet Annie well after she’s hit that point in her life and is already working on turning things around.

“Mornin’ boys. I’m Annie Edison, but people call me Psycho because I had a nervous breakdown in high school.”

So she actually provides a great showcase of how the Smart Girl can break free from the more negative aspects of life that come along with the trope and learn to use their skills (and intensity) for good – both for themselves and others. So let’s unpack Annie’s life as a Smart Girl, how she managed to come out the other side of her breakdown even stronger, and how her entire journey helped her grow as a person!

Smart Girl Pressure

When we first meet Annie, she certainly seems like a fierce overachiever, but we come to learn that she was even more extreme back in high school. After her parents divorced when she was young, she and her brother lived with her incredibly overbearing mother who was set on making sure Annie did everything perfectly from a very early age.

“There’s this weird pain right above my eyebrow.” “It’s called a stress headache. I got my first one when I was four.”

Annie was under constant pressure to not just do well in school, but to be the best in everything. This led to her developing a thought pattern where anything less than perfection meant abject failure. It also gave her very particular ideas of what “success” in life looked like – a very narrow path of perfect grades, perfect choices, and no deviation from the societal idea of what a Smart Girl “should” be.

“A passing grade? Like a C? Why don’t I just get pregnant at a bus station?”

This need for excellence above all else didn’t subside as she continued to do well in school but instead began snowballing into a more and more intense drive to do even better.

The strain of this outlook didn’t just affect her school work, it overtook her entire life. She actually went to school with – and had a major crush on – Troy Barnes. But because she was so single minded in her focus on grades and getting into the best universities, they never really got to even be friends then. And this was true more generally as well – her overbearing, combative personality meant she didn’t really have any friends in school at all.

“I was so unpopular in high school, the crossing guards used to lure me into traffic!”

This led to her feeling completely isolated, which only served to make the pressure to be perfect feel even worse since she didn’t have any friends to turn to for support or shoulders to cry on. Instead she had to turn to other forms of help – namely Adderall. As the stress in her life continued to compound, she had to take more and more in an effort to keep on top of things and keep her grades in order. Even given how unhappy she might have been, everything did seem to be working out… for a while. She did get the amazing grades she wanted and even a scholarship to her college of choice. But then, eventually, it all came to be too much and she hit her breaking point.

Annie’s breakdown was intense – she ended up getting some pretty severe injuries from running through a plate glass window and dropping out of high school altogether. She lost her college scholarship and essentially had her entire life turned upside down. This could have marked the end for Annie, she could have given up on life and decided it was all just too much. But that drive inside of her pushed her to keep going – but this time not to follow someone else’s orders or dreams, but to build her own life her own way.

“So pick up your pompoms, stuff your bra and get ready for the team bus to forget you at Taco Bell, because life is tough. But we soldier on, and that’s just the way it goes.”

She decided to finally cut her overbearing mother out of her life for good and moved out on her own. She also importantly realized that she needed to confront her Adderall problem head on and so made the choice to enter rehab. And this was the beginning of Annie learning to harness her powers for good, and is what sent her down the road to becoming the Annie we meet in season one.

Finding Her Own Way

While the Annie we meet at the beginning of Community is certainly on the road of positive growth, she’s definitely still working through some stereotypical Smart Girl problems. She may not be quite as overbearing as she was in high school, but she can definitely get a little intense (or even mean…) and still has a hard time thinking about how her choices will affect everyone and not just her. This can cause her to still come across as a little self-centered.

“Shirley, I’m speaking for both you and me.” “Then you might want to teach your mouth to say “we,” “our,” and “us.””

And though she has relaxed a bit, she’s still incredibly anxious about the prospect of failure or of not being in control. Even though she tries to be more chill, the dark side of Smart Girl nature can still leak out and cause problems. But we can see so much of her growth, too.

With the Smart Girl Trope on screen, we’re often introduced to these characters when they’re still under the impression that they can be and do everything at once – that if they just squash their emotions and personal needs, they can be straight-A, full-ride-scholarship-getting robots that are totally unaffected by the world around them. And then we watch them hit a series of hurdles that force them to realize that that is very much not reality.

“There is a 16 year old prodigy studying cancer at Johns Hopkins! 16! 16!! And what am I doing? Eating cake!! Cake cake cake!!!” Modern Family

But with Annie, she’s already past that point in her life by the time we meet her – she’s already realized that getting trapped in the Overachieving Smart Girl box is not a recipe for success or happiness. She’s working on changing her life, and herself, for the better and figuring out what success really means to her (not her mother or some faceless university admissions officer.) And some of her more intense qualities actually come in handy on many occasions. She’s not afraid to stand up for herself and her friends, and she isn’t ashamed of the way that she is.

“You’re pathological.” “It’s too late for flattery.”

While she did have to tone down the more harsh sides of her Overachieving Smart Girl nature to start having a happier life, she can still pull out those skills when needed. She can think of a way to turn pretty much any situation in her favor (or, at least, try to.)

“If this article breaks out, I can apply for journalism scholarships. Nobody will care about my time in rehab if they think I’m a writer!”

She also uses her cunning to figure out ways to bend (or sometimes straight up break) the rules as means to an end. And, if all else fails, she can always fall back on her puppy dog eyes ‘Disney Face’ to get people to do what she wants.

Another thing that separates Annie from many other Smart Girls on screen is that while they often hate their peers and only ‘join in’ on activities to add another line to their college applications, Annie actually always did enjoy the idea of classic school activities, even if she didn’t always know how to show it at the time.

“It’s like prom queen! You wear a sash, and there’s a vote, and if you win, they put a crown on your head, and I’m so jealous, Britta, I want to murder you! Aren’t you excited?”

In college, she really leans into this side of herself and gets involved with countless activities and clubs, and even becomes the first student in Greendale history to use the college’s extra credit program by organizing a Dia de los Muertos party. She’s also open to friendship – instead of pushing everyone away so that she can focus solely on her grades, Annie begins fostering close bonds with her classmates. She learns more about life and grows out of her naivety through both her friendships with people her age like Troy and Abed and her older classmates like Britta, Jeff, and Shirley. They accept Annie for who she is while also pushing her to expand her mind and understanding of the world. And in turn, she helps them in many ways, too. She is, of course, really great at studying and school work, and so is able to help her friends pass their classes and work efficiently. And she serves as a foil to characters like Joel with more laid-back vibes who seem content to just shuffle through life even though it clearly isn’t making them happy to do so.

“You’re just as selfish as I am. You’re just not as good at it yet.” “You’re right. I could never be as good as you. Probably because I actually care.”

She’s not afraid to give them a little (or big) push toward their goals, or to be honest with them about how their own attitudes might be hindering their lives. Annie provides a spark that helps the others grow, and also importantly makes sure that they’re actually, you know, passing their classes.

Moving Upwards and Onwards

Annie’s story shows that even after you start getting your life back on track post breakdown, things don’t always go the way you’d hope, but also how rewarding it can be to continue pushing forward toward the life you want for yourself. When we first meet her she is still quite young, but has already gone through so much. Having to essentially restart your life can feel like an impossible task at any age, but can be especially difficult when you’re still young and it feels like all of your peers are speeding past you on their way to “real” adulthood. But Annie shows us why it’s so important to do things on your own time, and focus on building friendships and a life that really fulfills you, instead of just trying to check a bunch of boxes based on what society tells you you “should” be doing at any given stage of life.

Annie learns to accept that she can’t control every aspect of her life (or the people in it) and becomes (slightly) more laid back and able to roll with the punches, while also honing the useful sides of her Smart Girl Personality. She doesn’t have to totally change who she is to be happy, she just has to learn to focus those more intense parts of her personality so that they improve her life instead of totally taking it over. And in the end she succeeds at building a life that’s successful in many ways. Not only does she have friends and a strong sense of self, she even ends up getting a good job at a questionably reputable pharmaceutical company and then going on to get an internship with the FBI.

“Why don’t you sell him a pill that’ll make him give up on his dreams?” “Relaxarex doesn’t make you give up on your dreams! That’s a side effect!”

Going to community college was not in Annie’s original life plan – but in the end, it was getting thrown off course that saved her life. If she hadn’t been forced to really reappraise her choices and the track she was headed down, she might have continued down that same sad, painful road of trying to be “perfect” in every way at all times for her whole life. But ending up in a place that challenged her in new ways while allowing her to explore new sides of herself is what allowed her to find herself and set out on her own path. Annie shows us how important it can be to take a step back, accept that there’s more to life than just grades or being “perfect”, and really take a look deep inside yourself to figure out who you want to be.

“Amen. Or a-women. Am I right? Bring it in for a boob bump ladies! Oh, uh.. nope. We’ll get there.”