The hit sitcom Community had an evil presence haunting the students of Greendale Community College. This phantom would sneak behind an unsuspecting victim with a quarter in hand. Once that victim's butt crack is visible, the phantom would drop his coin in the crack. The name of this sinister being is the Ass-Crack Bandit.
The Ass-Crack Bandit was first mentioned in season two when Annie Edison ran for school president. She pledged to her fellow students that she will uncover the identity of the criminal. Despite losing the election, Annie was still obsessed with solving the case. The bandit's activity went cold until season five when he targeted Garrett during the opening of Shirley's Sandwiches.
With the help of cynical Jeff Winger, Annie follows up on the clues she gathered over the last several months. After Garrett, the Ass-Crack Bandit attacked two more students within ten minutes. According to Annie, that can only be possible with a short cut through the teacher's lounge. So, the bandit is most likely a teacher. Then Jeff figures out that the bandit is a fan of Dave Matthew's Band. One of the letters sent to the dean used lyrics from the band's songs.
Fans of Community can also gather their own clues. For instance, the bandit has to be mentally strange to do what he does. This is made evident by the crimes themselves and the psychotic letters. Despite the mental state, getting away with these crimes undetected would require remarkable intelligence. Also, the bandit would have access to a lot of change, mostly quarters. Now with these clues in mind, we can figure out who is the Ass-Crack Bandit. Let's look over the suspects.
Yes, she is investigating the case, but that's what guilty people do. They insert themselves in the investigation to look less guilty. Annie has the intelligence and stealth to pull off the attacks. As a model student, she could gain access to the teacher's lounge. Also, when Star-Burns was arrested for being the bandit, Jeff didn't believe he was the guy. But, Annie wouldn't listen and was too eager to move on. Perhaps, she's trying to pass the blame to him. What doesn't fit is the Dave Matthew's lyrics. She's not old enough to be a fan. Plus, her motivations aren't clear. Could it be to get Jeff's attention? Could it be an escape from the pressures of academics?
Britta may not be smart enough, but she is strange enough. Perhaps, her attacks started as an accident. She made one of her famous "Britta-like" mistakes and was too proud to fix it. Maybe, this was her feeble attempt to pull off a prank. A prank that turned into a good subject for her psychology studies. Towards the end of the episode, Britta was seen writing a paper about the bandit. She mistakenly types "Ass-Crack Britta". Was this another silly mix-up or a sub-conscience confession?
Professor Duncan was MIA for almost two years. That's how long the Ass-Crack Bandit was on break. Being part of the faculty makes him a prime suspect. Annie was in Professor Duncan's office when she noticed a roll of quarters. Duncan was also singing a Dave Matthew's Band song. His motivation to be the bandit could be out of pure boredom, or drunkenness. He was known to have a drink or two. However, the British teacher became a victim himself. Was that a trick? Was he working with someone? Does the bandit have a copy-cat?
In season one, Chang was the school's Spanish teacher. So, he too could access the teacher's lounge. On top of that, he's crazy enough to be the bandit. Chang has tried to burn the school down and faked amnesia. He's also known to use his last name to replace other words. Could the word "change" mentioned in the letters really mean Chang? However, Chang was in the cafeteria when the bandit targeted Garrett. Not to mention, Chang is not the brightest bulb in the bunch.
Pierce may be old, but he has the maturity of a child. He could've become the bandit because he thought it was funny or simply to get attention. The poor man always complained to his study group about being ignored and left out of things. Unfortunately, this theory of Pierce being the bandit is flimsy. First off, he was in a wheelchair when the Ass-Crack Bandit was at large in season two. In season five, the gang finds during the bandit strikes that Pierce has died. He possibly had help, but Pierce is too prideful for that.
When Annie told the dean that the bandit was a teacher, he was quick to ignore her. He also had a corkboard with pictures of "potential suspects" in his office. Were the suspects somebody he could frame? He did let Star-Burns take the fall. The dean owns dark clothing and a fake butt. This strange man may have an obsession with rear-ends. After Star-Burns was captured, Dean launched one of his famous school dances. Was that just a distraction? If he is the bandit, why did he stop?
All these weirdos are perfect suspects. They may even be working together. Sadly, we may never know the truth. The mystery of the elusive Ass-Crack Bandit will remain unsolved.
It’s one of the great questions that fans have been left having from the season 5 episode of Community, “Basic Intergluteal Numismatics.” Who was the Ass Crack Bandit? This question has spawned many fan theories and debates about the true identity of the Ass Crack Bandit. Was it just one person, a team effort, or perhaps it was many copycats? The mystery aspect of this episode has led it to become one of my favorite episodes of Community. After spending many hours and re-watches of Community analyzing who the Bandit really is – sort of like the meme of Charlie Day from It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia – I have determined the true identity of the Ass Crack Bandit. Basically, it can really be whomever we want it to be.
Now, I know that’s not really an answer, but it’s the viable conclusion on how the episode was ultimately formatted and intended by the writers. They wrote it and filmed it in such a way as to leave the ending deliberately ambiguous, and to let the audience decide on who they thought the bandit was, and to have people like me spend countless hours debating on who the Ass Crack Bandit really was. Just how many hours did I myself spend? As Abed would say, “Enough.”
Of course, with the structure of writing an episode such as this, the easiest way to do it is to set up many suspects who can’t be explicitly or outright ruled out as the Bandit. You also would need a red herring here or there, and to present and create evidence that ultimately doesn’t prove anything by the episode’s end. And, while you never want the audience to know conclusively who the Bandit is by episode’s end in order to keep the debate alive amongst fans, if you’re the writer, you’re always going to have one person at least in the back of your mind that was true Bandit all along.
I’m here to tell you that I know who that person is. It was Annie Edison all along, and she was acting as a copycat of the original Ass Crack Bandit, who I believe was Professor Duncan.
Now, to come to this conclusion, I had to make a few assumptions but logical ones, and to throw out the intent by the writers to leave the ending of the episode ambiguous, since that’s no fun and we want a definitive answer with the Bandit being just one person. So, no copout of having the Bandit just be many different copycats, or by having the Bandit be a team of two Bandits, a la Scream. While the thought of having the Bandit being two people working together is an intriguing one, such as the theories of Duncan working with Britta, or Annie working with Abed, examining the evidence pokes holes into those theories, and the evidence of there being just one Bandit ultimately supports my conclusion. Not just the evidence presented within the episode, but also the evidence on how the episode was made.
If you’re looking at my theory, then I’m sure you’ve seen The Film Theorists’ video on YouTube about how Abed was concluded to be the Ass Crack Bandit. While they offer many valid points and intriguing analysis which I recommend watching, their video makes a few too many assumptions, missed and misread clues from other episodes, and overanalyzed certain parts of the episode that were not meant to be clues but were just part of the nature of episodic filmmaking for a TV show on a tight schedule and budget.
To fully examine and investigate the identity of the Ass Crack Bandit, we have to determine the suspects, opportunity, means, evidence, and motive. Also, since this is fictional and not based on real life, we also have to determine Authorial Intent. Basically, the evidence the writers meant for us to look at and were not just simple oversights of a time sensitive and budgeted filming schedule. This is important when it comes to disproving the Abed theory by The Film Theorists.
First, we have the suspects. Only characters featured in the episode will be regarded as suspects. Only characters that are regular or reoccurring characters will also be regarded as suspects. Since this analysis will be based on the assumption that there was only one true Bandit doing the crackings during this episode, characters who also got cracked will be excluded from the suspect list. That leaves the list of initial suspects as follows:
- Neil
- Ben Chang
- Shirley Bennet
- Dean Craig Pelton
- Leonard
- Alex ‘Star-Burns’ Osbourne
- Professor Buzz Hickey
- Jeff Winger
- Britta Perry
- Abed Nadir
- Annie Edison
Now that we have our list of suspects, we must now start to eliminate some suspects and narrow down our list by examining the aspects of the case. The next step is to determine which of the suspects had the opportunity to commit the crackings. We want to examine who had the ability to do the crackings, did not have an alibi, and was shown to not be present or accounted for during the approximate time of any of the crackings.
After examining these facts, we can therefore cross off Neil, Chang, Shirley, the Dean, Leonard, and Star-Burns off our list, as none of them had the opportunity to perform at least one of the crackings, and were accounted for being somewhere else during the time of the cracking.
This episode features 4 crackings that occurred on screen: Garrett, Troy, Vicki, and Duncan.
The first cracking of Garret eliminates Neil, Chang, Shirley, and the Dean, as they were all present or seen heading to the opening of Shirley’s Sandwiches. Since Star-Burns was locked in a cage during the cracking of Duncan, he is also crossed off the list. Troy was cracked alone, and the cracking of Vicki also conclusively eliminates the Dean from our list but leaves Abed on the list as a question mark, since he was briefly shown to be present next to the Dean, but then mysteriously disappears. We’ll circle back around to elaborate more on that later. And finally, we must eliminate Leonard from the list since he clearly does not have the physical ability to commit the crackings at the speed in which they must have occurred. That leaves us with a list of five suspects:
- Professor Buzz Hickey
- Jeff Winger
- Britta Perry
- Abed Nadir
- Annie Edison
Next, we have to examine the evidence for each suspect. For Professor Buzz Hickey, this episode offers no real conclusive evidence for or against Hickey as being the Ass Crack Bandit. We do see that in future season 5 episode “Basic Story” that he does recognize Dave Mathews Band music, but he does not refer them as just “Dave” like only true fans supposedly do. If we are to operate on the assumption that the Bandit would only have referred to the band as “Dave,” then this piece of evidence crosses Hickey off out suspect list, even though I think the connection between Dave Mathews and the Bandit is a red herring, which I’ll elaborate on later.
Also, due to Hickey’s older age, it is debatable that Hickey has the physical ability to commit the crackings at the speed they occurred, even though he does possess the ability to take the shortcut through the faculty lounge, should that piece of evidence Annie presented prove to be valid.
You could make the argument that as an ex-cop, Hickey would maybe possess the night vision goggles needed to crack Vicki under the bleachers, but this would make the false assumption that no one else could have the ability to get night vision goggles in some way. Since this episode is also a clear parody of crime dramas and thrillers, the night vision scene could have just been a fun reference to Silence of the Lambs with no intent by the writers to be presented as an actual piece of evidence. I seriously found that examining Authorial intent made me question quite a bit of the evidence presented in this episode since most of it is just meant to be a parody of another movie or show.
When adding up this evidence and combining it with the fact that Hickey has no real motive to commit the crackings, we can safely assume that he was not the Ass Crack Bandit and cross him off the list of suspects.
Next on our list we have Jeff Winger. Jeff had two main pieces of evidence that conclude that he is not the Ass Crack Bandit. The first is one of the notes left by the Bandit referencing Dave Mathews Band lyrics. Jeff is the first to make the connection and bring it up. If Jeff were the Bandit, he would have no reason to point this out, unless he was the Bandit and wrote the note with the intent of using it as a misdirection. However, that doesn’t seem like Jeff’s style, and he had no intention of originally investigating the Bandit in the first place.
The other piece of evidence is the phone call made by the Bandit while Jeff was in the Dean’s office. While we later find out that the phone call was prerecorded and was dialed on a timer hooked up to a computer, this information is discovered by Jeff himself, who would have no reason to appear to be examining evidence all by himself if he was indeed the Bandit. With this information, we can safely cross Jeff off our list of suspects.
Next, we have Britta Perry. Now, this is where things start to get interesting. The evidence that most implicates Britta are the notes left by the Bandit. The speech pattern and run-on sentence style of the first note would fit with Bitta’s voice, and the phone call made in the Dean’s office by the Bandit does accuse Jeff and Annie of needing to get a room, which is something that Britta has been seen to notice in the past when it comes to Jeff and Annie’s interactions. However, the mentions of God in one note that was made supposedly by Britta the atheist that was examined by the Film Theorists in their video seems to raise doubts on Britta being the author of the letters. Add in the fact that we also see no evidence of Britta being a Dave Matthews fan, and we can make the conclusion that Britta did not write some or all of the notes left by the Bandit.
At the end of the episode, we also see when Britta is writing about the Ass Crack Bandit, she accidently types “Ass Crack Britta” instead of “Ass Crack Bandit.” Was this a Freudian slip indicating that Britta was actually indeed the true Bandit, or was it just Britta “Britta-ing” her own paper. If we examine Britta’s character, then she probably most definitely just “Britta’ed“ it.
Britta as the Bandit holds up better if we were to assume that the Bandit was two characters teaming up instead of just one. Britta and Duncan being co-Bandits is an interesting theory that can be seen as plausible, but it doesn’t really hold up when you examine the character motivations. Mainly, what reason would Britta have to team up with Duncan? Also, Britta can’t keep a secret. She would have “Britta’ed” committing the crackings while having a co-conspirator.
While you can see Duncan’s exclamation to “Get Britta” after he gets cracked as a cry of accusation and betrayal from his fellow Bandit, it could also be interpreted as a cry for comfort for the current person who holds his affections as seen earlier. And since Britta is currently blocking Duncan’s advances seen earlier in the episode, she would have no benefit conspiring with Duncan to commit the crackings.
Seeing how the evidence and motive for Britta as being the Ass Crack Bandit just doesn’t add up, we can cross Britta off our list of suspects.
Our final two suspects that we have left are the most likely suspects who have the most evidence that points towards them.
As The Film Theorists’ video mentioned, they concluded that it was Abed that was the Ass Crack Bandit. When it came to the physical evidence, it was pointed out that the Bandit was briefly seen standing next to a bookshelf waiting to crack Troy. It was determined that the height of the Bandit in this shot had to be around six feet, which lines up with Abed’s height, whereas Annie is not that tall. The fact that Troy’s call to Abed went to his voicemail led to the conclusion that the Bandit must have been Abed for this cracking.
This evidence can be discarded though when you take into account Authorial Intent. The writers and director did not intend for the Bandit’s height here to be a clue. With most productions, this was most likely a stand-in or stuntman playing the part of the Bandit when their face does not have to be seen. This is done many times in Horror and Mystery cinema to prevent the audience from getting a clue about the physical characteristics of the killer, or in this case, the cracker. A small-statured cracker would have tipped the audience off that the Bandit was most likely a woman, so any and all shots of the Bandit would be using the same stand-in to hide this fact. This was a moment when the Film Theorists overanalyzed a potential clue. The only purpose of this shot at the bookcase is to show that the Bandit was waiting for Troy so they could crack him, and to create tension and anticipation for it.
The next piece of evidence that was examined and overanalyzed was with the notes left by the Bandit. It was pointed out that the handwriting on the note first shown by the Dean matches the handwriting in Abed’s board from the season 1 episode “Contemporary American Poultry.” Again, this is most likely a case of the production using the same props person to write words on a prop that is needed for filming. It’s easy to come to this conclusion since the handwriting of the note was never brought up as a plot point or a piece of evidence by Annie, who just so happens to be a forensics student. It’s also not very clear to the audience what the handwriting looks like unless you do some major enhancing on the screenshot of the note like the Film Theorists did.
We also get another example of Abed’s supposed handwriting that was left out by the Film Theorists in the previous season 2 episode “Coopertaive Calligraphy.” We get to see Abed’s journal in that episode where he was charting the menstrual cycles of the girls in the group, and we can clearly see the type of handwriting used in the screenshot of the journal. It does not match the handwriting of the note sent by the Ass Crack Bandit. This clearly indicates that the handwriting of the note cannot be used as evidence, since it most likely was never intended to be an important part of solving the identity of the Bandit.
Abed however does draw strong suspicion when it comes to the cracking of Vicki. He was shown for a split second to be by the Dean at the start of the scene, and then missing a second later. Is it possible that he went to get night vision goggles and then ducked under the bleachers to do the cracking in such a short amount of time without arousing suspicion? Maybe, but unlikely. This could be determined to be just a continuity error with that single shot of Abed’s face, or it could just be the writers wanting to establish the ambiguity that the Bandit was multiple people, as the ending would possibly lead you to believe.
The ending does show Abed suspiciously deleting episodes of crime drama procedurals from his viewing history, but I feel this just enforces the conclusion that Abed was not the Ass Crack Bandit. When the Dean first asked Abed to survey the crime scene, Abed quickly became disinterested after being reminded of all the bad writing and plot devices that he had seen on TV before, and abruptly leaves to not really be seen again until the end of the episode, aside from that split second shot of his face right before the Vicki cracking.
Where was Abed during this time? Well, he was doing what he always does when he is reminded of a piece or pieces of media that he has seen before. He went to immediately go watch it. At the end of the episode, it can be interpreted that Abed was just deleting all of those crime drama episodes after a heavy binge session that he was doing while the next crackings took place. Also, while the call from the Bandit to the Deans office may sound similar to Abed’s voice pattern and inflection, it really doesn’t match up with the other messages that were sent by the Bandit. And Abed is not shown at all to be a Dave Mathews fan in any way.
Annie also noted that the Bandit must have been using a shortcut through the faculty lounge, since it took her 20 minutes to get to the cracking sights, whereas the Bandit would have had to do it in 10 minutes in the time other crackings were committed. It has been noted that Abed is a great athlete, but there is no way that Abed could be twice as fast as a regular person. If this piece of evidence that was only presented by Annie was indeed true, then the Bandit would either have to have had access to the faculty lounge as Annie pointed out (Of which Abed does not have), or the Bandit would have to be multiple people, which for the purposes and premises of this single-Bandit theory has already been excluded as a possibility.
It’s also important to look into Abed’s motivation for being the Ass Crack Bandit. We know that Abed can be committed when doing a bit, but the cracking of Abed’s best friend Troy is just something that I believe Abed would never do to Troy, even for a bit. Also, Abed does bits based on movies and TV shows, and the Ass Crack Bandit is a real-world menace in Greendale. There’s nothing about the Bandit that would have been filmed for Abed to imitate or do a bit on. Abed’s character would just not have the proper motivation to being the Ass Crack Bandit.
When you fully examine the physical evidence, Abed cannot conclusively be determined to be the Ass Crack Bandit. But, just like communism, he was still set up to be a red herring just like Duncan was later in the episode.
Now that we’ve eliminated all other possible suspects, it can now be concluded that the Ass Crack Bandit, if they were really only just one person for the entire episode, has to be none other than Annie Edison. The evidence, motivation, and Author’s intention support it, and here’s how:
First off, we have to examine what this episode is. It is a spoof, parody, and homage of popular crime dramas such as Zodiac, Seven, and the Hannibal Lecter series. These types of dramas thrive on having some type of twist towards the ending of the story. Thematically, this whole episode was set up for the twist of having investigator Annie being the one who was the actual Bandit the whole time, and it fits with everything that was set up within the episode.
After the inciting incident of the first cracking, the end of the opening credits features a prominent shot of Annie revisiting the case of the Ass Crack Bandit through her scrapbook. The episode also ends with a shot of Annie walking away with a look of suspicion about her. These offer a nice bookend to the story of her being the Bandit for this episode and fit with the overall theme.
Annie was the first person on the show to mention the Ass Crack Bandit in the season 2 episode “Intro to Political Science.” At the time, it was just a funny little throwaway line that the writers included in the episode, but the writers later went back to revisit the idea to develop the plot for this episode. Annie mentioned in that episode that she would bring the Ass Crack Bandit to justice insinuating that Annie has been investigating the Bandit for years since then and knows the Bandits M.O. inside and out. That’s the reason why she has the scrapbook on the news stories of the Ass Crack Bandit. It’s also why she chooses to copycat the Bandit.
Annie’s motivation in wanting to copycat the Bandit after she realizes he has long since stopped or maybe even graduated from Greendale is pretty clear. She wants to reignite the investigation into who the Bandit is so she can have another reason to team up with Jeff on an investigative caper. They practically beat us over the head with it in the episode as the Dean mentions that this is something they always do.
Annie also has the smarts to pull off being the copycat. She is a forensics major, and as such can fabricate all the evidence to point to whomever she chooses. She would probably have access to night vision goggles for the cracking of Vicki if they were a part of her courses. If the handwriting in the notes was really intended as evidence as the Film Theorists suggests, then Annie would have known well enough to fabricate the handwriting to be that of someone else such as Abed, or even multiple people.
We also know that Annie has access to stuffed animals, and could have easily used the teddy bear to lure Troy into lowering his guard and cracking him. She is the one to discover the note hidden within the bear, since she is the one who put it there in the first place. The stuffed bear and Annie finding the note is a clear piece of evidence pointing to her.
The call to the Dean’s office is also a big clue towards Annie’s guilt. The call was prerecorded as Jeff later discovered, and Annie has used this same technology before in the season 2 episode “Conspiracy Theories and Interior Design.” In that episode, Annie was already in cahoots with the Dean early on to teach Jeff a lesson about conspiracies and faking a class for credit, so she has an established history of putting up a façade such as the one that would be needed to pretend to investigate the Ass Crack Bandit. Annie used the prerecorded computer voice software to throw suspicion off of her in this season 2 episode, and she would later use it again to throw off suspicion of her possibly being the Ass Crack Bandit.
Annie also used this call to the Dean with her and Jeff listening in as a passive aggressive and self-conscious remark on her and Jeff’s interactions. She would mention in the call that she is doing this only to be close to Jeff, and she totally would be trying to tell Jeff in some way for them to get a room, since for a part of her, that’s exactly what she wants. She’s been pining for Jeff in some way ever since the ending of season 1, and this episode’s thematic and spiritual older brother “Conspiracy Theories and Interior Design” even had Annie outright stating her love for Jeff when going off script, and only doing something like this because of it.
Annie also could have fabricated the evidence of the time it took the Bandit to commit the crackings, since it was brought up by no one else but her. What better way to throw off suspicion than by indicating it had to be someone who had access to something you didn’t have access to, such as that of the faculty lounge. This evidence could also still be considered true if operating under the theory that the Bandit was multiple people, and the final episode did reveal that Annie held the spare Greendale keys for the Dean which could have given her access to the faculty lounge. Either way, the timing of these supposed crackings that were not featured in the episode cannot be conclusively verified. If anything, this was just used by the writers or Annie herself as a device to further point to Duncan as the red herring.
Speaking of Duncan, a lot of weight was put behind the idea of the Ass Crack Bandit being a Dave Matthews fan. This was really just used as smoke screen and plot device to further cement Duncan as this episode’s red herring, and that’s all he ever was. This is Duncan’s first time being back at Greendale since season 2, which is the same amount of time since the Ass Crack Bandit was last known to be active, and the writers used that as inspiration to set him up as the red herring.
I do believe though that Duncan was the original Ass Crack Bandit from season 2, since the idea of cracking someone seems to fit with his sense of humor. I also believe that since Annie was investigating the Bandit from the very beginning, she also believed that the original Bandit had to be a member of the faculty, which is why she indicated earlier that the cracking had to be done by someone who had access to the faculty lounge. She later had her suspicions somewhat confirmed when she was alone with Duncan in his office and saw the roll of quarters on his shelf, and his behavior as he suggested that she bend over to pick up her keys. But, knowing Duncan’s lecherous tendencies, he probably just wanted to get a glimpse of her ass.
It’s also possible that when Annie realized that Duncan was a Dave Mathews fan, she instantly saw him as a person to present as a suspect to also pin the crackings on, since Jeff had already come to the conclusion himself earlier on that it couldn’t have been Star-Burns and that it had to be a Dave Mathews fan, hence the reason for her going to Jeff and proclaiming that it was Duncan. Also, Annie knew exactly where to go to find Jeff and the computer with the Ass Crack Bandit’s recordings, because that’s right where she left it. Let’s not forget, that the whole reason and motivation for Annie doing this it to be able to team up with Jeff and address her urges in semi acceptable scenarios.
The last bit of business that Annie had to address was the cracking of Duncan himself. Annie was able to do this by getting away from Jeff for a moment in the smokey hall. This was the last cracking that Annie wanted to commit, seeing how the now prime suspect for Jeff getting cracked would lead to the case going cold again, and creating more confusion as to the true identity of the Bandit. Something that Annie wants, since she does not want suspicion to come towards her, or running the risk of having Duncan eventually continue his crackings sometime after she is done doing her own crackings. Getting to crack Duncan is also her personal reward and form of poetic justice for finding the suspected original Bandit after all these years, since getting to crack him would teach him a lesson and most likely lead him to never do it again.
Annie was a very successful Ass Crack Bandit, and she succeeds in most of what she set out to do. She got to team on another caper with Jeff by restarting the crackings, she got to discover the identity of the original Ass Crack Bandit and administer her own form of poetic justice in cracking him, and she got to get Jeff to address some of his feelings for her with the shoulder holding, while also then trying to get Jeff to let go of the case after Star-Burns apparently took the wrap for being the Bandit. She only went back to Jeff later after realizing that Duncan was the original Bandit that she could point Jeff towards, and that she would have to crack one last person so it couldn’t have still had been Star-Burns that it was pinned on.
When you lay it all out, Annie had the clearest and most convincing amount of evidence for being the Ass Crack Bandit. She had the opportunity and means to do all of the crackings. The sum of the evidence that was not most likely fabricated points to her, and she had the biggest motivation for restarting the crackings after several years. Lastly, the most important element that points to Annie being the Ass Crack Bandit for this episode is the Author’s intent, and it all comes to a head in that last scene with Annie and Jeff in the rain.
Annie proclaims to Jeff that the case goes cold again, knowing that she no longer has a reason to keep doing the crackings. Then Jeff replies that he has a feeling that the Bandit… that “he” will be back. Then Annie slips up and instinctively replies, “or her.” This is the bookend that the writers intended for this episode. They wanted to showcase the one slipup that the perp makes at the end of a typical crime drama with a twist that gives away their true identity. You can tell in the way she slowly looks back at Jeff after having said that, knowing that she just made a mistake in saying that the Bandit could have been a woman.
We then get a series of quick shots of others with suspicious behaver, in an attempt to leave the ending ambiguous as to who the Ass Crack Bandit really was, or to make the audience believe it could have been multiple people. All red herrings. However, the final ending shot just seals that it was Annie for me. The look that Annie gives as she turns back away from Jeff is one that says, “Oh shit, I really just almost gave myself away there.” And then the story ends the same way how it began after opening credits: With a shot of Annie Edison. The Ass Crack Bandit.
As one final parting note, I would also like to add that the final episode of Community all but confirms that Annie was indeed the Ass Crack Bandit when Jeff mentions off hand if anyone remembers the Ass Crack Bandit, and then Annie gives this very guilty and awkward laugh while saying that she remembers. The actual script note for this scene that was shared by the writer states that Annie was “probably” the Ass Crack Bandit as she said this line. You got to love them still wanting to leave it a little big ambiguous for fans.
So that’s it. If we are to believe that the Ass Crack Bandit for this episode is not multiple people, or a pair of people working together, then all the evidence can only point to one singular person being the Ass Crack Bandit, and that person is none other than Annie Edison.