Community has suffered some heavy losses over the past year or so, but, as always, Greendale goes on. And according to The Hollywood Reporter, replacements have been found for departing cast members Yvette Nicole Brown and Jonathan Banks. (Of course, they’re not playing the exact same characters—more like spiritual analogues—because the study room would look so empty otherwise.) Anyway, Paget Brewster has signed on to play Francesca “Frankie” Dart, a consultant who is brought in to whip Greendale into shape, and Keith David is set to play Elroy Patashnik, a retired scientist “who is reinventing himself.”
Brewster is best known for her role on the crime procedural Criminal Minds, where she appeared as Emily Prentiss from 2006 to 2014. She’s no stranger to comedy, however, having co-starred on the short-lived cult sitcom Andy Richter Controls The Universe, provided voices to Harvey Birdman, Attorney At Law, American Dad!, and The Venture Brothers, and appeared on one episode of a little show called Community earlier this year. (She also lent her voice talents to a couple of Batman animated features, which Abed would think was pretty cool.) For his part, David first became famous for his role in Oliver Stone’s Platoon, and has since done a wide variety of TV and movie work, including that ridiculous fight scene in They Live and voice roles on Gargoyles, Spawn, and Adventure Time. (Fun fact: he was also the narrator of that The Bible mini-series we love to make fun of at The A.V Club.) He is most recently known for his role as Sgt. Major Donald Cody on Fox’s Enlisted.