Every group has its leader. In the case of The Walking Dead, that person was Rick Grimes. He guided his band of survivors through an endless zombie apocalypse. Community‘s Jeff Winger, on the other hand, tried to lead his study group through the horrors of Greendale, which was arguably worse. But thanks to the school’s first paintball war, Jeff actually had his own Rick Grimes moment.

Rick was a former sheriff’s deputy who was shot while on the job, sending him into a coma. When he finally awoke, the world was a much different place. He found himself in the midst of a full-on zombie apocalypse, and everything Rick knew was destroyed or missing. This started his journey of survival through a world that no longer made the remotest amount of sense. Oddly enough, Jeff found himself in an extremely similar position.

Greendale Community College might have been the worst post-secondary institution in the history of post-secondary institutions. The classes required a shocking number of dioramas, and they held way too many school dances. Jeff ended up there because his world fell apart after it was discovered that his education as a lawyer was 100 percent fraudulent. Jeff was trying to get his law degree back when all hell broke loose.

In Season 1, Episode 23, Dean Pelton decided to have a game of Paintball Assassin around the school campus. Not surprisingly, Jeff wasn’t interested in participating in the game. As a general rule, he wasn’t interested in participating in anything that didn’t involve fine scotch or expensive Italian bathroom fixtures. As such, Jeff did the only rational thing possible given the situation and went to take a nap in his car.

Just like Rick Grimes, Jeff woke up to a post-apocalyptic nightmare, though this time there weren’t any zombies. They didn’t pop up in Community until Season 2, Episode 6. In Jeff’s case, the game of Paintball Assassin had gone off the rails thanks to the prize of priority registration. This allowed the winner to organize their schedule as they saw fit. It was a prize that everyone on campus desperately wanted.

While the war going on campus was a lot different than the whole scenario that Rick woke up to, it was no less striking a moment. Greendale was seemingly empty, the scars of battle covering it. Once Jeff came out of his deep slumber, he was confused, disoriented and had to learn the rules of this new world extremely quickly. And he had a steep learning curve, to say the least, much like Rick did.

While Jeff had his own Rick Grimes moment, one did not inspire the other. The first episode of The Walking Dead aired more than five months after the paintball episode of Community. While the comics had been in publication since 2003, the fact that the two TV moments had a similar vibe was likely more of a coincidence than anything else. Regardless, each leader had their own moment of clarity thanks to their respective naps.