As the Greendale student body enjoyed their year-end picnic, the Dean announced plans for a small year-end paintball game, sponsored by Pistol Patty's ice cream, with the winner getting $100,000 cash.

The episode was a play on westerns, with Annie as a lone gunwoman who is lured back to an alliance with her study group pals, Jeff and Abed. Troy, Shirley and Britta were all deputies for Pierce who took over the cafeteria and dubbed it "Fort Hawthorne." Pierce put a bounty on Jeff's head and they brought Jeff before Pierce who offered up a grand gesture: go retrieve ammunition to help him win the game and he would split the cash reward with the group.

Of course, Pierce set Jeff up with blanks so he could not defend himself. When Annie, who had been sympathetic to Pierce's plight, found out, she went after him with a vengeance. Then it was revealed that Pierce felt again slighted when he walked into the study group and found them playing cards without him. What was worse, they explained they weren't playing cards, but voting on whether or not Pierce should be ousted from the group in the fall. Annie was the lone holdout.

Meanwhile, the ice cream company had hired a ringer, the Dark Rider, to come in and win the game so that they wouldn't have to shell out the money. Jeff was jealous of the man's good looks and Pierce ended up taking him out, while feigning a heart attack.

With their man on the inside out, Pistol Patty's launched an all out assault on the Study Group.

Chang betrayed Jeff and Abed and tried to form alliances with the Math and Cheerleading clubs before being taken out by Pistol Patty's ice cream company.