Jmunney's Blog

Season Analysis: Parks and Recreation is interested in protecting the status quo at this point, and that could be fine, but for a show with as high a standard as Parks, it really wasn’t fine in Season 5.

“Jerry’s Retirement”
Parks and Recreation could learn a lesson about how to write for Leslie Knope by paying attention to how it has written Jerry Gergich.  P&R had a bit of an issue in Season 5 in that basically everything always worked out for Leslie.  Sure, she has had some headaches as a city councilwoman, but for the most part, her past year has been astoundingly successful.  Jerry has hardly had this same success, but he has managed to achieve his main life goal of retiring comfortably.  But apparently once upon a time, he had other life goals, like having lunch in the executive dining room and meeting a former Pawnee mayor.  When Leslie isn’t able to help Jerry achieve these goals, he is still basically happy.  But Leslie still feels the need to make sure Jerry is doing well, which leads her to his house, where she spends breakfast with the Gergiches.  They flip through photo albums and sing songs, and Leslie witnesses just how much his beautiful wife and beautiful daughters love him – about as much as any husband and father could possibly be loved.  That is how you maintain the status quo and remain entertaining.

Season Analysis: Parks and Rec continued to be one of the best comedies on TV, with strong performances all season particularly from Nick Offerman (who remained basically the same as Ron Swanson, just more awesome) and Aubrey Plaza (with April actually, shockingly, growing and maturing).

“Citizen Knope”

Leslie Knope cares a great deal about everyone she has ever met, because she puts forth a full effort in everything that she does, and thus she just cannot help herself.  So of course she always gives everyone the most thoughtful Christmas gifts possible: for Andy – a gold Mouserat record, for Donna – a leather-print robe, for Tom – a watch and a tiny throne (since he couldn’t get tickets to the Watch the Throne tour), for April – a painting of her killing the Black Eyed Peas, and for Ron – a button for closing his office doors.  The gift of socks for Jerry was the nicest touch: a classic make fun of Jerry gag, but also sweet, as Jerry is apparently so boring that the gift of socks indicates that Leslie truly understands him.  With Leslie suspended from work in the wake of the scandal with her and Ben, she finds herself in the unusual situation of not being able to take care of everything and then some.  Therefore, the dual Christmas gifts from the rest of the Parks Department of the gingerbread version of city hall and volunteering as Leslie’s campaign team could not have been sweeter, in that this was the perfect moment for everyone else to step up and show Leslie that they could take care of her just as she has always taken care of them.  It was one of the purest examples of friendship inspired by Christmas that I have ever seen on any sitcom.

“Road Trip”

We love relationships on TV when they are in the pre-consummation stage because of the romantic tension inherent in that stage.  Tension makes for great entertainment.  By the time of “Road Trip,” Leslie and Ben both knew their feelings for each other, but a relationship had not yet begun due to a strongly enforced guideline against interoffice romance.  Thus, the tension became even more frustrated.  And when there is a problem, you can count on Leslie Knope to make a spectacle out of dealing with that problem, as she did so marvelously with her anti-romantic mix CD for her road trip with Ben.  Meanwhile, the subplot of Tom testing out his Newlywed Game ripoff, “Know Ya Boo,” provided perhaps the steadiest stream of laughs of the entire season, particularly Tom’s rundown of esoteric cable channels (Boom, Zip, Wow, Slurp, Slurp Latin, Slurp HD).  Donna and Jerry’s success as a couple on “Know Ya Boo” was an old, but often hilarious, sitcom staple: characters who have previously had little interaction together displaying a freakily uncanny knowledge of each other.

Next up: Running Wilde

“Practice Date”

“What if he shows up with another woman? What if one of my sleeves catches on fire and it spreads rapidly. What if instead of tic tacs I accidentally pop a couple of Ambien and I have to keep punching my leg to stay awake?”
“Those are all insane hypotheticals and I promise you they won’t happen.”
“They have happened. All of these have happened to me.”

Less awkward and more endearing than Michael Scott and Liz Lemon, but just as hilarious, Leslie Knope has suddenly become the most likable lead character on NBC Thursday nights.  She is so upfront about her strangeness that you will either laugh or gasp nonstop, whichever one happens first.  “Practice Date” was an opportunity for Amy Poehler to run completely free and crazy with her performance.  It was one of those episodes whose hilarity is best explained by listing quotes, so here are some more:

“Do you have like a first-date outfit I could borrow? Like, I don’t know, a pair of cargo pants?”
“Yeah I wouldn’t go with the cargo pant.”
“What about like a sexy hat?”
“I don’t even know what that is.”
“Helping already.”

“What if I get drunk and talk about Darfur too much? Or not enough? What if I don’t bring up Darfur enough?”

“Another time I went to a really boring movie with a guy and while I was asleep he tried to pull out one of my teeth. I literally woke up with his hand in my mouth. We went out a couple times after that but then he got weird.”

“Let’s begin our conversation.”
“What’s on the note cards?”
“They’re possible topics of conversation.”
“Whales. Parades. Electricity. And the rest are blank.”
“Yeah, well I couldn’t think of anything else.”

“Is she practice laughing?”

“You’re 20 minutes late. I almost left.”
“Well, I was, dropping my niece off.”
“What’s your niece’s name?”
“Torple. What? I don’t know. That’s not a name. I don’t have a niece. My niece’s name is Stephanie?”

Next up: The Office