Let’s get the bad out of the way first: why are Chris and Ann so separated from everyone else on the show? With the exception of their little scene with Jerry in the beginning of the episode, they were entirely alone. Just like they were last episode. Did Ann even tell Leslie that she’s having a baby boy? We can assume so, but I would have really loved to see that instead of Chris and Ann’s drawn out “should we or shouldn’t we get married” thing at the jewelry store. At one point Chris says that they don’t need to get married because he and Ann are already more married than most married people. What? HOW? They dated for a short time a while back, then Ann asks Chris to be her sperm donor and all of the sudden they’re in Super True Love? I’m not buying it. They’re both good characters but I just don’t care at all about this story line, and that’s a shame.
Leslie’s story line with Tom and Ron was a little weird. Leslie’s back to working full time at Parks and Rec now that she’s not on the City Council any more, and it’s great to see her back with everyone. But then she starts acting like she had no idea what had been going on in the department since she’d been gone, when she had just partnered with Tom a few episodes ago in her quest to get fluoride into Pawnee’s water supply, and was also involved in their haunted house at Halloween. I’m willing to overlook that though because the rest of that story line played out well. I like that the show doesn’t shy away from Leslie’s less than desirable qualities, especially her desire to control everything. In this instance, she just assumes that Tom is going to blow his presentation about getting a lemonade stand in one of the parks and goes out of her way to take over the entire thing. In all fairness to her, Tom said that his presentation preparation was to “Step 1: Chill out a bit. Step 2: Get up there and rip it.” But after a speech from Ron (I love speeches from Ron) about how Tom has changed, Leslie backs him up. I like that she can admit that she was wrong and learn from her mistakes.
By far the best story this week was Ben’s. He’s the new City Manager, and he trying to balance wanting people to like him with having to be tough. He tries to woo Donna, April and Andy into thinking he’s super cool with unpasteurized cheese that he smuggled back from Paris in the awkwardly funny way that makes Ben Wyatt all things terrific. Everyone can tell that Ben is wound super tight and to get him to loosen up, they play a prank on him. They arrange for two officers from the Pawnee PD to come and take Ben in for questioning about his illegal cheese smuggling, and as usual Ben’s paralyzing fear of cops is pure gold. Andy convinces him that the best way to deal with the prank and still stay likable is to prank everyone back. And Ben is so fantastically awful at pulling one off that it’s hilarious. After about a few minutes of being conspicuous as hell, he decides he can’t go through with it and comes clean:
He even had himself wired with fake blood capsules to explode when the fake kidnappers fake shoot him during the fake kidnapping. Oh, Ben.
The episode ends with Leslie telling Ron that she flipped out because she felt like the department didn’t need her anymore, and Ron telling her that that should make her proud, because the department will still be able to function after Leslie has moved on to bigger things. Leslie then shatters their beautiful moment by presenting Ron with a plaque and telling him that he’s been named Pawnee Government’s Employee of the Month, at which point our favorite Libertarian reacts in the way we would expect.
Moments like this solidify Ron as my favorite character on the show. All in all, there were some really funny moments to balance out some of the stuff that was not so great about the episode, and my main hope for the coming episodes is that Leslie and Ann have some quality scenes together before Ann leaves and their dynamic is gone from the show for good.
What did you think about this Parks and Recreation episode? Am I the only one not feeling the Chris and Ann thing?
