When Leslie walks into Ron’s office to make plans with him for Diane’s baby shower, it’s revealed that Ron’s son has already been born! It’s perfect timing because I was starting to wonder what happened with that story line. All of the pregnancy focus seemed to be on Ann and Chris, and we didn’t hear very much about Ron getting ready to become a Dad at all. Which in a way is fine, because pregnancy story lines can be to tiresome. The little guy’s name is John! In true Ron style, he refuses to reveal what his son’s middle name is, when exactly he was born, or how much he weighed. And the little guy is adorable, so Ron’s getting lots of attention, which he handles about as well as we would expect. To escape, Ron takes John to the third floor, which is abandoned and in desperate need of repair.
My question: if Ron is so opposed to people fawning over his new baby, why would he bring him to work at all? There should at least have been a line in there somewhere about him taking the baby to work for a day to give Diane a break, or something similar. In order to keep his new little sanctuary, Ron agrees to take over for the contractors and do all the work that needs to be done on the floor. He is really sweet with the baby, and I hope that we get some more cute Dad Ron stuff in the future.
A potential investment opportunity presents itself to Tom while he’s trying to get corporate sponsors for the Pawnee/Eagleton Unity Concert. In usual Tom fashion, he has a ton of ideas: a laser nail cutter that would allow you to cut your nails once and then would never have to do it again. All he needs is an incredibly high tech, complicated laser that he has no idea how to make! Also, Saltweens, Saltines for tweens, which is my personal favorite because I love those damn crackers. His ultimate dream is a restaurant, but Ben tells him they’re incredibly risky. Unimpressed with all of Tom’s outlandish ideas, Ben’s suggestion is for Tom to be the middleman between dry cleaners and the manufacturers of dry cleaning chemicals. He admits that it’s not the sexiest idea, but that it will absolutely make Tom money, which is something that none of his businesses so far have accomplished.
Just as Ben and Tom are about to begin their pitch, Mr. Potential Investor talks about how he admired Tom’s sparkle and passion and how important that is in buisness, so Tom decides at the last minute to ditch the dry cleaning chemical idea and pitch his restaurant idea, “Tom’s Bistro.” Ben, like the good friend he is, backs him up, and the investor is won over by Tom’s enthusiasm and agrees to back the project. (“Tom’s Bistro” probably has a better chance at succeeding than Ben’s one time restaurant idea “The Low-Cal Calzone Zone.”) I hope this works out, if for no other reason than I think that this “Tom Starts a Business and It Lasts for a While But Then Something Goes Wrong” story line is getting a little old.
Leslie’s story this week really bummed me out. She’s still trying to make the Pawnee/Eagleton merger work with the Unity Concert and is even going to have a meeting with Grant Larson, the Director of the Midwest Branch of the National Park Service about getting National Park status for Eagleton Hills, and she’s still getting crapped all over by everyone. Leslie’s latest attempt to get good PR for the merger, knocking down the fence that separates the two towns, goes horribly wrong when a swarm of bees comes out of the fence and stings a bunch of Eagleton citizens.
So now there’s yet another problem that Leslie has to deal with. She even has to postpone her meeting with the National Park Director.
Even when she goes to the hospital to apologize to the victims of the bee stings, a fight breaks out and Leslie gets punched in the face. The next day she tries to hide her black eye with a ridiculous tie dye shirt and crazy necklaces and talk things through with April, who I really liked in this episode. She has a really good instinct for this stuff, from her advice that Leslie lay low and wait for things to blow over to her assurance that just because a group yells the loudest doesn’t mean that they’re the majority opinion. Just when Leslie acknowledges that this entire situation sucks and keeps getting worse, Grant Larson shows up for their meeting. On the day she’s wearing a tie dye shirt and sporting a black eye. Of course.
How I felt about certain things in this week’s episode…
But it goes well, and Grant actually offers her a job running a branch of the National Park Service in Chicago! Remember weeks ago when Jen Barkley told Leslie to dream bigger and move on from Pawnee because she’s outgrown it? This is her chance, right?! Apparently not. Leslie has one of her heart to heart conversations with Ron and though I usually like those, I didn’t care for this one. Leslie talks about how Pawnee treats her like crap, but that every time she thinks of leaving she just can’t do it. It was a kind of gross irony that she was standing there with a black eye. She’s literally in an abusive relationship with Pawnee. Ron tells Leslie that she loves the struggle of trying to fix the town, but is that really a good reason to turn down an amazing opportunity? I don’t know. (I would have liked a scene where she talked this whole thing over with Ben. You know, her husband and the person who will also be directly affected by her decision. Maybe that’s coming in a later episode.) There is some time to decide about the Chicago job, and Leslie says she’ll think about it. At this point, I kind of hope she takes it. She needs a win.
I am so excited for next week, because Duke Silver is back! It looks like someone else is going to find out about him…
Source- Feature Image
