Parks and Rec – Throwing the word ‘butthead’ around

This was a weird episode of Parks and Rec. No office scenes! No Leslie and Anne! No Leslie and anybody at all except for Tom! Although my favorite episodes are the ones in which the gang is all together (preferably getting hammered), if Leslie has to go off with a single character, Tom would be my pick.

Yes, she and Ron have great scenes together, and I loved when she ran away to his cabin in the season premiere. However, when it comes to sustained comedy, you just can’t beat Leslie and Tom. He’s such an idiot savant when it comes to basically everything, and helping out Leslie with her campaign is no exception. We’ve already learned that deep down inside, Tom is a great networker, so you had to know that he’d pull it out eventually for Leslie– it just took an amazingly long time to get there.

Here’s my thing: for being such a small town, Pawnee must have a pretty amazing printshop somewhere. That’s who Leslie needs to be impressing. Because anyone who can do such an excellent job of putting Tom Haverford’s face on a rug is clearly someone who you want to work with. You never want to work with the guy who has his face put on rugs, but the guy who can put the face on rugs? That’s a winner.

The only surprise with Entertainment 720’s failure is that it managed to hang on for this long after Ben took a look at their books. No worries though. I completely expect Tom to rise from the ashes like a Phoenix, while Jean Ralphio excitedly chases a laser beam around the room.

It’s so strange to me that Ben and Leslie have barely been in the same room since they broke up. It’s completely realistic that they would want to avoid each other in this situation, but I’m still surprised that the show hasn’t found ways for them to be forced together on a project or anything. I miss them.

Anne as a character seems to be really tied to whatever relationship she’s in. She shines when she’s dealing with Andy’s crap, or trying to keep up with Chris. When she’s on her own, she just flounders on the sidelines. She had some good scenes with Ron this week, but something still doesn’t feel quite right.

Speaking of not feeling quite right, I’m really curious to see where they go with Chris’s relationship with Jerry’s daughter. Right now it just seems to serve as something that makes Jerry uncomfortable, which is great (I love April turning his smile into a frown), but that’s going to get old pretty quickly. Chris is also someone who’s more interesting when he’s in a relationship, so if he and Anne aren’t going to be getting back together, I also wonder what’s going to come of him.

Here are some of my favorite quotes from the episode:

Tanya: “I’ve never seen you buy a salad at Sue’s Salads”

Leslie: “That’s because I don’t hate myself, Tanya. I’m sorry. I know I should be chasing your vote, but I stand behind my decision to avoid salad and other disgusting things – and I think I have a lot of support in the community for that.”

“When in doubt, in Pawnee, slam salad.” – Leslie

“Look. I don’t like to throw around the word ‘butthead’ too often. If you call everybody a butthead, then it kind of loses its impact. But I can say, without hesitation, that Tom is being a real dick.” – Leslie

“In my experience, wedding presents are nothing more than kindling on the divorce bonfire.” – Ron

Clacked by Kona Gallagher
on Oct 28, 2011 @ 10:33 EST5EDT