When You’re Here, You’re Home: 11 Episodes That Will Make Me Miss Parks And Recreation
Parks and Rec felt revolutionary for me when I first started watching. I was 19 and hopeless and couldn’t believe a show full of cool people could be this confidently warm and optimistic. Sentimentality isn’t foreign to American sitcoms — even cringe comedies like The Office and Arrested Development have their fair share of softness — but Parks and Rec is rare in that it feels completely unashamed of its joy, and even its corniness. Sweet moments between characters were allowed to linger, without having to be hardened by a layer cautious cynicism. Nearly every episode is worth watching, but to cushion the emotional blow of Tuesday night’s finale, I took a look at my favorite 11 episodes of Parks and Rec — the ones that most remind me how caring about something can still be funny. Tom Haverford knows what I’m talking about:
“A piece of art caused me to have an emotional reaction. Is that normal?”
11. Hunting Trip
Much has been said about how easily the show shifted gears in its second season, and it’s true that even the early episodes of Season 2 present a funnier, more assured show. But “Hunting Trip” sticks out in my mind as the official start of season’s best arcs. Here, Leslie officially subverts her perception as a screw up. Ron assumes she accidentally shot him in her desperation to be one of the guys, but Ann reveals that Leslie’s really taking the bullet for Tom, who shot his gun off without a license. Leslie isn’t the one who screws things up here — she’s the fixer instead. And back in the Parks office, April finds that goofy Andy is a really fun person to waste her time with, and has a moment of un-ironic, un-detached joy for one of the first times in the show.
Favorite moment: Leslie pulls out a million fake explanations for accidentally shooting Ron, including “I just wanna have babies!” and “I’m good at tolerating pain, I’m bad at math, and I’m stupid.”
10. The Comeback Kid
This is a show where watching people try to do nice things can be hilarious. Parks and Rec is often touted as the most positive show on television, and this episode (along with the final scene in the preceding “Citizen Knope”) perfectly highlights why that is. After her campaign advisors abandon her, Leslie’s friends volunteer to help her run for city council. It’s as hilarious as it is heartwarming, since they have no idea how to run a political campaign and end up messing up every part of a process that ultimately results in the whole team penguin waddling across an ice rink to hoist Leslie up on a half-built stage while a poster of just her eyes stares down in judgement at them all. It’s too bad the only person in Leslie’s corner that’s ever run a campaign before is busy curing his depression by making calzones and 3-second stop animation videos.
Favorite moment: Ron carrying a peeing Champion across the ice.
9. Leslie and Ron
The friendship between Leslie and Ron has so long been the bedrock of the show that it was easy to look past how diametrically opposed the two actually are. When they worked alongside each other those differences seemed almost ideal: Ron remained mostly detached from Leslie’s ambitious planning, often acting as a wise adviser. But by 2017, Leslie’s ambitions made her a competitor to Ron rather than a compliment. The episode finds an elegant way to do two clunky things at once: provide exposition for the time jump and reunite a team that had been off-screen enemies for years at this point. Leslie and Ron are forced together in the old Parks office neither of them works in anymore, and memories start bubbling up immediately. As sad as it is to see Parks and Rec start to wrap up, this is an episode that wouldn’t have worked as well in a non-final season. Every moment is built with seven season’s worth of either payoff or pathos. Leslie’s anger over Ann’s house getting torn down by Ron’s company feels so justified because of all the time we spent there. Ron’s landmine going off — or not — is hilarious exactly because we’ve been hearing about it for years. And Ron’s eventual explanation of how depressing it was to find himself working in Parks when everyone else left is extra heartbreaking when we consider they’re all about to move on in life, and off of television, in just a few episodes. It’s an elegant episode that preps for the audience for a possibly bittersweet resolution of the series. Thank God we have Leslie’s rendition of “We Didn’t Start the Fire” to see us through it.
Favorite moment: Amy Poehler has never been funnier
Freddy Krueger bought some pans
Oprah has a turtle farm
Peter Piper, pee-pee, poopy
Daddy ate a squirrel.
8. Ron & Tammy: Part Two
Even the structure of “Ron & Tammy: Part Two” is calibrated for maximum hilarity. The first act keeps Ron reasoned and self assured even in the face of his ex-wife, which makes his lightning quick fall into madness feel extreme. From that point on, every scene heightens the episode more and more, building Ron and Tammy into an unstable Jenga tower that’s begging for a beautiful fall. So if you didn’t think a cornrowed, kimono-wearing Ron is ridiculous enough in its own right, the next scene sees him explaining his diminished mustache thusly: “It rubbed off. From friction.” And before you’ve had time to recover from that, Ron’s kicking his feet back like a bull preparing for Tammy, who moments later will shove poor Tom (or Glenn, if you’d rather) through a bookcase at her wedding shower. It’s hard to remember, in the middle of all of that, we also get our first glimpse of Ben’s devotion to calzones and his deathly fear of cops — even as they all step in to break up Ron and Tammy “Real Piece of Work” Swanson.
Favorite moment: Every other moment in this episode could qualify, but I particularly love Tom’s hurt look back at Tammy as Ron carries him off.
7. Leslie and Ben
You might be noticing this list is dominated by episode titles that adhere to this couple naming convention, and that’s because no show does couples quite like Parks and Rec. In some ways, Leslie and Ben might be the most conventional couple in the show. They had to keep their love a secret and then broke up for a while, as is the sitcom tradition. But the second they got back together, any obstacles that would cripple other sitcom couples just became a new adventure to tackle together. Parks and Rec’s view of marriage is somehow both hopelessly romantic and realistic. Marriage isn’t a destination, and it’s not a finale (literally and figuratively in this case, as this episode comes mid-season). It’s an exciting partnership, and this episode is a celebration of that partnership. Leslie and Ben work together to save Pawnee Commons, and from that victory they decide they can’t let their marriage wait another day. And if that sentiment alone doesn’t make your heart flutter by itself, there’s no way the actual wedding — in the office with Tom/Jerry officiating and Ron standing in for Leslie’s late father — will leave you cold.
Favorite moment: Among all the sweetness of the episode, I’m partial to Chris snarking on Ann’s taste in jewelry. “It’s a toe ring with a brown gemstone? Is this a ruby that’s gone bad?”
6. Galentine’s Day
There are a lot of great moments in this season 2 gem. John Larroquette throwing up in Leslie’s purse and showing off his body for Marlene both come to mind, as does Mouserat’s confusion over how well they’re playing and Ron’s wise and succinct diagnosis of Leslie’s relationship woes: “Basically, Leslie, he’s selfish. And you’re not, and that’s why you don’t like him.” But the best moments in “Galentine’s Day” are also the smallest. After Tom threatens Wendy with a lawsuit just to win a chance with her, she walks away in anger. That plot then gets resolved wordlessly — we just see Tom go over to her, assume he apologizes, and then they hug, all while Mouserat drowns out any noise in their conversation. It’s a small but sensitive touch, giving Tom privacy to apologize while also reassuring us he did the right thing. A similarly sensitive moment in the episode might just be my favorite in the entire series: April, bored by her the irony emanating from her friends, walks away from them to tell an older couple that she finds their love adorable. April’s shift from detached teen to a young woman who chooses to express her love for people is one of the best arcs in the show’s history, and this small 20-second exchange is a beautiful showcase as to why. It’s so much more beautiful to watch someone try to be happy than try to be cool.
Favorite moment: It’s easy to tell why April’s falling for Andy, when he says things like, “When you play a rock show, it’s really easy to know if you’re doing great because chicks will flash their boobs at you when you’re up on stage. And you’re like, “That musta sounded pretty good.” But I can’t, if that happens here my eyes will fall out of my head and I’ll die.”
5. The Fight
I‘ll gladly fund a Kickstarter for a series entirely about Drunk Pawnee. When a show has one of the largest and most talented ensembles on television, it’s almost impossible to avoid shortchanging certain characters in every episode. Yet “The Fight” juggles them all with joy, shining a hilarious light on everyone we know and love, even Jerry. That the episode circles around an emotionally resonant plot — Leslie and Ann’s first ever fight — adds a lot of depth and might have made it a landmark episode in its own right, but let’s be real: it’s that lightning quick edit of every character’s drunken mugging that makes “The Fight” iconic.
Favorite moments: The above scene, and Leslie’s drunken “Excuse me?!” to an innocent passerby.
4. Win, Lose, or Draw
On a lot of other shows, Leslie’s last-minute win would have earned an eye-roll. It’s not a shock to watch a protagonist win, and it’s almost hacky to push that win to a nail-biting final act. But that cynicism never kicks in here, because Leslie’s win — and the team’s win — has been so fully earned across seasons of good work. We don’t care that we see the ending coming, because it’s an ending we desperately want to see. Just try to stay detached as you watch Leslie pick her name on the ballot and take a deep, emotional breath. Leslie’s earned this, and so has the show.
Favorite moment: “That was really sneaky Ann.”
3. Flu Season
“Flu Season” aired over a year before “Win, Lose, or Draw” but I feel comfortable saying that Leslie earned her City Council seat here. Starting in early season 2, the show gradually shifted Leslie from a lovable naïve goof to a lovable naïve goof who is terrifyingly good at her job. The climax of “Flu Season” is the coronation of Leslie as Queen Competent. Deliriously sick and high on enough medicine to sedate the whole town, Leslie pulls herself together and delivers a winning speech to kick off plans for the Harvest Festival. It’s a stunner of an episode, hilarious and inspiring all at once. Plus, Amy Poehler and Rob Lowe essentially tie for the funniest sick person in all of a television.
Favorite moment: This episode is home to the two funniest lines in the entire series. Do you have to ask what they are?
“Stop. Poopin.”
2. End of the World
There’s something special about this episode that’s difficult to explain. The plot ostensibly focuses on a funny, fake tragedy — the apocalypse as prophesied by an office supply salesman — but it’s grounded by real, personal stakes. Tom’s dream business is officially dead. April and Andy are bored with their routine. Leslie’s soulmate might be moving on. By the episode’s end, April and Andy’s ennui is the only thing to actually get resolved. And yet the ending montage feels so personally satisfying, like the first soothing deep breath you take after you’ve been crying your eyes out. Or that moment of finally crawling into bed after an exhausting night out. It’s an acknowledgment that things aren’t perfect but life is always moving along anyway. As a whole it’s more melancholy than the standard episode, but that touch of sadness is a beautiful compliment to the show’s hopeful philosophy. The wisdom of the ending almost marks this as the finest episode for me, but there’s one that’s just slightly better.
Favorite moments: April’s look at Andy as they start driving off. Tom’s “You saw that. You saw that too.” for the camera.
1. Andy and April’s Fancy Party
Parks and Rec would go on to have episodes full of just as much joy as “Fancy Party” — “Leslie and Ben”, “Win, Lose, or Draw”, and “Harvest Festival” all come to mind — but this one is essentially the show’s mission statement. It’s a proud declaration of what Parks and Rec is and isn’t. This isn’t the show that’ll stretch a will-they won’t-they couple past the point of welcome, and then give them a labored season-long engagement. It isn’t the show that’ll mock two impulsive people in love. And it isn’t the show where Leslie makes a fool of herself to ruin a wedding, even one she thinks would be a disaster. Parks and Rec is, instead, a show that celebrates its characters’ happiness without reservation or cynicism. It’s full of warmth, and love, and the belief that good people doing good things is something worth watching. And it was a lot of fun, too.
Favorite moments: Chris’s dancing, and Harris releasing a dead pigeon for the happy couple.
