Parks & Rec & the Women of Pawnee — Season 2 (part 2)
Previously
I went into the first half of the season here; now for the second half, where this show comes into its own.
In a nutshell…
Leslie doesn’t want to wallow after Officer Dave, so she jumps back into dating. Ann sets her up with a technician at the hospital (played obnoxiously by then-husband Will Arnett), but Leslie’s more interested in a lawyer friend of Ann’s, Justin (Justin Theroux), who Ann has always kept as a back-up in case things don’t work out with other men in her life. Mark calls her out on it and Ann sets him up with Leslie.
Later, Leslie is intimidated by well-traveled Justin and ends up abusing her power to throw a perfect dinner party (we also learn Leslie is practically a hoarder whose work ethic applies to everything but her house). Things spiral to the point where the entire party is being thrown by rec center teachers, all treating it as an audition with budget cuts looming. Leslie is Leslie, so she turns herself in for a hearing, calls all guests as witnesses, and covers the budget deficit herself.
Meanwhile, Ron’s looking for a new assistant to avoid people and Tom “helps” (and we meet Tom’s new best friend, hilariously obnoxious Jean-Ralphio Saperstein, who makes Tom look sedate). April’s hated internship is ending, but she wants to keep seeing Andy, so she gets the job, promising Ron she will do nothing all day and keep him from dealing with anyone.
The Parks Department partners with local candy company Sweetums to run the concessions stands with their new energy bars (main ingredient: a block of sugar, according to Ann). Ann thinks Pawnee residents are unhealthy enough and Leslie joins her, causing friction between Leslie and Ron, with her worry about his unhealthy habits, and his goading her. Either way, the people vote to let Sweetums cover the stands and Ron acknowledges he’s been an ass, but leaves it at that.
On “Galentines Day” (Leslie’s day to appreciate her girlfriends), her mother shares a story about a lost love and Justin pushes Leslie to reconnect them to the point of finding him, but the man (John Larroquette) is a loser. Leslie realizes Justin is more about having a good story than any real interest in whether the people around him are happy, something Ron hammers in. Leslie breaks up with him and April breaks up with her gay boyfriends when she gets tired of them making fun of everyone (Andy especially). Mark has been getting increasingly serious about Ann, who’s started to get a bit nostalgic for Andy. Tom tells his wife he has feelings for her, but she doesn’t return them.
Ron is given a “Woman of the Year” award for work Leslie spearheaded. He accepts it, both to annoy Leslie and to mock the idea of awards. He has every intention of telling the group Leslie should have it. But they think giving it to a man will get them more attention. Leslie and Ron hatch a speech to denounce awards as meaningless power plays, but he ditches it just gives her the award in the end. Meanwhile, April helps Andy look for his own place and Tom wants to invest in The Snakehole Lounge (future favorite bar of our Pwaneeans) with Jean Ralphio, but is short a thousand. Andy gives Tom the money he’s saved because he’s the sweetest guy ever.
Leslie has the chance to advance her political career after catching an opossum that bit the mayor’s dog with Andy’s help. But she fears she caught an innocent opossum instead of the culprit (known as Fairway Frank). She hides it and loses her favored status. Andy has inadvertently hurt April’s feelings by talking about getting Ann back, but makes it up to her by being extra sweet, though he’s not sure what he did.
In “Park Safety,” office Butt monkey Jerry is mugged and injured in the park and Leslie and the others struggle to stop making fun of him (he does not make it easy). Leslie goes on Pawnee Today to drum up righteous anger for more funding for security. It works, but both her higher ups and the park ranger, Carl (Andy Samberg), are angry at her insulting them. When it turns out Jerry wasn’t mugged (he hurt himself while bending over to pick up a burrito) and Carl has footage, Leslie lightly bribes him not to share it. After a few more bumbles from Jerry, the office goes back to treating him as before.
Meanwhile, Andy still resents Mark, but doesn’t seem to be trying to win Ann back, which is just as Ann starts warming up to him again and resenting his friendship with April. Leslie takes all the past parks directors out for a picnic, with Andy and April helping. Leslie’s plans to have a nice Parks pow-wow doesn’t work out as all the directors are miserable grumpy old men who hate each other… and Ron, who hates almost everyone. In the end, Ron and Leslie promise never to hate each other. And Andy and April inadvertently take an adorable picture (see?) that ends up on the Summer catalog.
In “94 meetings,” April (who thinks March is a thirty-day month) has been scheduling every meeting Ron has for March 31st, leaving him with 93 meetings on that day. Everyone in the department rises to the challenge, especially Leslie, until one of the meetings reveals a former Miss Pawnee is renting a historic mansion for a party and pretty much gutting it. Leslie is also dealing with conflicted feelings over Mark confiding he intends to marry Ann, which is more about her own feelings over being left behind. Meanwhile, Ron chews April out and she calls that 94th meeting — with her. She quits, but Andy talks to Ron and Ron ends up going to April’s house and meeting her insanely perky, cheerful parents, one of whom is a Duke Silver fan (and April has known the secret since she met Ron). He asks her to come back. Also, it turns out Andy isn’t totally oblivious to April, but he’s been having qualms about their age difference (even though he’s younger than her in everything but years).
Leslie and the gang work on a 24-hour diabetes telethon (apparently, Pawnee is the fourth most obese town in the country). It’s disastrous and a desperate, sleep deprived Leslie plots to put Mark proposing to Ann on the air to help keep viewers. But Ann tells Leslie she wants to break up and Leslie has to stop him from proposing, which she does by mooning (Leslie’s signature move this season) before finally talking things out with Ann, who decides to end it with Mark.
Then it’s April’s 21st birthday and she hopes that means Andy might see her as an adult, but he’s still conflicted. Leslie has big plans for a budget presentation, but a team of state auditors come in to put everything on hold as the town’s in financial crisis. Health-obsessed Chris Traeger (Rob Lowe) is almost insanely positive about everything and puts Leslie at ease, while his partner Ben Wyatt (Adam Scott) drops the hammer about cuts. It seems to be how they operate. Leslie hates him, but you can imagine how Ron feels.
Ann and Mark have a post-breakup talk where he learns just how little he knows about relationships. Ann gets drunk later and tries to stake her claim on Andy again, making April shut down on him. Meanwhile, Drunk Leslie reams Ben and Drunk Ann makes out with a mystery man that night (later revealed as Chris). The next day, Leslie apologizes to Ben… sort of. They go for lunch, where she learns he was a teenaged mayor who bankrupted his town and has been making up for it by auditing city budgets ever since. Ben and Chris shut down Pawnee’s government indefinitely. Besides that, Tom meets a girl, Lucy, who seems like she might tolerate his crap.
In the finale, the government has been shut down for a week and Leslie is going crazy, especially because an anticipated kids’ concert has been cancelled. Leslie pesters Ben and Chris, but they say shoot her down. She rallies the department and some sponsors and decides to put it on herself in Lot 49. Ron, in budget meetings, hears they want to fire Leslie as nonessential. When pointing out how hard Leslie works, Ron lets slip to Ben and Chris about the concert. He runs to warn Leslie just before they come to shut it down, but Leslie points out the city won’t be spending a dime.
Unfortunately, the entertainer has taken another gig. Andy almost fills in, but he has just gotten a new motorcycle. You can guess what happens. Before this, April had been avoiding Andy and, when he asks her out, says she likes him, but thinks he has feelings for Ann. Chris asks Ann out, but she says no as she thinks she’s in a place to make bad choices, one of which is impulsively kissing an injured Andy at the hospital. They both recognize it as a mistake, Andy especially when April shows up at the hospital to tell Andy she wants to be with him. He decides to start things honestly and tell her about the kiss, to which April shuts right down and leaves.
It turns out “mean Ben” paid the entertainer to bump his other gig and, even though he still tries to bring Leslie down, she tells him to just enjoy that he did something that wasn’t a cut. Mark, upset over his break-up, decides to leave Pawnee and government work. But first, he finds Leslie on Lot 49 and gives her some future park plans, encouraging her to keep trying. Ron deputizes Leslie to take his place in budget meetings, which amuses Ben. Lastly, Tom’s happiness over his new girlfriend is dampened when he sees Ron is seeing his ex wife, Wendy.
The first half of this season did a great job of establishing Leslie’s competence, ambition, and relationship with Ann. The the latter half explores her character further by delving into Leslie and Ron. They’re almost adversarial allies, with deep respect for each other but disagreement on most things. There’s also a degree to which Leslie takes care of Ron, even when he doesn’t appreciate her concern. It’s reminiscent of the Lou Grant/Mary Richards or the Liz Lemon/Jack Donaghy relationships, but with a bit more warmth and I love it.
Remember how I talked about how little Ann and Mark fight last time? It turns out that’s because she doesn’t have strong feelings for him. As annoyed as I got with Ann trying to get Andy back (“I dated him for three years, now he’s an adult with a job. And some other girl is going to reap the rewards of my had work?”), I couldn’t hate because Drunk Ann is hilarious.
April’s relationship with Ron as a sort of mentor begins alongside her crush on Andy. With both, you can see her surly exterior soften, little by little. She smiles more with Andy and, as much as her mask was in place, she was truly upset when Ron was angry with her. I loved her little smile after Ron’s sad attempt to comfort her over Andy (a very awkward almost-shoulder-touch) in “The Master Plan.” I also loved how much poise she showed in turning Andy down at first.
There was way more Donna in the latter half, as if the showrunners finally realized what they had in Retta. We learn Donna’s got a Mercedes SUV and some money to burn with her investing in The Snakehole on her own. More than that, between her buttery voice and her confidence, she really started to break out as a fan favorite and not just for me. I love every character on this show, but Donna and Ron are the only ones with that easy confidence and the implied epic lives outside work.
Marlene only appears twice in this season. But they have softened her interactions with Leslie up. She’s still a bit withholding of approval, but she does show more genuine affection for Leslie, which is nice.
Shauna appears in “The Possum” and she shows up again in “94 meetings” to interview Leslie when she’s freaking out over the mansion renovation, starting the running gag of Shauna tolerating Leslie starting every interview with ridiculous quotables (ie: “Gazebo? More like Gazoinksbo! She may be a a former beauty queen, but today she’s the king of destroying history!”).
We get to know Wendy Haverford a bit more. It’s confirmed that their marriage is in name only and that he makes more money than he does. She seems friendly to Tom… until he tries/immediately abandons a scheme to make her date him through blackmail by way of alimony. I was surprised to see her with Ron at the end as it hadn’t yet been established that Ron Swanson mustache has magic powers (endeavoring to stop letting Ron Swanson worship into every section starting now…).
We only meet Lucy in the final two episodes, but I like her. I like that she knows what she’s getting into with Tom (“You guys know Tom really well so I don’t have to apologize for his behavior, right?”) and that Ron Swanson likes her handshake, which is probably the most sure endorsement of a character ever (It’s really hard to save my Ron love for Fangasms!).
Jessica Wicks, former Miss Pawnee, first appeared as a judge in “Beauty Pageant” and, in “94 Meetings” as the trophy wife to Nick Newport Sr. (of the Sweetums dynasty). She’s shallow, vain, and not a fan of Leslie, who she calls a “stick in the mud.” We’ll be seeing a bit more of her over the years.
We meet Joan again in “Park Safety” and she’s on Leslie side, for a change. Just so you don’t think she’s gone soft, she is ready to turn on Leslie when Carl offers to show the true footage of Jerry’s injury. When Leslie talks him out of it, I loved her “This is Pawnee [bleep] today! Do you know that I bumped a cat that can stand up on its hinders for you?!”
Passing The Bechdel Test…
It’s a 10/2 pass for the second half, making it 18/6 for the season. Good job, Parks. With this next season being the last, I think I’ll do series wide count! Won’t that be fun? Well, for me. I love counting things on an almost Leslie-Knopian level.
Other Notes
Fun fact: After years of hearing “schlemiel/schlimazel” from the Laverne & Shirley theme, I never looked up what the words meant. I vaguely knew they were Yiddish, but now I know for sure thanks to Ron Swanson: “David Myers, the Jewish guy who works at City Hall, once told me something: a schlemiel is the guy who spills soup at a fancy party. A schlimazel is the guy he spills it on. Jerry is both the schlemiel and the schlimazel of our office.”
Fare thee well, Mark Brandanowicz. He’d improved as a person, but not much as a character. Much like Ann, I was okay with having Mark around this season, but didn’t think his presence added anything to my experience. This is the way with a lot of shows in seconds seasons, figuring out where the cast chemistry works and doesn’t. For me, Mark brought the energy of almost any scene he was in down a bit no matter who his scene partner was. From what I hear, the actor didn’t want to be there anyhow, so it’s all good. I think, once he left and Rob Lowe and Adam Scott joined the cast, the cast dynamic was just right and it became the show I love so much now.
Fangasms
I really dug the first appearances of Chris Traeger and Ben Wyatt. Between Lowe’s sunny optimism and Scott’s frowning pragmatism, their good cop/bad cop act worked for me.
DJ Roomba in the house!
You didn’t think I was done loving all over Ron Swanson, did you? I loved Ron’s glee and giggles at Ben’s talk of budget cuts (“What’s a not-gay way to ask him to go camping with me?”), his gunshot ringtone making everyone duck, that there’s a giant turkey leg wrapped in bacon called The Swanson, and the utter heartbreak of him denying he’s Duke Silver to those excited older women in “Galentine’s Day.”
As for Ron calling The Dorothy Everton Smythe Female Empowerment Award the “Dorothy Everytime Smurf Girl Trophy for Excellence in Female Stuff,” It would have annoyed me if the episode hadn’t established early on that he wasn’t belittling female empowerment, but the idea of awards in the hopes to dampen Leslie’s enthusiasm for them. The glee with which he tortured her was infectious.
By the way, Dorothy Everton Smyth, whom Leslie Knope describes as a “trailblazing feminist” spent four years in jail for being the first woman in Pawnee to wear pants on a Sunday. I love learning more about historic Pawnee’s people and their backwards and barbaric ways. Maybe it’s because Leslie tells it all so cheerfully. It’s a history that will grow in the next season.
Next up: Season 3
Have something to say? Just highlight any phrase or section and a handy little plus sign will appear to let you leave a little note, so please feel free to add your thoughts. And feel free to recommend and share this recap with other proud citizens of Pawnee.
****
All images from Parks and Recreation are property of NBC Universal, Greg Daniels, Michael Schur, Howard Klein (among many other entities) and used here for criticism and analysis only.
