Parks & Rec & The Women of Pawnee — Season 5 (part one)
Previously…
I went into season four last time. Five was another season I remember being largely complained about, mostly due to the exaggeration of the flaws or quirks of our Pawnee gang. It’s fair as there is often some flanderization as a show goes on and I can barely think of any comedy that succeeded in keeping its characters grounded and realistic throughout. But I didn’t find it too egregious. More notes on that below… in notes.
In a nutshell…
Ben has taken April to D.C. with him and Leslie and Andy visit. Leslie feels insecure among the elite (cameos by Barbara Boxer, Olympia Snowe, and John McCain), upset she can’t get funding to clean-up the Pawnee River and insecure about long-distancing with Ben. Wise words from Andy, of all people, helps her buck up, take on cleaning up the river herself, and keep the Beslie (or Len?) spark alive via Skype.
While she’s away, Ron forbids vegetables and fun at the employee barbecue and attempts to slaughter a pig on site. He gives in and adds corn later after a scolding (if you can call it that) from Chris. Ann and Tom have broken up, but won’t admit it to spite Donna, who said it wouldn’t last.
Leslie and Ann try to enforce a tax on Paunchburger’s soda sizes and run afoul of both Kathryn Pinewood (Mary Faber) and Ron, who hates any law he sees as impinging on personal freedom. But Ron encourages Leslie to vote her conscience when it comes before the council if she feels so strongly, no matter how he disagrees.
Over in D.C., Ben is unsuccessfully trying to be “cool” for the other interns when some rude drawings of him turn up. When he discovers it was April’s work, they have it out and she puts some of that negative energy into ruling over the other interns for him. Meanwhile, Chris and Tom help extremely unhealthy Andy train for the P.D.’s physical exam. What a difference a year makes. Cut to this time in 2013 and Andy’s a musclebound god capable of passing a BILLION P.D. exams! Or is that just Starlord? Anyway, Chris discovers Andy is healthier than he is on the emotional side. Cue therapy and Chris’ season-long obsession with his mental health.
We meet this season’s primary antagonist, Councilman Jeremy Jamm (Jon Glaser), who wants Leslie’s private bathroom and parking spot. She ends up giving it to him when he holds a vote benefiting a kids’ swim team ransom. He’s still a jerk even when he wins (and Tom wins all the points from me for pushing him into a pool).
Chris starts a proactive 3–1–1 service with the Parks department manning the phones. When Ron gets a call about a long-suffered pothole (from Lucy Lawless!), he meets Diane, a single mother with two energetic girls who seems intrigued by Ron Swanson. It’s mutual, though he takes his time admitting it.
Pawnee’s senior citizens have become sex fiends (STDs included). Leslie and Ann try to helm a sex-ed seminar, but are thwarted by her old pal, Marcia, and her husband, Marshall Langman (Tod Sherry) and even Chris. Pawnee’s laws only support abstinence education, regardless of age, with the public behind it. Leslie tries to follow that, but ends up demonstrating condom use and distributing them to the seniors. In D.C., Ben and April finally meet the lifeless robot of a congressman they work for and Ben misses Leslie’s passion for her work. When the election is over and Ben has to decide if he wants to keep working for Jennifer and her various uninspiring candidates. Leslie sadly tells him to stay longer if it’s what he wants.
She tries to cheer herself up by pranking Tom with Ann, but they accidentally scare Jerry into an extremely flatulent heart attack (Tom tries to get fart attack to catch on). Leslie holds a garage sale fundraiser for him where a newly self-aware Ann sells many boxes of now-useless items relating to phases inspired by various boyfriends. She also tries to auction off a date with poor Ann, who’s just not interested in dating right now. Meanwhile, we learn Donna is queen of Pawnee’s Twitter feed and Ron takes Diane’s daughters trick-or-treating and his inexperience with children (one tiara breaks? Break the other. Good ‘nuff!) ends things in tears. After some tough talk from April and Andy, he apologizes and promises Diane to try harder with her girls.
Ben comes back unexpectedly and and proposes, deciding a future with Leslie in Pawnee will make him happiest. We meet Ben’s divorced parents Julia (Glenne Headly) and Steve Wyatt (Jonathon Banks AKA Mike, the cleaner!). Leslie and Ben try and fail to keep them from fighting and finally tell them they have to pretend to get along at future events or they will not be invited.
Meanwhile, Tom and Jean-Ralphio work on Tom’s new business idea, Rent-A-Swag (Tom rents his preteen-sized clothing to actual preteens), but Ron and April both urge him to drop dead weight Jean-Ralphio to be taken seriously. He finally realizes they’re right and lets him go.
April and Leslie come to battle over Lot 48. April wants a dog park and Leslie has always wanted a… people park. But Jamm wants to put a Paunchburger there (I kind of wish Paunchburger existed because everything looks terrible… and so delicious) and tries to put it through without a vote. They reconcile and agree to work against Jamm instead of each other and get him to agree to a vote in a month.
Meanwhile, Ben has taken a job he’d previously turned down at an accounting firm, deciding the boredom will be alleviated by the stability (and they adore his accounting puns there). While helping Tom secure more partners for Rent-A-Swag, Jessica Wicks asks him to run Sweetums’ new non-profit foundation. Ben turns down the accounting firm (again. Those poor, sad bastards). Also, Andy’s computer is stolen (Bert Macklin is, as always, on the case) and his doggedness convinces Chris to give him a job as City Hall’s weekend security guard. Leslie meets her long-standing crush, Joe Biden.
Leslie has decided to propose Lot 48 becomes Pawnee Commons and looks for designers. The best is Wreston St. James. Only problem? He’s from Eagleton. Ben convinces her to give him a chance. But it looks like it’s all a cruel prank as his assistants come over with an insulting mockery model, but Wreston wasn’t in on that and fired the people in question. Despite Leslie covering him with shaving cream in retaliation, he decides to design the park after Leslie apologizes (it takes ten tries).
Meanwhile, April and Andy spend the weekend playing out elaborate Bert Macklin scenarios all over city hall (where April plays everyone from Judy Hitler to his gruff supervisor) the rest of the gang is helping Tom with the Rent-A-Swag store. Tom has become so serious about the business end, he’s become paranoid and penny-pinching and the space is bare and miserable. The gang chips in as investors so he can do it up with his usual style.
Ron is up for a wood-working award Leslie invites herself along so she can get to know Diane. Tammy Two shows up and Leslie tries to keep her out of Ron and Diane’s way. It turns out Diane doesn’t feel threatened by Tammy at all, but by Leslie and Ron’s closeness. While Leslie continues to run Tammy interference all night, Ron takes Diane to a bar in Eagleton to share with her one secret Leslie doesn’t know: Duke Silver! He introduces her as his duchess, to the jealous hisses of the other women in the audience.
Meanwhile, Tom, April, Andy and Donna are on their way to The Jerry Dinner. Apparently, they spend each year contributing money whenever Jerry does something stupid and use it for a fancy meal. Ann is horrified at this and Donna starts to feel guilty, prepared to invite Jerry. But Jerry’s having an annual Christmas party, to which they’re hurt to find they were never invited to. They finally find they were invited, but have had Jerry’s emails automatically sent to spam for years. They end up giving the wad of cash to Jerry for his ongoing medical bills. Also, Chris is there and introduces Ben to Jerry’s gorgeous wife, Gayle (it’s Christie Brinkley!) and picture perfect daughters.
Chris has been mood-swinging all season, but finally evens out and to being a slightly more realistic relentless optimist just in time for Ben’s bachelor party. It starts out as beer and nerdy board games. Then the guys get to talking and realize that Ron, Tom, and Andy have all been (are still, in Andy’s case) married and never had a bachelor party. Chris decides to best-man all of them as they travel Indiana to all have their dream bachelor nights: a trendy bar with alternative alcohol consumption methods for Tom, steak and whiskey for Ron, and tossing the football around with the Colts (cameos by Jim Irsay and Andrew Luck) for Andy.
As for Leslie and the other ladies, their party isn’t much fun. Jamm and Pinewood have started construction of the Paunchburger prematurely and Leslie (as there’s a law against building on sacred Wamapoke ground) scatters pottery bits around. Then she has an attack of conscience and the ladies (and a hired Abe Lincoln stripper) spend the night digging them back up. Unfortunately, they miss some and they’re found anyway. Leslie confesses to Chief Ken Hotate (Jonathon Joss) what she tried to do. Hotate tells Jamm and the others the artifacts are not Wamapoke, but says the way Jamm went back on his word with Leslie reminds him of the atrocities the Pawnee settlers visited on his people and guilts them halting the Paunchburger until the vote.
Leslie sees the lack of women (one secretary) in the sanitation department and she and April team up to work a route and prove women are physically capable of the work involved. In the end, they do well enough that the department hires three women and April loves seeing all the garbage of Pawnee.
Elsewhere, Ron and Ann watch Diane’s dangerously precocious girls in-office, when the girls cut each others’ hair off while Ron and Ann panic. Diane finds this hilarious and Ron’s concern sweet. They express their loooove. Meanwhile, Tom gets some of the town’s preteen basketball stars to endorse Rent-A-Swag.
After Ann’s realization that she gets swept up in whatever her current boyfriend likes, she starts “dating herself,” trying to find out what she wants in life. She realizes that she wants a child ad ASAP. Leslie doesn’t agree with the rashness of her decision, but tries to support her.
Meanwhile, April has been picking up the slack on Leslie’s parks duties since the election and hates trying to “be Leslie.” Andy finally helps her realize she needs to do this her own way (rude, gruff, and unpleasant) to get things done.
Leslie ends up sabotaging Ann’s efforts inadvertently, then apologizes when she realizes Ann truly wants this even if the way she’s going about it isn’t working. Leslie puts together a game plan (and a binder).
The Women of Pawnee…
It’s interesting seeing Leslie get what she wants — or the first step as we all know she sees herself in the white house at the end. In the first half, she seems hopeful and content. She has lots of ideas to make her town better and is very passionate about each one. But she’s already heading to that wall she’s going to hit later in the season. Being a civil servant/bureaucrat may seem like a powerless position, but it’s uncomplicated and honest and you don’t have to constantly worry if people like you. More on that in the next half.
Ann is not ambitious like Leslie. She’s content in her work as is and has focused most of her energy on what will make her personal life more satisfying. I love that Ann is finally single this season. It’s something she needs and has been building throughout the series. We don’t go deeply into Ann’s history, but I suspect she’s like a lot of women we know (mine is my sister) who can’t be single and have a hard time defining themselves outside a relationship.
April’s arc last season, and the one before, seemed to be largely about her struggling between doing nothing and doing something. She vaguely knows there are things she would like to change in her world, but hates the indignity of trying. This season, she seems to have settled into taking on Leslie’s work, if not her attitude about it. I think that might be what leads her to want something more, but more on that in part two.
Donna continues to be awesome. Her position as a taste-maker, queen of Pawnee social media, irresistible man magnet, and the fact that she is way too cool to be an office manager, and most likely to end up in a quotable gif per episode is indisputable by now. My only issue with is that she has yet to be a direct part of the A-plot. She seems to be either instrumental in the B-plot or the whole of the C-plot (“Halloween Surprise,” for example). It doesn’t bother me for her sake at this point in the series, the same applies to Jerry. Jerry is there to be ridiculed whereas Donna is on the opposite end: the other characters seem to have an huge amounts of respect for her opinion. But in the second half of this season… I’ll get into it next time.
I love Diane Lewis. I never gave time to what kind of woman I’d have wanted to see Ron Swanson as I seriously thought spend his life single between boomeranging back to the terrible Tammys, but I think the casting was spot-on here. I can think of no mate worthier than Xena, Warrior Princess herself! More on her in part two.
Kathryn Pinewood is second only to Jamm this season as an antagonist. Much like with Joan Callamezzo, I don’t think it’s personal between her and Leslie. If Leslie were not on her radar, she wouldn’t bother with her. However, Kathryn works for Paunchburger and Leslie keeps interfering with Paunchburger (and Kathryn) making more money. She definitely plays a key role in the second half, which feeds into the first half of season 6.
After having met Marcia before, we’ve now met her extremely effeminate husband (perhaps a man “cured” of his “deviant” desires by some born-again program or other before being paired with a woman?). Either way, considering how strongly they both seem to object to sex and all of Marcia’s plots deal with sexuality in some form or another, I’m assuming they don’t have very much. It explains a lot about Marcia. If she’s not getting it, then by-golly, no one else should have it, talk about it, or teach about it!
We’ve seen children here and there on parks (the little girl Ron taught about libertarianism in season three was a delight), but Ivy and Zoey spent the most time on our screen so far. They are princess -obsessed and wild to the extreme. I have to say I see them more as plot devices than characters in their own right. I know that’s the role of most children in shows geared to adults. I don’t want to nitpick, but as Diane’s a middle school principal, you’d think they’d be more well-behaved. Either way, their princess makeovers don’t discriminate and it’s adorable.
Cameos: Gayle Gergich shows up just once in the first half, but we’ll see her in the next and perhaps unravel the mystery of how Jerry ended up with this genetic lottery winner. (and doesn’t Brinkley look amazing— and not in an obvious plastic surgery way? This is a woman over 60!). Shauna Malwae Tweep shows up in just three episodes this season, but I enjoyed Chris’ crush on her and confused status about their brief relationship. It’s a shame Julia Wyatt has only shown up once as I love Glenne Headly and am always thrilled to see her on any screen. I feel the same about Marlene and Pamela Reed.
Passing The Bechdel Test…
The full season gets a pass. I’ll give full numbers and notes in part two.
Other Notes…
Flanderization (named after Ned Flanders and his journey from friendly, church-going neighbor and foil for Homer to overly perfect or scarily pious at turns) is pretty much always present in a comedy. But I don’t think it’s too egregious in this show. My test is: compare the character’s first appearance with the most flanderized moment.
For example, some fans of Andy’s character don’t enjoy his Too Dumb To Live moments, but it falls in line with his first appearances and the season two retool, where his character became more man-child-like, making his worst moments more tolerable. In rewatching the series in big bites lately, the journey is valid and I don’t find the change too jarring. If anything, I find every single one of them more likeable and sympathetic as the series goes on. But that’s just me and you are free to disagree.
I feel like I’m always defending this show against straw man arguments, so I’ll shake things up. One criticism of the “Oh, Hollywood!” variety: For a show about a town that jokes constantly about the high obesity of its citizens, I notice that about 80% of the extras and bit actors are quite slim. Having worked as an extra for the odd year (before I realized it was actually horribly boring and pays so terribly for non-union workers that it’s just not worth doing at all), I remember calling in and hearing the body types wanted for each show (hint: usually not mine). It makes me rather sad that Parks and Rec might have been one of those shows turning me down.
Fangasms…
I love the cold open where Ben and April open their care packages: Ben’s filled with thoughtful things from Leslie and April’s with a three-legged stuffed animal (is that from Champion? Aw!) and his dirty laundry with a note that she’s better at doing it and that he’s been wearing bandanas instead. The best part is April crying and saying “I love him so much!” It’s horrifying and adorable at once, much like their entire relationship.
Jonathon Banks’ appearance as Steve Wyatt has given me a super fun fanon for whenever I see him in ANYTHING. It’s just Mike Ehrmantraut under cover for… some reason. In Parks, I suspect he’s been leading a double life as Ben’s father for years to keep an eye on Gus Fring’s dealers in Partidge, Minnesota.
Next up: Season Five (part two)
Thanks to: All the people who make amazing gifs, also Margaret Bates and Legendary Women for cleaning up my prose. You should see these things before edits! Every sentence starts with a conjunction!
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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.
