100 Favorite Shows: #6 — Parks and Recreation
“Her true purpose on Earth — her true meaning — is helping other people with their dumb problems.”
[Disclaimer: The situation with Aziz Ansari is very complicated. You can read more about the allegations against him in Vanity Fair. The New York Times also reported well on his response to those allegations.]
In 2009, after much prodding from NBC, Greg Daniels split his time at The Office to develop a spin-off with one of the show’s writers, Michael Schur. Originally conceived around Rashida Jones’ Karen Filippelli, the plan was quickly abandoned in favor of a mockumentary centered instead around the talents of Amy Poehler as Leslie Knope. After a few growing pains, Parks and Recreation blossomed into one of the most beloved NBC comedies of all-time. Set in the fictional Pawnee, Indiana, the show focused on a few low-level parks department employees and their massive struggles to make tiny improvements to the lives of others. Its highly treasured seven seasons eventually led to a reunion special during the COVID-19 pandemic, showing that love for Parks was evergreen.
(Parks and Recreation is spoiled over and over again in this essay.)
I’m sitting outside, underneath the basketball hoop, with my friend. It’s seventh grade and he’s visiting for a sleepover on the weekend. I tell him that, when we eventually go back inside, I have to show him an episode of Parks and Recreation entitled “The Fight.” It had just aired a few days prior and I was obsessed with it, having already rewatched it three times. Together, he and I rewatch it three times more.
Parks and Rec had never been appointment viewing for me until “The Fight” and then it became a must-see every Thursday night, all the way up until the bittersweet finale. “The Fight” sees the Parks Department gathered at the Snakehole Lounge for the release of Tom Haverford’s (Aziz Ansari) new drink, Snake Juice (also known as “Snork Juice,” also known as “rat poison,” also known as “a drink with seventy percent alcohol that could kill Chris Traeger (Rob Lowe)”). It was one of the funniest episodes of television I’d ever seen.
My friend and I spent months quoting the episode and reenacting various scenes and then returning to the On Demand channel to watch it again (this was back before the Netflix boom). We made our own “donezo” lists, transcribed the meeting on Snake Juice’s guerrilla marketing, thought up family trees for Burt Macklin and Kip Hapman. Ron dancing drunkenly (which comes after April Ludgate’s (Aubrey Plaza) gibberish rant) played on repeat in my house for weeks. The lonely Jean-Ralphio (Ben Schwartz) calling out to the stoic Ron Swanson (Nick Offerman), “Swan Song! How you living?” and Ron replying, “Yes” is something we still say to each other today. It’s all because the episode is Parks and Rec distilled. When Ann (Jones) leaves early in a cab after fighting with Leslie, prompting Donna (Retta) to throw Tom in her trunk and tie Jerry (Jim O’Heir) to the roof, it became clear that the gang was looking out for each other. Parks had officially arrived, identity and all. And it was ready to be funny for a long time.
“The Fight” was the episode I thought of when the show ended in February of 2015 with the finale, “One Last Ride.” At first, it seems like a fairly straightforward finale with the classic trope of going back to the ol’ stomping grounds for (aptly) one last ride! Quickly, though, Leslie hugs Donna and the structure of the shot shifts to reveal a title card that reads, “Donna.” The show then jumps into the future to show the ultimate trajectory of Donna’s character. It’s obvious what’s going to happen for the rest of the finale, as Leslie travels from friend to friend. Her touch reveals the future and the characters are given the reverence to go one by one. It provided the inspiration for me to do something similar in this essay.
After all, Parks and Recreation had plenty of larger goals, themes, and ambitions, but it was still a workplace comedy at its heart. So while I get into what Parks and Rec ultimately meant to me and to television, I thought it would be worthwhile to concurrently go through the characters. One by one, of course.
Donna Meagle
Rewatching the entirety of Parks recently, I’d forgotten how relegated to the background Donna and Jerry were. It wasn’t like a Creed on The Office kind of background thing, though, where he’d get some lines and pretty quickly have an episode written around him. It was the straight up equivalent to the work that extras get. Even when Donna does begin to rise, she’s hardly the character we come to know. But when she does fully become the Regal Meagle? It’s glorious.
Donna connects a lot with Tom because of their interest in material goods (and their interest in not apologizing for enjoying material goods), as well as looking fly as hell. But Donna also has a big heart and she always keeps it real in the Parks Department. Donna makes for an excellent friend to her menagerie of coworkers because she teaches them to communicate better and to more deftly confront their problems. It’s exactly how she reacts when April chooses a frilly dog for Donna’s spirit animal. She’s hurt that April looks at her and only thinks about makeup, but she also communicates that hurt openly. For as much as Donna kept her lifestyle under wraps, she always put her emotions into the open.
Jerry Gergich
Something changes with Jerry about three-quarters of the way through Parks. For a good majority of the show, he is derided by people he believes are his friends in cruel manners. It’s like Toby on The Office, except Toby would often be made fun of in response to something he said. Jerry, however, could say nothing and be brutally mocked and bullied by everyone else. It was funny, sure, but it almost got to the point that you would want to stand up and defend Jerry in the faces of people who were supposed to be nice (like Ben (Adam Scott) does in “Galentine’s Day”).
Fortunately, Parks pivoted ever so slightly with Jerry. Rather than being an unprovoked punching bag, Jerry became the color black, in that he absorbed everyone else’s heat. There was so much work to be done and so many stresses that the characters needed to channel it somewhere — Jerry became that outlet. Beginning with “The Comeback Kid,” which shows Jerry enjoying the menial work (and Donna enjoying Jerry), Jerry loses the ability to get offended. Instead, he takes the insults as signs of love and embraces them while acknowledging his own follies. Couple that with a perfect home life and Jerry became a much more wholesome (rather than pitiable) figure. But even the fact that I didn’t type “Garry,” his real name, once shows that the rest of the department might have rubbed off on me, too.
April Ludgate and Andy Dwyer
In the finale, April and Andy (Chris Pratt) receive a glimpse into their future together and they were so inextricably linked throughout Parks that I felt compelled to pair them up once again. They were always delightful together, what with their refusal to grow up and their unbreakable loyalty to Leslie and Ben. From my purview, though, April and Andy’s characters were the funniest. Their comedy density was insanely high and they often had some of the show’s best jokes. Like when they go out to celebrate Andy’s completed college credits with Ron and Andy’s professor (Danielle Bisutti) and April turns to her to say, “That’s what you’re wearing?” Or when Andy substitutes the word “Jetsons” for the word “jettisoned.” Or Pratt’s impossibly perfect improv line, “Leslie, I typed your symptoms into the computer and it said you could have network connectivity problems.” (I choose to believe that Andy being situated behind April’s desk in the same episode that Leslie is sick was a fate brought to us by the comedy gods.)
For as endlessly funny as April and Andy were, the Parks team still made sure to give their story plenty of heart.
If you had to describe April to someone, you’d probably say she was emo and gloomy and hated everyone and everything in the world. It didn’t take long for my Parks rewatch to reveal that April has a massive heart and I regretted that I’d forgotten about that in the intervening five years since the finale. In “The Debate,” she lists a few things she cares about and includes the sentiment, “I want Leslie to win.” That alone tells us everything about April. On paper, her worldview is the exact opposite of Leslie’s. In her heart, though, she has strong Knope streaks. She doesn’t just want Leslie to win the election because they’re friends — she believes that Leslie is an agent of good in the world. The nomination letter she pens to the International Coalition of Women in Government in advocacy of Leslie’s achievements proves that. The smile on her face when she runs from Leslie’s subsequent hug proves it, too. April doesn’t hate any of her friends. She grows to love them and to hug them and to cherish them. It’s what makes her one of the show’s best characters. (They’re all so good, though. Ranking them is impossible.)
As for Andy, he fills a truly endearing role on the show. A football-loving, guitar-playing journeyman who started out living in a pit, Andy is a barreling goofball and an endless ball of energy. (Watching the coronavirus special of Parks showed how much Pratt has of Andy in him still. In a special podcast Marc Evan Jackson (Trevor) hosted about the episode, Michael Schur said that no matter how many blockbusters Pratt does, he’s always going to be streaked with Dwyer.) In a way, he ends up being one of the only Pawnee idiots to actually get out of Indiana. The town is filled with morons and Andy often serves as a prominent stand-in for them in the Parks Department (technically, it was the shoeshine stand and Leslie’s campaign team, but Andy was basically a Parks worker, let’s be real). He believes in every conspiracy from the local journalists and wraps his mouth around the bubblers’ spigots. But his idiocy comes from a place of earnest sweetness, rather than malice, contempt, and frustration.
In “Moving Up,” Andy blindly agrees to go with Leslie to Chicago before April pumps the brakes on his impulses. It’s a quick, offhanded joke, but it shows how sweet his relationship with Leslie is. He never fully understands what she’s trying to do and she never completely gets his lifestyle, but the two always support each other. (Andy’s determination to get “Catch Your Dream” right for Leslie’s campaign song shows just how much he really cares. Of course, it ends up including the lyrics, “It’s not enough to simply catch that dream. You gotta grab that dream and catch your dream’s dream.”) They trust and love one another and it shows in their dynamic, which never grows cynical. Leslie and Andy accept each other for who they are. And Andy would follow her anywhere.
No matter how these two show their love to their friends, though, Andy and April love each other the most. Whether they’re engaged in roleplaying and bizarre character work or staying true to themselves by impulsively deciding to get married, they might be the healthiest couple in the show. Andy’s undying, ignorance-is-bliss mantra and April’s goth-against-the-world airs might not seem like the best match, but ultimately Andy is just a big, dumb dog in human form. If there’s one thing April loves more than Andy, it’s dogs. Their marriage is filled with sex and escapades and thrills, but it’s also filled with loyalty. There’s no relationship more loyal than the one you have with your dog.
Tom Haverford
When we first meet Tom, he seems like a shallow douche who thinks he’s too good for his job in Parks. Over time, Schur and the creative team developed Tom to fit in better with the rest of the Pawnee do-gooders. He was a dreamer and a plotter and a guy who could come up with a new idea just by looking at two objects and putting them together. (Though, all of Tom’s ideas and names paled in comparison to the dating app he registered with, called “Hoosiermate.”)
Oftentimes, Tom’s passions could get in the way of the genuine need in his heart to help other people. Fortunately, his heart (which boasted the tendency to soar beyond the small towns of Indiana) was grounded by those who felt right at home in Pawnee and they helped bring out a genuinely helpful side of Tom. He could veer into wacky, Tracy Jordan-esque sidekickery, but Tom was vastly more humanistic — buoyed with regard for others.
Ansari played Tom perfectly, too. He always knew when to ratchet his voice up to a new pitch to wring the largest sum of laughter from a joke. Whether that was in “Bowling for Votes” when he was hit with a bowling ball and exclaimed, “Ow! My fingies!” or blithely remarking, “Thanks!” when Chris gave him an Uncle Jesse-esque “proud of you, son” speech. Tom was always bigger than his town, but his arc came in recognizing that he felt right at home in it.
Chris Traeger
Chris Traeger! Did any show ever have a bigger mid-series upgrade than when Ben and Chris came into Pawnee from Indianapolis to replace Mark Brendanawicz (Paul Schneider)? We don’t need to besmirch Mark in this piece, but I will say that Adam Scott and Rob Lowe took a show that was on the rise and catapulted it into the all-time television stratosphere. They rounded out a pretty good cast and made it one of the only challengers to the prolific ensembles of Veep and Arrested Development. They brought in two new levels of humor (nerd and optimism incarnate), they brought in genuinely compelling romances. The pair of them genuinely unlocked the Parks and Rec brilliance (them, along with the increased focus on some of the most talented writers, like Harris Wittels, Alan Yang, and Jen Statsky). The core cast possessed different attitudes towards optimism and then Chris and Ben came to town. Ben learned how to grow more hopeful and Chris was already the most hopeful, positive guy the television landscape had ever seen, at least since Rob Petrie.
With every flash of Chris’ shimmering, perfect smile, he causes a smile in me, too. The stilted (but relentlessly upbeat) delivery from Lowe on every one of his lines was positively delightful and inspired a strong desire within me to be a better person and to try to see the good in the world more than I ever had before. Take “Bowling for Votes” for example, when Chris is one of the top contributors to Leslie’s campaign’s phone banking session. He’s hellbent on raising as much money for the Knope efforts as possible, but he also takes a pause to help someone he calls with the emotional calamity they’re facing.
In a way, it was tough to see Chris get sent through the ringer of rejection, aging, and depression, especially when he started on the show in such a profound way. (“I was born with a blood disorder and my parents were told I had three weeks to live,” he tells Ann on their first date. “And here I still am. Some two thousand odd weeks later and I have enjoyed every one of them.”) It was ultimately for the best, though. Chris needed to be pushed to the brink to show just how resilient he was. And since he begins on the show shakily (you know, when he pushes to investigate Leslie and Ben’s relationship, resulting in Ben resigning his post as assistant city manager), he needed that redemption arc.
The show definitely went to great lengths to ensure that fans would not turn on Chris with ire and see him as a villain. He explains his investigative intents repeatedly and is shown to be uncertain about joining the Parks Department’s Christmas party. Once Leslie forgives him, it becomes easier for us to forgive him. Then, we can see him as literally one of the best characters to ever stem from the Schurniverse.
Ann Perkins
For a long time, I wasn’t sure what to write about Ann Perkins. A great portion of the show doesn’t really know what to do with her besides being Leslie’s best friend (and we never really quite see what sparks such a devoted and loving friendship). They did no favors by pairing her up romantically with Mark, but it was when these two finally broke up that I understood what made Ann so great: she was like the female version of Jon Hamm’s Drew Baird character on 30 Rock.
A beautiful and naive tropical fish/stonemason princess/whatever nickname Leslie came up with, Ann had a bit of a disconnect with regular society. We see it when she has no idea that Chris broke up with her and we see it when she has immense troubles socializing in the dating pool. Ann Perkins comes across like she has no idea how to carry on a normal conversation and is constantly doing the most awkward thing possible.
By zeroing in on these elements of Ann’s persona, her relationship with Chris (they make for excellent parents, just as they were excellent spin team members) was able to thrive. Instead of being driven to date for the sake of dating, she dates for the sake of being happy. It’s a decision that comes directly from her Ann-centric goals of doing right by herself before she feels ready to do right by others. Then, her relationship soars and her friendship with Leslie suddenly makes perfect sense. Eventually, when Ann and Chris sadly decide to move to Michigan to be with family, the tears start flowing and “Wildflowers” by Tom Petty starts playing. Wildflowers were always a major symbol of Pawnee (the mural in City Hall, for example) and by playing that song, the scene shows that Ann and Chris will always belong among the wildflowers. As for Ann and Leslie’s friendship, it belongs among the all-time great television companionships.
Ben Wyatt
I know I said it’s impossible to rank the characters of Parks and Recreation, but I only know this because I’ve tried to do it before. On the anniversary of Parks’ premiere, The Ringer posted a character graphic on Instagram that asked friends to order them from favorite to least favorite. In my feeble attempt to do so, I was one of the only ones to put Ben Wyatt up so high (he came in as my number two). Even though, I’d need to spend hours actually deliberating on who could rank above whom, I know for certain that Ben belongs near the top. Whenever I think about Ben Wyatt, I become inordinately happy.
In “The Fight,” Ben showed that he was fitting right in when he and Leslie raced through City Hall just for the sake of fun. Before, Ben was actively trying to make a home for himself in Pawnee and it seemed very effortful. By “The Fight,” he was rolling with it and acting true to himself. He was still nervous around cops and crippled by his former “Ice Town” debacle when he was mayor of Partridge, Minnesota, but his nerdy sensibility blended with his sarcastic wit to carve out one of Pawnee’s most splendid niches.
Ice Town was just one of the many symbols associated with Ben Wyatt. (“Ice Town costs ice clown his town crown.”) He was also well-associated with calzones (The Low-Cal Calzone Zone has to make anyone think of Adam Scott’s podcasts with Scott Aukerman, U Talkin’ U2 to Me? and R U Talkin’ R.E.M. Re: Me?, in their jungle gym-esque titles), a Letters to Cleo t-shirt, and his claymation project, “Requiem for a Tuesday.” His board game invention, The Cones of Dunshire, becomes a key element of Parks and Rec’s endgame (it brings Gryzzl into the fold) and it was set up early enough that the moment is earned entirely naturally (just like Swanson’s jazzy Duke Silver alter ego, who shows up in the show’s tenth episode). Ben Wyatt is the kind of guy who you know how to shop for when Christmastime comes again. He has very specific tastes.
Despite all of this, it’s his relationship with Leslie that really allows him to shine. First of all, anyone would be lucky to date Leslie Knope, but Ben proves himself worthy of the honor and the two of them are one of the most heartwarming couples in the history of the medium. (Whenever I think of the two of them, I just feel like ❤.) Ben instigates a lot of grand gestures of love and romance for Leslie, but my favorite was a small moment in “The Debate,” right before Leslie uncorks her most impressive speech. As her campaign manager, Ben was always striving to manage the risk she carried with her as a candidate for city council. When Leslie approaches him at the debate’s climax, she assures him that she’s equipped to go off-book. Obviously, Leslie Knope is equipped to do anything — and Ben knows it. He doesn’t even question it. He just supports her.
Whether he’s supporting her or asking for her advice, there is no doubt that the development of Ben and Leslie’s romance is one of the show’s healthiest progressions. Their connection is profound, even when much of it stems from the ever-present mundanity in Pawnee. “I love you and I like you” becomes their mantra of love. So I just want to say to Ben Wyatt: I love you and I like you.
Ron Swanson
Swanson is one of the top examples ever of a breakout character from a television show. He is embedded so deeply in the culture and was far and away the most popular person on Parks. I mean, Ron Swanson single-handedly made Nick Offerman an all-time comedy legend and he still exists in memes, gifs, posters (the Pyramid of Greatness), and bibles of television humor. I love him sincerely and even though he’s not my favorite, it’s hard to deny that Ron is probably Parks’ most significant contribution to the progression of TV comedy.
If April is a character who masquerades as emo, but is actually far from it, then Ron is a character who masquerades as libertarian, but actually is a libertarian. These days, many people are quick to claim “libertarian” on political belief polls without realizing that they are more closely aligned with a great many government policies. Ron Swanson was one of the world’s only true libertarians because he supported abolishing the government outright. Considering how extremely capable he was of every task (key whittling, bacon hiding, cable box repairs. All of these are trustworthy in the hands of Ron, but would be terrifying in the hands of someone who thinks they’re like Ron. Dwight Schrute, anyone?), he might have just been able to do it himself if he didn’t have a begrudging respect for the Parks Department.
While Ron is a true yellow libertarian, there is one element of his personality that he is putting on a front about: the love he has for his friends. If you were to ask Ron, he would say that he has no friends and no care for anyone in the world. (He frequently calls Ann “Girl” or “The Nurse.”) But when he’s faced with a choice of true friendship, he always comes through with the real Ron Swanson, who pretends to be an aloof loner, but actually cares just as much everyone else (well, maybe not as much as Leslie).
He calls Ann “The Nurse,” but when her house comes down for a construction project, he saves a piece of her door. He dreads Leslie’s surprise birthday party (which is actually a private viewing of The Bridge on the River Kwai with a steak), but calls her a “wonderful person” and doesn’t hesitate to walk her down the aisle. He questions Tom’s manhood, but travels from patron to patron to support Snake Juice. His stoicism is all a front. Ron Swanson loves the life he has in Pawnee. Through every giggle, every drunken smile, and every trip to his favorite restaurant in Pawnee (the bowling alley that exclusively sells hot dogs for $1.00 and hamburgers for $1.35), it’s clear. Ron Swanson is happy and it’s because of his friends.
Specifically, it’s because of one friend, Leslie Knope. In many shows, the premier romance is the heart. Jim and Pam were the heart of The Office, Marshall and Lily were the heart of How I Met Your Mother. But on Parks and Rec, the heart was not Ben and Leslie. It was Leslie and Ron.
Over the course of Parks, they have an astounding dynamic. Their belief systems are inherently opposite and yet they consistently make each other better workers, better friends, and better human beings. In “April and Andy’s Fancy Party,” Leslie gets it in her head that she has to stop Andy and April from getting married. Ron knows her heart’s in the right place, but he doesn’t stop her from caring; he just tries to stop her from interfering.
Ultimately, it doesn’t work. Leslie’s far too headstrong to ever be curbed. And that’s why when their stubborn personas get the better of them in season seven, causing their friendship to be torn asunder, they need to literally be locked in the origin spot of their friendship (the Parks Department, after three episodes away from it) to work out their differences over the “Morningstar” incident. Their passions were too strong and their senses of betrayal were too indefatigable to be quelled without genuine, face-to-face, all-night heart talks.
To save the friendship, they have to rip out the weed that infected it. They go to the root of the weed, but they also go to the root of their friendship. In the bottle episode, “Leslie and Ron,” the “Morningstar” incident is finally revealed to be the project from Ron’s independent construction company that installed an apartment complex by the Pawnee Commons. For Ron, it was natural capitalism. For Leslie, it was “spitting on everything [they] did together at Parks.” As aforementioned, Ron did make sure to save a piece of Ann’s door for Leslie, but he could hardly bring himself to gift it to her because he feels guilty that she’s hurt by his actions. (He just doesn’t admit it.)
Instead, their defenses begin to get broken down when Leslie’s old gift to Ron (a land mine that actually contained confetti) is used for (failed) detonation. Ron stands back from the mine, but he pushes Leslie behind him for safety. It’s not late enough in the night for them to admit it, but they still care deeply for one another. The land mine is a dead end, but Leslie eventually concocts a timeline of their friendship dissolution to fight to keep Ron in her life. (As she says, she’s “the only reason [they] have a friendship” in the first place. But we know Ron cared just as much for her. Yes, even the great Leslie Knope could be in the wrong.)
The next strategy is to return to the first ever meeting between Leslie and Ron. The notes from Ron’s interview with Leslie are found and, at first, it seems like Ron only wanted her hired so she would do all the work. In actuality, “Hire her” is a statement that comes from his belief that Leslie is one of the only people getting into government work for the right reasons. She may be a nuisance and she may be stubborn. She may be “an absurd idealist.” But Ron wants to hire her anyway. At the end of the day, Ron may be introverted and judgmental and attuned to his senses (he can always smell Tammy 2 when she’s near), but he’s also a deep feeler.
Because the core of their divide is not “Morningstar” or Ann’s house or a thank you note Leslie sent after her job interview. It’s about time and moving on and growing apart.
“I just didn’t recognize anyone,” Ron says, remarking about why he left the Parks Department those years ago. (He was most at home when he took a tooth out of his mouth just to fuck with them.) Everyone had either set out on their own entrepreneurial endeavors or joined Leslie on the third floor (the site of their last happy conversation on screen, prior to “Leslie and Ron”). And so it was that Ron forced himself to the third floor to ask Leslie to breakfast because he wanted a job with her in the… federal government. Quickly, Leslie’s National Parks job takes her attention and she forgets about Ron. She stands him up. The heartbreak on Poehler’s face and the reserved acceptance in Offerman’s eyes are enough to give me chills and make me cry as I type this. It’s gutting to think of what could have been in the show’s central relationship and the years they spent apart from one another. We have to find solace in the two of them putting the offices back in order as “Buddy” by Willie Nelson plays. No matter what, Leslie was always on an upward trajectory out of Pawnee and Ron was not content to live anywhere else. They were always destined to grow apart. But the characters on Parks and Rec (Ron and Leslie, most prominently) cared enough to not let that happen. They saved the pair who saved themselves. And they were happy together again.
Laugh with me, buddy.
Jest with me, buddy.
Don’t let her get the best of me, buddy.
Don’t ever let me start feeling lonely.
This song plays again in Ron’s ending. He sails out on the open water of the Pawnee National Park lake, content with his role on this planet. It’s all because of Leslie. She takes on his personal crossroads as if it were her own and she sees that Ron finds the peace he deserves. (Not that he was ever yearning for it before, but everyone deserves their own corner of happiness.) It’s a moment revealed through Leslie and Ron holding hands on the swings, showing just how much she has touched his and all of their lives.
Earlier, in “London,” April’s recommendation letter for Leslie is read over clips of Ron following Leslie’s scavenger hunt through Europe that ends at the Lagavulin distillery in Scotland. Only Leslie Knope could come up with an experience for her friend like that. It wasn’t Ron’s birthday or a holiday. It was just something she did because she knew it would make him happy.
Leslie Knope
That’s why Leslie Knope is my favorite character on the show. It’s why she’s my favorite character in all of television. This essay (ballooning quickly over five thousand words) is quickly getting away from me, but am I going to shortchange Leslie? Knope.
She is not perfect by any means, but she has always been an ideal to strive for, in my mind. Most days, I wake up and think, How can I be a little bit more like Leslie Knope today? She’s a hard worker who prioritizes work third (behind friends and waffles). She’s a caring, devoted friend who will give boundless loyalty and affection for anyone who she lets into her heart. Even when she is acting with poor behavior, the writing comes from a place of kindness and love. Never ineptitude or ignorance or maliciousness. Leslie fights for what is right and always tries to do the right thing. (As one Pawnee cop says, Leslie’s the kind of person who uses favors to help others.)
There are so many story lines transpiring during any given episode of Parks and Recreation. No matter what, Leslie always seems to be turning up in the background of others’ stories. Dealing with an argument with Ann about a job at City Hall? She still finds time to support Tom’s Snake Juice launch. Where does she find the time to be there for all of her friends at all times? (The answer is likely that she never sleeps. A solid three hours would almost seem luxurious to Leslie Knope.) It almost feels like she’s in every scene of the show.
Leslie did have a tendency to idolize people who maybe didn’t necessarily deserve it. When she’s around those people (like when she encounters Michelle Obama, for instance. Michelle Obama is cool, but Leslie is obsessed), she becomes almost borderline insane with her intensity. Her intensity even extends to non-Michelle Obama figures, like the random bowling alley douche who doesn’t want to vote for her for city council. In her commitment to changing this guy’s mind, she almost comes across like the reverse Captain America. Captain America, who wouldn’t give up hope if even one extra life could be saved, would undoubtedly be proud of Leslie Knope’s efforts, even though her refusal to give up is contingent on getting one extra vote. At what cost, Leslie?
It’s this spirit about Leslie that is so moving. She never stops pushing and never stops trying, which I often feel like doing. In a country where it seems like popular sovereignty is dead, it seems easy to just give up and go somewhere more optimal. But Leslie would never do that. She didn’t leave Pawnee until she was christened as one of its founders. (Even when she makes mistakes, there’s never a feeling that her friends would abandon her. That’s not what real friends do and it was one of the show’s most endearing sentiments.) It was an odd feeling to be genuinely proud of a fictional character.
My strongest tether to Leslie’s spirit is shown in the episode, “Moving Up,” when she goes to immense lengths to persuade the Parks Department to come with her to Chicago, though they all turn her down. At the time of writing this, I feel like I’m at my own personal crossroads as I decide between two places to live and I’m torn because neither contains every single person I love. Now, I know how Leslie feels. Watching the episode is the next best thing to getting advice from her, even though I already know what her answer would be. (All the same, I really resonate with her letting go of Ron’s hand in the finale, marching over to Ben, and demanding they stay in Pawnee.) At the end of a lifetime, April’s love, Ron’s admiration, Andy’s loyalty. It’ll all still be in Pawnee.
Leslie’s friends really do love and care about her. They’re all uncompromisingly themselves (especially Andy), but that never precludes them from giving the love right back to Leslie, whether that’s in the form of building gingerbread houses, volunteering for her campaign, or offering aid for her triplets without even being asked. They care for her and they also care because of her. By the end of the show, everyone is perfectly capable of handling the work themselves, to the point where the Unity Concert hardly even requires Leslie’s help. They can handle the job now; it’s not all Leslie’s burden.
Their help on her campaign was probably their most awe-inspiring act, though. I’ve seen plenty of local elections and none of them put in 1/100th of the effort that Leslie and her team did to defeat Bobby Newport (Paul Rudd). The show earns every moment, too. There’s myriad setbacks, but there’s also plenty of reasons to keep going. It’s a campaign that begins with the Knope team shuffling slowly across the ice at a local hockey rink with a misprinted banner, a three-legged dog, and a Gloria Estefan refrain (“Get on your feet!”). It’s a campaign that ends with a recount and the camera slowly zooming in on Leslie’s face, away from Ben and Ron. Through every piece of information Ben delivers, we only see Leslie’s reaction. A few tears form, a smile grows. Leslie wins.
Even though her win didn’t last, it was still nice to have one every now and then. 98% of the time, Parks (like the job) was infuriating. All these people ever tried to do was the right thing and they got shouted down by the rotating display of Pawnee idiots.
Back in the day, I thought Parks was a vehicle to make fun of dumb mid-westerners, but now I understand that it sees Pawnee as a microcosm of the United States. It can be frustrating how stupid people can be. People like Newport, Jeremy Jamm (Jon Glaser), Dennis Feinstein (Jason Mantzoukas), The Douche (Nick Kroll), Mona Lisa (Jenny Slate), and Joan Callamezzo (Mo Collins, in a breathtakingly athletic performance) could often be maddening in their varying degrees of sadism that they inflicted upon Pawnee. Some, like Newport, were harmless with their idiocy (Rudd, ever the perfectly timed comedian, has a hilarious moment when he runs off the debate stage and looks around with the wonder of not knowing where he’s headed next. This impeccable timing continued to the reunion special, when Newport opened the show with a lack of knowledge about the pandemic). Others (like Jamm) deserved the time they spent in jail cells.
But even though it was easy to get distracted by the morons, it was always important to remember that the rogues gallery in Pawnee (which strongly resembled the location of another Daniels-influenced show, Springfield on The Simpsons) had some real supporting gems in it, too. The hapless Perd Hapley (Jay Jackson in a favorite performance of Offerman’s with his Perd-fect line readings), the unsettling Orin (Eric Isenhower), the hilariously conceptualized Barney (John Balma), the wonderfully-named Millicent Gergich (Sarah Wright). They all made for such depth of character in Pawnee and it showed it as a town worth fighting for. (And for all the focus the main characters rightfully got, wasn’t it always delightful to see Jean-Ralphio meet someone like Craig (Billy Eichner) for the first time?)
The distinction of Pawnee as a place worth its undeserved advocacy was the most crucial element that distinguished Parks and Rec as a unique bastion of Obama-era optimism on television. Political commentary had been devoured by the endless satire of The Colbert Report and the “Are you seeing this?” frustration of Jon Stewart’s The Daily Show during this time. But Parks took it to a different, more earnest place (there’s that gentle Schur sensibility). There was still frustration (Ben punching the bowling alley asshole, Ron reminding Leslie that she chose a thankless job), but it was ultimately a beacon of hope. With enough effort and know-how, a few people really could make a difference — even at the local level.
Usually, it was Leslie making this difference all on her own. Her speech in “The Debate,” which I mentioned earlier, might have been the deciding factor in her win over Newport.
“I’m very angry. Angry that Bobby Newport would hold this town hostage and threaten to leave if you don’t give him what he wants. It’s despicable. Corporations are not allowed to dictate what a city needs. That power belongs to the people. Bobby Newport and his daddy would like you to think it belongs to them. I love this town. And when you love something, you don’t punish it. You fight for it. You take care of it. You put it first. As your City Councilman, I will make sure that no one takes advantage of Pawnee. If I seem too passionate, it’s because I care. If I come on too strong, it’s because I feel strongly. And if I push too hard, it’s because things aren’t moving fast enough. This is my home, you are my family, and I promise you, I’m not going anywhere.”
Newport speaks for all of us when he replies, “Holy shit, Leslie. That was awesome.” It really is awesome. And for all the frustration over Pawnee as a garbage town and Leslie’s subsequent recall and the sadness that Leslie Knope doesn’t exist in real life (even more than Jed Bartlet), I returned to this speech often, to remind myself that Leslie never gave up because Leslie always cared.
The Unity Concert in “Moving Up” hardly makes up for the shit treatment she received over the years, but it’s not nothing. It makes some of the work worth it, even if not all of it. On the other hand, I’m sure Leslie would argue it did make it worth it. Seeing all of her favorite people, sans the Perkins-Traeger clan, in one place while the tunes of Ginuwine, The Decemberists, and Letters to Cleo play around her is an amazing moment. It also heightened how important music was to the show.
Tom Petty’s small-town Americana music comes through multiple times on the show, like when “American Girl” plays in “Harvest Festival,” “End of the Line” plays in the finale, and “Wildflowers” plays in “Ann and Chris,” as mentioned above. In “Moving Up,” this music stretches out wider. It goes for the laughs (Bobby Knight Ranger, Jean-Ralphio singing about his latest plight) and it goes for heart-swelling moments (Duke Silver, a Li’l Sebastian hologram, and Mouse Rat playing “5,000 Candles in the Wind” together on the Unity Concert main stage while the camera rests on a zooming out crane, capturing the physical scope of what Leslie has accomplished, but hardly the intangible one).
It’s a moment that enables Leslie to go out on top. Just keep in mind that the episode is called “Moving Up,” not “Moving On.” The episode’s coda sees a three-year time jump, placing Leslie back in Pawnee as she and Ben head to a black-tie event, April and Andy (with his arm in a sling) watch the triplets, and Jon Hamm shows up to get fired. (“It’s been a great three years!”) I still get chills thinking about the moment when the camera zooms in on the picture of the Parks Department while Leslie wishes for time to slow down. The ingenuity is an absolutely baller move that still leaves me impressed and inspired on creative levels.
Many have said that this would have made for a better series finale than the one we got, but I disagree. Not only did we get to go deeper on the Leslie and Ron relationship, we went deeper on everyone. The sacrifices Leslie and Ben make for each other, April and Andy trusting each other to move on with their lives, Ann and Chris popping up one last time. It made it all worth it. Besides, in the finale we have, we got to see Leslie’s impact on every character one last time (until she organized a Zoom tree to keep in touch with everyone during the pandemic). Her touch lingering an extra second on every character, just so we can hold onto the world of hope and Knope a little bit longer. At the end, we finally had to let go of how Leslie had touched us, too. At least before she went, she showed us how to be ready.
