When we last left Pawnee Ann was sitting down with Chris to have a heart to heart about their relationship. In a bold move the conversation was cut out, leaving us to wonder about what had transpired. In ‘Indianapolis’ Ann believes that Chris has been cheating on her, which leads us to believe that they are still together. Or are they? And, will Ron ever be able to eat a piece of meat? Can April and Andy successfully whore themselves out for free stuff? Oh and Dennis Feinstein puts ether in his perfume to help men ‘seduce’ women. All in a normal day in Pawnee Indiana!
In our cold open for this episode, we find out that Ron commemorates steaks with pictures, oh and that he never appears to age. Naturally this is far cheaper than making the actor look younger, but it still leads to a fun sight gag. It also leads into one of our B-stories for the episode, and that is Ron’s quest for the perfect steak. After his favorite restaurant has been shut down for health violations, he mourns its loss like that of a dead relative, kicking the door and wondering what happened to the poor meat in the freezer. Very apropos for the character, whose quest continues to Chris’s apartment. Chris misleads him by saying he’ll throw something on the grill, which ends up being Portobello mushrooms. Poor famished Ron ends up at a diner, telling them to literally bring him all of the eggs and bacon that they have. I loved this little Ron side quest, it led to no character development but was instead a good reinforcement of Ron’s character, who really shouldn’t change that much anyway.
Tom has a dream, a smelly dream, but still a dream dammit! A half-baked attempt to sell his self-branded cologne to Dennis Feinstein leads to the future dynamic duo of Ben and Tom. Think about it, they’re perfect for each other! Same height, one is serious and one is funny, they both frequently look at the camera but with different expressions. I see a buddy cop show on their horizon. But in all seriousness, Tom needed a friend, an actual honest to goodness friend, at least someone more genuine than Jean Ralphio. Previously Tom was only humanized by his complicated relationship with Wendi, and now that Wendi is out of the picture and country, Tom needed a new humanizing factor. We’ve known about his celebrity aspirations before, but we’ve never seen him realize that his sights are set too high. And when we did it was fairly heartbreaking, and gave Ben a chance to step in and help Tom. I don’t think Tom will give up on his dreams, and I would very much like to see this budding friendship continue!
April and Andy have started dating, and it is adorably sweet! After watching them I think I’ve become diabetic. So conquering adversity is the theme for these two today, and since they are both broke they can’t really do anything at the bar. They decide to hold a competition to see who can get the most free stuff, which leads to some fun scenes of Andy in the bathroom acting as an attendant and April impersonating an employee and stealing drinks. After their fun was over they give all the money they scammed into the tip jar. How could anyone not love these two?
Which brings us back to the main plot, Chris and Ann. This relationship was too perfect to have lasted for too long without any conflict, so I was expecting some bumps in the road but definitely not what happened in this episode. But as I watched it, it made perfect sense. We as the audience don’t get to see the conversation between Chris and Ann because we would have understood what was going on, while poor Ann was clueless because she had never been dumped before. Also Chris is always so positive which further confuses the situation. I believe that Chris could have a lucrative career as a professional dumper. Perfect Ann is now no longer so perfect, which is a very good thing for her character, along with the hint of underlying crazy that we saw today in this episode. Also the relationship had been sort of pushing away Leslie, and the whole Leslie/Ann friendship has been the backbone of Parks since season one.
All in all this was another solid episode of Parks! Thursday nights they never seem to let me down, especially where so many other shows that I watch have been hit or miss, I can always rely on the Pawnee Parks Department to brighten my week. Next week’s episode is titled Harvest Festival, not sure if this will be the actual episode with the festival in it, the description doesn’t indicate that so we’ll have to wait and see.
Screenshot for the Episode:
Favorite Quotes:
- “His ether based perfume, Blackout, was named one of Maxim’s top 100 ways to trick someone into sex.”
- “Hey, Doug from Bloomington is thinking of buying a shirt! Come on Doug, who cares?”
- “And treasure chests! Full of scarves!”
- “I don’t know. I guess we’re dating. It’s new. Whatever. I don’t like labels. Go away.”
- “The owner of the motel I’m staying at said she was going to screen ‘Hope Floats’ in the lobby, asked me if I wanted to watch.”
- “Yeah. You should probably get out of that. I think she’s going to murder you.”
- “Leslie, you need to understand that we are heading for the most special place on earth. When I’m done eating a Mulligans meal, for weeks afterwards there are flecks of meat in my mustache, and I refuse to clean it because every now and then a piece of meat will fall into my mouth.”
- “Allergic: Cause a Reaction”
- “They just boarded her up like she was some common warehouse. I shoulda been here. What happened to the steaks that were in there when they closed?”
- “Looks like you just inhaled your future.”
