Parks and Recreation - Episode 3.12 - Eagleton - Review

Every average city has one, that snotty rich neighboring city that everyone wishes they could live in yet despises, when I was growing up in Port Charlotte Florida, it was Punta Gorda Isles. Every house was on the bay, and the land the houses were sitting on was usually worth more than the houses themselves. It was even rumored that a Saudi prince had a house there, and of course everyone belonged to the yacht club. Well Pawnee has Eagleton, the snooty highbred horse community. We’ve heard of Eagleton before, but this is the first time we’ve seen them characterized in this way, and to me it feels a little cheap. One of the things that I love best about Parks is how creative the writers get, and even with the most common types of storylines they usually find a way to put an interesting twist on the situation. But making Eagleton such an obvious caricature of how we expect wealthy people to live, such as iPod Touch’s in gift bags at town hall meetings, just seems like the easy way out as opposed to creating a town that was a little more original. Despite my feelings on this, ‘Eagleton’ was still a funny and charming episode. Can you really ask for more than that from a comedy?

Of course the crux of the story really wasn’t about Eagleton, but about the relationship between Leslie and her former best friend Lindsey. Leslie’s new best friend Ann actually plays a good role here in the ensuing struggle, I’ve complained in the past that she’s made to fit into storylines where she really doesn’t belong, but her character definitely fit here as she awkwardly met Lindsey and then later consoled Leslie in a lavender jail cell complete with scones. And hey, she wasn’t dating a cavalcade of random men in this episode, so yay Ann! Back to the conflict between Leslie and Lindsey, which is at face value about the fencing of a once shared park, but really is about selling out. As we see in the picture at the top, Lindsey, played by the brilliant Parker Posey, used to be a normal Pawnee girl. Slightly overweight, bad style, big nose. Then she, as Leslie puts it, got a job at Eagleton, lost thirty pounds, and fixed her deviated septum, which is the bad excuse people use for getting a nose job. We are led to believe that Lindsey’s vendetta against Leslie is because she has now turned into an Eagleton snob, but in reality it’s because Lindsey only got the job because Leslie turned it down. Leslie refused to sell out, Pawnee parks needed her help more than rich Eagleton parks, which probably already looked amazing and were paved with gold etc. Despite the bitch fight in garbage Leslie manages to take the high road in the fence situation by creating a wiffle ball field, which even lures Eagleton kids over to the Pawnee side. No surprises here, Leslie always seems to win in the end, and of course without the need to sell out.

The minor story in this episode is relatively minor, but to me was much more entertaining than the main plot. Ron, despite attempts to redacted and erase his birthday from all accounts of human history, finds out that Leslie finally figured out the date and wants to throw him a huge and kick-ass birthday party. This naturally terrifies Ron, and he slowly goes insane trying to figure out what Leslie has planned. It doesn’t help at all that Leslie has instructed the rest of the gang to intentionally mislead him, with April ordering forty dozen inflatable saxophone balloons, and Andy letting it slip that he was assigned to the kidnap squad. Of course the most amazing part of the episode comes when Ron is asking Chris if he knows anything about his party, and Chris congratulates him and smacks a big kiss on Ron’s mustachioed lips. In the end Leslie had a simple Mulligan’s steak dinner planned for Ron, with two of his favorite movies, and of course a bottle of scotch and a security guard. A perfect Ron Fucking Swanson birthday.

Sorry this was a little late again! I hope you enjoy reading my reviews; I don’t get a lot of comments so I’m not sure how popular these are, but I’m hoping that other diehard Parks fans like myself get a kick out of them. We only have four episodes of Parks left, and those episodes with be doubled up for the next two weeks. It’ll take me a little longer to write up those reviews but I’ll try to get them up ASAP. If anyone from NBC is reading, I’d love to get screener copies! Yeah I know, fat chance in hell. Anyways, see you guys next week!

Favorite Quotes:

• “Birthdays were invented by Hallmark to sell cards.”           
• “Leslie has a lot of qualities that I find horrifying. But the worst one is how thoughtful she can be.”
• “Ok, I’m just going to suggest that we burn it down. But whatever you guys think.”
• “It was personal. I would never make a work related call, you know that.”
• “I’m sorry, it’s just, nursing. You must be so tired, and sad.”
• “Yes, Eagleton is nicer than Pawnee. And yes, because of their cupcake factory the air always smells like vanilla.”
• “Would you like to borrow a mirror? Or a self help book?”
• “You listen to my Lindsey Carlyle Shae! Why don’t you take your fancy dog, get in your Escalade, and if you have any job openings maybe you should let me know about them! I’m sick of being treated like I’m not willing to relocate to Eagleton, because I am! So, here’s what you could do, lady. Take this resume, and shove it into your human resources slot.”
• “Don’t you dare feed that waffle to that dog to get it to poop!”
• “I doth proclaim to be a stupid fart face.”
• “Ron, I love you, like a father. Whose not that much older than me. Like a young uncle. Or like you’re my camp counselor. But we’re adults so we hang out, so it’s not weird. Or actually, here’s what it is. You’re my lacrosse coach…”
• “But in my defense I believe assault should be legal if the person is a jerk.”
• “It’s an idea that I came up with after my best friend Ann over there said she wanted to bash your head in with a baseball bat.”