Welcome to the first of two Parks and Recreation reviews that I will be posting today, assuming that my boss doesn’t walk by my office, realize that I have gotten nothing done today, and then spends the rest of the day yelling at me. I’m multi-tasking, I swear! Even the threat of a firing could not detract from the level of awesomeness that was last night. Two AMAZING Parks back to back? Heaven. Not to mention my other favorite Thursday night shows, The Office and Big Bang Theory, which also hit home runs. Before I get started on reviewing the first episode I just want to say a big thanks to everyone who posted in the comments for my review of last week’s episode! I really appreciate the responses and I do read through them all; writing these reviews take a lot of work, usually around two hours, and it’s nice to know that you enjoy them. I wasn’t sure if I was going to try and review any summer shows during the Parks break, but thanks to your lovely comments I think I’ll definitely give either Breaking Bad, True Blood, or Curb Your Enthusiasm a shot, depending who else wants to review them. There are too many good TV shows on and not enough time to write reviews for all of them!
So first up for today is “The Fight”. I’m going to be basing my review off of the Producers Cut version of this episode which is four minutes longer; you can view it over on Hulu. I love it when they put up the extended version; usually it just includes deleted scenes that they really didn’t want to delete, which is a good thing because as we’ve seen on other episodes our cast of oddballs become exponentially more hilarious when alcohol is mixed in, and especially when it’s as potent as Tom’s Snake Juice.
Two dynamics that we’ve been seeing over past episodes come to a head in this episode, Leslie’s glacially slow approach to her relationship with Ben and Ann’s complete opposite approach with various faceless boy toys that rotate on the hour. Naturally Leslie thinks her way is best, and Ann thinks she’s got the right idea, leading to a fight in the Snake Hole Lounge. I’m very happy the writers finally added some dynamic conflict to their relationship, Leslie and Ann have been too perfect from the very beginning and that needed to change, at least for one episode. Also there was a smaller fight bundled into the bigger fight, Leslie wanted Ann to interview for a new position as PR for the Health Department, since Jan Cooper will give you Chlamydia, brought to you by the Pawnee Department of Public Health. Ann, naturally, is happy where she’s at. In the end, and thanks to some help from Ben, Ann takes the job on a part time basis and makes up with Leslie. So now look forward to seeing Ann around City Hall for an actual reason!
Since April and Andy were married their storylines have revolved around either how childish they are or what fun oddballs they can be. Tonight we get to see the latter, and I was impressed. Aubrey Plaza tends to play a slightly modified version of herself as April, maybe a little darker, but not much. Google interviews of her on various late night shows and you’ll see what I mean. Not that this isn’t a unique and hilarious personality, but tonight it was nice to see her play an actual character, and do to an amazing job. I hope she does more movies that can showcase this, because I was pretty impressed with Janet Snakehole, a fifties era wealthy widow with a terrible secret. Although their attempt at role play was exceptionally entertaining, and you know I love me some Burt Maclane FBI, it did feel like the writers were just giving them something to do. If anything it’s a testament to how well the show is written that even when characters are given filler it is still a comedic goldmine.
The main reason for the drunken fight and various other antics would be our favorite Tom Haverford. Apparently not discouraged by his last failed attempt involving weapons grade perfume, Tom has created Snake Juice. Snake Juice, according to Tom, is just a shit ton of other alcoholic drinks mixed with coffee. You’d think given his track record this would be terrible, but it’s a big hit, even impressing the un-impressible Ron Fucking Swanson. I’ve complained in the past that Tom always seems to try and fail, so it would be nice to see storylines where he manages to succeed at something. This definitely counts, with the exception of the price that he has to pay at the end. Chris informs him that because he’s promoting the club and the drink within the Pawnee government that this is a conflict of interest and he must sell the club. Poor Tom, just as he was starting to gain some traction on his dream of becoming the next Jay-Z. Of course if his entrepreneurial ventures really did take off he would have to leave Pawnee, and we wouldn’t want that now would we?
And of course I can’t forget to mention that we see the return of our favorite douche and the actual The Douche, Jean Ralphio and Howard Tuttleman. But despite the dynamic duo of those two, my favorite moment of the episode was when we see a mini montage of our gang acting drunk in front of the camera at the end of the night. Easy comedy? Yes. Effective? Hell yes.
Moving on to the very long saga of Leslie and Ben, which Ann nailed on the head by calling it ‘so high school.’ If this goes on any longer I would expect to see a note passed between the two of them asking ‘Do you like me?’ and with little check boxes for yes or no. Thanks to tonight’s double episode we know it’s not going to come to that, but we damn sure came close. Thanks to Ann telling Ben that Leslie likes him, all parties involved now know for sure that there’s something going between these two. Of course the problem still exists that since Ben supervises Leslie they can’t officially date. This sets us up nicely for the next episode, review coming later tonight, in which they both try to deny their feelings. Or at least Leslie tries.
Favorite Quotes:
- “Sound like you took a snake and twisted it like a rag until all its blood and guts came out.”
- “Wait, were you on that show where we had that stripper do math? Classic, right?”
- "Swan Song how ya livin’?” “Yes.”
- “If you’re looking for douches, they’re in aisle me.”
- “Hello, my name is Ron Swanson. In general I try never to speak with people, but I have been drinking this snake juice thing, and it’s damn good. You should buy it.”
- “Jean Ralphio! Dance up on me!”
- “Ann took a cab. Tom’s in the trunk. Jerry’s on the roof.”
- “Oh my god I’m so hung over. I’ve never been this hung over. Are we dead?”
- “Ben is there something we can do? Damnit Ben’s not here.”
- “It’s been a tough morning. Lots of regret and shame. Which should be the official slogan for Snake Juice.”
