Parks and Recreation - Episode 6.05 - Gin It Up! - Review

This episode was so jam-packed (or should I say Jamm-packed? Eh? No? Alright then, moving on), that it’s hard to talk about everything that happened - but I’ll do my best.

For those Parks fans that are always clamoring for some more Donna, this episode was for you. After Donna accidentally sends out a personal tweet from the Parks Department involving a tongue-bath, a fireman, and an eggplant, Councilman Jamm holds a series of hearings regarding the tweet in order to attack Leslie in any way he can. Although Donna’s personal twitter account is private, a bit of betrayal on the part of her hairdresser Typhoon reveals its contents. And the contents are these: aside from tweets to hunks, Donna often tweets about Leslie’s annoying actions, with the hashtag #BitchBoss. In a tense political climate where Leslie is even reviled in elementary schools through the use of a Leslie doll that farts, Leslie feels betrayed, once again.

Chris later shares some of Donna’s other tweets with Leslie, ones that defend Leslie to all the Pawnee pee-pee heads with the hashtag #BossBitch. Leslie and Donna make-up, as Leslie understands that she can be a bit annoying, though “one person’s annoying is one person’s inspiring and heroic.” She gives Donna an apology present, which contains all of her favorite nail polishes and a schedule so they can wear them at the same times. When Donna tweets a picture of the gift with the hashtag #PsychoBoss. Leslie’s response? “I don’t hate it.”

Donna’s prolific tweeting is a nice nod to Retta’s own command of the twittersphere, as well as a good explanation for how Donna copes at work. While she may not talk so much in the office, she’s talking to her online community of fellow TV fans and guys with washboard abs.

It’s nice to see Leslie and Donna’s relationship in this storyline, because, as Donna points out, they’ve worked together for 10 years. Although Leslie is hurt by her tweets at first, she knows that Donna is a loyal friend to her, and Donna is honestly upset that Leslie feels betrayed by what she said. Their story culminates as both women - not witches - march into the council hall and tell Jamm they’re not participating in the sham of a hearing anymore. And then they storm out to go help the town, Donna only stopping to insult Norman, the hairdresser formerly known as Typhoon, on the way out.

This episode introduced the lovely Tatiana Maslany as Nadia Statsky, who takes no crap from April, and with whom Tom immediately falls in love. Of course, this prompts him to adopt an (attempted) English accent - because that’s what you do when you develop and instant crush. As she tries to fill out paperwork on behalf of Doctors Without Borders, he tries to keep her in the office using the one thing he knows best: bureaucratic incompetency. Naming her fake commercial airline “Jet Blue Ivy” (because she’ll clearly have an airline one day) only cements Tom’s love for her further. Eventually Tom convinces April to accompany him to the hospital, where April convinces Nadia that going out with Tom wouldn’t be a big deal because she’s SO out of his league, and once Nadia determines the British accent to be romantic (not creepy), she asks Tom on a date. After all, she’s going to Rwanda in 2 weeks anyway.

Nadia is a fun addition to the world of Pawnee, although she’s really from Indianapolis, and it would be fantastic if Parks could keep her on the ever-expanding guest rotation for the show. After all, they might need another medical professional on the show, what with Ann, the beloved beautiful nurse, on her way out. Unfortunately Tatiana, and thus Nadia, can’t stick around too long, because apparently she has to go play 15 other roles on her own show. Go figure. At least we’ll get one more episode with Nadia next week, presumably having some fun with Tom.

Ron continues being Ron, and has no desire to update his will*. (*A note from when he was 8, leaving everything he owns to the man/beast that kills him, along with odd pictographs). Naturally he changes his mind when Ben reminds him that if he doesn’t make a legal will, his belongings will go to the government. So off they go to Trevor the lawyer (played by the lovely Marc Evan Jackson), who also represented Dr. Saperstein earlier in the year, to draw up a will. Although Ben feels that accountants and lawyers kind of speak the same language, Trevor does NOT like Ben’s accounting puns.

Ron waffles a bit while trying to decide about his will. At first it seems as though Ron was reticent to share his gold and precious metals with his family, with no concern for their future financial security. While this seems a bit off, it becomes clear that he just didn’t want them to get ALL his wealth, because he has a LOT of it and he wants to teach them the importance of hard work. He has so much wealth, in fact, to make Trevor the lawyer think he was joking about the rough amount. But Ron Swanson never jokes. Except once with Ben and he didn’t like it. In a gesture of goodwill, Ron and Diane decide to leave their children to Ben and Leslie if they die - providing of course that the maître d of Mulligan’s and his wife cannot do it (they’re in their 90s).

Notably absent from the episode? Ann, and any mention of her. After last week’s big announcement to Leslie, Leslie’s freak-out and subsequent talk with Ann, I assumed there would be some mention of it. Well, you know what happens when you assume. Perhaps it was just a scheduling or production-related reason for Ann/Rashida’s absence from the episode, but it did feel like there were some loose ends from last week that just dangled this week.

Waffle Toppings:
- Jamm continually and explicitly pointing out the ridiculousness of the situation - “This will be blown WAY out of proportion.”
- Leslie’s campaign-on-a-budget, which involves using small stickers to turn “Recall Knope” signs into “Recall Knope? Don’t.” - Donna’s more practical idea to just do “Don’t Recall Knope”
- Related to the stickers, April grabs the question mark stickers and runs away, and throughout the episode they appear all over the City Hall building.
- Pawnee attracts the attention of Doctors Without Borders because they have more West Nile Virus than in the West Nile.
- “Another word for jokes is lies.” - Ron
- “Is any part of him British?” - Nadia, trying to figure out Tom
- Leslie’s nickname for Donna? “El Diablo”
- Ben’s idea that accountants are more “bad boy” than lawyers.

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