Parks and Recreation - "Live Ammo"/"The Debate"

Season 4, Episodes 19-20

“Holy shit Leslie, that was awesome.”

Here’s a thing about consistency in a comedy series: while it can help shows avoid major drops in quality, and can keep up an awesome string of episodes (as is happening with Parks and Recreation and it’s awesome sense of comedy), it can also seem like just about every episode of the show is reigned in too much, and there’s not enough sense of surprise. Sure, there have been a few real standout episodes this season, ad I don’t want it to seem as if I think that Parks and Rec is on some sort of downhill slide (unlike some others have indicated). However, it does seem to rob the show of some the greatest highs that it’s capable – highs that we finally saw again this week.

Last week however, those highs were not so apparently. I don’t want to suggest that there’s not a wealth of good ideas within the episode, but that they don’t add up to much. Let’s take Bradley Whitford’s turn as Pillner, Leslie’s adversary on the city council. Getting a West Wing alum on a show as politically-minded as Parks and Rec would seem to be a coup, and the show even made some pains towards that. However, a short and not very effective walk-and-talk (seriously, 30 Rock did that joke so much better) doesn’t make up for the fact that Whitford wasn’t used all that effectively in the episode. (Did the show writers even see his work in The Good Guys?) He was more of a plot device than anything else, and thus ended up being a letdown.

The plot that his presence led to was much better, of course, as it allowed for the reappearance of Kathryn Hahn’s character Jennifer Barkely, and allowed the show to get right back on the campaign storyline after being off on a hiatus, so it works out well in the that regard. Really, Hahn has been such a joy on the show, and I really enjoyed watching her circling around Leslie’s every mistake like a hawk. It’s good fun for the episode, even if the A-plot leaned a bit too heavily on things going awry for Leslie. I get that the “things go wrong when somebody tries to do good” plot is a standard one in comedy, but it’s a well that the show has gone too far too often this season to be effective at this point.

Anyways, speaking of mistakes, I did enjoy how the A-plot spun off into the B-plot with April being put in charge of the pet adoption. The show has gotten good mileage out of showing April’s budding maturity within the world of politics, and it’s the sort of feminist storyline centered on a young girl that we don’t see enough of. It’s also the sort of recurring storyline that the show can have playing in the background of certain episode, as would happen this week. In fact, “The Debate” was a good episode for a lot of recurring plots…but we’re getting ahead of ourselves.

If “Live Ammo” was the sort of episode that couldn’t seem to make all of it’s working parts together, “The Debate” was an episode that used the A-plot to ground everything around one solid event, and by allowing everything else to play out in the background, felt like a more solid episode overall.

“The Debate” was written and directed by Amy Poehler, who also had a heavy workload acting-wise, and in each one of these spaces she was equally impressive. It helps that the show threw an above average budget at the episode, which allowed for all of the awesome crane shots that the we during the debate. But of course awesome crane shots alone don’t make a great episode, and it’s here that the script really kicks in and does a lot of the work. There’s a snappy energy to the debate scenes, and they all do the great job of contributing to the sense of just what the political climate is within the town of Pawnee. The hinge of all of this was Bobby Newport’s return appearance, as his dumb-yet-successful comments help to show that Leslie is out of her depth, running in a race that’s build on gut feelings rather than logic. We all know that she would succeed in the latter, but the former is much trickier for her.

Of course, the obvious centerpiece of the whole A-plot was Lelslie’s grand speech at the end, one which deployed logic and gut feeling in equally measure, and managed to impress everyone in the auditorium, including Jen and Bobby. However, what are the odds that Leslie, as awesome as she is, can manage to deliver one of those speeches every time she needs to talk. Sure she’s awesome at being a politician, but it took her a while within the debate to work up to that, and time won’t always be a luxury for her. The season finale as already been filmed, and the producers have said they’ve done two endings – one where Leslie wins the race, and one where Leslie loses. At this point, the show is doing a good job of having it look like it could go either way.

Meanwhile, in the wings of the episode, we got some of the sillier stuff to balance out the weight of the debate. Andy recreating movies when the cable goes out and Ron being forced to steal cable were both funny little slights, but at least they made sense within the episode given that they took place at a sponsor’s dinner for Leslie’s campaign. The same can be said for the spinning and ‘shipping shenanigans that took place backstage with April, Tom and Chris, a plot which obviously holds more weight than what was going on at April and Andy’s house, but which doesn’t really hold me in it’s sway. Really, as entertaining as these two stories were comically, without the fantastic Anchor of the debate, they very well could have floated away with no one the wiser.

Quotes and Other Thoughts:

“If you hear any of them talking about that ‘blonde pain in the ass,’ that’s me.”

“All do respect, Mr. Hamster Penis, but I do not.”

“I hate Leslie’s job. I’m filling in for someone who smiles 90% of the time.”

“What does Leslie always say?” “I dunno, something about waffles?”

“I'm not saying that Leslie Knope is a dog-murderer, per se. But it does raise some questions. Like is she a dog-murderer?” “Well, I don’t know the answer to that question, Jennifer, but your tone says – ‘yes’.”

“April, that would be the coolest thing since N’SYNC, Aerosmith, and Nellie performed at the Super Bowl together.”

“They should be rewarded for not being people. I hate people.”

“What? This cat was in Boogie Nights?”

“There’s a hot, spinning cone of meet in the Greek restaurant next door. I don’t know what it is, but I want to eat it.”

“So, wait - am I Michelle?"

“I will not allow you to return to a life of shaving wieners and avoiding knife attacks from meth heads.”

*************

“If I had to have anybody tell me I had cancer, I would want it to be me.”

“You can debate Newport in your sleep.” “I have.” “I know, we sleep in the same bed. It’s been hell.”

“I care about Andy, and Champion, and I want Leslie to win, and sleeping. So…”

“You are here because you gave us money. Now, we will give you ribs.”

“Nothing gets me more amped than Sarah McLaughlin.”

“I want to tell you my idea for a assault rifle vending machine.”

“This question about public safety comes from Twitter, because apparently that’s something that happens now.”

“By the looks of this guy, not consensual sex we’re talking about.”

“Once again, people: grenade launcher.”

“I guess my thoughts on abortion are: let’s just all have a good time.”

“Hey quick question: Does that guy Chris Traeger have a girlfriend, and his penis normal?”

“And I know it sounds corny, talking pig, but you should all see it.” “I think I just did.”

“I am going to run some stairs, and work through these feelings.”