Guys, Parks and Recreation was so good tonight. "Campaign Shake Up" featured incredible guest star Katharine Hahn, a water balloon fight in the parks department, and classic Ron Swanson one liners about manliness, which will all be macros and gifs tomorrow for you comedic nerd pleasure. This is nice, because as one of those super judgmental types when things start to lag, I start to worry about the future of the show. I don't kow if that's because I'm a genuine fan of the show or that part of my job entails analysis of very important things like network television.
Anyway, tonight we finally saw Leslie not on top of her campaign game. Now that she has a bit of a hiatus from the department, she's focusing all her strength and positivity to her campaign, led by her love Ben. But just when things are starting to get good, Bobby Newport (Paul Rudd, guest star earlier this season) hires über manager Jennifer Barkley (the incendiary Kathryn Hahn) to take over his campaign. Barkley runs Leslie's campaign into the ground; she's the perfect storm of political wheeling and dealings. This takes Leslie, and even more so Ben, out of their element.
And to be honest, I was actually getting pissed off at Katherine Hahn, er, Jennnifer Barkley. Like, "How dare she come in like this and ruin Leslie's hopes when she was so close to winning?" It's one thing to enjoy the general hijinks of a rag tag political campaign but sometimes you just want to see something go right. This bodes well for the rest of the season because if Leslie wins it will be that much sweeter. If Leslie wins. I hope they don't go full Glee on this joint and keep on having them loose (Cut out all that "we're all winners on the inside" bullsh*t).
While Leslie battles Jennifer, Ron battles Chris. Now that Leslie has cut back her house the parks department needs a replacement. Ron hates this idea with an unholy passion. He promises Chris that he can prove that the department doesn't need any new blood by successfully pulling off a large initiative. He turns to Ann for assistence, parks seeks to make water fountains more hygenic because for some reason the people of Pawnee put their whole mouths on the fountain (this. is. hysterical.).
When trying to come up with a better plan, the tension between April and Ann come to a boiling point. The two start a water fight together and soon the whole department descends into liquid warfare. This is a sequence that was made for the internet meme.
Eventually they come up with an idea (spoutless water fountain) and Ron decides to promote Ann, only for Ann to tell him that it was all April's idea. The episode ends with a father-daughter moment between April and Ron, which is always really great to watch. Better yet, they first teased the idea of getting a new office member (are the fans ready for a new cast member?) and then decided that Ann and Tom was enough weirdness for now.
So you had a serious plot point to move the episode along with the addition of a fun action driven side story. And Katherine Hahn. I mean, come on, it was like Parks and Recreation heard my comments about staleness and shoved it up my ass.
SumOlogy: Katherine Hahn all the time please.
Grade:9/10
Extra quotes:
"Issue number one is the first issue we're going to talk about." -Perd
"Do I look like I drink water?" -Donna
"Everything I'm wearing is suede! Everything I'm wearing is suede!" -Tom
--
More Parks & Rec: Recaps News More All TV Recaps TVOlogy Interview With Jim O'Heir
Follow me on twitter @emilyfcheever
Comments (0)
Be the first to comment!