3x05 Media Blitz

[9.4/10] One of those great episodes of the show, that just blends comedy, awkwardness, goofiness, narrative momentum, and even a little heart to make everything work perfectly.

The A-story is Leslie taking Ben and Tom on the titular media blitz to promote the harvest festival. There is so much great comedy to be wrung from Ben’s complete and total awkwardness about being on air in any way shape or form. His word salad when confronted about his past on Crazy Ira and The Douche is perfect in its incoherency, and the montage of his appearances on Ya Herd, With Perd were the comedic highlight of the episode. (The smash cut to Ben stating angrily, “Who hasn’t had gay thoughts?” cracked me up.) Ben can often be the straight man on the show, reacting quizzically to the lunacy of Pawnee, so giving him a chance to be the source of laughs, while also giving him some pathos from not being able to live down his very public teenage mistakes, is a great choice.

But it also leads to a lot of great comedy and character moments for Tom and especially Leslie. Tom trying to impart his charismatic wisdom to Ben is amusing (as is his reference “Brooks Brothers Boys”). Leslie’s commitment to cheesy 40s-style newspaper headlines is one of the show’s running gags that I never tire of. More to the point though, Leslie finds the solution to the problem – bringing Ben back on the air and powering through all the questions until 1. Ben pushes through it and defends himself and 2. the town is so exhausted by the issue that it can’t help but go back to thinking about the Harvest Festival (a la Alan Vinick). It shows both how shrewd she is in redirecting that energy back to the Harvest Festival, but also that she’s helpful and cares about Ben enough to try to get him through this.

Despite how great that is, I’m not sure anything in the episode could top Andy and April finally making up and kissing. It’s hard to encapsulate (thanks for the word, Leslie!) why the two are so adorable together, but something about how the normally gloomy April is so enlivened by Andy’s puppy dog qualities makes them a perfect match.

The premise of the B-story, that April is planning to move to Indiana anyway, but has given Andy her equivalent of Hercules’ labors to earn her love in a fool’s errand is a good one. It leads to a lot of great, goofy Andy moments of trying to fulfill this absurd list as best he can, and the team up of the reserved Ron and the exuberant Andy as a team is a great one. But as funny as it is, it also leads to some sweetness between Ron and April (and by extension Andy) when Ron gives April his fishing metaphor about reeling Andy in or cutting him loose. It’s scenes like these that helped develop Ron from a one-note character in a fully fleshed out and vital presence on the show. And it makes that kiss between April and Andy feel very very earned.

As usual, the only part of the episode that doesn’t really work is the Ann-Chris stuff. The jokes about Chris’s uber-healthy lifestyle are amusing enough, and Ann trying to match it and hint that she wants to move to Indiana with him is fine, I guess. But I’m just not invested in their relationship drama so it doesn’t really compel me.

Thankfully though, it’s a minimal part of an otherwise awesome episode. Ben’s story develops him, his relationship with Leslie, and his comic potential nicely, and the April-Andy story is a major payoff that brings the laugh and the heart as well. Overall, one of the show’s finest episodes.