3x02 Flu Season

[9.1/10] One of those episodes that just shows you how many great character combinations and great individual performances Parks and Rec can boast. There’s hardly a weak link in this episode, with all of the stories being tied together nicely and feeding off of one another.

The best, naturally, is Leslie Knope powering through the flu. It’s so clear rewatching these episodes how much Amy Poehler brings to the table, but she just outdoes herself comedically here. The way she absolutely conveys Leslie’s resolve in the face of debilitating illness, her ability to stand up and power through when she needs to, and most of all her flu med-assisted lunacy is amazing. The lines are great from “Hello I’m Leslie Monster, this is Nightline” to “Scott Bakula from Quantum Link everyone,” but Poehler sells the bewildered, hallucinatory state to perfection.

By the same token, Rob Lowe does great work at communicating Chris’s utter debilitation when “the microchip” is compromised after he too contracts the flu. His crash and bounce back and germophobia is supremely well done, and his mirror-facing demand to “stop pooping” is hilarious. Tying it to Ann feeling nervous about her date but seeing him like that easing her fears is a nice touch.

My second favorite bit in the episode, however, is Ron and Andy bonding. The two are so opposite in personality, but the way the show teases out the common ground between the two of them is terrific. There’s great comedy in their hijinks, and using them as fodder for the two to get close enough for Ron to tell Andy about April adds a touch of heart to it as well.

Speaking of April, her mini-feud with Ann isn’t as strong as some of the other material, but it still brings the funny and moves along the April-Andy romance nicely. Similarly, Tom’s bit at the spa (amusingly named “Spa-wnee” is slight, but advances the cause.

Last, but certainly not least, Adam Scott is great as a straight man to Leslie’s flu-addled ramblings, and then as someone duly impressed at her ability to turn on the Knope when she needs to for the Harvest Festival. He and Chris Trager were a pair of ingredients that really put this show, which had already found its groove in S2, over the top. Altogether, an episode like this one was a sign that P&R had truly arrived and was at the height of its powers.

Perhaps the best episode yet and a great example of the show working with more of a confined narrative, that being the ongoing flu epidemic in Pawnee. It's interesting and fitting perhaps to watch now in the midst of the Coronavirus, particularly when Donna, Jerry and Tom quarantine themselves against Leslie's flu ridden state.

This episode simply fires on all cylinders. I absolutely love April and her petty but understandable contempt for Ann and how Ann decides to not let April get the satisfaction of having provoked her. Since the show seemed to really find April's purpose beginning with the season two episode, "Hunting Trip" (where April bonded with Andy for the first time onscreen), she's perhaps the character I most love watching in a show with many characters that I love to watch.

Speaking of a character that I love watching, this is a quintessential Leslie episode for me and one of Amy Poehler's greatest outings yet. Her performance is consistently hilarious and has such a gripping authenticity to it, how she plays the fever ridden state that Leslie finds herself in this episode. The resolution to her story is amazing and Ben's talking head that wraps up that storyline is fantastic too.

Then there's the Andy and Ron side story, where they bond during April's absence as Ron's assistant. It's such a simple storyline and one that I find utterly infectious to watch.

Then there's the highlight, or co-highlight (along with the Leslie stuff) of this episode in Chris and his 'microchip' having been compromised. Rob Lowe's finest, most outrageous and hilarious performance yet and the monologue that he gives himself in front of the mirror, "Stop. Popping", is a complete laugh riot.

Exceptional episode.