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[9.8/10] I wouldn’t give up Season 7 of Parks and Recreation. One episode in particular would have made it worthwhile on its own. But there’s a part of me that wishes this had been it, the end of the show, the last hurrah for the gang from the Parks Department. It would be hard to top how much this episode accomplished in twenty-two minutes, with strong beats and hints of growth for almost everyone in the cast.
That begins and ends with Leslie. There’s a great sense here of her getting ready for the grand adventure but having second thoughts about everything and everyone she’s leaving behind. The monument to hear as a new “founder” of Pawnee after the merger not only serves as a marker of how much she’s done for this town, and as a touching gesture of how much her friends appreciate her, but also as something to create that bit of emotional hardship in an already fraught day for her.
But it’s not all heavy. I love that her plan is to go around and try to convince her pals to come work with her in Chicago. I especially love the way Ron laughs when she suggests he pick up and leave to go work for the federal government. Andy being gung-ho about going, but April reminding him that living in Pawnee is cheap but Chicago would mean stuff happening and lots of people while she prefers “doing nothing with no one” is a nice rejection too. It’s a good tack for Leslie to take and struggle to let go.
But the nice thing about the episode is that it has character beats big and small for everyone here. (The smallest but funniest being Ben learning the accounting firm got him a copyright to Cones of Dunshire.) The biggest of them is Tom. After his stumbles in part one of this episode, he bounces back by convincing all the VIPs of the town and the Unity Concert to come to Tom’s Bistro’s real opening night. It’s a good win for him, underlined by Dr. Sapperstein coming to gloat over Tom’s failure, and then be so impressed by the turnout that he actually wants to invest. The Tom character has always been uneven, but this is him at his best -- working hard at something he cares about, that fits him, and seeing the fruits of his labor.
And hey! How about those VIPs! Getting Ginuwine to sing “Pony” with banners for Li’l Sebastian is just perfect, and I love the continuity of the show remembering that he’s Donna’s cousin. (Her “don’t make me tell them about your bath” bit was great.) Having Ben rock out to the singer from Letters to Cleo is fitting. And the reunion of Land Ho is paid off nicely here.
But that leads to other two great character beats in the episode. The first is centered around April and Andy. Andy is killing it as Johnny Karate, but “Moving Up” quickly establishes, he’s also kind of wistful about being a solo act and not having people on stage. Despite managing him and pushing him to do the Johnny Karate thing, April recognizes that, and so not only organizes an impromptu Mouserat reunion, but gets the whole collection of acts (including the previously mentioned Bobby Knight pun band) to sing “Bye Bye Li’l Sebastian” together, in a way that just warmed my cold cynical heart.
And then comes Duke Silver. After Ron stands up to Tammy 2 in a hilarious scene, there’s the hint that there’s a different side of him now. So he reveals his jazzy alter-ego, much to the rest of the gang’s joy and chagrin. It’s a bit heavy-handed, but Diane telling Ron later that he’s changed, and Ron not only acknowledging that but admitting he’s happy and he likes it, was a sweet button to put on his growth as a person and a character.
I don’t know what it was, but something about Andy and Ron and April up on that stage, Ben, Leslie, and Donna in the front row, and the whole crowd holding electric candles singing the L’il Sebastian tribute song with all their special guests got to me. It’s a fitting celebration of the unity, the camaraderie that Parks has always stood for. The ethos of the show is people going the extra mile for the people and the community that they care about, and as much as the Unity Concert has felt like a rehash of some of the show’s other great moments, it was a fitting culmination to so much of that.
It all ends the way Parks and Recreation should. It starts with one seemingly last heart-to-heart between Ron and Leslie, where Ron affirms his belief in Leslie’s potential, and Leslie takes his advice but in a different, very Knope-ian direction. I continues with the group banding together to make a pitch to some outsider about the value of the town, about how together they can make this thing work. And it finishes with a laugh, of Andy once again not really understanding the situation and asking if Grant Larson can bring Power Rangers back.
And then it leads to Leslie reflecting on her time in the parks dept., packing up her boxes from the office she’s occupied lo’ these many years, unplugging the monitor that has the department logo, and walking away from the job she’s known and loved for so long. She goes to hang that picture of her and her friends upstairs, not knowing if it’ll be a new home or a weigh station.
And then we freaking jump three years in the future and meet a version of Jon Hamm who’s even less competent than Terry (nee Larry, nee Jerry, nee Gary). It’s a bold stroke, one that would point the show in a different and exciting direction for the show’s final season. But it would also have worked as a great final moment of the show: Leslie having her cake and eating it too by staying in the town she loves but working to make the whole country a better place, taking on challenges that are worthy of her talents while all her friends are there to help. I can think of no better way to end the show, even the way that eventually did, than that.
