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| Left to right: Lucy Lawless and Chris Pratt |
Welcome to Parts of Rec, a new column that will attempt to take the weekly brilliance of NBC show Parks and Recreation and cut it into the bare essentials. After all, time is precious and sometimes you cannot read pages and pages of reviews. While it will be impossible to bottle all of the highlights, I will do my best to cover the plot, as well as memorable moments and just what makes it great in general. Make sure to look for Parts of Rec every Friday following the episode.
Season 5, Episode 5
"Halloween Surprise"
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| Nick Offerman |
“One time I sprained my wrist and our insurance claimed that
having a wrist was a pre-existing condition.”
-Leslie (Amy Poehler)
It's Halloween time in Pawnee, and what better way to celebrate than with some festivities? At the office, we have Chris (Rob Lowe) setting up a campy movie night, and Ron (Nick Offerman) has decided to go with Andy (Chris Pratt) to trick or treat with Ron's girlfriend's (Lucy Lawless) kids. During this venture, she has to leave her kids in Ron's custody. He proves to be a faulty watcher and ends up causing more problems than good. Meanwhile, the movie night is happening with Donna (Retta) posting her thoughts on Twitter and annoying everyone else. Tom (Aziz Ansari) sneaks off to the bathroom, and Leslie (Amy Poehler) decides to cheer Ann (Rashida Jones) up by scaring him when he comes out of the bathroom. As they wait, Jerry (Jim O'Heir) comes out, and they scare him. This results in a mixture of a heart attack and a bunch of farting. After rushing him to the hospital, they try to raise funds for him and keep him in good health. Tom just wants the doctor to call it a "fart attack" so bad. Ron eventually gets his name cleared of being a bad influence. Jerry is still in the hospital. Ben (Adam Scott) and April (Aubrey Plaza) return to Pawnee after a venture in Washington D.C. only to reveal that Ben wants to propose to Leslie. She says yes.
Rating: 4.5 out of 5
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| Jim O'Heir |
MVP: Jerry (Jim O'Heir)
(Forgive me. I couldn't find an episode picture)
Let's just give him the good spirit award this week, if just because he was the definition of surprise in this episode (well, until the end). From the moment that he walked out of the bathroom and gave a saddening self-deprecating mix of farting and having a heart attack, there was a sense that he would control the episode. Even when he wasn't on screen, he had that control, including numerous inspirational jokes from Leslie and Tom. It is sad to give him the award for something as embarrassing as this story, but he owned it and this was his moment to shine. Well done.
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| Left to right: Rashida Jones and Amy Poehler |
Best scene: It would probably have to be surprise #2 in which Ben shows up and proposes to Leslie. It is very reminiscent of the April and Andy marriage arc a few seasons back, but we've seen these two grow, and it could go either way now. It is nice to see the show taking such a leap of faith with its audience. It was unexpected and most of all, a little touching. How will Ben and Leslie's relationship change because of this? I don't know, but from the promos, Jonathan Banks is on next week, and that makes this moment all the more great.
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You’re right about Jerry totally carrying the episode; I never really thought about it until you said so, but yeah; even in the scenes he wasn’t in, he was being talked about, or joked about, or was having an auction held in his honor. He also gave Leslie a piece of much-needed advice. I loved Tom’s new business venture (Rent-A-Swag!); does this mean we’ll get Jean Ralphio back? This was a great episode though; one of my favorite of the entire series. From Andy’s observational training to Ron snapping a child’s tiara, it was perfect. The capper was that proposal; one of the sweetest and funny TV proposals, ever. Luckily, as a DISH employee beta tester I was able to record everything on the four major networks using PrimeTime Anytime last night, through my Hopper. It’s nice no longer having to worry if something is going to get skipped, especially with how packed full of good TV Thursdays are (NBC and FX OWN Thursday).
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