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| Left to right: Amy Poehler and Jon Glaser |
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 13
"Emergency Response"
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| Left to right: Rashida Jones and Rob Lowe |
"Banks are just ponzi schemes ran by idiots."
-Ron (Nick Offerman)
It is a big day for Pawnee. It is coming down to a vote on what to do with the lot. It could either go to Jamm (Jon Glaser) and become a Paunch Burger, or could turn into a park under Leslie's (Amy Poehler) plan. However, they are $5000 short. Cut to a week before, Leslie is getting together a big fundraising event and forcing Tom (Aziz Ansari) to go about collecting free food vendors for the gig. Suddenly, Chris (Rob Lowe) shows up and states that Pawnee is going under a fake emergency response meeting in order to prove that they are ready for the worst. Under the eye of a commander (Matt Walsh), they run a test that involves Avarian bird flu and little chance of success, in part because Jamm rigged it. Ron (Nick Offerman) is put in charge of raising awareness by taking phone calls on a news show, whose host unfortunately faints and leaves him to speak his mind to an unaware public. This eats up time for most of the day. Meanwhile, Andy (Chris Pratt) studies with April (Aubrey Plaza) for his police test. He ends up choking and failing, though is claimed to have a nice personality. By the time that the emergency response gets out, Pawnee fails, but they still have enough time at an event to raise money. Tom pulled strings and got some serious food vendors involved as well, because they don't like Paunch Burger. However, the biggest reveal, as Andy's band Mouse Rat plays, is that Ben (Adam Scott) wants to hold the wedding to Leslie that night. The episode ends with a To Be Continued card.
Rating: 3.5 out of 5
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| Left to right: Matt Walsh and Rob Lowe |
If one episode is going to be a classic because of one performance, it is going to be this one. True, the whole scenario in which the emergency response test interfered with the festival was a blow, but Leslie really knows how to handle things. She is consistently trying to talk her way out of situations and soon she is coming to the bottom of Jamm's scheme. However, the reason that she is MVP is also because there is a portion of the show in which a video is played of a fake news team, and they are all played by Leslie. If there was a need to realize just how quick witted and a genius that Amy Poehler is, it would be that brief video in which she puts on accents and throws to news stories at told by herself. It is a delight to watch, and I am glad that they brought it back for the closing credits.
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| Left to right: Poehler and Adam Scott |
Best scene: Maybe it is because we are finally seeing the story progress in intriguing new ways, but the proposal scene between Leslie and Ben is just endearing. True, it was even more endearing when it happened earlier this season, but Ben is proving to be quite the hero, as he keeps stealing scenes and making himself seem like a gentleman. While it is possible that Ben's wild card persona will fade, his charm of surprising people will not go away all together. At most, it raises a great cliff hanger for next week's proposed hour long episode. Such an exciting time, and I cannot wait to see how things play out.
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