Parts of Rec: "Article 2"

Amy Poehler

*NOTE: Stay tuned for a Parts of Rec on episode 20 premiering at noon today.

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 19
"Article 2"

Left to right: Aziz Ansari, Poehler, and Chris Pratt

"There's no way that a man that's into the X-Men that much 

can stay away from the internet for that long."

-Leslie (Amy Poehler

The episode begins with the town of Pawnee gathering to celebrate Tea Day by dumping a guy named Ted into the lake. This is based off of a type-o in which an "e" looks like a "d." This leads to everyone noticing how unfair the rules are and leads to a town meeting in which Garth (Patton Oswalt) decides to filibuster until a difference is made on many laws. This leads Garth and Leslie (Amy Poehler) to have a contest to see who can survive the longest in olden times before giving up. Meanwhile, Ann (Rashida Jones) and Ben (Adam Scott) are betting on a waffle maker to give to Leslie for different anniversaries based on their friendships. Garth proves to be too much of a free spirit and wins the big fight, causing Leslie to change everything but Article 2, which allows for a Ted to be dunked into a lake. However, it has been altered to symbolize a Ted as opposed to being one specifically. Leslie gets a waffle maker and creates all new holidays to commemorate when Ann and Ben became best friends.

Rating: 3 out of 5

Left to right: Patton Oswalt and Poehler

MVP: Leslie (Amy Poehler)

This was one of the weaker episodes, and pretty disappointing considering that Patton Oswalt was a major part of the episode. True, his filibuster scene featured plenty of comedic ranting, but otherwise his performance fell flat. Leslie wins, if just because she managed to pull off a shameless and consistently interesting old timey woman. She was always concerned that she could never beat Garth, and that lead for some comedic moments, but overall, Leslie was the real glue to the episode because she consistently believed in her cause, and therefore added some passion, especially as the cracks began to show and she couldn't handle the lifestyle any longer.

Best scene: Tough call, but it would probably be the moment where everything was resolved by somehow tossing a fake Ted into the lake. Instead of tossing Garth, who couldn't swim, Andy (Chris Pratt) goes running naked into the lake over enthused. With the whole town cheering, the tradition has been restored and everything can go back to normal. Even though the episode had too many established holidays that made no sense, this was the initial one that didn't sound all that crazy and thankfully was the one that carried through to the end of the episode.