Parks and Recreation: The Debate

What Happened, Yo!:

-It is the night of the debate and Leslie and Ben are confident that she'll be able to crush Bobby Newport and overcome the gap between the two candidates. But when the debate begins, Bobby Newport is hurt by her opening declaration that Bobby Newport feels he can buy the vote. This causes people to be more sympathetic to Bobby, even though his responses show that he's a moron who shouldn't win this election, and Leslie backs off from attacking a bit, throwing her off her game. She starts to gain some momentum during the second part of the debate, but becomes shocked when Jen gets Bobby to declare her anti-big business and claim that his dad will move Sweetums if Leslie wins the election. Ben and Leslie aren't sure what to do, until Benn decides that she should go on the attack and kick his ass. Leslie delivers a powerful closing speech about how she comes off strong because she's passionate about Pawnee and how if you love something, you shouldn't threaten it or hold it hostage like Bobby has done. This gets massive applause from everyone, including Bobby Newport, who invites her to a party later to celebrate making it through the debate.

-Meanwhile, Tom, Ann, and Chris are on spin duty, trying to put a positive light on everything that may happen during the debate. Tom is upset because after his most recent stunt (An inappropiate radio shout-out) Ann has dumped him for good. April tells him to be open about his feelings, but as he prepares to do so, he sees what seems to be Chris and Ann getting back together. And although Chris does try to get back together with Ann, she rejects him, saying that he's making their relationship into something more than it was and can't date her anyways, because of his rule. Tom comes honest about his feelings, but she decides she wants to be single for now. Tom still believes he can win her back though.

-Also meanwhile, Andy and April host a party for campaign Donors, while Ron provides the food. The guests are also supposed to watch the debate, but Andy has forgot to pay the cable bill. While Andy re-enacts some of his favorite movies, Ron goes to temporarily steal cable and gets the cable back in time for Leslie's big finish, which thrills Andy so much, he accidentally breaks the TV in his jubiliation.

I Liked This: Wow. Season 4 of Parks and Recreation has had tons of great episodes and this one is no exception. Written and directed by Leslie Knope herself, Ms. Amy Poehler continues a trend of writing classic episodes, delivering a crucial episode in this whole campaign storyline. Once again, Paul Rudd is great as Bobby Newport and the idea behind the character: that he's an idiot who has no business on City Council, but is so powerful and likeable, he might win anyways is used in a good fashion here. The episode could've bombed if there was no chance that Leslie could lose the debate, but setting it up so she's scared off the attack for much of the episode was clever. As was introducing the idea that Sweetums might leave Pawnee if Leslie wins, which sets it up for Leslie to knock the debate out of the park, but also introduces something that'd be interesting to revisit if Leslie won the election: what if Sweetums left? The other candidates were the typical Pawnee crazies, and provided some good moments during the debate (One of my favorite aspects of the episode was Brandi Maxxxx (From last year's Leslie's Painting) dressing like Leslie, and arguing that she's essentially the same person during the debate). As for the other stories, Tom, Chris, and Ann should be an interesting triangle to see play out, but Andy was the other star of the episode. I couldn't stop laughing, watching him re-enact scenes from Roadhouse, and his heartfelt plea in favour of the movie Babe, complete with a tearful Donna was amazing. Ron as Cable Lineman was pretty awesome too.

But...: No problems this week. Great episode.

The Bottom Line: The Debate was a stellar episode of Parks and Rec, with yet another great Amy Poehler-written episode, good use of Paul Rudd, and what was possibly Chris Pratt's finest (half) hour so far.

Grade: 95% (Almost Perfect)

Memorable Moments


-Chris: "If I had to have anybody tell me that I had cancer, I would want it to be me."

-Campaign Donor: "So, do you do a lot of investing?" Andy: "We dabble. I recently invested in some shirts at a garage sale. Left those at a Wendy's on the way home, so... hehehe, the economy."

-Bobby Newport: "By the year 2013, we will have a fully functioning mall on Jupiter."