Parks and Recreation: Meet 'n' Greet

Ever since Tom left the Parks department to form Entertainment 720 with Jean-Ralphio, the audience knew that it wouldn't last forever. The writers found pretty clever ways to keep Tom in the show, but Entertainment 720 had to end eventually. Especially, once we saw the company and how they didn't seem to have any clients or do anything useful. Meet 'n' Greet begins to pave the way for Tom to return by having Entertainment 720 finally go bankrupt. It also used this to create conflict between Tom and Leslie, in another great episode that spotlighted their friendship for the first time in a while, while also continuing the "Leslie for city council storyline" in a good way.

Basically, Leslie has hired Entertainment 720 to put together a meet 'n' greet for local businesses, so she can show she has similar values and get their support, particularly the support of the president of a business that makes rubber nipples. But when Tom gets a mysterious call from Jean-Ralphio (about the bankruptcy of the company, though that part is kept from the audience), suddenly the party seems to be more about Tom's company than Leslie's candidacy. His face and company logo is everywhere, he steers the attention away from Leslie when talking to the business people, and he interrupts her speech to show a video presentation about Entertainment 720, that includes him impersonating Mark Zuckerberg. Leslie is a very patient person, but eventually she has enough and tries to drown Tom in his mobile hot tub (it's built onto a limo). Of course, when she finds out that his company is over, she has much more sympathy for Tom. The final interactions between the two are sweet, especially when Tom shows off the video he had made to promote Leslie's campaign, which moves her to tears. Finding out that Tom bribed the rubber nipple guy into giving Leslie another chance was nice too. I've always liked the Leslie/Tom relationship and I felt it was put to good use here. The episode also did a good job with showing off the many dimensions of Tom's character. As Leslie puts it, "Tom Haverford is a selfish, unctuous, sleazy self-promoting… good-hearted, secretly kind and wonderful, tiny little person." Ain't that the truth.

Meanwhile Ben arrives home to find out that Andy and April are throwing a Halloween party and have neglected to tell him. "I knew I forgot to tell you something", says Andy. Ben isn't happy about this, but since he comes from a family that never says when they're upset and only subtly hints at what's bugging them, pretends not to mind. Andy knows something is up though, in a surprising moment of insight from the character, and after trying to get the information out of Ben by normal methods, he decides to wrestle Ben until he tells him. Ben is resistant to fight back and when he finally does, he accidentally breaks Andy's nose. Andy isn't bothered by this though, and after finally getting Ben to open up and say that he'd like to be treated with respect, (and after Andy tries to get $5200 to record a Mouse Rat album), Andy declares to the nurse that he and Ben are brothers. This was another nice storyline, and I liked the Andy/Ben dynamic.

And lastly, Ron is appalled by the state of the house, and decides to fix everything that is wrong as a late wedding present to April and Andy. Ann decides to help him out, and the two of them begin to develop a nice bond, as they fix things. In the end, Ron even gives Ann the new toolbox he had to get, because of the terrible state of April and Andy's toolbox (it includes a hammer, a baseball card, half a scissor, and a flashlight filled with jellybeans). We also saw more of Chris' relationship with Jerry's daughter Millicent, as he once again unintentionally made Jerry uncomfortable. The best part of this story was the sight gag of April turning around the mouth on Jerry's Mr. Potato Head costume to make a sad face. All in all, Parks and Recreation continues on the stride it's been on for a while now. And that's fine with me.

Grade: Totally Awesome! (Great)

Memorable Moments

 -Leslie: "When in doubt, in Pawnee, slam salad".
-When Ron is in Lowes, he turns down an offer for help with 5 simple words: "I know more than you."
-Best joke of the night. Leslie: “Look, I don't like to throw around the word butthead too often. If you call everybody a butthead, then it kind of loses its impact. But I can say without hesitation that Tom is being a real dick.”
-Chris:  “Jerry, I have decided to take your daughter home, and we may be having intercourse.”