Parks and Recreation: Bowling For Votes

What Happened, Yo!:

-Leslie is watching a focus group about her and becomes obsessed over one man's comment that he won't vote for her because she doesn't seem like the kind of person he'd go bowling with. Ben tries to get her to let it go, but she organizes a bowling event so she can get in touch with her voters. It seems fine until Ben realizes she personally invited the man who made a negative comment against her. Despite his efforts to get her to focus on other people and ignore the people who will dislike her, she spends a lot of time bowling with the man and even lets him win. When he still says he won't vote for her though, she gets angry and demands a rematch for his vote where she beats him easily. When the man says he'll just write bitch on his ballot, Ben punches him out. Later, Ben suggests that Leslie fires him so that she'll be cleared of the new scandal, but she refuses and when she goes to apologize, she winds up refusing to do that too because the guy was a jerk and she's not sorry Ben punched him out.  This actually goes over well with the next focus group, who like her and Ben assures her that most voters just go with their gut.

-Meanwhile, Jerry has Andy, April, Donna, and Chris calling people for donations. He offers tickets to Pawnee's Monoplex for the person who raises the most money. Chris is excited by the prize and sets out to raise the most, and April decides to end Chris' happiness by raising more money than him. She winds up doing rather well, but everyone becomes distracted when Chris announces his intention to ask Jerry's daughter to move in with him, followed by Jerry telling everyone (except Chris) that Millicent intends to break up with Chris. Sure enough, Millicent shows up later and breaks up with him. April feels bad about this and after winning the contest, she later gives the movie tickets to Chris, along with an additional ticket so he can go to the movies with her and Andy. She also gives him a half-hug. Aww.

-At the bowling event, Ron gets frustrated by Tom bowling with two hands, despite being a man. He gets even more frustrated when this turns out to be a successful strategy and Tom starts winning. But when Tom gets a minor finger injury (though he treats it like a major one) and he has to bowl one-handed, he still succeeds.

I Liked This:

Bowling For Votes wasn't as spectacular as the past few episodes of Parks and Rec, but it was still a very good one. Like last week's episode, I bought into Leslie's fixation over the one comment, because we know by this point that she's the kind of person who gets obsessed by things like this. It was good to see them finally head to that bowling alley that they've previously established, but never visited and there was plenty of good moments there. I also liked the turn in Leslie's story with Ben punching out the voter and Leslie refusing to apologize for it. It was a neat twist and it worked nicely. And the other stuff at the bowling alley with Tom and Ron was a lot of fun. Especially the tidbit that the concession stand that only sells Hot Dogs and Hamburgers is Ron's favorite restaurant

As for the other plot, it was full of good moments (plus it appears Champion the Three-Legged Dog will be sticking around, which can only be good news), but it also served as a pretty big story for April. I enjoyed her efforts to thwart Chris, followed by her showing him some rare sympathy at the end. It's unlikely that this will lead to a major character change for April, but for now it gave the episode some extra sweetness.

But...: The episode was just lacking in really major laughs this week. That's the only reason why it wasn't as good as the past few.

The Bottom Line: Parks and Rec scores major laughs this week (Though not as major as previous weeks) with another solid episode on the campaign trail.

Grade: Totally Awesome! (Great)

Memorable Moments

-Ron: “When I eat, it is the food that is scared”

-Potential bowling handles for Tom before Ron just types in "Tom" are: T-Rex, T-Boz, Tommy Tsunami, Tiki Tiki Tom Tom, and Flyguy.

-Andy: "I don't think we're able to accept donations over 50 dollars". 

-Jerry: "Millie's going to break up with Chris". Donna: "Shut Up!" Andy: “Oh my God, that’s gonna be super weird when they move in together.”

-April: "I wished for his happiness to go away. I may be a wizard." 


-Andy: "What's that Champion? You need to go outside now? Come on. (He gets the dog and prepares to leave) Sorry. He hates awkward situations".

-Everyone booing Jerry after he announces Chris' break-up was a classic anti-Jerry moment.

-Randy: "The guy said he might press charges". Leslie: "Well, Randy I would like you to know that we will not be pressing charges". Randy: "Yeah, well that really wasn't an option".

-The end tag with Ron bowling a 300 playing like Tom, but refusing to be recognized for it was great. "I was never here and you will never speak of this again".