Parks and Recreation

Parks and Recreation

Episode 16: Sweet Sixteen

By: Carlos Uribe

Parks and Recreation is a show about the parks and recreation department of a fictional town called Pawnee, which is in Indiana.

Spoilers Ahoy!

This episode begins with a cold open of Leslie simultaneously trying to both be Deputy Director of the parks department and trying to run her campaign. This is made more difficult by the law that requires her to not be in a government building while running a campaign. The cold open is really just introducing what this episode is all about: can Leslie do her full-time job of running the department while trying to win a city council seat? The answer is no. Leslie tries to deny it all she wants, but she simply can't dedicate herself to both tasks and do them both right. She keeps denying this fact despite all her blunders until the very end. After the cold open, Ron tries to force her to take a sabbatical which she refuses to take. This conversation also reveals that Leslie can still work at the parks department while being in the city council. This makes no sense to me since this would imply a conflict of interest to me, but apparently it's legal in Pawnee. This is important because until now we've been assuming that Leslie will lose her seat so she can continue to have a role on the show. Giving her the ability to keep her job and be on the city council adds the possibility of a victory. In all honesty, they should have revealed this when she first began running.

To try and prove to Ron that she is indeed capable of having two full-time jobs at the same time, she decides to throw Jerry a surprise birthday party after having forgotten his leap year birthday. She has the party take place at Donna's secret lake house, even if it means following a strict set of rules, and at first it does seem like the party planning has gone well. It isn't until the time of the party that Leslie realizes that she has missed one tiny crucial detail: inviting the birthday boy. This leads to her having to pick him up, along with the birthday cake which she also forgot, while trying to rub it in Ron's face that she can do it all. During the trip, she also runs into a campaign issue of all her campaign signs having come out wrong. When it finally comes time to party, Leslie falls asleep after being exhausted for so long. It's in the morning when Leslie is finally ready to listen to Ron and admit that if she wants to win the campaign then she has to dedicate almost all her time to the campaign.

There's also other issues in the party. The primary side issue being Tom and Ann's relationship. It seems like they have dated for a while but they aren't really clicking. Ann hasn't even heard of one of Tom's favorite musicians while he takes her to see terrible movies. It really does seem like they don't belong together. Their differences get to be so highlighted that Tom actually thinks about breaking up with Ann even though she may be his dream girl. They almost do break up but something keeps them together. That is the one person actively rooting against them: April. April is trying to get them to leave them alone so she essentially tells them to shut up about all the stupid problems they have with the other. This leads Ann and Tom to actually talking with each other and so they are together. So far, I'm surprised in how long this relationship has survived. I'm sure that in an episode or two the relationship will be ending. I just don't see it lasting because so far, it's been all superifical.

The other issue of the episode is Chris. Chris really bonds with Champion after having dogsat (?) him. He even trained the dog to respond to German commands and is generally the best owner a dog could have. Andy realizes this and even offers Chris Champion, but Chris doesn't accept because it would never truly be his dog. Andy proceeds to do the next best thing and let Chris borrow Champion anytime he wants. This isn't just because Chris is a really good dog owner, but because Andy basically realizes something. Chris is really lonely. This profound realization led to him trying to be there for Chris. It's sort of sad to see someone who is so chipper to probably be the saddest character currently in the ensemble.

This was overall an extremely funny episode of the show. It had numerous moments, such as the issue with the campaign sign and Ben waking up at the moment of surprise, along with many sweet moments, such as Chris letting Andy believe that Champion came back to Andy's music rather than his dog whistle. It was an episode that was built around a strong core around Leslie, Chris, and even Tom and Ann. It simply was a strong episode.