Tag Archives: parks and recreation

TV Time: Parks and Recreation 7.01/7.02

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Welcome, fellow Parks and Recreation fans to the first of my weekly recaps for this show’s final season! I hope you’re all ready to laugh and cry with me as we spend these last few weeks in Pawnee together.

Source: glamour.com

Source: glamour.com

Title 2017/Ron and Jammy

Two-Sentence Summary As we catch up with the gang from Pawnee in 2017, we learn that Ron and Leslie had a falling out, and both of them are competing for land that the Newport family is looking to sell; Leslie wants to build a national park, while Ron is helping Gryzzl with their bid for the land. The two call a momentary truce, however, to get Councilman Jamm out of Tammy’s evil clutches.

Favorite Line “Who cares if they have more money. I have the most valuable currency in America: a blind, stubborn belief that what I’m doing is right!” (Leslie)

My Thoughts It felt so good to have Parks and Recreation back. There’s nothing on television quite like this show, and no other show makes me feel as ridiculously happy as it does. It’s been tough for me to even think about Parks and Rec over the last few weeks, because whenever I do, I want to cry. However, the winning combination of “2017/Ron and Jammy” made it possible for me to finally look at this final run of episodes with excitement instead of sadness. It may be the final season of one of my favorite television shows of all time, but if these two episodes were any indication, it’s going to be a triumphant final season full of all the things that make Parks and Rec so special.

With this being the final season of Parks and Rec, I’ve been thinking a lot about its legacy. In my opinion, the most enduring thing about this show should be its message that kindness and warmth are strengths and not weaknesses—that nice people can be funny, too. This was never a comedy for cynics, and, as such, it turned out to be the perfect comedy for me. Despite the three-year time jump dealt with in this premiere and all of the changes that came from that, some things about our favorite citizens of Pawnee stayed the same, and one of those things was their collective big heart—no matter how reluctant some of them may be to show just how big their heart really is.

I thought every character’s development over the course of the three years we skipped over was perfect, and it was because they grew in some ways but stayed the same where it mattered.

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The Busy Season Is Upon Us

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I hope all of you had a lovely holiday season and are refreshed and ready for more great TV and more great TV discussions here at Nerdy Girl Notes!

Over the next couples of weeks, things will be getting pretty busy here, mainly because of NBC’s decisions concerning the final season of Parks and Recreation. I’ve been reviewing that show for the last two seasons, and I’m excited in a very bittersweet kind of way to review this last season, too. However, the decision to move that final season to Tuesday nights puts me in a bit of a bind as far as a posting schedule goes, which is why I’m looking for some help as I prioritize my writing for the next several weeks.

On Tuesdays, I’ll be watching both The Mindy Project and Parks and Rec, but (because I have to deal with a pesky thing called “my 9 to 5 job”) I won’t be able to write about both shows on Wednesdays. Therefore, I want to hear from you, fellow TV comedy fans, about which show you’d rather read my review of the next day and which you’d be willing to wait until Thursdays to read. (Fangirl Thursdays will be taking another hiatus after this week until Parks and Rec’s short run is over at the end of February.)

I’ve included a handy poll here that I’d love for you to participate in, because I want to get a good feel for what you as readers would like to see as far as my posting schedule goes.

 

Thanks in advance for the input, and I can’t wait to start talking with all of you about new episodes of our favorite shows!

Fangirl Thursday: I Always Cry at Weddings

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There’s nothing like a great TV wedding. I’ve been very fortunate to have watched more than a few of my favorite TV couples get married onscreen, and there’s no better feeling as a devoted fangirl than watching a couple you’ve rooted for through all of their ups and downs finally get that perfect wedding episode.

Some of my favorite TV episodes of all time are wedding episodes because they are instant doses of happiness I can come back to whenever I need it. They’re reminders to never stop hoping and believing in happy endings (or, really, happy beginnings), and I love stories that make me feel hopeful and happy.

This week, I was lucky enough to get to watch another one of my favorite television couples—Rick Castle and Kate Beckett—tie the knot in an excellent episode of Castle.

The joy I felt watching their vows on Monday made me want to reflect back on my other favorite TV weddings.

Leslie and Ben (Parks and Recreation)

I’ve talked about this wedding so many times, but I feel like I can never talk about it enough. I’m not sure any moment I’ve ever watched on television has made me as happy as this wedding. It’s my go-to episode when I’m in need of some TV comfort food, and I still cry happy tears every time I watch it. Every detail was perfect—from the location and the dress to the beautiful vows and the clips that accompanied them, reminding us of the journey these two characters took to get to this place where they could both so beautifully say, “I love you and I like you.”

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Fangirl Thursday: Making an Impact

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parks prom

We’ve all seen those lists popping up on our Facebook feeds—“15 Movies that Changed My Life,” “10 Books that Stayed with Me,” “10 Albums that Have Defined My Life,” etc. We’ve probably even made one or more of those lists ourselves. (I’ve done both the book and movies ones.) But I haven’t seen any of these “challenges” devoted to television.

That’s about to change.

I am the woman I am in no small part due to the movies I’ve watched and the books I’ve read in my 26 years. However, I’m also the woman I am because of the TV shows I’ve watched and the television characters I’ve loved. More than any other form of media, television has given me characters and stories to grow up with, to be inspired by, and to learn from over the course of many years.

Therefore, today I’m making a list of the 10 TV shows that have had the deepest impact on me. And I’m challenging all of my fellow nerds to make their own lists and post them in the comments!

1. Sesame Street: My love for television as a medium and my respect for it as a positive force in people’s lives can be traced back to mornings spent watching Sesame Street with my mom. It was the first TV show I was ever exposed to, and I want it to be the first TV show I expose my own children to someday. I love Sesame Street not only for the things it taught me (Spanish, letters and numbers, the continents…) but also for how happy it made me as kid and still makes me as an adult every time I see Grover or Big Bird or Cookie Monster spreading joy to a new generation of kids.

2. Boy Meets World: This was the first show to teach me that a piece of media can mean different things to you at different times in your life. I grew up with these characters not only when the show first aired but also through reruns that seemed to air just when I needed them in high school, in college, and even now. Boy Meets World’s series finale is one I treasure as an adult far more than I did as a preteen watching it for the first time, and it gave me some of the most profound advice any TV show could ever hope to give: “Dream. Try. Do good.”

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Fangirl Thursday: TV Comfort Food

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Sometimes life just sucks. Even though I try to be as positive as I can be as a writer and as a person, there’s no denying that some days are just bad days. Whether you had a bad day at work or are sick with a cold or feeling sad for no real reason, there are days when you just need comfort—comfy clothes, comfort food, and comfort TV.

We all have those episodes of certain TV shows that we watch when we need a little dose of instant happiness. They’re the episodes that act like a warm mug of tea and a soft blanket on life’s rainiest days. A good comfort TV episode makes you smile, laugh, and maybe even cry when you really need to.

When I’m having one of those days where I feel like nothing will cheer me up, I reach for my Parks and Recreation DVDs. I’ve spent many hours curled up on my couch, starting impromptu marathons of this show to get through sick days and sad days. But sometimes you just don’t have time for a marathon. Sometimes you have to choose just one episode that you know will do the trick—one episode that warms your soul and lifts your spirits. And, for me, that episode is “Leslie and Ben.”

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The Best Thing I Saw on TV This Week (4/20 – 4/27)

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This week in television featured the return of some beloved shows and the finales of others. Sunday night began with an episode of Once Upon a Time that might have featured the most character development on the show to date. The night continued with another strong episode of The Good Wife and one of the most controversial episodes of Game of Thrones in the show’s history. Monday brought a lot of fun to our living rooms with “party anthem” night on Dancing with the Stars and a new Castle episode that took the characters back to the 1970s to solve a cold case. Tuesday’s episode of The Mindy Project served as a potent reminder of just how wonderful Mindy and Danny could be together, and Wednesday’s Nashville concert special featured the show’s best songs performed by its talented cast. On Thursday, the sixth season of Parks and Recreation ended with huge leaps forward for all of its characters, and Saturday’s episode of Orphan Black was yet another thrill-a-minute way to spend an hour.

From every scene with Regina on Once Upon a Time to Alison drinking with Felix on Orphan Black, there were a plethora of great moments to choose from this week. But the best of the best came to us courtesy of Parks and Rec‘s season finale. The conclusion of the Unity Concert, with all of the episode’s guest stars joining a reunited Mouse Rat and Duke Silver onstage, was a huge dose of the kind of positive energy that only this show can provide. The joy on each character’s face was a perfect representation of this show’s ability to spread happiness, and I’ve been singing “5,000 Candles in the Wind” with a smile ever since Thursday night.

What was the best thing you saw on TV this week?

Grading the Season Finales 2014: Parks and Recreation

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This is the first of my regular shows that I review to have its finale this year, so I just want to say thanks to all of you who’ve read and commented on my Parks and Rec posts this season. It’s been a pleasure spending the season in Pawnee with all of you! 

Source: nbc.com

Source: nbc.com

Title Moving Up (6.21/6.22)

Written By Aisha Muharrar & Alan Yang

What Happens? Leslie attends a National Parks conference in San Francisco, where some advice from Michelle Obama and Ben help her see that she needs to accept the job she was offered with the National Parks Department to head up their branch in Chicago. While in California, Ben discovers that his board game, The Cones of Dunshire, has taken off in popularity, and he’s later given the copyright to the game as a gift from the Pawnee accounting firm he keeps having to turn down.

Leslie’s decision to take the National Parks job is complicated by the experience of others in similar positions to hers in terms of the Pawnee-Eagleton merger, people who tell her it could take a decade of close involvement with both towns to make the merger work. In addition, her team at the Parks Department has her love for Pawnee commemorated on a statue.

Leslie must put aside her difficult decision to help finalize the Unity Concert, which Andy leads surprisingly without difficulty. The same can’t be said for the soft opening of Tom’s Bistro, which is disastrous, but April, Ron, Donna, and Craig inspire Tom to give it another try with an after party following the Unity Concert. The concert itself not only features performances from major musical acts (including Donna’s cousin Ginuwine), it reunites Mouse Rat and introduces all of Pawnee to Ron’s saxophone-playing alter ego, Duke Silver. That success is followed by another—Tom’s after party is a huge hit with national and Pawnee celebrities alike.

Feeling more torn than ever after such a successful event in the town she loves, Leslie seeks out Ron’s advice and finds him on the third floor of City Hall, which he completely restored over the course of the year. He tells Leslie that her ambition deserves more than what Pawnee can give her, and she can’t have everything she wants. However, Leslie is inspired to find a way to do exactly that. She convinces the National Parks Service to open their Midwest branch in Pawnee instead of Chicago.

The final moments of the finale flash forward three years into the future, where Leslie is running the National Parks Department branch in Pawnee, heading to an event for Ben (that requires him to wear a tuxedo), and leaving her young triplets with Auntie April and Uncle Andy for the evening.

Game-Changing Moment For six seasons, Leslie Knope has worked as an employee of the Parks Department of Pawnee, Indiana. Even when she was a city councilwoman, she never stopped being connected to that Parks Department. Heck, it’s the title of the show! Therefore, if Leslie leaving that Parks Department to take a job for the National Parks Service doesn’t qualify as a game-changing moment, then I’m not sure what does. Yes, she still lives and works in Pawnee. Yes, she still seems to be close to her friends. But the fundamental makeup of the show—a workplace comedy about local government—has been dramatically altered thanks to the events of “Moving Up.” And after a season that had many—myself included—feeling restless about the direction of the series, this game-changing moment was a breath of fresh air, a necessary step in the real story this show is trying to tell. Because at its heart, Parks and Recreation isn’t a story about local government; it’s a story about Leslie Knope, and Leslie’s story needed this change.

That could have been enough to change the foundation of Parks and Rec, but the show went one step further with the final-minute time jump. Taking these characters three years into the future opened up new avenues of storytelling that would have taken too long to develop any other way. It shook up the sense of stasis that existed for most of this season in a major way, and it created a sense of eager anticipation for next season.

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TV Time: Parks and Recreation 6.20

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Parks-And-Recreation-One-in-8000

Title One in 8,000

Two-Sentence Summary When Leslie and Ben discover they’re having triplets, Ben tries to help Leslie stay calm while internally panicking about their family finances. Meanwhile, Andy tries to keep his knowledge of the pregnancy a secret from April, and Ron helps Donna deal with her ex-boyfriend, Joe.

Favorite Line “Live your life how you want, but don’t confuse drama with happiness.” (Ron)

My Thoughts Since this week’s Parks and Recreation review is up a little later than usual (thanks to a Scandal season finale that needed grading yesterday), I decided to break my thoughts down into a list of 10 quick opinions on “One in 8,000.”

1.) I’m a little worried about this whole triplets plot, if I’m being honest. I’m excited to see my favorite TV couple as parents, but three babies seems like a little much. (Although it was foreshadowed back in Season Two’s “The Set Up” when Leslie was told she could “go triplets right off the bat.”) I’m never one to discourage showing happy marriages and families on television, but I don’t want the Knope-Wyatt triplets to become something the show relies on too much. It could venture very quickly into sitcom cliché territory, but I’m still hopeful that this team of writers knows what they’re doing and won’t let us down.

2.) While I’ll admit that I spent the beginning of the scene in the doctor’s office wondering if he was going to be wrong about the triplets, I was happy I stopped stressing about this new plot development and decided to enjoy Leslie and Ben’s reactions in the rest of the scene. Adam Scott’s increasingly panicked “But what do we do?” was absolutely perfect.

3.) “One in 8,000” was another excellent episode for Scott in general. I was happy that Ben acted completely in-character for an accountant, showing his practicality by worrying about the financial ramifications of having triplets (and acknowledging the cost of their trip to Paris). Watching Ben freak out to the camera while trying to remain calm for Leslie was a highlight of the episode.

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The Best Thing I Saw on TV This Week (4/6 – 4/13)

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This week in television started off on Sunday with a trip into Zelena’s past on Once Upon a Time and the triumphant return of Game of Thrones. Monday’s episode of Dancing with the Stars shook up the show’s partnerships with varying degrees of success, and Tuesday’s hour of The Mindy Project broke all of our hearts but may have featured the comedy’s finest acting to date. And Thursday provided a trifecta of excellent episodes: A new addition to the Knope-Wyatt family was revealed on Parks and Recreation; the Suits season finale saw the end of both Scottie and Mike’s time as Pearson-Specter lawyers; and the lives of multiple important characters are hanging in the balance after Scandal‘s penultimate episode of the season.

I was going to choose Mindy and Danny’s terribly realistic breakup scene as the best moment of the week because Mindy Kaling and Chris Messina were just so good in it. However, it’s time I chose something uplifting again—and I am so thankful for Parks and Rec‘s happy pregnancy reveal, which took what could have been an ordinary episode and elevated it to one of the show’s turning points. Leslie revealing her pregnancy to Ben (just by saying she had good news for him) was the perfect showcase for Amy Poehler and Adam Scott’s warm chemistry and underrated talent for handling emotional moments with realism and sincerity. The subtlety, love, and genuine happiness in that scene was like comfort food for the soul after so many weeks of depressing television.

Because NBC doesn’t like to let me share their videos, relive the joy again by watching this scene over at EW.com! 

What was the best thing you saw on TV this week?

TV Time: Parks and Recreation 6.19

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Source: tvguide.com

Source: tvguide.com

Title Flu Season 2

Two-Sentence Summary Tom attends a sommelier competition to find someone to hire for his restaurant, only to discover that Craig is a great—and very enthusiastic—sommelier. Meanwhile, Ben’s frustration over his parents selling their lake house leads him to the discover that he wants to start a family with Leslie now, which coincides with Leslie discovering that her nausea might not be a flu symptom after all.

Favorite Lines
Ben: I want to start our family. I mean—I know things are crazy. But there’s no “good” time, and I want to do it now.
Leslie: Well buddy, I’ve got some good news for you…

My Thoughts A lot of fun things happened in “Flu Season 2.” Andy thought karate could be used as first aid. Bo Burnham showed up as a 17-year-old country singer with the worst attitude imaginable. Craig tried to bring it down a thousand notches. April pretended to be a sommelier. And Ben got drunk on blueberry wine and went to one Ron (the Pawnee version) to another (the Eagleton version) for advice.

But in the middle of all of the hilarity and hijinks, something momentous happened. LESLIE KNOPE IS PREGNANT. THERE IS GOING TO BE A LITTLE KNOPE-WYATT BABY IN THE FUTURE. BEN AND LESLIE ARE GOING TO BE PARENTS.

(Sorry about the caps—some things just need to be virtually screamed from the rooftops, and your favorite TV couple having a baby is one of those things!)

My favorite thing about “Flu Season 2” was the way it played with expectations, subverting them from the moment we learned the episode’s title through its blissful conclusion. I thought this was going to be another episode where a flu epidemic was used to create excellent moments of comedy, much like its predecessor, “Flu Season,” was back in Season Three. So imagine my surprise when it became clear that Leslie didn’t actually have the flu. The scene at the drugstore where the revelation dawned on Leslie was so great because it dawned on the audience at the same time. By allowing us to go into the episode thinking it was going to be about the flu, the writers kept us (and Leslie) from immediately putting together the oldest cliché in the book: woman + throwing up = pregnancy.

While the title may have led us to believe that this episode was going to be about something else, I shouldn’t have been surprised that it ended up featuring a huge step forward in the progression of Ben and Leslie’s story. The original “Flu Season” used the flu as a vehicle for Ben to see just how special Leslie is and for Leslie to see how much Ben had come to care about her. I’ve always believed that was the episode when Ben went from being intrigued by and maybe attracted to Leslie to starting to really fall in love with her. So it makes perfect sense to me that “Flu Season 2” ended up also being about something a heck of a lot deeper and more meaningful than the flu.

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