Parks & Recreation - Season 3 (1 Viewer)

[TravisR]

Re-elect Jan Cooper, Mayor Of Whoreville!

 

[Adam Lenhardt]

Loved having an hour of this show last night. Pretty much everything was great, but my favorite part was April making the gesture to Andy and Andy recognizing it and appreciating it as such. "She might not love my band, but she loves ME!" I love the way he said it, like he'd won the lotto. I like that they have an improbably healthy marriage, and as the youngest characters on the show, are actually allowed to grow and mature.

 

[TravisR]

April's Janet Snakehole character made me laugh. Especially when she was loaded and rapidly speaking Spanish. Actually, everyone loaded was pretty funny.
And how old is April that she even knows who Neutral Milk Hotel is?

 

[joshEH]

Holy shit, that drunken montage. "Tom's in the trunk, Jerry's on the roof." Man, I needs me some Snake Juice.

Back when "Harvest Festival" aired, I thought this show couldn't possibly get any better, and here we are seven episodes in, and it's still climbing. We're talking "Early '90s Simpsons/Larry Sanders/Newsradio" territory, now.

I really liked Janet Snakehole, because it was neat to see April be almost gleeful. There's a producer's cut of the episode on Hulu that has extra jokes, and in it, instead of getting up to run after her, Andy pukes on Kyle's shoes.

That being said, Parks and Rec is absolutely the most consistent comedy going at the moment (and it pains me to say that, in light of my beloved Community). Hell, I may have even let an "Awww" slip out when Ben finally kissed Leslie...and that's saying something for me. That being said, while my crushing on Aubrey Plaza is well-known, I would also gladly be one of Ann Perkins's short-term boyfriends.


Some other great bits:

• 
  "You ate her lunch? And gave her a landmine?"
• 
  Ron looking out for Tom. So good.
• 
  Ron drunk-dancing, and then coming to work totally fine, with burgers for all. So great.
• 
  Role-playing Aubrey Plaza. So cute.
• 
  Jean Ralphio! I wanna punch him in the face, but even he's growing on me.

And finally, the All-Time Number One:

• 
  The file footage of late '80s Perd Hapley rocking a tall fade.

 

[ChadMcCallum]

This show just gets better and better. Its one of the few shows I actually watch live.

Along with what Josh pointed out above I liked Andy puking while running after April and Ron's song after he delivers the hamburgers. "First you take the cow to the killing floor!" He sings it in such a cheery voice. Rob Lowe is doing a great job too. I wasn't too sure about him when he joined the cast last year but he's a nice addition to show.

 

[TravisR]

Two more episodes are on tonight at 10 PM.

 

[joshEH]

According to AICN, the second episode tonight (the season finale) is titled "L'il Sebastian."

...I'm so fucking there.

 

[joshEH]

"Tell Mort -- your move."



Everything on the 4th floor was, literally, amazing. All the shakeups Chris made paid off huge -- everything on the 4th floor (the old ladies laughing at Tom, especially). The "spaceship" keyboard. Ron just spinning in circles away from the lady who got an infection from drinking the sprinkler water had me dying, just because they kept it going so long.


"Half-mast is too damn high."



Offerman's face in that talking-head bit very nearly ended me. I love how he plays Ron's grief as about 40% rage.


Tom's faux-English voice on the memorial tape was also fantastic. And can't wait to see what kind of diabolical-ness "Tammy 1" gets up to, next season.

 

[Adam Lenhardt]

I hope Tom Haverford isn't off the show. Unlike Mark Brandanowicz, he's a great character.

 

[TravisR]

I'm assuming/hoping that the camera crew will follow Tom at his new job. Until Jean-Ralphio ruins their business and Tom has to return to the parks department.
And the two times that Ron cried during his life were hilarious.

 

[Adam Lenhardt]

The development of Tammy II, and what a hellspawn she is, was really helpful for setting up Tammy I. When that woman yells, "Holy fuck!" in terror and tears out of there, you know that Tammy I has to be terrifying.

 

[Citizen87645]

Who is Tammy I???

 

[joshEH]

The best of Jean-Ralphio!
...Except they don't have his Best Man speech-instructions to Tom:
Jean-Ralphio: Can I throw something on you, see if it feels good? Okay, this is what I would do. I would start with a joke. Joke. Vince Vaughn quote. Obviously.
Tom: Swingers or 'Crashers?
Jean-Ralphio: Fred Claus. Talk about Andy's ex-girlfriends. Quote from Love, Actually. Hold back your tears. Pause....
Drop the microphone, get out of that bitch.

I now use the phrase, "Drop the microphone, get out of that bitch" way, way more than I should.

 

[Adam Lenhardt]

Who is Tammy I???

Oscar nominee Patricia Clarkson, that's who!
Says showrunner Michael Schur: "The details of Tammy 1 that we know from the finale are: She's Ron's first ex-wife, she scares Ron a lot and she scares Tammy 2 a lot. We talked about pretty much every possible iteration of who she is and what her backstory is and all we knew is that we didn't want to do the same thing we did with Tammy 2. Tammy 1 is her own specific brand of demon."

 

[TravisR]

There's a really great and in-depth interview with Michael Schur over at the AV Club.
http://www.avclub.com/articles/michael-schur-walks-us-through-parks-and-recreatio,59372/

 

[Adam Lenhardt]

Thanks for sharing that. It was a fantastic read. It's nice to see how serious Michael Schur is about the show and about the craft of comedy.

 

[joshEH]

Clarkson's nipples were like two main characters all by themselves in The Station Agent.
Very cool. She always plays nice people, though -- curious to see if she'll play against type, or if she'll be outwardly "nice," and everyone will be trying to figure out what's so "awful" about her.

 

[Adam Lenhardt]

The great thing about seeing how much of a hellspawn Tammy 2 is over the course of the last couple seasons is that her running off in terror tells you all you need to know about how evil Tammy 1 must be.
I wonder if she'll dye her hair or wear a wig, given Ron's known preference for dark haired women (like his mother Tammy).
It's interesting too, from reading that Onion AV Club article, that Ron was originally designed to be the villain of the show and it was only once Nick Offerman had been cast and the character was reformulated as an individualist that the Leslie/Ron relationship came into focus. Their dynamic is one of my favorite parts of the show; the parents of the office, and simultaneously both guards and inmates in the asylum. The first time they stopped for waffles after a tough day at the office was right about the time this show went from one I watched because it wasn't worth leaving the couch to one I actively look forward to.

 

[TravisR]

Thanks to that article, I no longer feel stupid for having drawn a parallel between Leslie facing roadblocks while trying to build a park in early episodes of the series and The Wire's look at governmental gridlock.

 

[joshEH]

...No, I didn't do this one. But whoever did, props: