Parks and Recreation "Media Blitz" Review

I have to admit I might give up listening to John & Lance in the morning if Crazy Ira and The Douche were to move here.

No offense to Community but Parks and Recreation is the funniest show on television right now. Ron Swanson is in the 2007 Tom Brady zone right now. Everything he does kills. I just laughed out loud while he typed the words "rectangle, America, megaphone, Monday, butthole." Leslie Knope (Amy Poehler) is the most awkwardly funny person since Michael Scott and Tom (Aziz Ansari) is a dead eye comedic sniper right now.

The best part of tonight's episode is that we finally got to see Ben (Adam Scott) step out of his straight guy persona and completely lose his mind in every medium possible. When confronted about his disastrous stint as an 18 year old mayor on a popular radio show, Crazy Ira and The Douche, Ben shows that he may not be as cool and collected as he appears out of the media. The Douche by the way is played by the very funny veteran of The League, Nick Kroll. As the media blitz to create buzz around the Harvest Festival continues, Ben's outbursts become more outlandish. At one point lifting his shirt to show host Perd Hapley his birthmark in order to drive home the point that he's not perfect. It's more than obvious Ben is haunted by his past failure.

Lucky for Ben, he's got Leslie and Tom to fall back on. An appearance on Joan Callamezzo's show wraps up the day for team. Tom is always on point to butter up Leslie's rival in the media Joan. For all of Leslie's awkward goofiness she somehow always knows the right move to fix a problem. When she is being grilled by Joan about Ben's ability to oversee the Pawnee's budget, Leslie knows the time is right to Ben to defend himself. And so the Harvest Festival is saved once again.

Let's not forget Chris' offer to take April with him to Indianapolis to be his assistant. Her response "sounds boring but I don't have anything tying me here so OK." No way are Ron and Andy going to let April get away that easy. Plus I'd have to drive to Pawnee and kill them if they did. Andy agrees to do all the jobs April hates for a month if she'll stay in Pawnee. Ron who knows he'll never find a suitable replacement for April takes it upon himself to make sure Andy succeeds. Of course, Andy runs into a number of Andy problems along the way.

I love Andy. He's dumb, sweet and completely naive in all the right ways. The character is ten fold better than he was in Parks first season. I'm glad he and April reunited. I don't see this as one of those relationships that changes the dynamic of the show. Neither character are central to Parks but rather the kind of role players that make a series.

Chris (Rob Lowe) cracks me up in small doses but as far as his relationship with Ann, I don't care very much. She finally confronted him about what is going to happen to their relationship when he has to move. All that was resolved was an agreement that they needed to address the subject.

Another excellent episode from Parks this week.

Parks & Recreation "Ron & Tammy Pt. 2" Review

Ron Swanson missing part of his mustache can mean only one thing, Tammy is back.

Tom sends Ron off on a Tammy bender when he brings her to a Pawnee PD appreciation party to get Ron back for dating his ex-wife Wendy. What Tom doesn't know is that Ron and Wendy had broken up earlier that day. Ron's reaction to Wendy's invitation to move back to Canada is classic and pure Swanson.

The next time we see Ron, he's in a Pawnee jail cell with cornrows, a kimono and the middle third of his mustache missing. He later explains that he lost it because of friction. No couple has a more passionately hate fueled relationship than Ron and Tammy Swanson. I'm sure the real life marriage between Nick Offerman and Megan Mullally. Their scenes together are filled with pure vitriolic gold. The ultimate payoff comes when Tammy kicks Tom's ass for trying to come between them.

Back at the office, the oddest of couples are thrown together when April has to fill in as Chris's assistant. You can imagine April's reaction to Chris's over the top positive attitude. The scene when he's asks her for "green and yellow post its but not orange because I have plenty of orange post its" is their best scene together. By the end of the episode Chris lets her know he can see through her attempts at sabotage and actually offers her a job working for him in Indianapolis. This of course is the writers attempt to build tension in the seemingly perfect relationship that has been forged between Anne and Chris.

The writers continued to lead us down the path of Ben falling for Leslie and Leslie being completely oblivious to this. So far this relationship just doesn't work for me. I thought Leslie's relationship with Officer Dave was the only attempt that really hit the mark. Their awkwardness and inability to hold a comfortable conversation fit perfectly with Leslie's character and the show in general. I don't see the same chemistry between her and Ben at this point.

Any episode with Ron and Tammy is going to be a winner but the rest of the subplots were mostly throw away.