Parks and Recreation Review - 4.9 'The Trial of Leslie Knope'
Posted by Dimitri Dorlis on 12.02.2011
Parks and Rec makes its triumphant return from a one-week break with a solid return to form. What consequences lie in store for Ben and Leslie's rekindled relationship? Also why are Ron Swanson and Andy Dwyer so great?
So by the time you read this, it will be Friday, which means that tonight my beloved UCLA Bruins will be competing in the inaugural Pac 12 Title Game, with the opportunity to go to the Rose Bowl if they win.
Just let that sink in for a bit.
And now while you sit there dumbstruck that the possibility of UCLA playing in the Rose Bowl this year still exists, we’re going to start our Parks and Recreation review.
The idea of a bottle episode isn’t new. Sitcoms usually use them to save on budget costs by finding a way to keep the entire cast in one location for an entire episode. Usually, the show falls for some cliché like a freak weather storm (or in Community’s case, by outright saying THIS IS A BOTTLE EPISODE). So for Parks and Rec to find a way to have a quasi-bottle episode without falling into true television tropes is an impressive enough feat.
Coming off the heels of last episode’s bombshell revelation that Ben and Leslie were back together, the couple go to Chris to reveal their relationship. Chris, as you remember, was brought in to clean up the government, which includes any potential scandals and ethics issues. With Leslie dating a superior, Chris is forced to take Leslie to trial for her punishment.
And so begins our quasi-bottle episode, with most of the episode stuck in the courtroom. Sure a few scenes occurred outside the courtroom set (the cold opening, the scene in Chris’s office, the ending), but at its heart it was a bottle episode. Also mixed in were clips from the past season, mostly to remind people how far we’ve come with Ben and Leslie’s relationship up to this point, giving us a small amount of clipshow feel.
As far as story and plot go, there was only one plot in this episode, and every character was involved to an extent. Everyone in the Parks Department joined together to help Leslie plan her defense against Chris’s 14 witnesses, which really showed how far along this group has come together. I wouldn’t see these same people going to the lengths that they did in tonight’s episode at the beginning of the show’s run. Ok, “lengths” is a bit of a stretch, but they were actually helpful, which is more than can be said most of the time.
At the same time, this episode was mostly filler. There was basically zero story progression save for the beginning and the end. Most of the middle was devoted to character gags (seeing everyone take the stand as witnesses) and recaps of the prior season. Sure the laughs were great, and yeah, the ending was huge, but there was no real character development for anyone in this episode save for Leslie and Ben, and even that is debatable, since we already knew their feelings for each other.
But yeah, let’s discuss that ending. Having Ben resign in order to spare Leslie from getting fired was a huge bombshell to drop in an episode almost devoid of story, and yet it made perfect sense as an evolution of their relationship. Somehow, I think this resignation is going to last longer than Tom’s did at the beginning of the season, mainly as a way to help Leslie’s campaign (there’s no way he rejoins the government unless Leslie loses the race, to be quite honest), plus we’ll get a whole episode next week filled with jokes about how bored Ben is. I imagine we’ll get a Star Trek marathon out of it, plus some other dorky things, and then the following week will chronicle Ben’s job search (and god help me if he ends up going into business with Jean Ralphio, because this is something I see actually happening and actually working. You can mail me my paycheck now, Michael Schur.) Plus Leslie will have some fallout from her 2 week suspension, and her now-public relationship with Ben.
Stray Observations
- Ron vs. technology might be the greatest cold opening the show has ever done.
- LIL’ SEBASTIAN IN PLUSHIE FORM! Just another thing that I am shocked that NBC doesn’t actually sell. Actually, this is NBC. Why am I that shocked?
- “The night we returned was the first time we kissed each other in each other’s mouths. It was excellent….that was unnecessary to add, I’m sorry. I’m nervous.”
- Of course Ann gets the best job in the group.
- Also, I like how Leslie references the picture of the lady on the iceberg twice, once happy, and once sad.
- Chris can’t stop exercising.
- Hidden highlight: Leslie is so bad at iMovie, from her terribly-cropped picture to her cut-off video.
- “No, it’d be like dating my older sister’s elderly aunt.”
- “Is this about the laptop? I didn’t mean to steal it, I took it home and I spaced and I forgot. I was gonna bring it back; it totally works, but I got spaghetti in the keyboard.” “What laptop?” “……objection?” Never change, Chris.
- “I can smell the sulfur coming off her cloven hooves.” “Good nose, Ron.”
- Tammy 2 wins for best witness.
- “In 1856, the city council banned all sexual positions except for missionary. And two years later, they banned missionary.” “Oh my god black people still can’t use city sidewalks.” Pawnee is such a great American city.
- “Crying noise….crying noise….nose blow.” Ladies and gentlemen, the world’s greatest stenographer.
- And then Leslie kidnaps the stenographer.
- Jerry’s legal name is Gerry. And so the sad story of Jerry continues.
The 411: I love a well-done bottle episode. Last year’s “Cooperative Calligraphy” from Community set the bar for bottle episodes, and while this one wasn’t as good, it was still a very good half-hour of television. The show got a perfect score in comedy (well, of course it would. If you’re going to do a bottle episode, you better make it damn funny), and the ending saved it from a subpar story score to bring this back up to an 8.5. Certainly a much stronger episode than the past few attempts, but that may be due to the fact that there’s no will they/won’t they tension that bogged down the last couple episodes.
