Parks and Recreation Review - 4.11 'The Comeback Kid'

Posted by Dimitri Dorlis on 01.13.2012

Leslie's campaign relaunch is a success. No wait, it was a disaster, but at least it was funny. Plus Ben tries to find something to do now that he no longer has a government job.

Welcome back to 411’s Parks and Recreation review. I know how hard it has been for everyone with this gone. But by the grace of God and his nephew Tim Tebow, we are back.

Also don’t be afraid to comment or even send me an email saying how great I am. Or how good these reviews are. But mostly to say how great I am.



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When we last left our favorite government agency, Leslie’s campaign was all but dead, with her campaign managers leaving due to the scandal surrounding Leslie’s relationship with Ben, but the rest of the department has decided to support her and help run her campaign. That’s where we begin with tonight’s episode, with Leslie starting us off by naming Ann as her campaign manager. And so begins the quest to relaunch Leslie’s campaign.

Parks and Rec has done a good job this season of having strong themes throughout an episode. This week’s theme dealt with failure. Leslie’s original campaign had failed, but throughout the series, we had seen the department band together to make something out of nothing. This is really the first time that the gang fails to achieve its goals, unless the goal was to put on the worst campaign event in history.

Failure permeates every part of this episode. We’ll get to Ben and Chris later, since they’re in the B-plot. As far as the campaign goes, things look like they’ll be fine at the beginning. Leslie is going to announce the return of her campaign at a local gym which April found, with Ron building a stage for the event, Andy getting a classy poster to hang behind the stage, Tom procuring some red carpet so Leslie can make a flashy entrance, and Jerry rounding up an audience. They even have a scheduled appearance and endorsement by local legend Pistol Pete, who’s last second dunk in 1992 clinched a comeback victory over hated Eagleton High. Everything looks to be going well.

Until it predictable doesn’t. Ron gets pulled over while driving a truck with all the supplies to the event, which forces him into building a much smaller stage than intended (and when I say much smaller, I mean much smaller). They’re also forced to make a smaller poster, which only features Leslie’s eyes; luckily “windows are the eyes of to the house”, according to Andy. Tom managed to only get so much red carpet due to budgetary constraints, illustrating that he still has no idea how finances work. April decided not to listen when the owner of the gym mentions that they had taken out the basketball court for a hockey rink. Surprisingly, the only person who managed to do his job was Jerry, exactly at the moment when they most needed him to fail.

Throughout the whole ordeal, Leslie remains optimistic that the event will still be a success, even when Ann arrives with a crying Pistol Pete in tow for the event. Leslie rallies her troops one last time, saying that success or fail, they will do it together, which of course leads to the extremely awkward yet extremely hilarious entrance scene, where the group shuffled their way across the ice to the small stage that Ron had built, with Andy falling down multiple times, Leslie losing her cards, and Ron trying to hold up a peeing Champion, the three-legged dog that Andy and April had just gotten from the pound. With Leslie’s former campaign managers in the crowd, Leslie’s relaunch is a disaster, until a suddenly positive Pistol Pete arrives to give his endorsement, and dunk a basketball to rile up the crowd. Of course, even this fails, as Pete fails to realize that he’s on ice, and ends up breaking his arm.

Meanwhile, Ben is having some issues. Without his job, he’s trying to figure out something to do with his life. Ben shows off his projects to concerned friend Chris, which includes opening up a low-fat fast food calzone chain, and teaching himself how to do claymation. Ben is blissfully ignorant of his depression, while Chris tries to figure out a way to get him out of his funk. It takes Ben showing off his claymation video, which he had spent 3 weeks on, for him to realize how far he had fallen.

In the end, Leslie fires Ann as her campaign manager and hires Ben, thus giving Ben a new purpose while getting Ann out of doing a job that she had no business trying to accomplish in the first place. With Ben in charge, Leslie’s campaign has a much better chance of succeeding, plus will provide a lot more direction for the rest of the volunteers. The interesting bit will be how they interweave the campaign with the day to day activities of the parks department, something that was much easier to accomplish when the parks department wasn’t helping run the campaign. The best news, though, is that Parks and Recreation isn’t going to slow down anytime soon.

Stray Observations
- First off, I’d like to thank one of my friends for the best Christmas gift ever: a Faces of Ron Swanson poster. If anyone else wants to send me Parks and Rec items, I’m sure we can work something out.
- Or money. Money always works.
- “Ann, you beautiful tropical fish. You’re smart as a whip, and you’re cool under pressure. You’ve resuscitated a human heart in your bare hands.” “No I haven’t.” “You haven’t? You will” Leslie is the most supportive person in history.
- Anyone familiar with Homestar Runner may realize why I call the dog Chris and April Lil’ Brudder.
- “He can do more with three legs than most dogs can do with four” “Except for digging. He’s really bad at digging.” April was way too happy about how bad Champion was at digging.
- Ben’s continued love of calzones is a great little running gag.
- “See, there’s more things to look at on the internet besides naked guys, Ann.” “What?”
- And now I want a Pawnee Drunken Savage shirt. Actually I want a full wardrobe based on things from this show. It will go along with my Shrute Beets Farm shirt.
- “Well, we have a philosophical difference on what constitutes a law.”
- “Where are you? My mother’s butt? Really? That’s really helpful….” April still can’t stop being mean to Ann.
- The Low-Cal Calzone….Zone sounds like a place I would eat at.
- Ben’s claymation video oh my god Ben’s claymation video you guys.
- “I emailed Leslie two days ago and compared it to Avatar, Chris!”
- “Pulling a Jerry” will be the new “Britta’ing” until Community comes back.
- I wanted their awkward shuffle across the ice to last forever. The song choice for that was perfect as well.
- “Eww, don’t make out. It’s making Champion sad.”

The 411: Parks and Recreation was one of the best shows in the fall, so it’s good to know that the show was able to come back from break with the same amount of energy. Leslie’s campaign will remain a focal point of the season, but what I’m really looking forward to is what other stories are waiting to be told in Pawnee this spring. Maybe that’s a sign of how good the show is. I’m not sure, but I do know it’s shaping up to be a good second half.

Final Score:  9.5   [  Amazing ]