‘Parks and Recreation’ Coverage: Finally, This Season Has Begun

Episode Commentary: “The Trial of Leslie Knope”

It took some time, but this season of “Parks and Recreation” has finally gotten underway. This week’s episode was big in every way it could be big. Finally, an episode with one coherent plotline, instead of a multitude of subplots, where every character takes part, and the stakes are as high as they could possibly be.

Leslie and Ben reveal their relationship to Chris Traeger, and find themselves under an ethics investigation. With the exception of the cold open, a nice fresh slice of Ron Swanson paranoia, the entire episode focuses on the ethics trial of Leslie Knope, with most of the characters integrated seamlessly into the larger story, instead of independently pursuing their own tangential plotlines.

Early in the episode, Ben gives Leslie a stuffed horse modeled after Lil’ Sebastian, Pawnee’s local icon. This gesture was an attempt to remind people that “Parks and Recreation” is remembering what made it great.

Indeed, not since Lil’ Sebastian’s funeral has this program felt so gratifyingly unified. In earlier seasons, the real star of the show was always the Pawnee Parks Department, and the efforts of those within it to make their city a better place to live. It was a metaphor for people with little or nothing in common finding a way to work together.
Up until now, this season has struggled with the surprising and remarkable ways in which so many of its characters have grown. From Andy Dwyer to Jerry Gergich, this show has an amazing knack for turning minor characters into vital and three-dimensional people with their own stories to tell. Sometimes this season, the show has struggled to keep this surplus under control. While very funny a lot of the time, it has become more about a conglomeration of zany individuals who all happen to converge on the Pawnee Parks Department, as opposed to the department itself.

But this episode managed to capture that old spirit of “Parks and Recreation”: an argument in favor of civic engagement, suggesting that perhaps the idea of people contributing their efforts to something larger than themselves is not such a bad thing after all. It was nice to see the writers come up with a story vital enough to encompass all the characters, and one that reminded viewers of why they fell for the show in the first place. With luck, this will continue.