Parks and Recreation Recap: ‘Win, Lose, or Draw’

Well, it’s finally come—Election Day in Pawnee. We get the prognosis on the season’s major storyline, and hints of what is to come next season.

The season finale is a tough thing to pull off—if you try to hard to make it a big deal it feels forced, but these days people have come to expect new developments. Last year’s finale, “L’il Sebastian,” is a tough act to follow. “Win, Lose or Draw” does not top it, but it holds its own.

The episode is strong in the way the best episodes this season have been—refusing to take the easy way out by relegating certain characters to the sidelines, or just making them one-dimensional caricatures of themselves. This week, Leslie faces the results of her reelection campaign. Ben faces a tough choice between career and love. Ron drinks lots and lots of whiskey and gives out sage advice. April makes a horrible mistake, and Andy tries to comfort her. Chris, while still wounded inside, finds himself a temporary salve.

One storyline has remained maddeningly undeveloped this season, though. Tom has a dream in which Ann asks for him back, and is convinced it was a premonition. It is remarkable how such a major step for two of the show’s primary characters can be taken so unseriously. Just as they are both showing signs of growth, the writers pulled back and made their relationship nothing but amusing wallpaper. There is a lot we don’t know about either Tom or Ann, and their relationship seemed like a great way to fill in some blanks. It appears it may carry over to next year, but who knows?

This show seems to blink when its greatest opportunities come along, especially in matters of love. Tom and Ann, Ron and his Women’s Studies professor, Chris and his glacial loneliness—you can’t help but see several missed chances to go to some dark but interesting places inside the hearts of several Pawnee residents.

But maybe edginess is not what “Parks and Rec” is about. Leslie wins after a recount, and we get a pretty hokey and predictably heart-warming sequence…which is what this show has been about more often than not this year, sacrificing quirk and edge for Leslie Knope’s wish fulfillment, and now, finally, the satirical send-up of bureaucratic uselessness has become a wide-eyed celebration of Knope 2012’s promise of Hope and Change. Let’s hope she has a better first term than the last guy to say that.