TV Review: ‘Parks & Recreation’ Episode: ‘Boys Club’

Well I’ll be the first to admit that maybe I was a little hasty in my dissing of Parks and Recreation from the onset.

There was just something about that first episode that didn’t click for me and I was very ready to pass it off as a doomed Office rip off. But here I sit several weeks after that first pilot airing and I have to say that I am more on board with the show than I thought I would ever be. It is somewhat discourteous to write a show off after the first episode but I guess there are those shows that just need to really build into it. Some shows can’t just grab you right off the bat. Hell I’ll even admit if you go back and watch the very first episode of The Office it pails in comparison to anything they did later on. I guess we can take the expression don’t judge a book by its cover and move it over into the TV world and say don’t judge a TV show by its first episode.

So here’s what we got going on this week on Parks and Recreation, and it’s actually fairly simple all around. They barely do anything with the whole pit plot that seems to be the focal point of the whole season. Though I will say that the opening where Amy Poehler and Aziz Ansari’s characters try to stop a teenage dog poop fight is pretty hilarious, especially when Amy gets into it and confesses that it’s actually pretty fun. But what we got as the main plot is simple government scandal, or at least as simple as government scandal can get in the small town of Pawnee these characters inhabit. It seems that Leslie (Amy) is staunchly against receiving any form of gifts as they might be considered bribes and lets no one touch a gift basket that has arrived for them. For Leslie believes that workers of the government should be squeaky clean even hilariously mentioning that she drives two towns over if she wants to rent a movie that has nudity in it.

But, of course, her staunchness doesn’t last long for when she tries to infiltrate a boy’s club meeting, that includes her one time lover Mark (Paul Schneider, who is still used very well in this), she does some proper usual bungling that inevitably has her opening the gift basket in search of the precious wine that it holds inside. From there she has to take it too far and feel so distraught about the whole mess that she actually rats herself out and has to go up against a disciplinary panel and explain her actions with her boss Ron (Nick Offerman) in tow. Now the character of Ron the boss is the one character I’ve had the most problems with. Even the characters that are a couple that are Anne (Rashida Jones) and Andy (Chris Pratt) have been a little bit better used in the past couple of episodes. But Ron continued to be a one note character that had really only been used so other people could be hilarious around. But even he gets his due in this episode when he stands up for Leslie and does what a good boss does best and gives ‘em hell! His explanation for why he does is actually pretty funny too.

And then there’s the subplot of Andy cleaning up the house while Anne is at work and there’s a few good sight gags here and there. The best being how he plans on cleaning himself and then through a series of unfortunate events we find him naked and on crutches gallivanting around the neighborhood. So there we are, a show that shows that it’s starting to get its legs and walk to its own beat. It even boasts less comparisons to The Office now and really looks like its on its own particular comic tune now and even though the odd romance that is building between Leslie and Mark is a little close to the whole Jim and Pam angle, it is still as sweet and off putting as you would hope a romance would be.