“I hate to say it, but we’ve been Jammed.”
Can the Parks Department survive without Leslie? And can Leslie survive without the Parks Department?
These are the questions that have been motivating much of season five, and take center stage in “Emergency Response.” The Parks Department needs to raise $50,000 at a black-tie gala in order to fund the Pawnee Commons (otherwise, Jamm gets his Paunch Burger), but Leslie’s duties as a councilwoman – namely, running a crisis simulation that Pawnee has failed each of the past twelve years – keep her from doing so. She has to reluctantly hand her duties over the Ben and the rest of her coworkers and hope that they can take care of business without her.
And, despite some early setbacks, they can. Tom gets local fast food joints – who would hate to compete with another burger place – to cater the event, Ben and Donna manage to find more than two chairs, and Ron ends up doing a surprisingly solid job hosting Joan Callamezzo’s show. (She’s KO’d by a nasty hangover, which Ron has never experienced thanks to his remedy of steak and wet socks.) The gala goes swimmingly, they meet their fundraising goals, and, presumably, the park Leslie has been working towards since the pilot will be approved, allowing Leslie to finally stick it to Jamm and Paunch Burger.
Speaking of Jamm, turns out the whole emergency response drill was a setup by him to keep Leslie from meeting her fundraising goal. He Jamms her efforts at every turn, requesting the simulation take place on the day of her gala, ensuring it’s the most difficult scenario possible, and ignoring his duties as transportation manager – leading to Chris catching fake avian flu and fake-dying. (Thankfully, the writers have moved past the terrible therapy subplot and rehabilitated Chris so that he’s back to his old, lovably chipper self.) Unable to save Pawnee from Jamm’s machinations, Leslie does the only thing she can and throws the game by (fake) killing every last citizen of the town. After making the hospital flush all their vaccines and the cops give CPR to birds, the infection wipes out everyone in America’s fourth-fattest town, allowing Leslie and Ann to take off and make it to the gala right as it’s set to begin.
The episode is full of great moments – Leslie’s fake newscast, the animal control guy who promises to “kill all birds,” Ron’s hilarious and productive stint on Pawnee Today – and it’s all capped off by a perfect final scene full of quietly moving moments. Leslie rushes to the gala, sure that everything must have collapsed in her absence, only to find that the team she’s assembled has done her proud and set up a lovely event. Leslie’s a great public servant and a great leader, but, over the course of five years, she’s infected everyone around her with her spirit. The greatest testament to her success with the Parks Department is that it doesn’t need her any more. There are bigger, city-wide fights for her to fight. Ben, Ron and company can handle the small (but vital!) stuff in her absence.
As Leslie announces that they’ve met their fundraising goal, she delivers a line that may as well be a thesis statement for the show: “No one achieves anything alone.” As amazing as Leslie Knope is, her real strength comes from her ability to get the best out of the people she works with. It’s a beautiful way to lead into next week’s wedding episode.
Tidbits:
–I was stuck in a hotel room in New York last week (thanks, Nemo) and was unable to recap “Ann’s Decision,” but I thoroughly enjoyed it. I also like the idea that Ann Perkins is now roaming the streets of Pawnee, searching for semen. (She even asks Emergency Response Guy if he’s down.)
–A C-plot I didn’t mention, but that was handled very nicely: Andy’s police exam, which he aces, while unexpectedly failing his personality test. The look on Rob Lowe’s face as he watches Andy – who’s certain he’s about to become a cop – play around with April is heartbreaking.
–Hulu has an extended producer’s cut of the episode, and it’s worth seeking out, if only for a scene where Donna and Ben make a deal with the firemen at the triage center.
–“Love – love fades away. Things are forever.”
–“Every time it so much as drizzles in Pawnee, it could collapse into Thunderdome-style post-apocalyptic mayhem.”
–“The next thing you want to do is ditch the terrier. Any dog under 50 pounds is basically a cat, and cats are pointless.”
–“I’ve seen three movies in my life: The Bridge on the River Kwai, Patton and Herbie: Fully Loaded.”
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