Leslie’s caught between two jobs, and Ron talks about breakfast food.

RECAP: Parks and Recreation, “Leslie vs. April”

The overarching theme of this season is growth. It’s about characters pushing themselves outside of their comfort zones and pursuing their ambitions, as well as the consequences of upsetting the status quo. The show had some issues with its own status quo in a few of the early episodes, but Parks and Recreation has been on a real roll ever since episode four, “Sex Education,” a hot streak that continued last night.

As with most episodes this season, “Leslie vs. April” is all about characters bumping up against one another and against the limitations of reality as they pursue their ambitions. April’s newfound work ethic leads to her clashing with Leslie over the fate of Lot 48, making its first appearance in quite some time. Ben searches for a job (echoes of season four’s “Citizen Knope,” in which the Least Interesting Job in the World was introduced) while Tom tries to get his new company off the ground – again. And Andy begins to question whether the realities of police work live up to his dreams. Only Ron, who’s not featured much in this episode, is content staying where he is. Ron’s only ambition is to remain awesome. He has achieved it.

Leslie has started moving beyond her old role in the Parks Department, focusing more and more on city-wide endeavors rather than those exclusive to parks. Naturally, things are going to start getting overlooked – and, brilliantly, the show brings back our old friend (or nemesis?) Lot 48, formerly known as The Pit. As best as I can remember, Lot 48 hasn’t been mentioned since all the way back in season two (although I’m probably wrong about this – point is, it’s been a while) and Leslie’s plans to turn it into a park have stagnated.

April, who is slowly but surely being groomed as the next Leslie (Remember when she had more in common with Ron than Leslie? Now, she combines both of their best features – Ron’s “f—you” directness and Leslie’s determination – and will soon be unstoppable.) takes it upon herself to begin pushing to turn the lot into a dog park. (Pets are still her one area of unequivocal, un-ironic passion.) Leslie, though, isn’t quite ready yet to completely let go of her old position, and fights back emphatically but misguidedly when April reveals her plans to “steal” Lot 48 for her own purposes.

Their struggles over the fate of the lot eventually draw in Councilman Jamm – who remains as funny but cartoonish and ill-conceived as ever – who threatens to sell the lot to PaunchBurger. This threat finally unites the feuding friends, who get Jamm to relent after they turn his front lawn into a dog park, complete with gnome-humping canines.

This is a great plotline because it acknowledges the weird, transitory state Leslie currently inhabits – she’s got one foot in her old job and one foot in the city council. I’m not saying it’s some kind of structural flaw in the show – it’s actually been a strength so far, allowing the show to jump between many different kinds of stories with ease – but it’s an issue with Leslie’s character that the show needs to confront. Half of her still wants to be queen of the Parks Department, half of her wants to move on and begin pursuing her wildest dreams (as the cold open, in which she fantasizes about moving into the White House with Ben, makes abundantly clear).

But if she’s only able to give the Parks Department half her attention, things are going to fall through the cracks – and other employees are going to have to pick up the slack. That means she isn’t going to be the only go-getter in the department anymore, but giving up control isn’t one of Leslie’s strengths, as we see in this episode. April is ready to start taking over some of Leslie’s responsibilities, but Leslie isn’t quite ready to start loosening her grip on the department yet, although she comes around by episode’s end.

Meanwhile, the newly unemployed Ben is looking for work and fielding more job offers than he can handle, although he’s set on the accounting job he almost took in season four. At the same time, Tom is pushing ahead with Rent-a-Swag – and, for once, he’s heeding Ben’s sage advice, even offering him the role of CFO. Ben, fresh off of two successful political campaigns, is a hot commodity in Pawnee; Tom, on the other hand, is still primarily known for his numerous previous failures, and his stock has never been lower. From the beginning, Tom realizes that he needs someone like Ben to find a realistic way to implement his pie-in-the-sky ambitions, but it takes Ben a while to figure out that he needs someone like Tom just as much as Tom needs him. Left to his own devices, Ben would end up at Boring & Snoozington, CPA – in short, he needs someone to drag him kicking and screaming towards actual, you know, fun. (Remember, it was Jean-Ralphio, of all people, who saved Ben from a lifetime of spreadsheets and invoices back in “Citizen Knope.”)

And, finally, in last night’s C-plot, Andy realizes that being a cop might not be his dream job after all. (And we, the audience, realize that he would probably make a pretty poor policeman.) See, Andy doesn’t actually want to be a cop – which mostly involves paperwork – he wants to be John McClane. He’s bad at interrogations and worse at detective work; really, all he wants to do is get in car chases and watch things explode. So, he arrives at a compromise suggested by Chris: Take a weekend job as a security guard at City Hall and see how it suits him. If he hates it, he can give up on that particular ambition; if he loves it, he can commit full-time to becoming a cop.

All three subplots offer great character work, but what really makes this such a great episode and an example of how much Parks can do when it’s firing on all cylinders is that it’s really, really funny. Last week’s episode was more focused on building tension than paying it off with laughter, but this episode really shows off how gut-busting funny this show is at its best. No show on TV can balance humor, pathos and character development as well as Parks.

Tidbits:

–Leslie plans to be president by 2020. 2024 at the latest.

–I didn’t mention the Joe Biden cameo in the cold open. It’s completely pointless, completely shoehorned in and completely, completely wonderful.

–Also: Orin returns, and is just as creepy as ever. His “Human Farm” is one of the funniest things the show has ever done. “Aren’t you supposed to be a sheep?” “No…YOU ARE.”

–“Breakfast food can serve many purposes.” Ron doesn’t get a whole lot to do in this episode, but this line makes it all worth it.

–Chris also doesn’t get much to do, but I’m not complaining.

–“Just call me Bond. Municipal Bond…Yeah, that joke killed at the accounting firm.”

–“I don’t want to whip out the legalese on you, but I got dibs.”

–“Something is different about my computer…A ha! It’s gone. Oh, a game is the foot!”

–“I gotta say, I’m impressed. Your mission statement makes sense, and you didn’t use one R Kelly lyric.”

–“This seems like the kind of place a ska band would go to shoot heroin.”

–“That soil brochure was not busywork. People still refer to ‘Mulch Ado About Nothing.’”

–“Oh, my escargot delivery service, snail mail.”

–“I can never tell when people are lying to me. Hopefully that doesn’t come up in my police work.”

–“Don’t play stupid and handsome with me! You’re as guilty as you are sexy!”

–“You don’t even have to be Asian to do math that simple!” WHO VOTED FOR THIS GUY??

–“If it was remotely interesting, they would have a show on A&E about it. They have a show about storage unit auctions.”