Here’s a shock: Tom is not very good at cutting wood.
Now that’s more like it.
After a couple of middling episodes suggested that Parks and Recreation was having trouble figuring out how to structure its episodes now that Leslie’s balancing two jobs and Ben and April are stranded in Washington, the show knocked it out of the park with last night’s roundly fantastic “Sex Education.”
There were two major problems, to my mind, with “Soda Tax” and “How a Bill Becomes a Law.” First, most of the characters were stuck in their own little subplots, isolated from the rest of the ensemble. The show’s at its best when the characters are bouncing off each other and being thrown into unexpected and wonderful combinations, but the character relations in the last two episodes were largely predictable and static.
Second, there wasn’t anything at stake. Every potential source of drama was either resolved by the end of each episode of forgotten by the start of the next. There was a lot of hoopla about Leslie’s soda tax potentially costing dozens of restaurant employees their jobs, but there hasn’t been a mention of it since. Similarly, Chris seemed to have a major psychological breakthrough in “Soda Tax,” but seemed instantly happier by the start of “How a Bill Becomes a Law.” It’s hard to care about whatever issues are facing the characters when the writers wave a magic wand at the end of each episode and say everything’s fine now.
Thankfully, “Sex Education” does a lot to address both problems. Most importantly, it finds a way to bridge the gap between Leslie’s responsibilities as a councilwoman and her continuing duties as deputy director of the Parks Department. See, Pawnee’s senior citizens are boning each other like crazy – a setup that’s ripe with comedic potential; as the popularity of Betty White proves, “old people + raunchiness = funny” – and there’s a consequent epidemic of STDs thanks to Pawnee’s abstinence-only sex ed laws.
This plotline begins as a Parks Department one, with Leslie once again leading boardroom meetings of the Parks staff and holding public forums – and it’s a joy just to see her in this role again after so long away from it – but quickly becomes wrapped up in City Council politics. See, Marcia Langman, judgmental head of the Society for Family Stability Foundation, has a problem with Leslie demonstrating proper condom use, even to senior citizens. What’s more, as Chris explains, it’s technically a violation of city law, which prohibits any government employee – not just teachers – from teaching any STD-prevention techniques other than abstinence.
Leslie’s conflicted – teaching proper condom use is clearly the right thing to do, but, as 85% of Pawnee citizens favor the abstinence-only law, it could be political suicide – but ultimately goes with her conscience, skipping around an auditorium full of old people, gleefully tossing out handfuls of condoms as the Langmans look on in horror.
This earns her an official censure and public ridicule as “Loosely Grope” (weak sauce, Pawnee tabloids – we expect better from the lowlifes who brought us “Knope Grope is Last Hope”), but this leaves her energized rather than discouraged. She makes an appearance on Perd Hapley’s show – and Perd, making his first appearance on the show this season, is hilarious as always – and delivers an impassioned but respectful plea to the citizens of Pawnee to hear her out and just consider what she’s saying. It’s a beautiful moment and an example of how great the show can be at its most earnest. It doesn’t hurt that the segment is funny as hell, too – it features Perd Hapley talking about getting banned from Pier 1 Imports, after all.
As wonderful as Leslie is in that moment – she’s the perfect politician: smart, dedicated, firm in her beliefs yet open to disagreement – it doesn’t win her any easy victories. As the last scene shows us, she’s still taking a shellacking in the press; her opinion is flat-out unpopular, regardless of how eloquently she expresses it. Still, she’s ready to fight on, and the show suggests that it will keep running with this plot next week. That’s excellent, because, as I said, there need to be consequences to the characters’ actions if the show wants us to stay invested. Watching Leslie try to navigate rough political waters will be infinitely more interesting if there appears to be some chance that she might actually crash and sink, but it’s hard to take that threat seriously if every dispute is miraculously resolved at the end of each half-hour. So it’s reassuring to think that we could still be feeling the aftershocks of Leslie’s censure next week; it’s both more realistic and more interesting dramatically.
The B-plot revolves around one of those unexpected and wonderful character combinations I mentioned earlier. Tom and Ron are just about polar opposites – Tom is all flash and style, a glittery surface that hides how sad and scared he is underneath, while Ron is all about having a solid foundation and not fussing about appearances. Tom likes to spend his time distracting himself with trivialities, while Ron only traffics in essentials. So, stranding them together at Ron’s cabin – a place so remote “the electric company doesn’t even know there’s a structure there” – is a comic masterstroke. And, because Tom has been court-ordered to abstain from electronics after wrecking his car while tweeting, the plot doubles as both an Odd Couple setup and, for Tom, a fish-out-of-water story, as he’s forced to interact with the natural world for more or less the first time ever. (Remember how much he hated camping?)
It’s as hilarious as you would expect it to be and even accumulates some emotional heft by the time the episode’s over, as Tom reveals he’s using electronics to distract himself from his dissatisfaction with his life. This isn’t a surprising development – there have always been hints that Tom’s persona is a cover for just how insecure he really is, and his life hasn’t improved after the spectacular failure of Entertainment 720 and his relationship with Ann – but it’s nice to see him acknowledging that unhappiness. I just hope the show doesn’t drop this thread, as appears to have happened with Chris’s psychotherapy.
Finally, off in C-plot land, Ben and April realize that the congressman they’re working for is more or less a robot. He’s the perfect politician: One with no interior life. He can spout preprogrammed talking points when needed and his lack of personality means he never does anything unexpected. He’s a puppet with a trim haircut and a nice smile who does whatever his handlers tell him to do. It’s a pretty funny bit that works because it isn’t dragged out too long; I think the key to these Ben and April subplots is their brevity. There just isn’t enough going on in D.C. to justify an A-plot – or even a B-plot, really – but it can at least make for enjoyable little running gags like last week’s failed road trip or this week’s robot boss.
So, all in all, this is a very strong episode that could point the way forward for the show. It works because it finds a way to combine Leslie’s political career with her duties at the Parks Department, meaning she’s allowed to interact with everyone in the ensemble while still moving the season-long arc of her burgeoning political career forward. It’s funny and it’s moving and it sets up conflicts that hopefully won’t magically disappear when the next episode rolls around.
Tidbits:
–One thing I didn’t like at all: The introduction of Marshall Langman. The “closeted homophobe” trope is a tired one, and the show doesn’t really do anything new with it. I prefer Marcia Langman on her own.
–Seriously, I was so happy to see Perd again.
–Ann had a cowboy boyfriend named Ricky, apparently. Was this mentioned in the last episode? Either way, he’s gone now, and he never even made an appearance. This is how much the writers care about Ann.
–“Great news: Lots of old people have chlamydia.”
–“It’s amazing what a few old guys can do with a little bit of charm and a lot of crabs.”
–“Does anyone know what we risk when we have unprotected sex?” “Heart attack.” “Falling in love.” “Partner dying on top of you.”
–“Oh my god, Jerry, when you check your email you go to Alta Vista and type in ‘please go to yahoo.com.’”
–“There are some statistics I’d like to show you now and they are numbers.”
–“100% of Pawneeans are Perd-verts, which is what I call fans of this show, based on the fact that my name is Perd.”
–“1-1-0-1 must eat babies for fuel!” “Why would a robot need to consume organic matter? Sorry.”
–“I’m proud of you, but also a bit fearful that we’re verging on what I call ‘feelings territory.’”
–“Chapter 3: There’s a party in your pants and no one’s invited.”
–“Strong words from a woman who is trying to pin a piece of paper to her blazer.”
–“Are You There, Perd-Verts? It’s Me Perd, Hosting a New Segment”
diversionsdbk@gmail.com
