Parks & Recreation: “Dave Returns” Recap

Ever since I heard that Louis C.K. would be back as Leslie’s ex-boyfriend, Dave – I’ve been looking forward to “[easyazon-link asin=”B007AB7GKY”]Dave Returns[/easyazon-link]”. Totally worth the wait. Not only was the main storyline hilarious, the two side stories were also fantastic. I knew from the spoilers that Dave would try to win Leslie back in front of her current boyfriend, Ben. To see Amy Poehler, Adam Scott, and Louis C.K. all playing to their strengths was awesome. I can’t think of three actors that call pull off triple awkward better.

The main story – in which Dave comes back to Pawnee – was actually two intertwined plotlines. Chief of Police, Hugh Trumple (Eric Pierpoint) is retiring, so Ben and Leslie take a meeting with him to get his endorsement before he leaves his position. After seeing the Chief, they run into Dave, who is in town to attend Trumple’s retirement party. Soft-hearted Leslie hears that Dave will be eating a convenience store burrito in the precinct, and she invites him to dinner. Ben and Leslie have plans to try a new French restaurant, so yeah, that won’t be awkward or anything.

Nothing could make the evening worse, right? Oh, did I forget to mention that Ben is terrified of cops? Yeeeeeaaaaah. So there’s that. He continually steps on his own feet and says everything wrong through the whole episode. Just when he starts to relax, when he starts to think Dave and he are really getting along, Leslie drops the knowledge that Dave wants her back.

After Ben calms down from the realization that Dave and he are rivals, and Dave carries a gun, there is an exchange where they try to decide who will get the first one-on-one talk. Ben and Dave ‘man-up’ and head to the whiz palace to work things out. Dave leaves first, easy to do since he handcuffs Ben to the urinal – and heads back to the table to spill his feelings to Leslie. I don’t think he was thinking it through, since Ben just calls Leslie on his cell phone, and Leslie drags Dave back to ‘whizzingham manor’ to let him free.

The story ends at Chief Trumple’s party, where Dave and Leslie decide to be friends, and Ben manages to work enough coherent sentences together to convince Trumple to endorse Leslie’s campaign.

Meanwhile, Andy has been charged with the task of writing the campaign’s rally song. Well, only after he botched the job of being in charge of hot dogs – and failing that after he dropped and ruined thousands of them. So he’s got a lot riding on the whole song writing thing.

Andy asks the rest of Leslie’s team to sing backup, and invites them to the recording session. When Ron recognizes the name of the recording studio, he realizes that there’s a chance everyone will finally know his secret – that he secretly masquerades as the ever-suave Duke Silver. While they make several attempts to record the anthem, Ron has April watching for evidence and getting rid of it before it’s seen by the others. That includes forcing Andy to drop and break a Duke Silver cup filled with honey, and clapping cymbals in Jerry’s face so she can take away a Duke Silver flyer.

The backup vocals aren’t what Andy envisioned, and he comes up with a plan to scrap everything and write a new song. Ron takes pity on him, and tells him to get a little space – then he has the board operator record a sax track (Ron plays sax as Duke Silver), and remix the vocals. When Andy returns, he thinks the song sounds a lot better (duh) and he decides to keep it. Song is done – Duke’s alter-ego is still secret.

Lastly, Ann and Tom are both thinking about their… relationship? Well, whatever it is, they’re both thinking about it. Tom of course wants it to get to the next level, while Ann is just trying to figure out what ‘it’ is that they have, and to not be embarrassed by him. Tom isn’t letting either of those things happen. After she is bombarded by Tom’s incessant neediness, she calls things off. However, he manages to redeem himself slightly, just enough so she relents to another date.

The part of the Tom/Ann story that I have been waiting to see finally shows up in “Dave Returns”. Chris finds out that Ann is seeing someone and becomes despondent. I think the writers have been hinting at Chris’ latent feelings for Ann since last season’s finale, and I think it’s only started to rev up in this episode.

Overall, this episode is up to Parks & Rec’s high standards. Funny, biting, excruciating, heartwarming… it’s all here.

Favorite Quotes:

Leslie: “Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m about to endorse ten beers into my mouth because this has been an incredibly stressful evening.”

Tom: “The four sweetest words in the English language: ‘You wore me down’.”

Donna: “Hey, when you two spoon, who spoons who?”

Tom: “I feel like you’re embarrassed by me.”
Ann: “That is accurate.”

Ben: “I’m not afraid of cops, I have no reason to be. I never break any laws… ever… because I’m deathly afraid of cops.”

Parks & Recreation returns next Thursday, February 23, with the 16th episode of season 4: “Sweet Sixteen”. Looks like we get to see more of Jerry than we ever asked for.