Parks & Recreation: “Two Parties” Recap

One of the reasons I love this show is how innovatively it handles what appear to be run-of-the-mill sitcom plots. This week, P&R threw bachelor parties for the guys, and a bachelorette party for Leslie.

You read that right – the party that started out as a last bachelor hurrah for Ben soon evolved into a progressive wish-fulfillment night. After discussing guy stuff, the men who had been married (or are still married in Jerry’s case) figure out they’d never had their own pre-marriage boy’s night out. So Chris, as the only perpetually single member of the gang organized a party that would encompass the ‘dream night” for Ron, Jerry, Tom, & Andy.

Ben asked for the guys to get together to play board games, so they started out with a very nerdy (but highly entertaining) ‘Settlers of Catan’ game. When they decided to extend their plans, Tom escorted the guys to a molecular gastronomy bar – not Ron’s favorite place. Jerry, in true Jerry-style, asked to get ice creams at his regular parlor.

Andy asks for the seemingly impossible. A very specific dream involving the Indianapolis Colts and Dave Matthews. Chris, through his volunteer work, knows the owner of the Colts, so he calls in a favor and gets the guys into the empty stadium. Complete with a couple of players with which to do some scrimmaging. No Dave Matthews, but Andy can’t have everything. Last, but not least, Ron’s request – of course – involves eating copious amounts of meat at his favorite steakhouse. (There’s a cute little callback to Tom’s failed business and a certain shrimp delivery man.)

The guys realize that Chris didn’t get anything special out of the night that he organized, so they get him a trophy for “Best Man”. (get it?!) Chris has become a more well-rounded person, and tells them that he only requires someone who values friends and wants to do good things, and not the carbon-copy of himself that he’d previously been attracted to. As the episode ends, Ben runs into Shauna Malwae-Tweep, and she echoes similar sentiments when offering to cover the unusual bachelor party. He leads her to Chris’ office, where he slyly makes sure Chris understands that he’s setting the two of them up, and Chris offers to take Shauna to lunch so he can give her the story.

D’awwww.

On the flip side – Leslie’s party is definitely not the best time she’s ever had. Poor Ann, she is so awesome in so many ways, but her failures are often and big. It doesn’t help that April is ever-present, and quick to jump on the ‘bash Ann’ bandwagon.

First, the ladies run by the lot where they’ve been planning a park to celebrate the town’s Wamapoke history only to find that Councilman Jamm has commandeered it to build a new “Paunch Burger” location. He gloats that by the time she stops the construction, the public will want the eatery so bad it will cause an uproar.

Leslie can’t let things like this lie, so all through her ‘party’, she is focused on fixing the problem. When a President Lincoln stripper shows up, she concocts a plan to throw some indian relics around the construction site, thus causing the project to halt as it’s investigated.

Her morals get the better of her, and she admits to Chief John Hotate (in an awesome return guest spot) that she planted the artifacts. He concedes that her notion was pretty bad, but ultimately decides not to out her, and he threatens to evict the Paunch Burger locations residing in his casino if they don’t relinquish the lot to the parks department.

I thought the episode was pretty good overall. I absolutely loved seeing Jonathan Joss back as Chief Hotate, and the guys’ fantasy parties were very entertaining. Also, it’s great whenever Andy gets over-enthused about something, and being in Colts stadium was definitely the pinnacle for him.

Parks & Rec returns next Thursday, January 24th at 8:30/7:30c with “Women in Garbage”.