Why This Episode Of Parks And Recreation Is Perfection

First of all, we have plenty of food. There are not dozens of escaped convicts. And at no time was any Parks Department worker feasting on petting zoo animals. This is Parks and Recreation, a mockumentary-style single-camera sitcom about the Parks Department led by Leslie Knope in the fictional town of Pawnee, Indiana. Although Parks and Recreation is now a fan favorite, it famously took a while to find its footing and connect with audiences. Most viewers agree Parks and Rec is a show that you have to power through until, of course, season 3, episode 7, Harvest Festival, when the show finally clicked. Seven days, over 30 different locations, and four hospitality kiosks. God, I got to stop ending on that boring thing. Parks and Recreation had a seven-season run from 2009 to 2015 and initially started as a spinoff to The Office, but eventually had to be adapted because co-creators Greg Daniels and Michael Schur couldn't find a way to make the worlds fit together. After the first season had mixed reviews, the writers realized they had to change the format and tone if they wanted the show to survive. Schur said, in a perfect world, no one would discuss a new TV show until it had aired eight episodes and the creative team had already worked out all the kinks. Luckily, fans and even NBC were willing to put up with over 30 episodes of a half-baked Office lookalike. My God, these could be tree scenes. The first six episodes of season 3 are building up anticipation for the Harvest Festival. Leslie is trying to convince Chris and Ben to give the Parks Department more money from the town's budget. She's hospitalized by the flu, and they're combating a media frenzy over Ben's failure as a teen mayor while also trying to positively promote the festival. So the stakes are high. I really wish you guys could see this guy right now. He is drenched in sweat. The Harvest Festival opens with Leslie introducing everyone to Pawnee celebrity, miniature horse, little Sebastian. Everyone is thrilled. Even Ron Swanson breaks his normally stoic facade with a childlike giggle. Ben is the only outlier, spending the entire episode confused about little Sebastian's appeal. So what am I missing? What's the deal with this pony? Ben's character started as what was meant to be a brief guest spot as a grumpy bureaucrat sent to fix Pawnee. This episode sets up Ben as the perfect straight man for the rest of the series, voicing the perspective of the audience in a charming and sensible way. He becomes a permanent fixture on the show and a complimentary love interest for Leslie. And watching them flirt as they work together to put on the Harvest Festival is one of many ways the show took something cynical and turned it into something optimistic. Immediately, the main conflict in Leslie and Ben's storyline is introduced, the curse. The chief of the native Wamapoke tribe, Ken Hotare, threatens to curse the festival if it isn't moved off the site of a historic Wamapoke massacre. Leslie refuses because she knows that the curse is fake and because the entirety of Pawnee is host to historic Wamapoke massacres. The atrocities are in blue. Yikes. Compared to earlier seasons, Leslie's character has become an intelligent and strong leader, handling the conflict with poise and tenacity. In the first season, she starts out as foolish and incapable. But by season three, she's become smart, strong, and endlessly optimistic. Her failings come from a trusting and naive nature because she believes in the best characteristics of everyone she's around. Leslie started out as more of a Michael Scott archetype, but changing her to be his opposite is what saved the show. Her kindness, intelligence, and joy is exactly what audiences needed. In this episode, she is faced with obstacle after obstacle and handles each of them quickly and brilliantly. One person who set out to make Leslie's job impossible is Joan Calamezzo. She comes to the festival determined to find a salacious story, finding it when Ben lets it slip about the curse, which is seemingly becoming more real throughout the episode. Was this about a curse? Hm? Curse? What? Nothing. Did you? Tom Haverford adds more coals to Joan's fire when he tells Leslie that Jerry lost Lil' Sebastian. Jerry's storyline in this episode masterfully brings all the characters' storylines together and weaves them into the cohesive ensemble that continues on for the remainder of the series. Tom, Ron, April, and Andy are all roped into searching for Lil' Sebastian around the festival grounds. Everyone is in conflict, and the festival is skirting disaster. Tom keeps trying to throw Jerry under the bus, which everyone enthusiastically gets on board with. Jerry's fault. Stop it! Jerry has been the punching bag of the entire series, but this episode turned him into a lovable punching bag. This is a small but notable shift that the entire series moves from cynicism to optimism, starting with how they treat Jerry Gergich. This is also apparent in the tonal shift of April's character. April could have stayed a one-dimensional, sullen teenager, but the writers shifted and made her into a delightfully weird and sarcastic counterpart to Andy's uplifting and childlike behavior. Watching her be vulnerable as she falls in love with Andy throughout the rest of the series really kicks off in this episode, and audiences get to fall in love with her as Andy does. Hey, I love you. Dude, shut up. That is awesome sauce. The media frenzy continues, establishing how both the media and the townspeople of Pawnee are really the main antagonists of the show. This helps continue the tone as Leslie and the Parks Department are people who are doing everything they possibly can to make Pawnee a better place to live, but the people who live there are constantly demanding the impossible and refusing to be helped. This concept was something that audiences could latch onto more easily. It was easier to laugh at stupid residents getting in their own way and obsessing over the wrong things, like a phony curse that ends through a phony cleansing ceremony, than it was to laugh at incompetent bureaucrats. Wow, thank you. Intense stuff from Ken Hotate. Michael Schur realized he needed to care more about the story than individual jokes when he said, jokes are pointless and empty if the story doesn't hold together, where the characters are generally positive and the comedy comes from goofiness and satire instead of cattiness and negativity. The writers realized that the cynical tone that worked in the corporate America setting of The Office did not translate to a new setting of local government. Earlier seasons of Parks and Rec consistently reminded viewers of the failings of their administration, incompetent civil servants, and left audiences with a disappointment for the world they lived in. Even with choosing a relatively non-offensive department of government, the show still needed to find its heart. This project, this is as much yours as it is mine. It's ours, and I'm glad you're here. The Harvest Festival inspired the heart of the show to soften from a story of unlikable government workers into one of well-rounded people compelled to do good. Our ensemble cast is well-defined by this episode, and each character is given a thoughtful storyline and balanced screen time. They turn from one-note apathetic employees into three-dimensional characters with goals, wants, and emotions for the rest of the series. The storylines are interwoven and have high stakes within the world of the show, and each character have specific dynamics and a unique relationship with each other. This episode encapsulates this perfectly through the resolution of the episode. Everyone is trapped on the Ferris wheel arguing about their differences when serious, authoritative, libertarian Ron Swanson mediates and heals everyone's relationships, forcing them to apologize and finally be able to rescue Lil' Sebastian. Everyone apologize to everyone else. At the end of the day, this episode is a turning point for Parks and Recreation, where we get to see the show become a truly feel-good show led by a delightfully positive Leslie Knope. Michael Schur said, I find the world so tumultuous and hardscrabble and generally terrifying that I will never tire of stories about people caring for each other and doing nice things for each other, and in a very basic way, trying to make each other feel less alone on Earth, which is exactly what Parks and Recreation does best. That's all we have for this week. Is there anything we missed? What's your favorite episode of Parks and Rec? Let us know in the comments below. And if you want to stick around, there are a couple of links in the player window. Feel free to click on those. And thanks for watching Nerdstalgic.