The two end with another epic row following the press conference debacle. What’s everyone’s solution to fix the Leslie/Ron problem? Lock them in the old Parks office, duh! The “To be continued… Right now” bit was inspired, and prefaced easily the best episode yet of the season. A two-hander, of sorts, that focused on the giant elephant in the room: Morningstar.
Though it takes some time to wear Ron down (and a particularly awful rendition of “We Didn’t Start The Fire”), Leslie eventually gets a full three minute chat sesh with him. Using a very Leslie-y whiteboard timeline, she charts out major points in time, beginning with her leaving the Parks Department in 2014, that she sees as what led to the events of Morningstar. So what is Morningstar? An apartment complex, it turns out, that Ron was hired to build over the site of Ann’s old house. In Leslie’s eyes, his decision to eradicate a landmark of their life – where she dressed for her wedding, where she bonded with her best friend, where Andy and April met – was a spit in the face of all their work together.
Ron still won’t budge, though he does give a mysterious hint at deeper meaning behind his leaving of the Parks Department. He grabs that old claymore Leslie gave him as a present a decade ago and attempts to blow up the door to escape the torture. Turns out Leslie filled it with balloons and puns, another turn of the knife for her betrayal. Eventually he lets up (yoga pants and tank tops will do that to a guy), and reveals not only the truth behind his feud, but behind his reasoning for hiring Leslie in the first place. Though their ideologies clashed, she was tough, determined, and stood up for what she believed in.
We, as an audience, think of Ron the same way (and he no doubt does the same of himself), but the show reveals there are softer sides we may not have known of: when everyone began leaving the Department after Leslie left, he was lonely. He met Leslie one day to ask her to lunch, where he planned to see if she had any job openings for him. Her new job caused her to forget the lunch, standing him up at J.J.’s Diner. He left the Parks Department, formed Very Good Business and Development, and started working for Gryzzl. He probably thought he could get some satisfaction out of taking down “the nurse’s” old house, and the feud was born.
As Ron admits he was planning to work for the actual federal government, flashing back to sitting at his desk, morosely eating a sandwich alone in a sea of strange new co-workers, Parks and Recreation reminded me of something: the show isn’t at its best when its gag-a-minute, it’s at its best when those gags spring off of true emotions. Leslie and Ron’s thirty minute verbal fist fight is hilariously entertaining stuff, but it doesn’t forget to punch you in the emotional gut at the end, either. Leslie – our beloved, pure, zany Leslie – wasn’t totally right. She neglected one of her best friends for three years thanks to that “severe tunnel vision” she mentioned last week. Her realization of that, and the two’s eventual mutual acceptance of one another’s copious flaws, could end up being an emotional highlight of not only the season, but the series. Though it occasionally feels like most of these actors have outgrown the show that launched many of their careers, Poehler and Offerman remind us in “Leslie & Ron” that there’s plenty of substantial material left to mine in ol’ Pawnee.
Published: Jan 21, 2015 08:03 pm