I love Parks and Recreation, when it ends it’ll be a shoo in for the sitcom hall of fame (one day I will make this Hall of Fame a reality), and on the short list for best comedies of the century. I enjoyed much of the sixth season finale as well, but unfortunately it ended with a huge cop out that greatly disappointed me.
Going into the episode, Leslie had a very difficult decision to make about her future. She’d been an offered a job as head of the midwest regional national parks office in Chicago (I might be screwing up the exact title, but it’s not that important). It was a huge step up career-wise. She’d be heading a much bigger office and staff and working preserving national parks in the Midwest, a much, much bigger region than small town Pawnee with, as Ben points out in the finale Mount Rushmore and the Black Hills among many other notable parks. Unquestionably, she’s interested in the job and would take it instantly if not for two factors, that are pulling her back towards Pawnee. First, the Eagleton-Pawnee merger that she engineered is still troubled; without her tireless leadership to make sure the merger is a success, the towns could come apart (why the head of the Parks Department would be working to save the merger doesn’t really make a ton of sense, but we’ll grant that Leslie is apparently allowed to control everything in Pawnee because why not). Secondly, she’d be leaving all her friends and her beloved hometown behind. She wanted to raise her kids in Pawnee, the town she loved.
This is tough. I was very much hoping that Leslie would take the job and move to Chicago, both for Leslie’s sake, and for the show’s, but either decision would be understandable. The job was an amazing opportunity, but her reasons to stay in Pawnee were compelling as well. Staying to finish a job you started is admirable, and living somewhere you like with people you love is a major factor in overall happiness as well.
That was the choice. It was a hard choice, but a necessary one. Leslie realizes this, which is why she keeps putting it off as long as possible, but eventually she’s given a deadline and she decides to make the move and take the job. She has regrets, especially when she hears the horror stories of other town mergers (the threat of becoming unincorporated!) but she realizes it’s the best thing for her at this point in her life. Ron and Leslie have a key heart to heart, where they reminiscence about what Lesile will miss about Pawnee.
And then, all of a sudden, Leslie has an idea! She can have it all! She’ll bring the midwest branch of the National Parks Service to Pawnee! Of course, watching, I thought, even within the world of Parks and Recreation, this is an insane idea. Um, Chicago is a huge city, the biggest in the region, and a logical hub, which would be convenient for employees and office visistors. Pawnee, is a, honestly, pretty terrible backwater town, but beyond that, a small city in the middle of Indiana. As great an addition as everyone agrees Leslie would be, you can’t move a long established department from Chicago for her. Or so I thought. And thus, when her new boss turned down her suggestion to move the department to Pawnee, because it was silly and made no actual sense, she’d finally be forced to make the difficult choice once again.
But, no, that’s not what happened at all! She can have it all! With Ben preparing a booklet on the cost savings of housing the department in Pawnee (Um, of course, it’s cheaper to not be in Chicago – it’s not located in Chicago to save money), all of a sudden, just like that it’s agreed that it should be in Pawnee, and zap we’re three years in the future.
The three year jump is another topic entirely and I have no intrinsic issue with it (and actually really like the idea of skipping the pregnancy). What I do have a problem with is with the massive cop out Parks and Recreation took here. The second half of the season has been building up to an extremely difficult choice by Leslie – take her dream job but be forced to move from her beloved Pawnee, or pass up this amazing opportunity and remain in the town she loves. I don’t envy her that choice. It’s not an easy one, but it’s one she had to make.
Only she didn’t, and not only did that bail on a tough choice, but the way it bailed just made absolutely no sense. I love you Parks and Recreation, but this was a moment of weakness.
Television, the Drug of the Nation 