Parks and Recreation Recap: Pawnee Rangers
Despite their totally different philosophies, Ron and Leslie are known more for their ability to work well together than petty squabbling. Yet this episode showed the pair at-odds over local boys’ and girls’ clubs. While we saw a moment of true vulnerability from Ron, it was a competition which both seemingly won in the end. Also winners in this episode? Tom and Donna, whose excellent holiday (Treat Yo Self), should be adopted by our nation as soon as possible.
We first see Ron prepping his Pawnee Rangers for their camping trip. Across the office, Leslie is meeting with her Pawnee Goddesses before their own camping trip, set to take place the same days and at the same location. See, a fifth-grade girl once asked the Pawnee Rangers if she could join, but since she was a girl, they turned her down. Leslie was predictably outraged and founded the Pawnee Goddesses in an effort to give the girls a club of their own and, more importantly, rub her group’s superiority in the Rangers’ faces.
Elsewhere, Ben is being short with Donna and Jerry over some paperwork. Donna asks if they canceled Game of Thrones, but, as a talking head reveals, he’s just unhappy being in Pawnee without his major incentive for staying, Leslie. (Also, they would never cancel Game of Thrones because it’s a crossover hit. It tells human stories in a fantasy world!) When Tom arrives for Treat Yo Self 2011 – a day each year when he and Donna treat themselves to massages, mimosas, and fine leather goods – Donna asks if Ben can tag along. Tom’s skeptical, but relents later when he sees Ben sitting dejectedly on a bench eating soup by himself.
The camping trips are in full swing, and it’s clear from the start that Leslie’s is way more fun. As the boys try to assemble shelters with their “gifts,” a tarp and a box, the girls make Gertrude Steins in their cabin and plan for their s’more-off. It’s seems even Andy, the self-proclaimed Brother Nature, is regretting his partnership with Ron.
Chris encourages Jerry to take the day off since no one’s around the office. Jerry, in turn, invites Chris to have lunch with him and his daughter, but Chris refuses. That is, until he meets Millie, who’s smoking hot. The three head out to lunch, where Jerry quickly becomes the third wheel.
Playing perfectly into Leslie’s scheme, one of the Rangers asks if he can join the Goddesses. Leslie takes this as the ultimate sign her club is better, awarding herself the “Prettiest Eyes” badge, but politely turns him away since he’s not a girl. The Goddesses take issue with this, saying it’s a case of the very discrimination they once faced. Leslie agrees to hold a public forum. Said forum turns decisively in her favor when the puppies for their puppy party arrive, causing all the boys (and Andy) to rush for the tiny Labradors.
Ben is having a hard time relaxing. Acupuncture freaks him out, and he is not down for participating in the shopping montage Tom and Donna inspire. Donna asks him what he would spend big money on, and it’s a super nice Batman suit. She and Tom encourage him to treat himself and not only buy it, but wear it out of the store. Ben breaks down sobbing, still in the suit, saying that he needed this. He also later confides in his Treat Yo Self buddies that he recently broke up with a woman he was seeing. They offer support, though not without a good Dark Knight joke.
The boys have been inducted as Goddesses, and the puppy party is off to a rousing success. But when Leslie sees Ron sitting alone by his fire, she feels guilty. She tells him she didn’t intend for this to happen and that he’s a good troupe leader. Ron, however, says that he doesn’t understand his boys anymore and they don’t understand him. The Goddesses are, he admits, better. To pick him back up, Leslie later places an ad for the Swansons, a group of kids who think video games are pointless and shopping malls stupid. Ron is unspeakably excited to teach them to dig trenches.
Given Community’s tour de force timeline episode this week, Parks and Rec lost the title of “Best NBC Thursday Comedy” for the first time this season. Still, “Pawnee Rangers” is a solid episode featuring some extra screen time for Donna, who’s all too often reduced to five lines, and a hysterical Leslie Knope alter ego in Southern belle Annabelle van de Graffe. Writers, if you can somehow get both Annabelle and Bert Macklin into one episode, please make it so.