GALENTINE'S DAY

Parks and Recreation 
Season 2 (2010)

Just yesterday I read that Parks and Recreation has been renewed for a seventh season.  I have very mixed feelings about this; in the show’s early years I prayed it wouldn't get cancelled but as it’s been limping its way through the current Season 6 I was somewhat hoping for a mercy killing.  This early Valentine’s Day episode demonstrates everything that was right with the show for its first 4 seasons, as well as a making glaringly obvious everything that’s wrong with it now.

We begin with Leslie Knope’s Galentine’s celebration, an annual gathering of female friends for breakfast held on February 13th.  Leslie has prepared gift bags for everyone with extremely thoughtful, handmade gifts, including portrait mosaics made from the crushed bottles of their favorite beverages.  Leslie’s manic attention to detail and obsession with perfect gift-giving is only one of many reasons why I love her!  Part of the tradition includes Leslie’s mom telling the story of her youthful lost love, a boy named Frank that she met on vacation. Frank saved her from drowning but then they were forbidden from seeing each other.

You'd be beaming too if you'd just received a portrait mosaic

The next day Leslie and the Parks & Rec crew prepare for the senior citizen Valentine’s Day dance.  Leslie’s boyfriend of the moment, lawyer Justin, hears the story from the day before and encourages Leslie to track down Frank and reunite him with her mom at the dance.  After tracking him down, they embark on a road trip to bring back Frank.

Meanwhile the rest of the crew is having romantic trials and travails of their own.  Tom is unsuccessfully attempting to woo his former green card wife.  Ann is having misgivings about her perfectly normal (and perfectly boring) relationship with Mark, despite his showering her with purposefully cliché Valentine’s Day gifts.  And April and Andy are engaged in a flirtation, even though she's involved with her bisexual boyfriend (and his tagalong boyfriend).  Leslie and Mark eventually find Frank (guest star John Larroquette), who acts increasingly odd and nervous, leading Leslie to question their plan.

Everything comes together (and falls apart at the dance).  April dumps her obnoxious hipster boyfriend after he can’t stop making fun of the senior citizens, and cloaking everything “in, like, fifteen layers of irony.”  Tom gets turned down, yet again.  Leslie tries to call off the reunion due to Frank’s bizarre behavior, but Justin eggs him on.  It’s predictably disastrous, with Frank proving himself a legit weirdo.  Ron and Leslie have a conversation in which Ron sagely identifies Justin as a “tourist,” someone who jumps into people’s lives, gathers stories, and doesn’t consider others’ feelings.  

Leslie & The Tourist

The characters of Parks and Recreation and the show itself always had a lot of heart and this shines through in this episode, such as a tender moment in which hard-shelled April tells an elderly couple how adorable they are.  I also love the subtle douchery of Justin (played by Justin Theroux) in this episode.  He’s a seemingly nice and interesting guy but is really a stealth asshole, and its this type of layered characterization that I’m afraid the show has lost in its later seasons.  The show has gotten broader and broader: Andy has gotten dumber and more obnoxious, Leslie even more manic, the characters less believable. 

The greatest cookie in the world!

The dance scenes in this episode are bursting with Valentine sweetness, and full of pink and red décor.  Leslie’s mom is seen nibbling one of those heart-shaped, red-sprinkled supermarket sugar cookies that I absolutely live for this time of year (I once scoured half of Manhattan looking for some).  Even the music, provided by Andy’s fictional band Mouse Rat, is lovely: classic love songs slightly tweaked and providing the perfect soundtrack to the heartbreaks and new loves that unfold over the course of the episode.

Valentine’s Day Quotient: 5

See It, Skip It, Own It?
The perfect episode to get you in a sweet and sentimental mood for the holiday—go watch it!  And the entire Season 2 is worth owning.

And here's one more mosaic for the road: