Parks and Recreation – Recap & Review – The Master Plan

photo: nbc

Parks and Recreation
The Master Plan

Original Air Date: May 13, 2010

Sara M. – TwoCents Reviewer
sara@thetwocentscorp.com

It’s party time in Pawnee! April is turning 21, an appropriate age for Andy to date her without it being creepy. And where does a girl most hope to have her 21st birthday party? The Snake Pit, obviously.

The party seems to be a decoy for Tom to invite women out for him to hit on. Andy is excited for the birthday and wrote her a song, using a month… not April.

At the same time, the Pawnee government has had all spending suspended until state auditors are brought in to assess what needs to be done. Leslie is of course taking this news poorly, worried that the auditors will reduce the Parks Department to nothing. On the other hand Ron is giddy. Actually giddy. He giggles when one of the auditors, Ben, announces that 50-60% of the budget will have to be cut. The head auditor, Chris, is uninvolved with the process and disappears to his office where he pops vitamins and does chin-ups (Clearly this is the character is played by Rob Lowe). Leslie is constantly butting heads with Ben, a man who ran for mayor at the age of 18 and won. He also ran the government into the ground, which is why he became a state auditor, to keep cities from making the same fiscal mistakes. The two also have an odd chemistry that leads to an early morning beer.

The other half of the show was the birthday party. April is adorable in her pink party dress, waiting for Andy to get there. Tom is roaming around, hitting on every woman he comes into contact with. Ann and Leslie have decided to get completely wasted to distract from Ann’s break up with Mark and Leslie’s worries over the Parks Department. Things go down hill pretty quickly here. Andy and April flirt, he goes to get her a drink and while at the bar runs into an already buzzed Ann. From a distance April watches the two and decides to latch onto Tom’s massive tool of a friend, John. By the time Andy finally gets back to her, John has cozied up to the birthday girl. A secretly crushed Andy walks away, convinced that he just read all of the signals wrong and that April didn’t like him like ‘that’. The next morning at the office, everything is considerably less upbeat. April is depressed, Ron tries to comfort her without talking to or hugging her, in a very sweet scene. A hung over Leslie and Ann are trying to remember whom it was that Ann made out with the night before. The lucky plot point? Chris.

The incredibly sweet and sad tag is Andy singing his song, “November.” Through which he admits wanting to go on a date with April. You can probably guess my TwoCents on this one. What about yours? Anyone else have thoughts on the April/Andy developments? What about Mark and Ann breaking up off screen? Thoughts on how this thing with Tom and the bartender might go? Let me hear you.

Next Episode: Freddy Spaghetti (season finale)

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