“Parks and Recreation” Ep. 5 Recap

With Ben returning from Washington in 10 days, Leslie prepares by checking out houses with a real estate agent and applying for a lease on one. Leslie and Ben plan to move in together, but Ben can’t move into Leslie’s house because it’s a hoarder’s nest, according to Ben, Anne, and the Health Department. Ben’s campaign in Washington was successful, the other candidate running against Congressman Murray dropped out due to lack of funds. April heads back to Pawnee a few days early while Ben stays back to finish up a few things and discuss his job future with Jen, his boss (played by Kathryn Hahn).

Ron is still dating Diane (played by Lucy Lawless), but is having a hard time adjusting to her two rambunctious daughters. Diane invites Ron to go trick-or-treating with them, Andy agrees on Ron’s behalf. Andy interacts with the children as if he is also a child. During trick-or-treating, Diane is called away to the school where she is the vice principal because a kid is pooping on the soccer field. Andy and Ron agree to take the girls for the rest of the night. Ron is clearly not skilled with children. When one breaks the other’s tiara, Ron breaks the remaining one so that no one has a tiara and everything is fair. They both cry. Andy tries to use his observational skills while dressed as a cop because he wants to get into the police academy. He must have the mental capacity of a child, because his observations are awful.

Chris is doing well in his psychotherapy programs and dresses up as his greatest fear for Halloween (which, as far as I can tell, is aging). He also plans a movie night to screen Death Canoe 4: Murder on Blood Lake. Donna live tweets the event with some not-safe-for-work comments. She even live-tweeted the first three Death Canoe films earlier in the day in preparation for this event. She’s ready.

While at the movie night, Leslie (appropriately dressed as Rosie the Riveter) gets down about the idea of Ben staying in Washington longer, so Anne (dressed as an American Olympian, likely Lolo Jones, because she looks just like Rashida Jones) and she decide to play a joke on Tom. They stand outside the men’s washroom so they can scare him on his way out, but it’s Jerry who exits first and gets spooked. He farts loudly, presumably in response to being startled, but the farts continue and he clutches his chest and signals a heart attack. While the women are upset about the extreme flatulence, they try to help him. When Tom finally exits the men’s room, he makes comments about a dinosaur farting and asks Jerry whether he ate farts. Jerry apologizes but Leslie yells at Tom, explaining the heart attack. Tom softens up. While it sounds dumb and childish, I laughed out loud at this part. Maybe I’m immature, but I find it hard not to laugh at long, loud farts. I often think that fat jokes are a cop-out, but this was done right.

Leslie, Anne, and Tom visit Jerry in the hospital. Tom questions the doctor, trying to force him to say that Jerry had a “fart attack.” No such luck. Leslie and Anne figure that they caused the heart attack, so they should help raise money for Jerry’s medical bills. They decide to hold a tag sale and auction.

At the tag sale, Tom attempts to sell clothing for more than it’s worth. Ron tries to sell one table (so it looks like he just has nothing to sell on his table). Anne brings boxes labeled with her exes’ names on them to get rid of all of the things she collected when she went through phases with her love interests. This seems pretty awkward, because nearly all of them are at the tag sale and the boxes have their names on them. I don’t think I would ever put trinkets from my exes on display for my coworkers to judge, but Anne wants to be free from Chris’ exercise gear, Andy’s grunge stuff, and everything she bought while with Tom.

Jen tries to convince Ben to stay with her company because he is good at managing political campaigns. The two meet with a congressman from Florida who needs help on his campaign. Ben is offered the job, but it means he’d have to move to Florida. Leslie is upset because she just put in the lease application on the house she thought she’d share with Ben, but Ben promises that nothing is set in stone yet. He calls Leslie during the auction, which she walks away from to take the call. When she returns, she is determined to make lots of money so that at least Jerry can be happy, if no one else. She tries to auction a date with Anne (which Anne is hesitant about). A cute guy bids on here, but the winning bidder is a creepy-looking older guy with tattoos, wearing a tank top. Anne decides that she’s taking herself out of the auction and runs away.

Diane leaves an angry message for Ron about the way he dealt with the children on Halloween, but she shows up at the tag sale to apologize. She gets upset when he doesn’t apologize as well, so she storms off. Even April and Andy note that Ron is ruining things. Ron says, “Oh well, relationship over, too bad,” but April and Andy are convinced that he is upset (despite his unchanging facial expression.) They urge him to make up with her.

Tom was trying to sell his clothing at inflated prices, but switches to a rental service when one mother complained that the clothing wouldn’t fit her growing son for long. He names the company Rent-A-Swag.

The tag sale and auction only raise $1,200 but Jerry is optimistic about it. Leslie finds that his life is depressing, especially when she hears how excited he is for strawberry Jell-O.

Ron shows up to apologize to Diane with flowers, chocolates, and grout cleaner. Ever-practical Ron realized that she needed some. He apologizes, explains that he has lived alone for a long time by his own choice, but he would like to try to become familiar with her kids. He brought a saw to teach the girls to use, then realized how dangerous it would be. He’s learning. Ron and Diane take the girls trick-or-treating on November 8^th to make up for the failed attempt on October 31^st. Ron demands that homeowners find some candy in their house, then pays them off afterward.

Leslie decides that she must withdraw her lease application because Ben’s future in Pawnee is in question. She goes to the house to look at it one more time with the realtor. Ben shows up, gets on one knees, and after a pause (Leslie stopped him so that she could remember everything), he proposed! Naturally, she says yes. Now to see if they’ll marry and live in Pawnee or if he thinks that Leslie will join him in Florida.

So Ben and Leslie are engaged, Ron and Diane are back together, Tom has another new business, and Jerry has a new outlook on life since his heart/fart attack. All is well in Pawnee.