Parks & Recreation Ep. 3 Recap

In this episode, we get to see how things work in Pawnee: how bills get passed, how potholes get fixed, and how corrupt the town council members can be when they want a private bathroom.

Leslie has introduced a bill that would allow a local swimming pool to stay open longer so that the local swim team, the Pawnee Porpoises, can have more time to practice. To get it passed, she needs at least one other council member to vote for it, but Tom finds out that Councilman Jam will not be voting for the bill because he is upset that Leslie won’t allow him to use her office’s private bathroom.

Tom tells her this as she’s getting a perm and she finds that it is such an urgent matter than she halts the perm while it is halfway done. For the rest of the episode, she runs around trying to get the other councilmembers to vote in favor of the bill will half of her hair in tight curls, half in the usual loose waves. Her attempt to convince elderly Councilman Milton to vote for her bill ends up with him face down on the floor after she ducks away from his kiss. That didn’t work out, so she ends up promising to give Councilman Jam her office and parking space and to get Invisalign braces from him (he’s a dentist). He tries to announce the bribery to everyone at the announcement for the pools staying open later, but Tom pushes him into the pool.

Back in the Parks and Rec office, Chris has implemented a 311 line, manned by the Park and Rec staff. Ron gets a call about a pothole from a woman who can’t get through to the Public Works. He and Andy go to fix it themselves. Andy ends up playing with two little girls and getting dressed up as a princess. The girls’ mother, Diana (played by Lucy Lawless), who happens to be single, comes out to discuss the project with Ron and clearly flirts. Andy notices the flirting and convinces Ron that he should let the two girls turn him into a princess because it will convince Diana to date him. The girls apply makeup to him, which Diana finds hilarious. Ron is embarrassed and storms off, but Andy leaves Ron’s name and office written in chalk on the filled pothole, so Diana comes to ask him out on a date. He agrees, so it looks like Ron could find love with Xena. Is that reference too old? Everyone still remembers that Lucy Lawless played Xena, right?

Ben and April decide to take a road trip to Pawnee to visit their significant others, but get stuck before they can even leave the garage. Ben hopes that they can bond, but that’s easier said than done with April. There is a traffic jam in the garage because of a presidential motorcade passing. April and Ben barely pass the time by listening to Ben’s embarrassing mixtape and Ben reading Star Trek fanfiction out loud off of his tablet. When the cars finally move, Ben’s car runs out of gas (he meant to fill it at the first gas station once they were out of the lot, but they never made it out). They agree to fly to Pawnee the next weekend.

Now that Leslie has given up her office, she has a new one. It’s directly across the courtyard from the Parks and Rec office so she can wave to them. She tells Tom that it is a cigar club in there, but he realizes that he doesn’t like cigars. Isn’t it against town rules to smoke indoors?

I want to hear more of the Pawnee 311 calls, so let’s hope that those stick around for next week.