What are you going to do without tides, Peru?
I didn’t realize seeing Ben and Leslie fight could be so uproariously funny. I can’t remember the last time I laughed that hard at Parks. Possibly last season. Or probably two weeks ago. I’m not sure. But anyway, I loved this episode and found the Model UN storyline to be hilarious and satisfying. It surprised me, because it was exactly the kind of behavior I was wary of over the summer, when I was thinking about what Ben and Leslie broken up might look like. The breakup made sense, but what also makes sense when you break up with someone is to back the hell off. But they’re characters on a sitcom, who are almost certainly destined to get back together, so of course they’re going to interact. And before the season started, my imagination ran amok, as I started picturing some of the nightmare scenarios of Leslie trying to hold onto Ben, Leslie stringing him along, Leslie trying to be just friends with Ben when he wanted more. I didn’t want to see her depicted in an unsympathetic light-but it’s just hard to interact with someone after a breakup in any way that’s humane.
I worry too much. Some of those things are starting to play out, but I’m weirdly cool with it. Every time Leslie runs astray of breakup etiquette, someone calls her out on it. And she’s so obviously struggling with her feelings, and Amy depicts her so well, she’s seemed so sympathetic to me. I just can’t be mad at her. And Ben hasn’t exactly been on his best behavior either. But basically I see two people who both care a lot about each other and are struggling with how to deal with the situation, and making some mistakes, but doing the best they can. And at least they’re making the mistakes in spectacular, entertaining fashion.
I’m not sure how Ben went from his state of mind in End of the World to willingly hanging out with Leslie here. I imagine it’s a constant struggle between the self-preservation instinct and the strong gravitational forces drawing him to Leslie that’s causing him to ping-pong between avoiding her and not. Also, Model UN! Did you see all those flags? How could he resist? (Something about that scene with the flags smacked of seduction. Leslie seemed to be purposely luring Ben into spending time with her. But Ben didn’t exactly put up a fight either-he was at least trying the friend thing before realizing he couldn’t go through with it.)
But then Barnes showed up and Leslie put him on “pause,” and it was like being smacked upside the head with a reminder of why they had to break up. And while Ben was supportive and understanding of her decision, he’s only human (theoretically). So it feels like he’s not important to her and that he’s being shoved aside. And expecting everyone to wait for her, calling him “buddy,” and then not understanding how he felt about that-even after he cut the childish crap and spelled it out for her-well I can see how he’d be upset. It was harsh to call her behavior selfish and obtuse-but accurate, right? Leslie’s an extremely caring person, but she has moments where she can be oblivious to other people’s feelings.
But the more I think about it, the more I see Leslie’s side of this argument too. Ben’s important to her and has been a big part of her life and she doesn’t want to give him up completely. It fits with her character, that she’d try to make the most of their current situation and salvage the parts of their relationship that aren’t outlawed, just to keep him in her life. Not respecting Ben’s boundaries is uncool, but to be fair, Ben’s boundaries haven’t exactly been constant. He was hanging out with her, everything seemed fine, and then all the sudden he was back to not being able to be friends with her. Given time, I’m sure she would step back and acknowledge that he has the right to change his mind. But in the heat of the moment, she didn’t take it so well.
By about the third time I watched this episode I started really listening to Leslie’s lines. All of the subtext regarding Ben’s POV were pretty obvious, like skywriting obvious, and Leslie’s lines seemed more crazy and funny at first glance-it was just Leslie going a little nuts because she didn’t get her way. But … then I got to thinking about her perspective, and there’s room to read a lot of subtext into what she says too. She calls it a betrayal. And it’s entirely possible that she does feel betrayed-Ben broke up with her in the most supportive, understanding way possible. She didn’t know he was going to be so hurt over it that he couldn’t stand to be around her anymore. “Global politics can change, and scenarios can arise. Suddenly you’re like, I thought this one thing, but look over there, that’s a different thing, and it’s changing everything, and I’m like, ‘What?’” She thought this breakup was going to be one way, and it turned out to go a different way. She didn’t know it was going to be like this. (He probably didn’t know either, to be fair.) And she’s hurt and bewildered that Ben can just cut her completely out of his life and go on without her. “What are you going to do without tides, Peru?”
The talking head where she talked about what friends vs. boyfriends do was interesting. I think her line delivery and facial expressions showed that she’s not okay with being just friends, she’s just trying to convince herself of that. He’s someone she wants at least the possibility of love and marriage and all that in the future. She’s just not facing the reality that it’s probably not healthy for her to continue their friendship when she’s not over him. Meanwhile Ben didn’t hear the talking head and is hurt by the fact that she seems totally okay with being just friends. I don’t think either one of these two realizes how strongly the other one feels.
I worry too much. Some of those things are starting to play out, but I’m weirdly cool with it. Every time Leslie runs astray of breakup etiquette, someone calls her out on it. And she’s so obviously struggling with her feelings, and Amy depicts her so well, she’s seemed so sympathetic to me. I just can’t be mad at her. And Ben hasn’t exactly been on his best behavior either. But basically I see two people who both care a lot about each other and are struggling with how to deal with the situation, and making some mistakes, but doing the best they can. And at least they’re making the mistakes in spectacular, entertaining fashion.
I’m not sure how Ben went from his state of mind in End of the World to willingly hanging out with Leslie here. I imagine it’s a constant struggle between the self-preservation instinct and the strong gravitational forces drawing him to Leslie that’s causing him to ping-pong between avoiding her and not. Also, Model UN! Did you see all those flags? How could he resist? (Something about that scene with the flags smacked of seduction. Leslie seemed to be purposely luring Ben into spending time with her. But Ben didn’t exactly put up a fight either-he was at least trying the friend thing before realizing he couldn’t go through with it.)
But then Barnes showed up and Leslie put him on “pause,” and it was like being smacked upside the head with a reminder of why they had to break up. And while Ben was supportive and understanding of her decision, he’s only human (theoretically). So it feels like he’s not important to her and that he’s being shoved aside. And expecting everyone to wait for her, calling him “buddy,” and then not understanding how he felt about that-even after he cut the childish crap and spelled it out for her-well I can see how he’d be upset. It was harsh to call her behavior selfish and obtuse-but accurate, right? Leslie’s an extremely caring person, but she has moments where she can be oblivious to other people’s feelings.
But the more I think about it, the more I see Leslie’s side of this argument too. Ben’s important to her and has been a big part of her life and she doesn’t want to give him up completely. It fits with her character, that she’d try to make the most of their current situation and salvage the parts of their relationship that aren’t outlawed, just to keep him in her life. Not respecting Ben’s boundaries is uncool, but to be fair, Ben’s boundaries haven’t exactly been constant. He was hanging out with her, everything seemed fine, and then all the sudden he was back to not being able to be friends with her. Given time, I’m sure she would step back and acknowledge that he has the right to change his mind. But in the heat of the moment, she didn’t take it so well.
By about the third time I watched this episode I started really listening to Leslie’s lines. All of the subtext regarding Ben’s POV were pretty obvious, like skywriting obvious, and Leslie’s lines seemed more crazy and funny at first glance-it was just Leslie going a little nuts because she didn’t get her way. But … then I got to thinking about her perspective, and there’s room to read a lot of subtext into what she says too. She calls it a betrayal. And it’s entirely possible that she does feel betrayed-Ben broke up with her in the most supportive, understanding way possible. She didn’t know he was going to be so hurt over it that he couldn’t stand to be around her anymore. “Global politics can change, and scenarios can arise. Suddenly you’re like, I thought this one thing, but look over there, that’s a different thing, and it’s changing everything, and I’m like, ‘What?’” She thought this breakup was going to be one way, and it turned out to go a different way. She didn’t know it was going to be like this. (He probably didn’t know either, to be fair.) And she’s hurt and bewildered that Ben can just cut her completely out of his life and go on without her. “What are you going to do without tides, Peru?”
The talking head where she talked about what friends vs. boyfriends do was interesting. I think her line delivery and facial expressions showed that she’s not okay with being just friends, she’s just trying to convince herself of that. He’s someone she wants at least the possibility of love and marriage and all that in the future. She’s just not facing the reality that it’s probably not healthy for her to continue their friendship when she’s not over him. Meanwhile Ben didn’t hear the talking head and is hurt by the fact that she seems totally okay with being just friends. I don’t think either one of these two realizes how strongly the other one feels.
- So perfect that Leslie was Denmark. A long time ago, I was looking through the bargain bin at a used music store and found a cassette containing a live version of Billy Joel’s Summer, Highland Falls (for a quarter! greatest find ever). Introducing the song, Billy Joel tells this story about the breakup that led to writing it, and at one point says about the relationship going wrong, “Something was rotten in Denmark.” And eventually I figured out that’s a quote from Hamlet (which somehow I’ve managed to never read). But anyway … it just seemed very appropriate for Leslie to be Denmark, because even though she and Ben were trying to be friends again, things are still very much off between them.
- It was striking during that fight how obvious it was that Ben and Leslie had a history. It was so palpable. There was too much passion to be just coworkers or friends. I guess it’s a good thing that Barnes and the media people had left by that point, eh?
- April definitely knows. I’m sure of it now. See previous point about how obvious Ben and Leslie were being. But I think she’s known for a while. She made the connection between Leslie and Ben’s sadness baths (oh my god, sadness baths). And she’s just a very observant person who can keep secrets. So. Yeah, she knows.
- Loved how cocky Ben was being in this. I imagine he was channeling a little bit of the cocky teenager who had the gumption to run for mayor once upon a time, and grabbing onto that because he really needed to feel confident about something in his life. And very appropriate that this took place in a high school, because they were both being pretty childish. (Although I did feel sorry for the kids.)
- It’s early in the season, but I could see this episode being Adam Scott’s Emmy submission. He is blowing me away this season, and here we got to see the perfect mixture of comedy and emotion.
- The expression on Ben's face when he was talking to Leslie at “Camp David” killed me. He looked so traumatized and heartbroken. And as Kyrieanne pointed out on tumblr, all he basically said was that he’d consider the five-minutes compromise. What else could he do, with her sitting next to him being all vulnerable and telling him how important he is to her? It’s hard to say no to Leslie. But it would make sense for him to reconsider that later, based on what a disaster the experiment of hanging out together was.
- Aside from the Ben subtext and relationship metaphor and how he felt about all that, just setting all that aside, there did seem to be something not right about Leslie going off for her photo op and expecting everyone to wait for her to be done. Her campaign is important. But, it wasn't the reason they were there, and I wouldn't want to see Leslie become the kind of politician who does things for the photo op. It probably made sense for her campaign to do that as long as she was there. But she could have handled it better, either by telling the campaign people to wait until she was done, or not expecting everyone else to wait for her while she had her picture taken. The event wasn't about her campaign, and it wasn't right of her to treat it like it was. It makes me think she's letting her campaign advisers steer her too much, and it's hard to tell from the little glimpses we've seen, but I'd like to see her take more control of what kind of politician she is and what kind of campaign she wants to run.
- Were there other story lines? Oh yeah, there were. Andy and April were delightful. I am riding high on a huge wave of April/Andy feelings lately. In other news, nice to get confirmation about how Chris and Ann’s relationship and breakup went down. I wonder if the writers realized they needed to tie up some loose ends there. I enjoyed Tom’s storyline too, even though nothing about it was particularly special. It will be interesting to see how his role in Parks is different after that experience.