Some of those things are symptoms, and some of them are just being a person.
I love to see Leslie and Ben loving and supporting each other, but I also love to see them fight. Is that weird? This was a ton of fun, though. I kind of expected Ben to know ahead of time that Leslie wasn’t going to want to go negative, but I really liked how the storyline played out anyway, and I like the edge. I also think that Ben has a bit of a competitive streak that this triggered, so that at some point maybe he wasn’t so much trying to make the ideal campaign ad as he was just trying to win the argument with Leslie. As he originally told her, it wasn’t going to be a negative ad, it was just going to state facts about Bobby Newport that made him look bad. And there really could have been an excellent ad along those lines, one that told the story of how Leslie achieved her success and then briefly compared that to Bobby’s credentials, minus the evil voice.
But Ben’s a little new at this too, I bet. I imagine he won his election at age 18 due more to the novelty of his candidacy and anger at the status quo more than actual political savvy. (I knew someone in college who won a local election at age 19, and it seemed like that’s basically how he did it.) There was a lot of merit to what Ben was saying-he does tend to be more realistic than Leslie-but the last ad they settled on was clearly the best. These two, once more proving they’re better together than apart.
The casting of Paul Rudd was inspired, and not just because we all love him and wanted him to be on our favorite show. Some of the other times Parks has brought on big guest stars, they’ve designed a particular episode around a character for that person, sometimes more successfully than others. I liked that here, Paul was cast as someone who was important to the main plot, and he played that role so well, it didn’t feel like stunt casting. He was just incredibly believable as the wealthy affable man-child.
I also really liked the conception of his character. Bobby Newport is not evil or corrupt, but he’s also not someone who deserves to be elected. He’s formidable because of his money and connections, but he’s also someone Leslie could believably beat on the merits. Which … I love the way Leslie is idolized in this fandom, she’s all sorts of awesome, but for someone with her inexperience and her … I don’t know what to call it, so let’s just say her willingness to pull her pants down on live television … anyway, she’s been written with a certain level of sitcom goofiness that I’m glad they pitted her against someone with a similar (or higher) level of sitcom goofiness so that it’s a fair race. It seems plausible to me she could beat this guy, even taking into account every crazy thing she’s ever done, and I like not having to suspend my disbelief so much on that.
It’s also funny to me that Bobby is a tiny bit similar to Leslie, like they took a few of her qualities and amplified them in him. He’s even more naïve than she is about how elections work-thinking that he won’t have an opponent, or that his opponent will help him get elected or even give him the election. But his “give me give me” thing reminded me a little of Leslie’s “give me the money” insistence circa the government shutdown. She knows better, of course, she just has trouble accepting reality sometimes. Unlike Bobby, Leslie has worked hard to get where she is, but she’s also still expecting some things to be just as she envisioned them as a child, and she has a hard time accepting that reality isn’t always going to conform to her expectations just because she wants it to. And if you look too closely at her “pros,” you might wonder if her understanding of what a city council member does is any more sound than Bobby’s. Lower taxes, but also better parks, better schools, better pretty much everything! It would be wonderful if that’s how reality worked. But I’m also going to assume that she knows she won’t accomplish everything on that list, and realizes that what she can accomplish will be difficult. And that she puts it on the list anyway because that’s who she is.
I’m very interested to see how Leslie evolves as a candidate this season. We’ve had two back-to-back stories about her campaign, one in which she was depicted as bumbling and the next where she’s shown as somewhat naïve. I just hope seeing Leslie fumble as a candidate doesn’t become an every-week occurrence. I don’t want to see her revert too much back to Season 1 Leslie. In the last couple seasons, the show’s done a good job of balancing her foibles with her successes and her strengths. She can be hapless or shortsighted or impulsive, but she’s also been shown to be competent, hard-working, and intelligent, and I want to see her be those things as a candidate too. The 10-year-old child in the video was her, but it’s not still her, right? I mean, it’s only been two episodes into the second half of the season, and I’m sure we’ll see her kick some ass sometime if they want to give her a shot at winning, so I’m not too worried.
I’ve been speculating for a while that the season might end with Ron as assistant city manager and Leslie getting promoted to parks director (if she doesn’t win, which seems like a big if at this point), so I was excited to see some evidence to support that theory. Pairing Chris and Ron seems like a really promising comedic well. But someone also pointed out that the timeline Chris set for filling the position-in a few months-probably puts it around the election, and that gave me another idea for how it could play out. Leslie as assistant city manager? I don’t know if she’s ready for that, and she certainly wouldn’t be Bad Cop 2.0 in the same way Ron could be, but I could see Ron suggesting Leslie for the position if she for some reason didn’t get her dream job. He might not want the increased responsibility, or the proximity to Chris, and he has such a huge belief in Leslie’s abilities. And Leslie once said (in Summer Catalog, I think) that she might leapfrog Ron to become city manager. It wouldn’t say it’s one of my top theories for how the end of the season might play out, since it takes Leslie out of Parks and why do that unless she’s elected, but the thought crossed my mind, so I thought I’d throw it out there.