TV Review: Parks and Recreation 4.11, "The Comeback Kid"

rating: 4

There was a bit of reconfiguring in the first half of this season of Parks and Rec. Ben and Leslie danced around each other like there was no tomorrow, Tom's company nosedived like a mother and Leslie's campaign fell quicker then a fat man in lead pants. Slowly (sometimes very slowly) the series picked up all the pieces and threw them back together. The final moments of the mid-season finale "Citizen Knope" left a bit of a cliffhanger but generally left us with the feeling that everything was going to be okay. It was nice to fell warm, fuzzy, and back in touch. Now Leslie's new campaign team is in full swing, as her co-workers use their various expertise to put together a political event the likes of which the town has never seen. As Leslie's new campaign manager, Ann manages to book a local sports hero, Ron offers to build a stage, Jerry brings the people and Tom classes up the joint. Excluding Jerry, absolutely nobody is actually able to perform and the result is a laughably understated disaster. The series is back to a simpler format, and the nonstop laughs that "Comeback Kid" had to offer were spectacular. From Champion the three legged dog to Ben's clay-mat. (claymation), the episode was littered with some great one liners. I wish I could reproduce them all but I'm afraid in writing I'll loose all sense of comedic timing and come off as a blubbering plagiarizer so I'll just say this. It has been a long time since I truly laughed out loud, many times, during a Parks and Rec. episode. Sure, in the first half of the season, my heart was warmed over the fire with a picturesque Grand Canyon landscape and a spinning camera around a passionate kiss. But what the first half lacked in tried and true jokes, this episode made up for ad nauseum. And I mean that in a good way. It was one punchy kick after another and every character got their share (it wasn't just April chiming in gratuitously). Two things. First, I'm sure that we all knew where Leslie's campaign was going. Her choice of (and yes there are spoilers here) Ben as her campaign manager is not only painfully obvious but drastically necessary. Still, the episode managed to get to her decision in a fairly organic way so I'll excuse what could have been a lazy, one-episode stall. What I really liked though was a small dive into Ben and Chris' thus far enigmatic relationship. We've known for a while that they've been friends but their both such different people it was hard to picture. Rob Lowe has done an absolutely incredible job with Chris and his performance in "Comeback Kid" was further proof. Despite his cheery and somewhat paradoxically distant disposition, his care for Ben showed up in the smallest of gestures, the slightest of pauses in his speech. I'm sure there's something brimming under the surface there, and this has to be only the beginning. I really don't want to sit here and pick this episode apart to pieces, because I think it stands fairly well on its own. It must have been a fun meeting in the writing room when they banged this one out. If it's not done well then a constant barrage of one liners can come off as crass and altogether senseless. Just ask Whitney (hey-o). But Parks knows how to walk the line; it's something they've been able to do for a while now. If anything, this episode just further proved something that's been lingering around. The cast and crew of this show is a group of super talented and wonderfully absurd comedians who just plain know how to deliver. You really can't go wrong if you stick with that, now can you?