TV Review: Parks and Recreation 5.17, "Partridge"

Parks and Recreation - Season 5

rating: 3.5

After a fourth season which leaned quite heavily on Leslie's political ambitions, I expected a fifth season which followed Pawnee's favorite daughter down a path lined with similarly themed excursions. While audiences have seen flashes of this in a couple episodes, mostly Leslie's political misadventures have been confined to Jamm related wackiness. Although some have lamented this lack of bite and weighty pathos, a completely legitimate grievance, I'm of the opinion that it's allowed viewers to better get to know the rest of the cast. This is less exciting from a narrative standpoint, but it hasn't really disappointed in terms of pure, simple laughs and has subsequently carried the show's quality steadily, though just barely. "Partridge" similarly delivered in the way of solid laughs with moments surrounding Ron Ulysses "Softy-Pants McLovable" Swanson and Ben "Ice King" Wyatt. I fully sympathize with fans who wish the stakes of this season's plots held some sort of genuine tension, but truthfully I'm not quite so bothered as long as I'm still laughing at Ron putting his integrity before his desire to not be sued for 46 million dollars (which he may or may not actually have in gold and palladium), and Ben espousing on Miles Davis and the universe's inherent flow of love on painkillers. And yes, these plots' resolutions, like most on this show, may have felt a bit too convenient, but they were each leagues beyond the sappiness of Ann and Chris' ongoing baby drama, the weakest story of the episode. I'll be much happier to see a return to Parks' greatest strength -- weaving honest and poignant drama into its unparalleled comedy -- but despite it being a very tight rope they're walking, I just can't bring myself to really complain until I stop laughing as hard as I do with each episode.
Contributor

Fed a steady diet of cartoons, comics, tv and movies as a child, Joe now survives on nothing but endless film and television series, animated or otherwise, as well as novels of the graphic and literary varieties. He can also be seen ingesting copious amounts of sarcasm and absurdity.