10 Greatest TV Bottle Episodes
5. Parks And Recreation - Leslie And Ron
Parks And Recreation is a show about a community. In carefully building the town of Pawnee, the writers gave themselves an endless supply of weird and wacky characters to drop in for a laugh as needed. The show’s core, though, was the relationship between Leslie Knope and Ron Swanson, and in isolating the two for a full episode, they produced a highlight in the late stages of the show.
The characters are chalk and cheese, a Big Government optimist and a cynical libertarian, but Leslie and Ron tended to find common ground, until a season seven falling out. The episode sees the two of them locked away by their friends in order to sort through their issues, and what starts as the usual ideological bickering turns into something far more profound.
As played by Amy Poehler and Nick Offerman, the characters have always been funny and charming, but the dramatic swerve taken by this episode is met with aplomb by both actors. They know their characters and the relationship brilliantly by this point, and give you a strictly platonic connection worth rooting for.