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Note: Not doing a Thursday-night-review gallery this week. This is not necessarily a permanent change; I just haven’t watched each show yet and am not sure when I’ll catch up.
“The Master Plan” gave us the Parks and Rec debut of Rob Lowe and of Adam Scott from Party Down. If you’re a Party Down fan, you know that Parks’ gain may be that show’s loss; a third season of Party—hilarious but very little-watched—is still uncertain. (Watch it tonight if you have Starz!)
A proposal, then. Since the show’s comic styles are so complementary—Parks is a little sunnier, Party a little darker, but each has the same verite, improv feel—why not just merge the casts? Megan Mullally has already appeared on both shows too. I could see pretty much everyone from Party Down’s cast fitting into Parks (who doesn’t want Lizzie Caplan playing April’s rival?) and Parks’ stars could shoot guest bits on Party Down in the off-season! And they’d get to swear! Win-win!
I’m dreaming, I know, but I really like the potential that Scott and the budget-cutting storyline bring to Parks, fallout for Party Down notwithstanding. His and Poehler’s chemistry was quickly apparent, and he brought the same kind of weary, fine-I’ll-be-the-bad-guy crankiness to his budget-cutting Ben as he does to Henry riding herd on his caterers in Party Down. (I find Lowe’s presence a little distracting, though I liked his vitamin-chugging character.)
But I also liked that “Master Plan” did not throw too much of a spotlight on its new characters, instead focusing on existing storylines, especially April and Andy’s fitful relationship, which was especially well-handled here. Aubrey Plaza is doing a stellar job realizing a character who began basically as a scowl and an eyeroll, and I thought it was notable that the episode had the guts to throw to the title sequence on a straight line, instead of a joke. It showed, first, that April has become a real character whose story has stakes, and it was the kind of confident move that Parks—which like The Office has an undercurrent of drama in its comedy—has earned the ability to do. It was not unlike something I might expect, actually, from Party Down.
High marks on the rest of the subplots as well (except the writing off of Mark, which was pretty perfunctory), the setup and payoff of Andy’s “November” song for April and Ben’s “Benjy” flashback. It was refreshing to see Rashida Jones get to be something other than the straight woman for once, and Ron’s awkward attempt to comfort April was one for the highlight reel.
But the addition of Ben is especially promising, and the tension of the massive budget cuts and city-government shutdown could be a strong storyline for the show, which I’m glad is not ignoring the real world problems of the economy, irresponsible governing and deficits. “No one’s going to elect you to do anything unless you show you’re a responsible adult,” Ben tells Leslie. Really? Well, it is fiction, after all.