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TV’s reigning best sitcom, Parks and Recreation, returns tonight with the episode the rest of season 3 has been building toward: the Parks department attempts to pull off the Harvest Festival, on which its future depends. I don’t want to spoil much about what is the season’s best episode yet—and I know I just said that about “Media Blitz”—but if you want to see the opening scene, above, it kills. It also captures a couple great things about Parks & Rec: the performances and the definition of characters (note the little catch of suppressed excitement in Leslie’s voice as she makes her announcement), and the way the show continues to expand the world and the history of Pawnee, here, though a very, very big (yet not big) local celebrity.
I’ll post more tomorrow morning, but here’s my recent love letter to Parks and Rec in TIME. Feel free to show it to your non-Parks-and-Rec-watching friends.