NBC
Spoilers for Parks & Recreation, The Office and Community coming up after the jump:
The funniest episode so far of Parks & Recreation was distinguish by two great bits of physical comedy. First, there was Andy’s swan dive into the pit upon nearly being caught at Ann’s house. Second, there was the brilliant running storyline about Ron’s hernia—”This morning, I made the mistake of sneezing”—which set up what seems like an impossibility: a hilarious bit of slapstick involving someone not moving. And what further improved on it was pairing him with April, since they’re two characters distinguished by being uncommunicative.
Like last week’s premiere, this Parks also played off a current issue in the news, here, the Henry Louis Gates arrest (“I’ll step into your mama’s van!”) that capped off the stakeout at the pit. What I liked about this, though, was that it didn’t just shoehorn in a current event but played off an actual question about a character: how somebody played by Aziz Ansari ended up with a name like “Tom Haverford.” (“Dudes with funny-sounding Muslim names don’t get far in politics.”)
The Office, meanwhile, returned to corporate matters with an episode that showcased both Crazy Michael and Dramatic Michael. It made sense that Michael would react to Jim and David Wallace’s meeting the way he usually does to feeling threatened—with a desperate gesture—just as it was predictable that he would undermine Jim to David: “Big Bird doesn’t make the tough decisions.” (Genius, by the way, that Jim would have a negative review on file, written by Toby, who always loved Pam.)
What we hadn’t seen before, though, is a genuinely angry Jim, confronted by a situation were he can’t just make a grinny face and let things roll off his back. This leaves Michael even more threatened than the meeting; for all his palling around with Dwight (who did, after all, once try to betray him for a job), Jim is the one person in the office who has always been truly decent to him. The idea of losing Jim really seems to scare Michael, and Steve Carell did a fine job of conveying it.
The episode, by the way, not only also featured a stakeout but one that ended in a quasi-racial incident, as Toby and Dwight mistake Darryl’s sister for him. (The race factor is never mentioned, but it’s the subtext when Dwight says that Darryl’s sister looks exactly like him, and Toby uncomfortably says no.) And finally, while Entertainment Weekly may be promoting Pam and Jim’s wedding on its cover, it’s good to see that the show, for now, is leaving the nuptials (and the baby) as a subplot, so they don’t overtake the show.
Meanwhile, Community, in its second week, aired the burn-Chevy-Chase episode whose shooting I visited, and with the character introductions out of the way, I liked this one better than the pilot. (Especially the ending montage of Jeff and Pierce’s Spanish conversation, which featured the best comic use of an Aimee Mann song ever. And robots.)
I’m not sure yet that Community has the kind of detail and ongoing story that will lend itself to a weekly recap. (Other than the wasn’t this funny, wasn’t that line funny sort.) But I’m curious to hear what you thought of it. Please be sure to use all five vocabulary words.