Awkward…

Well, between Community and Parks and Recreation, Thursday night comedies certainly took a turn for the morose this weekend, didn’t they? Both episodes dealt with what happens when someone you don’t like dies.

For Leslie, it was Bobby Newport’s dad and the owner of Sweetum’s, Nick Newport Sr. Leslie’s campaign was a well-oiled machine at that point. Her speeches went along like clockwork, to the point that Ben could predict when there’d be hearty laughter and awkward silences. And then a reporter asked her about Nick Newport Sr. – Leslie bashed him, because he’s evil. Except, oh wait, he died this morning.

And from there, it was one blunder after another – at one point Leslie, falling for yet another one of Jennifer Barkley’s tricks, showed up at a memorial service in her campaign bus. Smooth. And Paul Rudd continued to be amazing, hitting the perfect balance of nice guy and over-privileged prat.

But without his dad around to impress, Bobby likely doesn’t even want to run for council anymore. And Jennifer isn’t sure she’s going to get paid anymore. Which led to the absolute best thing – Jennifer propositioning a very down-in-the-dumps Chris Traeger. Jennifer might be viciously devious, but she’s also kind of unrelentingly chipper. I like the idea of her and Chris hooking up, and I’ll also take as much of Kathryn Hahn as I can get.

There was a hilarious subplot in which Andy channeled Burt Macklin to try and figure out who had pied Jerry in the face. At first they thought it was someone going after Leslie, but after tossing many a pie in Jerry’s face to reenact the crime, they realized the perp was actually aiming for Ben. It was that creepy sewage guy.

There was also a decent subplot featuring Mike O’Malley, playing basically the polar opposite of his character on Glee – a guy who reneged on his contract to rent vans to Leslie’s campaign after Bobby’s campaign offered him an exorbitant amount of money to just keep them parked in a lot. It provided some damn funny moments for Tom, Ron and especially Donna.

Favorite Quotes & Moments:

• Bobby plays Wii bowling right next to a real bowling alley, because he likes the avatar that looks like him. Oh, sweetie…
• “”From now on, we will be using code names. You can address me as
  Eagle One. Ann, code name – Been There, Don That. April is -
  Currently Doing That. Donna is – It Happened Once in a Dream; Chris,
  code name – If I Had To Pick a Dude. Ben is — Eagle Two.” – Andy
• Andy’s codename for Leslie is “I’d Be Lying If I Said I Hadn’t Thought About That”.
• “He’s gonna steal Yogurt Platinum!” (Ew.)
• “That’s permanent marker.”
• The slo-mo pie to the face was just amazing.
• “We brought a sorry for your loss fruit basket for Bobby. And it is very classy — no melons and no apples.” – Leslie