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Parks and rec quotes graduation9/12/2023 ![]() ![]() ![]() It was Ann who began this story long ago by complaining of a hole in a lot next to where she lived, with then-boyfriend Andy (Chris Pratt), a self-centered slacker and not yet the endearing dimwit he would later become. There were waffles too, if you were paying attention.Īnd there was Ann Perkins (Rashida Jones) back again, and one more time for Leslie to praise her beauty and hold her close. Time for one last visit to the fourth floor, for one last appearance of Burt Macklin and for a Joe (and Jill) Biden cameo. There was time, one last time, for Chris (Rob Lowe) to say something was literally true, and for Ben (Adam Scott) to look at the camera in an attitude of “What just happened?” and for an entire auditorium to mock the endlessly mocked Garry (Jim O’Heir), whose present from his creators is that he gets to be mayor for the rest of his life and live to 100. Jumping forward into the characters’ various but still intertwined futures (from the already-future-set 2017, in which the final season has been set), it showered them all with happiness, success and dreams come true and then brought them back together for a last group adventure, in a park, to fix a swing. Every handshake and hug felt real, every tear unforced and well-earned. What plot the complicated and busy last episode offered was just in service of the party. It was the last of NBC’s great if often struggling prestige comedies, including “The Office” and “30 Rock” (whose godchild “Parks and Rec” can be said to be), that once made Thursday night a date worth keeping. Optimistic and innocent, familiar and ridiculous, “Parks and Rec” was a Frank Capra film as imagined by Preston Sturges, stretched into a series and filtered through the pickup basketball sensibilities of a modern writers room (and a multigenerational cast of gifted players). ![]() That a comedy about a parks department in an Indiana small town would not be a ratings smash was not inevitable, but it is not, in its way, inappropriate as in the series itself, it was never about how many, but how much we who cared, cared. There is love there too, passing each way through the screen. As is also often the case with finales, the episode was constructed as a gift - a gift from its makers to each other and to their audience. Written by Poehler and series co-creator (along with Ed Daniels) Mike Schur, the finale was, as finales often are, a kind of metaphor for the moment: “We need to celebrate everything we’ve done as a group,” Leslie says to her co-workers, a character talking to characters and an actor talking to actors as all are about to part. In the final shot, star Amy Poehler, as public servant Leslie Knope, faced the camera, all aglow, and addressed Leslie’s future and perhaps her own: “I’m ready,” she said. A story about people who love one another made by people who clearly love one another, “Parks and Recreation” ended its seven-season, zigzag run through prime time Tuesday night on NBC. ![]()
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