Folks, hell hath no wrath like a Karen refusing to wear a mask. That is, until I saw the compilation (below) of Florida residents at a town hall meeting viciously protesting their county’s new mask mandate. I still never imagined that any scenarios in our real lives would so accurately reflect that of a Parks conundrum. However, you may have noticed that our political landscape has become infinitely more absurd in the last seven years. The actual political characters in Parks-from the sex-crazed city council members to the perverted radio deejays to the silly local news hosts-never actually seemed real.
Only now, roughly seven years later, am I realizing that Parks is really at its smartest when doling out biting political satire and criticizing the frustrating processes that define bureaucracy, often using the tiny Pawnee as a microcosm for America. When I first watched the show, I loved it mostly for its quirky, warm characters, who were all just as entertaining as those in Greg Daniels’ other famous series, The Office, but a bit more redeemable. During these public forums, citizens will frequently make ridiculous demands, yelling angrily for sugar to replace fluoride in the city’s water supply or for senior citizen sex education to be replaced with abstinence teachings (a little late for that, right?) Throughout the NBC series, Leslie, a director at Pawnee’s Parks and Recreation department, who-bless her-sees the good in everyone and loves Pawnee more than anything, often hosts outlandish town hall meetings. This is all still true, but fellow Parks fans might join me in recognizing how our American reality is becoming more and more like the crazed Pawnee, Indiana, a fictional town filled to the brim with unreasonable, angry human beings. It remains one of the most purely joyful sitcoms to ever flash across our screens. Then I finally remembered that Parks & Recreation is one of my all-time favorites.
#Parks and rec streaming free
I thought to myself, “ Why did I wait so long to re-watch this delightful gem of a show? Why have I deprived myself?!” I had spent so much of my newfound free time cramming in depressing docuseries and all the A24 films I never got around to that I nearly forgot to just watch something I really loved. The laughs came easy, the heart of the show remained as earnest as I remembered, and hanging out with Ron, April, Leslie and all these other familiar characters felt like taking a walk with old friends. When I first started re-watching Parks and Recreation a few weeks into quarantine, it felt like a revelation in comfort.