Jake Peffer on the fourth season of the U.S. comedy series Parks and Recreation…
Parks and Recreation has been providing many laughs for three seasons. Can they manage to continue the laughs for the fourth season of the NBC show?
In season four, we follow Leslie Knope (Amy Poehler), as she runs for City Council. She’s got all her friends and co-workers on her campaign team as well as Ben Wyatt (Adam Scott) as her campaign manager. It’s been her dream to move up in the government and she’s the perfect candidate from the job. What could keep her from winning? Well, Bobby Newport (guest star Paul Rudd) is running against her and he is the son of the owner of Sweetums Candy, the biggest company in Pawnee and essentially runs the whole town. He’s got one of the best campaign manager’s around and almost the whole city behind his back. Leslie knows she still has a shot at winning because she’s got a great campaign team on her side.
I just recently started watching this show and was able to catch up with it in the span of a few weeks. This season I thought was very strong because it had an ongoing story throughout the whole season and it seemed to benefit the show more. Seeing Leslie run for City Council added something to root for throughout the season other than hoping two characters would finally get together. You want to see her win and if she doesn’t you’re surely going to be disappointed.
As much as I enjoyed this season, there was one thing I felt shouldn’t have happened. No spoilers here, but two characters start to date at one point and the whole thing felt very forced after a while because it’s two characters who just don’t work together as a couple. At first I thought it was actually kind of sweet for them to go out on a date but as soon as it went past that it just got annoying. One other thing this season kind of stuck out to me that I wasn’t crazy about either. It seemed like they were trying to make the character Andy (Chris Pratt) dumber during this season. He’s always been a dumb guy but there were a few episodes where he just acted a little too dumb.
The cast on this show is one of the strongest ensemble casts I’ve ever seen. Everyone is likable in their own ways and all of them usually get at least one moment to shine every episode. This should be the year that Amy Poehler gets an Emmy or Golden Globe. Her performance on this show has been great and I really think she stepped it up even more this season. Aside from her two other cast members who need to get some award attention are Chris Pratt who plays Andy and Rob Lowe plays Chris Trager. Andy has always been my favorite character because he’s so over-the-top hilarious that you can’t help but love him. The moment Rob Lowe first appeared on this show I could tell it was going to be a different Rob Lowe than we’ve seen before. How he goes about playing his character is gut-bustingly funny almost every episode and his positivity about everything makes him all the more funny.
This season had some great guest stars. Paul Rudd was hilarious as the dim-witted Bobby Newport. Kathryn Hahn played a great conniving campaign manager for Newport’s campaign. Louis C.K.’s character came back for an episode after leaving in season one to move to San Diego. Former NBC star Sean Hayes even guest starred on an episode where he plays a famous new journalist who interviews Leslie.
All in all, this season of Parks and Recreation was the most consistent as far as laughs and having those heart-warming moments that you can’t help but love to see when it’s with characters you like. Despite just a few missteps this was a noteworthy season and I look forward to it coming back in the fall. Watch it!
Jake Peffer
Originally published June 29, 2012. Updated April 10, 2018.
