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Parks and Recreation - I need more Tom


Had to watch this episode on replay, but I went in with crazy excitement when Mrs. Channelup had told me this episode had some great scenes with the "Brown Superman with a beard that stands for justice" otherwise known as Tom!

If I had known city employees could sit around outside the office and drink beers after work I'd have filled out an application for the Parks Department a looooonggg time ago. When they added wine and cheese to the party I actually called my local town council and asked how I could get a job with parks and recreation. They hung up.

All Leslie wants to do is shatter the glass ceiling and get with Mark B. If it means opening a little, against regulations gift basket so be it. Who can blame her? If it means rekindling that half a decade old affair with Mark then so be it. Her guilt gets the best of her and she confesses to everyone but the president (which she might have off camera).

A fine episode, but please give us more Tom. Tom is a character I could watch an entire episode, maybe an entire series, about. His aloofness in the midst of turmoil and his smart assness in the face of terror is admirable. What I think I also love about Tom is he is one of the first true characters from Indian decent (according to his wikipedia page) on television that doesn't play some stereotype of the culture. Instead he is just a regular slacker twenty something working in a job he knows is stupid and yet is probably too lazy to work anywhere of consequence. This melting pot is going places.

I am also a pretty huge fan of Ron Swanson. If anything, Tom probably aspires to be Ron at some point in his career. The guy has Scrabble up on his computer and wants nothing more than to collect a paycheck and be left alone (and possibly be the guy sitting in a room deciding who to nuke).

Good development in this episode and the expansion of the auxiliary characters was totally necessary.

Highlights
- the pit/ soon-to-be-park turning into a neighborhood trash dump had me laughing out loud. If that doesn't define a collective American dystopia then I don't know what does.

- Tom's deposition of Leslie and his line of questioning out of sheer masochism is something every subordinate should record and keep on file

- Ever wish you could just get on some crutches and limp down the street buck naked? Me too.

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