It is a sad time in the world of television. The beloved television program, “Parks and Recreation” is in its final days. While all good things have to come to an end, this show seems to be coming to a racing halt. The final season started on Jan. 13 and ended on Feb. 10. In a little over a month, this beloved piece of television will be over. Forever. While I appreciate not having to wait three months to see the series finale, it seems to be happening too quickly. In this age of binge watching, we as viewers have a need to watch shows one after the other, which is part of the reason for “Parks and Recreation” showing two episodes every week. But part of me also wishes that we could go back to the days when we had to watch shows live without internet streaming and DVR.
Over the years “Parks and Recreation” has put us all through an emotional journey. We followed the relationship of Ben and Leslie go from hatred to love, the blossoming of Leslie and Anne’s friendship and the heartache when she moved away, watching the strange but wonderful relationship between April and Andy grow, and of course, Ron Swanson the meat-loving government-hater. This show almost did not make it in the beginning, but it has grown exponentially both in character development and plot.
The final season takes place in the future, the year 2017, and a new internet company named Gryzzl has essentially taken over the town of Pawnee. This company has built up the town, but they are getting in the way of Leslie’s plan of creating a national park. The season follows their journey and the Parks and Rec crew get back together to take down Gryzzl.
Although the ending of this show is a sad thing, I do believe that they ended it at a good time in the series rather than waiting for the show to go downhill and watching it painfully die. These characters will be greatly missed, but thankfully most of these characters already have different projects in the works. Nick Offerman (Ron Swanson) is doing stand-up, now available on Netflix, Chris Pratt (Andy Dwyre) is now in every blockbuster movie ever but is the star of the upcoming Jurassic Park movie, Amy Poehler (Leslie Knope) is working on a new movie with her comedy soulmate, Tina Fey, Aziz Ansari (Tom Haverford) is a stand-up comedian and I am sure that Aubrey Plaza (April Ludgate) will soon be working on some obscure and hilarious project. All things have to come to an end, but we will see these actors again. At least now we have Tina Fey’s new show coming to Netflix in February to look forward to. Pawnee will live on forever; don’t be sad, just talk to some waffles about it and enjoy Galentine’s day with some of your favorite gal pals.