What I’m Watching: Parks and Recreation

Parks and Recreation: Season 2, Episode 9 “The Camel” (B+)

This episode isn’t as great as the ones that have led up to it this season, but it’s still hard to find much at fault with it, and it still works pretty well at getting the cast together and (semi-)motivated to do something. The state institution departmental rivalries are arguably the funniest part of this show, and the perplexing fact that Sewage always gets the hot interns is this week’s contribution to that aspect, and it’s a worthy follow-up to last week’s Parks-led hatred of the library. Redesigning the town mural is exactly the kind of thing that Leslie would be into, and her leading the charge brought out some truly interesting and entertaining responses from her team. Tom’s decision to pay an aspiring artist, trash him, and than tear up at the sight of this bizarrely mesmerizing painting was great. Ann’s involvement, despite her not actually being a member of the department, was nice, and it was amusing to see her come up with such an unimpressive result. April’s was just plain trashy, and Jerry didn’t even get a chance to show off his work of art due to the team’s immature chanting of “murinal,” which was strange but still pretty damn funny. Ron’s brief cameo at the start where he confirmed Leslie’s rank was great, and his bunion-motivated shoe-shine fetish was a bit weird but still worked. It’s good to see Andy taking action and working hard at his job, even if he’s doomed to get himself into trouble letting his friends cut the line.