Parks and Recreation: "Indianapolis" Review

The episode title "Indianopolis" was a bit misleading (not that I look to Parks titles for ultimate guidance) as this particular chapter could have been as easily called "Chris's House." Perhaps even as a nod to the Season 2 episode, "Leslie's House." Hey, maybe every character should get their own "House" episode! But I digress. "Indianapolis" was a clever joyride that took most of our gang out of the office and into the wonderful, lovable world that this show has created for itself.

"My name is Janet. Janet Snakehole." As for Andy and April's first episode as an official couple, I'd give them a B+. It started off a little too cute, but I was relieved to find that, after everything that's happened to them, they still just really like hanging out together and doing a bunch of brilliant nonsense. I liked the fact that the show has almost immediately addressed the two of them as being a couple of go-nowhere underachievers. I mean, do we really think that Andy's band will ever make it? I don't mean that to be mean, just that these two both totally deserve, and fit with, each other.

I love that each character has their own specific eccentricities (or peculiarities, if you will), and this episode was able to highlight three of them; Tom's desire to spread his Tommy Fresh scent, Ann's track record of being the "dumper" and not the "dumpee," and Ron's love, nay, lust for meat. As far as the latter goes, I think the show should take a break from Ron's carnivore cravings, at least for a few episodes, after this one because Ron was all about Mulligan's Steak House ("I have taken a picture of every steak I've ever eaten there"). I loved it when he sat down in front of the former eatery, lamenting the lost steaks that might have gotten boarded up inside and never eaten.

I'm glad that the show decided to fully go with the fact that Tom's hand-crafted cologne smelled horrible. "It smells like someone spilled Chinese food in a birdcage," Dennis Feinstein (formerly Dante Fiero) callously said. Ben, who opened himself up a bit to the idea of friendship this episode, labeled it as being "Teriyaki...hairpiece." Again, like in "Media Blitz," the pairing of Ben and Tom was wise as Tom was able to shine opposite Ben's drollness. I also very much enjoyed the names of what were, apparently, Feinstein's most successful fragrances: Attack, Yearning, Thickening, Itch, Coma and Sideboob. One of the things this show does really well is, well, list things off in a funny manner.

It's a shame that Chris and Ann are actually now broken up, but Parks found a clever, and surprising way to pull it off, while actually pull one over on us the viewer. Since we didn't get to see their "talk" (as "Media Blitz" cut away from it), we never got to see Chris, in the nicest way possible, break up with Ann. Ann's suspicion of Chris as a cheater was also a great way to, once again, show how loyal Leslie is to her friends as she vowed to find out the truth. "In high school they used to call me Angela Lansbury. But that was because of my haircut."

And hell, I'd even make the trip to Indiana if there was actually a place called Dame Gervin's Misshapen Celebrity Castle!

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