Even Death Can't Stop The Leslie Victory Train

Parks And Recreation, S04E21

Leslie was campaigning for one more day before the election, via a bus and having great success with her speeches and appearances.  However, the sudden death of Bobby Newport's father put a halt to it all.  After saying some negative things about the deceased man and barging in on his memorial with her campaign bus, Leslie finally apologized to Bobby in private for her comments.  Thanks to her cheering him up and being a decent human being, Leslie got endorsement from Bobby in a press conference about his father, even though he had stolen a story Leslie told him about her childhood and made it his own.  Chris tried to distract himself from dark thoughts by keeping busy with any task he could volunteer for in the campaign.  Andy was busy investigating a pie that had almost hit Leslie.  Tom, accompanied by Donna and Ron, had to get back the vans they had paid for from the owner who had been paid by the competition to withhold the vans from Leslie's group.

It's kind of disgusting that someone's death can be turned into a "political sideshow" as they put it in this episode.  I could really see that Leslie was so determined to win and continue her bus tour because she refused to listen to Ann's advice to do the right thing for the longest time.  I think it was funny that Leslie couldn't spin her negative opinion of the deceased owner of Sweetums to her advantage, but instead called him a jerk and said other things to dig her hole deeper.  The way that Jennifer played her hand in making Leslie look like a monster, though, was much more contemptible.  It's too bad that she's such an aggressive and calculating manage and Bobby is such a moron because all of her tactics basically went to waste.  I really didn't think that after Leslie rammed her bus into that portrait of Bobby's father at the memorial that she would be able to recover from that, but I guess Leslie really has luck on her side.

I liked when Leslie told Bobby about her running a marathon and winning her mother's pride, and Bobby understood from that story that he and Leslie both had dicks as parents.  Wow.  I think that conclusion he drew was much more amazing than him taking that story and changing it so he could use it in a speech later on.  I thought he wasn't too bad of a guy until he did that.  But now that I think about it, maybe he told the story because he didn't have any nice stories about his own dad and didn't want to share with others how much of a dick his father really was.  But he redeemed himself by saying that Leslie was awesome for comforting him and that anyone not voting for him should vote for her.  It's hard to hate him after that, and like I've said before, Paul Judd is just too cute sometimes.

The only thing I liked about Chris' story was that April had the opportunity to cheer him up again.  It didn't work, but I still thought her words were sweet for someone like her.  She told him that he wasn't as alone as he was claimed and must have friends out there somewhere.  Aww.  She's too embarrassed to admit that Chris is her friend.  Sadly, what did get Chris out his sad spiral (although his last major one was so hilarious) seemed to be the sex that Jennifer offered him.  I hope that's all it turns out to be.  I couldn't stomach to see someone as cheery as Chris with a snake like her.  Eww.

I thought Andy's story was just stupid until he found out that the pie was meant for Ben.  I liked that someone was disgruntled for Ben's actions and thought that throwing at pie at him would satisfy his anger.  Andy solved the mystery, but he surely didn't protect Ben from getting pie on his face.  Still, for Andy I think that qualifies as a success.  What I liked best about Andy's story was when he gave everyone code names, which were mostly based on sex he had had with each person.  My second favorite name was Donna's, which was "It Happened Once In A Dream," but my favorite was Tom's: "If I Had To Pick A Dude."  Love it!   Most of them seemed pretty content about the names he came up with.

Tom's story made with mad, with that guy who was taking advantage of the demand for his vans.  It was really smart of Leslie not to send Tom alone to handle Butler because if Ron couldn't get through to that stubborn man, no one would have been able to.  It was really nice that Ron agreed to pay what the competition was offering out of his own pocket.  It's too bad that guy bumped up the price, and it was too bad that Ron didn't knock the hell out of him for being such a greedy dick.  I also admire that Donna, who loves her Mercedes more than anything else, would back into Butler's car so that she could claim he rear-ended her.  She would have to pay for the damages herself, but they got the vans back in the process.  Wow.  It just really shows how far everyone is willing to go to help out Leslie.  I love all the love.

I liked this episode, but I always have to complain when I don't get a good Ron quote from it.  I did like Ron trying to handle Butler, but I was disappointed he couldn't really do anything to change the ass' mind.  I also would have preferred a little more Tom because you know I love me some Aziz.  However, I'm just glad to see that Leslie may very well be celebrating her victory in the next episode.  Although, I'm fairly certain that Obama isn't going to make an appearance at her ceremony, no matter how much she envisions it.

Send That Dolphin Back To The Ocean

Family Guy, S10E14

 I had heard (through some tweets) that Ricky Gervais would guest star on the last episode of Family Guy, so I was anticipating a laugh fest.  I really wish that I hadn't gotten my hopes up at all.  While I did enjoy hearing Ricky's voice, I didn't care much for most of the jokes this time.  Something was missing, but I'm not sure what.

Peter and the boys go to fish out some recently sunk Mercedes from the harbor, but pull out a dolphin named Billy instead.  Billy gets Peter a hood ornament and owes him a favor in return.  The favor turns out to be a place to stay on the surface.  The side story was about Stewie's ghetto preschool and Brian's absent attempt to help him.

I'll talk about the side story first.  The head of the preschool, Miss Emily, turns out to be a young, attractive girl with the brains of a squid, exactly Brian's type.  Not again!  So he does his regular thing of acting like a selfish douche bag, while ignoring the horrible conditions Stewie and the other kids have to go through.  The best of these horrible conditions were a random guy coming into their school and kidnapping a baby, a little boy playing with a piece of wood and a nail, and Stewie having his arm ripped out of its socket.  You would think that when Stewie came home with an arm hanging down to the floor, Brian's conscience would come back, but nope.  He just sinks lower and gags Stewie's mouth with paper and pops his arm back into place against his will.  Although Stewie is a sadistic, evil little baby, he's really a good friend because he doesn't seek revenge against Brian for thinking with his dick rather than his heart.  Actually, he's done some horrible things to Brian before for less, but I guess sometimes Stewie has to act like a baby with little power.

There was one really good line Stewie had about the preschool.  This was when Brian was stupidly defending Emily by saying she was teaching them independence:

We're 1!  Independence means we die!

Brian only comes to his senses when Emily reveals her boyfriend.  Damn you, Brian.  You're such a sorry excuse for a dog!  When she is taken away by the police, he tells her there's a special place in hell for people like her.  If that isn't the pot calling the kettle black.  It's a good thing that Brian doesn't believe in hell because he'd have a lot of things to atone for in the afterlife.  I'd like to see Brian do something outrageous like date a good girl based on her personality, rather than her looks.  But that would be asking too much.  Stewie even thanks Brian for calling the police without making comments that he took his sweet time.  Then they do a crazy freeze frame and plan to stay like that until Lois and Peter finish their conversation.  Loved that little bit.

Peter having a house guest in the main story starts off well for him.  For me, I didn't see the addition of Billy to the Griffin household being that funny.  I almost cracked a smile when Billy said that he understood that they were supposed to all hate Meg through his excellent intuition and by Peter telling him in the hall.  But for the most part, I was bored.  Ricky had a lot of fish puns that were bad, but made me smile because it was him saying them with his infectious laugh, but the more annoying he got, the less I liked him around.  He just didn't annoy anyone in a really amusing way.  At one moment Trisha Takanawa came to harpoon him, and they had this little jingle that went "Japan!  They Kill Things That We Like!"  I had to laugh, as slightly offensive as that was.  I say "slightly" because if you've been watching this show for this many years, you shouldn't be offended by anything they do anymore because they say horrible things about everyone.

They finally get Billy to go back to the ocean when they find out he was kicked out by his wife, and they help him out.  What I found interesting about this was not that Joe helplessly dropped down to the ocean as King Neptune, but was that there was a tender moment in FG, and it involved dolphins.  I feel like it's been a while since they had a heartwarming moment in this show with any of the Griffin members.  Maybe that's not what this show is about; they'd rather be "real."  I dunno.  This is one reason I like The Simpsons better overall; no matter what bad things the characters do, they show that they love each other.  Where's the love, FG??

I was grossed out a bit when Peter smashed 2 birds wiith one big stone.  Man, I can never quite get used to those sort of things in the Seth MacFarlane shows.  All of a sudden there's something bloody going on, and you have to scrunch your face together in disgust.  However, that little moment was probably one of the best things in this episode.

I also will give them credit for being creative with their cutaways.  It was nice that they showed you the script for one of them and didn't animate the scene.  That hasn't been done, as far as I know, so I enjoyed the originality.  Wasn't that funny, but it showed that the writers are always thinking.

Well, it was stupid of me to think that a guest star I liked would necessary mean a good episode.  Thanks for letting me down this week, FG.  I won't get my hopes up again.