‘Parks and Recreation’ season 7, episodes 1 and 2 review: Leslie versus Ron

We have to start this “Parks and Recreation” review by making one thing very clear: We are extremely grateful at the moment to NBC. Basically, this is the network that made the decision to keep the series on the air for so long, and through what were so early growing pains. It’s almost strange going back and watching some of those early episodes now.

Luckily, the two episodes that aired as a part of the show’s season 7 premiere this week were very much a vision realized, and also a whole lot of fun at the same time. The story picked up in 2017, and the show made great use of that to show how far these people have come. Leslie Knope now has some real power with the National Parks Service, but still has to fight many of the greedy residents of Pawnee (who also happen to be incompetent). Meanwhile, Ben is loving his job, Tom has several establishments, and Andy and April are now “boring” in her eyes.

The real highlight of these first two episodes, though, was the feud that started to boil between Leslie and Ron Swanson. Even the origins of this are very entertaining, since it seems mostly about him joining the private sector, and then becoming an indirect competitor to her. We love these two as friends, but there was something fun about them as rivals. Then, seeing them teaming up in order to keep Jam from being poisoned by Tammy 2 was made all the refreshing.

While we did feel a pit in our stomach over there being no Chris and Ann, the rest of the story did its part to make up for it. We laughed many times, especially through watching Tom deciding that he actually wanted a relationship and enlisted Andy to help him. While we wouldn’t necessarily say that there was a classic moment within the episode, we enjoyed this so much from start to finish that we really don’t care much. Grade: A-.

What did you think of the first two episodes of the season? Share right now with a comment.