Parks and Recreation: Flu Season 2 (6x19)

Ahhhh! I'm so excited. Even though I'm not all that surprised... I'm very excited. Let us take a look at what happened in this lovely episode.

Apparently, it's flu season, and Jerry/Gary/Larry has been infected, so Leslie makes him stay in quarantine in the office. Leslie feels herself getting sick too, but she must power through. Leslie and Andy have to go find a leading act for the unity concert. Their first choice is a young country artist who ends up being a total jerk. Next, they go to a member of an old band that's broken up. Leslie and Andy convince him to get the band back together to play at the unity concert! Also, Leslie finds out that she doesn't have the flu - she's pregnant!

Meanwhile, Tom is trying to find a wine expert to hire for his new restaurant. While there, Tom must compete for the best wine guy with other restaurateurs. Tom loses out, but he ends up hiring Craig, who is equally knowledgeable about wine, even if he is wildly over the top.

Ben learns that his parents have sold the family's cabin. He's very upset about it, and wants to talk about it with Ron. Ron is... Ron, so he's not the best at listening to other people's problems. Ben gets very drunk. At this point, Ben and Ron run into the other Ron, the one from Eagleton. Eagleton Ron encourages Ben to let go of his anger. Ben is grateful for his help, but it doesn't work. He realizes that the reason he's upset about his parents selling the cabin is that he had always imagined going there with his own kids someday. He comes home and tells Leslie that he's ready to start a family with her. Leslie gets to tell him her big news!

So... flaws? I think Ben's drunk act was a bit... silly. Or not silly enough. It wasn't over the top or understated enough for me. It just sat somewhere in the middle. There was one moment that had me cracking up, though, when the other Ron emerges from the woods and Ben, wide eyed, just asks what's happening right now. That part was perfect.

There's this moment where Andy reveals that he knows Leslie is pregnant, but then it turns out he thought Leslie and Ben were getting a dog. I really wish they had just let Andy have this moment of intelligence and insight, rather than turning it into another stupid joke. It would have been a nice subversion of our expectations... instead we just got more of the same.

But for the most part, this episode was pretty great, and had a lot of funny jokes! Here are some of my favorites:

April acting like a wine connoisseur. This was just priceless comedy. She's such a weirdo, I love it. Craig is also hilarious. In the end, when he serves Donna, Tom, and April as a test of his abilities, he proved himself to be quite adept, but then he had to go and scream about how awful it was to drink red wine with fish. Really great.

Ron taking care of Ben. Even if drunk Ben wasn't the funniest, Ron caring for Ben was pretty sweet. It seems like no matter who you put with Ron, he ends up taking on that sweet, fatherly role. It's just too adorable.

When Andy is playing one of his songs for the band member, he was acting all high and mighty about his lyrics, which were basically just the same two words repeated over and over. That got a few chuckles out of me.

Also, Leslie's pregnant! They had better not put her new career aspirations on hold... I hope she still goes on to do big things, even though she'll now have a family at home as well. I'm so excited to see how this new surprise changes the whole show!

I'll leave it there. Can't wait to see more!

8/10