Parks and Recreation returns! It was nice to get this show back, even though it was only gone for five weeks. Once again the four NBC comedies that I watch are back on Thursday together where they belong. While NBC is doing things for me, they should definitely not cancel Community, and bring back Bent, and then replace The Office with it. Yeah, that would be nice.
Community - "Virtual Systems Analysis"
Community gives us another look at the mind of Abed. We've dealt with Troy and Abed at odds in the past, but now we see Annie get a little more insight into her strange roommate. This is easily one of the most affecting episodes they've done since "Mixology Certification". Troy possibly beng with Britta sends Abed down a spiral where his never ending analysis leads him to believe that eventually all of his friends will leave him. This episode also gave us nice view into how Abed sees the other members of the study group. Danny Pudi does pretty good impressions of the rest of the cast, it would have been nice to see a little more of that. Annie gets to do a little soul searching herself with the Jeff!Abed coming on strong. She's more in love with trying to get Jeff to love her, because that means she could get anyone to love her. While not heavy on the laughs, there were a couple spots that gave me chuckles, the best being Troy not getting Inception. Troy crying is never not funny.
30 Rock - "Murphy Brown Lied to Us"
If there's one thing I never expected from 30 Rock was to bring up old and forgotten storylines. To make fun of the fact that they were dropped, sure, but not to actual be plot relevant. As usual, the Jack-Liz stuff was the best part of the episode, with his heartfelt talk with her at the end. The little Liz was pretty amazing, Jack knew right away how that whole thing would play out. Jack finding out about the troubles of U.S. engineering was great for the throwaway gags, the hardness of Bazzoka Joe gum and the Stacy Keach fake commercials were great. It was also nice to see SNL's Bobby Moynihan get a little guess spot. The Jenna and Tracy story was the weakest part, like most weeks, but unlike most weeks it wasn't that bad this time. It finally brings Paul back with Jenna, and gave us a pretty great addition to the Mickey Rourke is trying to kill Jenna running gag. My only gripe is Jenna was in the hospital, but no Dr. Spaceman.
The Office - "Angry Andy"
I'll take Nellie over Andy as manager any day, but the way it was handled was just strange all around. I'm curious as to how long they're going to keep him out of the office. All other people from the main cast that have left, haven't left for long. I guess it's just another in a long line of mediocre episodes this year. They still manage to have good cold openings, but everything else is just so "meh". The Ryan and Kelly story was okay. I'm glad they finally did something different with it than Ryan treats her like dirt and she takes it. The best part was the warehouse guy not liking Ryan even though he's never met him. The impotence story was only good when it led to the great Creed joke of asking how old the same time as Robert. I suppose me not actively hating the show is a step up from most weeks.
Parks and Recreation - "Live Ammo"
Okay, first off, you get Bradley Whitford in and he has no scenes with fellow West Wing alum Rob Lowe? C'mon! Besides that, though, Bradley Whitford was great as Councilman Pillner, and they did get in that great West Wing easter egg of the "Pillner for Pawnee" napkin. This week found Leslie learning some hard lessons about being a higher ranking government official. She is the person who wants to to help everyone and everything, and that invariably will upset some people. There was a way out this week, but there won't always be. Meanwhile, April continues her journey into adulthood dealing with Leslie's responsibilities while she's on the campaign. She even finds something she's passionate about, even to go so far as to run down that lady who tried to leave her cats. Tom got a nice moment with April at the end to remind us he's not always a douchebag (with an awesome apartment), and his pronunciation of "puppy" is hilarious. Ron and Chris go out on a meditation outing so Chris can see if Ron is right for Ben's old job. These two opposites have made a great comedy duo in these past few episodes. Ron's talking head disparaging meditation while describing that he pretty much was meditating was some very clever writing. Ron's love of meat was a nice capper to that. Finally, Andy's exclamation of "This dog was in Boogie Nights?" makes me laugh every time.
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