Parks and Rec Finale

[author_by_night]

Spoilers, obviously.

I was actually a little disappointed.

I don't like future plots, so the whole 2017 thing was already pushing it a little for me. But fine. I just didn't love the constant flash forwards.

Also, April as a mother... I just can't see it. I kind of liked the idea of her being Leslie and Ben's kids weird aunt. I think I would've liked it more if it hadn't felt like she was mostly doing it for Andy - if they'd at least shown her changing enough as a person to want them, maybe I could see it.

Mostly, there just wasn't a hurrah. Last season's finale was a huge hurrah, and felt more like a finale. In a way, I still think of it as a finale, and season seven as sort of an epic epilogue. I've been wondering all season whether that was the intention, and now I think it kind of was.

HOWEVER. There's still things I liked a lot.

- Ron's new job suits him. Ron himself said the National Parks was the "only branch of government worth a damn", so.

- Seeing Ann and Chris again. Not enough, but we got them. And I totally ship Ann's son/Leslie's daughter. Although it'd be weird to have a sister-in-law named after your mother....

- Tom writing a bestseller about failure. That seemed fitting.

- Leslie as governor of Indiana. Actually, now I wish we'd had a seventh season about that. Seriously. I want fanfic.

- Jean Ralphio faking his death for scam purposes. Though why wouldn't Tom and his father be at his funeral? Maybe they were in on it. Or they felt it would be going too far to show characters who were actually close to him sad. Probably both.

So I liked it as far as finales go, but I think last season will stand out, to me, as the true finale. Not that this season didn't really happen in my mind, just... this was just a nice tying of loose ends. :)

I hope my reaction hasn't been a downer to anyone! I'd love to hear everyone else's thoughts.

ETA: On further thought, maybe part of the problem is that I did love last season's finale so much?

Comments

[picklehair.livejournal.com]

There were parts of this season that I loved, but it was no season 2-4. To me, this is the time when parks was at its best. I think when you try to show too much character growth, the formula changes. What we miss in the last couple seasons is our elite group of people, whom we love, running the parks dept.

[delacourtings.livejournal.com]

I wasn't very happy with it either. I marathoned all of this season yesterday before the finale and honestly the final Johnny Karate episode felt like more of a finale than this one did? But that may be because, like you, I'm not the biggest fan of the future plot.

I agree with you about April, it really did seem like she was only doing it for Andy. Now that I'm thinking about it I feel like maybe adoption would have been a more fitting route for them. Them planning to adopt a younger kid but then their case worker mentions how the older they are the less likely they are to get adopted and April then wanting to adopt a surly teenager.

I enjoyed it overall though! I loved Chris and Ann, though there wasn't nearly enough of them, and Leslie as governor, and I loved Gary's flash forward. Mainly, I'm just thankful it wasn't another epic failure a la How I Met Your Mother.

[ragnarok-08.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I wasn't too happy with it either, mainly about April.