If there is one episode that illustrates just how far Leslie Knope (Amy Poehler) had come from the ditzy if eminently capable Pollyanna-esque figure of season 1 to the still wide-eyed and optimistic but far more capable and intelligent figure of season 2, it’s “Christmas Scandal”.
It’s not simply that Leslie Knope, thrilled at finally having the Sullivan Street Pit filled in, has successfully used the now level plot of land to stage the annual Winter Wonderland, which looks like just about every Christmas decorating fantasy I have ever had (and could never afford to enact).
It’s bright, colourful, brilliantly well organised, the pinnacle of Leslie Knope’s year (though not necessarily her team who look to be there largely under sufferance) and with the tree lighting looming, she’s all set to enjoy her moment of festive glory.
That is of until a series of ever more over the top events, which unfurl with all the farcical whimsy of a British comedy of errors, intervene to snow on Leslie’s Santa Claus parade.
It all begins innocently enough with the Pawnee City Government Follies, an annual Christmas sketch show where Leslie, dressed as sex scandal-riven Councilman Bill Dexart, mercilessly skewers the man who has yet to meet a woman he doesn’t want to jump into bed with.
The sketch is well received, and Leslie, always anxious to be accepted and more importantly on everyone’s radar thinks she’s hit a satirical home run.
That is until she’s summoned to a clandestine meeting with Dexart where he confronts her over knowledge of his latest sexual indiscretions (yes there are multiples; he is the Anthony Weiner of Pawnee) convinced the skit was based on inside knowledge.
Of course it wasn’t and Leslie tells him so.
Thinking that is that, she leaves only to find that the tabloid The Pawnee Sun, always on the lookout for the latest salacious gossip, true or not, reveals photographs that it took of them together, proclaiming in the process that Leslie is his new mistress.
Leslie is horrified and wants to set the record straight but her boss, Ron Swanson (Nick Offerman) decides the better course is for her to lay low while the controversy subsides.
(At which point the entire team pitches to cover Leslie’s workload which comically turns out to be far greater than anyone every imagined; testament to the growth in Leslie’s character that I referred to earlier).
Naturally of course it doesn’t and the ever-escalating chain of events which includes Ann (Rashida Jones) being erroneously tagged as Leslie’s lesbian lover when she tries to intervene on Leslie’s behalf, a hilarious over-examination of Leslie innocuously shaking the Councilman’s hand four years earlier (a send up par excellence of the hot air-spewing “experts” TV news loves so much), and Dexart refusing to disavow the relationship (it’s far innocuous that what he’s actually done), looks to be spiralling out of control.
That is until Leslie, new take charge take no sh*t Leslie steps up and stands up for herself by dropping her pants on TV thus proving she doesn’t have the mole on her butt that Dexart says is there and exposing him as the liar he of course is.
It all looks like a win-win for everyone’s favourite Pawnee deputy Parks and Recreation director, with the honour of the tree lighting even falling to her, till she’s forced to amicably break up with her boyfriend, Dave the policeman who’s off to San Diego.
Still sad though that part of Leslie’s life is, Christmas Scandal, which ends with the requisite US sitcom feel-good moment (they may be corny but lordy I love them) manages to showcase Leslie Knope’s growth as a character and underlines once again how razor sharp the skewering of the US political system especially at the local level is by the show’s writers, while still achieving the sort of warm and fuzzy Christmas vibes that you want from a festive episode.
A most wonderful time of the year episode indeed.