![]() ![]() ![]() So, she gets better after that point, right? Well, not really. This is such a great opportunity for Leslie to grow as a person, to dial back her passion just enough to realize how her actions affect others, and to give back some autonomy to the people closest to her. She goes to Ben, apologizes, and legitimately asks him what he wants. That’s what he says he wants.įinally, Ann has gotten through to her, and Leslie has realized the error of her ways. LK: Is it? Honestly, is it? I mean I guess I just need to leave Ben alone. LK: Well then you should call me a bulldozer rather than a steamroller. I’m the worst.ĪP: No, you’re very passionate. LK: Because you order white wine and it gives you a headache!ĪP: Well, it’s my headache! Leslie, you do what you want, you ignore what other people want, and you hear only what you want to hear. You’ve seen all eight movies!ĪP: When we go out to a bar, you order my drinks for me! LK: That’s insane! You love Harry Potter. I know, Ann, you keep starting sentences and not finishing–ĪP: (interrupting) You’re a steamroller! You’re a massive, enormous, runaway steamroller with no brakes and a cement brick on the gas pedal! You made me watch all eight Harry Potter movies! I don’t even like Harry Potter! LK: (interrupting) I know he’s going through a phase right now and eventually we’re gonna both be friends again.ĪP: No, what I was going to say is that you really are– LK: (interrupting) Ben thinks that I’m a steamroller? That’s unbelievable! How dare he think that I’m a steamroller? LK: Everything in my life is going wrong right now. Here’s the exchange between Leslie and Ann: Ignoring what he wants, Leslie tries to drag on the project forever, tells him that he needs to spend more time with her instead of less, and then when Ben finally snaps and calls her a steamroller, she goes to Ann, incredulous that he could accuse her of such a thing. ![]() As a result, Ben tells Leslie that after this last project, he is going to focus his attention away from the parks and rec department his feelings for her really bum him out when he has to see her all the time at work. Leslie’s tendencies come to a climax in episode 8 of season 4, “Smallest Park.” At this point in the show, Leslie and Ben Wyatt have made their romantic feelings for each other very clear, but they can’t be together because of Chris’s rules that government employees should not be romantically involved with employees whom they supervise. When the health department is looking for a new PR director, Leslie signs up Ann for an interview for the next day at 9am without even asking if she’d be interested in the job, and then is furious with Ann that she doesn’t spend all night cramming from the enormous interview prep binder that she prepared for her (S3 E13). She convinces Ann to go on a date with Chris Traeger in order to coerce him into adding more money for the parks and rec department budget (S3 E1). She convinces Mark Brendanawicz to propose to her best friend, Ann Perkins, on live TV in order to boost the ratings for Leslie’s telethon fundraiser (S2 E22). Her extraordinary passion manifests itself in such a way that she has no regard for other people’s feelings or desires. Throughout Parks and Rec’s first three seasons, there are numerous examples of Leslie’s extreme tunnel vision. She makes heroic efforts consistently to make Pawnee a better place and to protect its citizens from infestations of raccoons, racist city councilors, corrupt corporations, and, in Leslie’s own words, “the human equivalent of gas station sushi, Jeremy Jamm.” With all that said, she is a bit overrated. Leslie Knope, from the TV show Parks and Recreation, is a badass woman, a dedicated public servant, an outrageously hard worker, and an overall unstoppable force for good in the world. A reflection by WLRC graduate assistant Seth Quam
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