Hump, Marry, Kill: Parks and Rec Reaches A Huge Milestone

Hump: Scoff all you want, but MTV’s version of Teen Wolf is dark, campy, and so worth your DVR space. The season 3B premiere opened with Stiles (the best character, imo) having nightmares inside other nightmares! Then everyone was having night terrors! Or, they were really awake! No, they were hallucinating! It was like Teen Wolf-ception (with way more sexing than actual Inception).

Allison’s nightmare starts out as a sex dream featuring Scott’s live-in bro, Isaac. Scott’s mad at Isaac, because he and Allison clearly want to rub their parts together. I say get over it, Scott. As Isaac reminds us in the episode, he spent a large portion of his childhood being locked in a refrigerator and beaten by his horrible father. Now, he’s an orphan. He kind of deserves to have something good happen. Maybe just this once.

All hope is not lost for our main teen wolf, though. Just like Allison caught his eye when she first started at Beacon Hills, so, too, does another new face immediately enter the picture once Allison starts having sexy-time dreams about Isaac. And, new girl Kira (Arden Cho) just so happens to be knowledgeable about Buddhism or whatever lore this season’s mystery will explore, so she quickly joins the group of friends that will undoubtedly find college quite boring after high school was so full of mythical creatures and murder.

Between all that gore and his monthly mood swing (being a werewolf is kinda like getting your period), Scott deserves a cute distraction. So, have fun, you crazy kids. Let’s just hope their cycles don’t sync up.

Marry: It was Parks and Recreation’s 100th episode, and it actually fills me with joy to know that this clever show, which actually manages to make the inner workings of a fictional small town’s government interesting (no offense to any local-government employees, of course), made it to the all-important syndication number. The only other show that has successfully created such a complete, thriving universe populated with rich, diverse characters is The Simpsons, and that’s the gold standard of true sitcom creativity. If you don’t believe me, go back and watch “Marge vs. the Monorail,” written by Conan O’Brien. I’ll wait.

On a mildly related tangent, if you had told 5-year-old me that one day I’d be able to read rejected Simpsons jokes on the computer, and that there would be entire “websites” devoted to comedy where Simpsons writers divulge how they wrote her favorite episodes, I would have had an excitement aneurysm.

Anyway! Parks and Rec pulled out all the stops for the big 100, and by all the stops, I mean they brought back so many of the great recurring characters. Jean-Ralphio, Shauna Malwae-Tweep (whoever came up with that name deserves all the Emmys), Councilman Dexhart, Ingrid de Forest, Jennifer Barkley…it was like seeing old friends. My favorite, of course, will always be Perd Hapley, the world’s most oblivious, dim-witted reporter. He even got to do a song and dance number to bookend a special video in which the cast members recall their favorite moments. And, as always, Ben Wyatt is a total dreamboat, and the perfect show is perfect.

Kill: I want to like The Spoils of Babylon, I really do. I just don’t think I have the frame of reference for the epic, overdone miniseries of the ‘70s and ‘80s that the show is attempting to parody. So, while I enjoy Tobey Maguire and Kristen Wiig making over-the-top fools of themselves as adopted siblings trying not to be in love with one another, a lot of the satirical melodrama is going over my head.** Can you appreciate a parody without an understanding of the original? Interested in hearing your thoughts.

**Please note this does not mean I won’t watch the entire series.