Awesome / Parks and Recreation

• "The Stakeout": Ron has been ignoring a painful hernia all day, and when April comes to get him, she asks if he's ready to go.
  "I was born ready. I'm Ron f***ing Swanson."
• In "Christmas Scandal", Leslie is roped into a media storm that assumes she's another consort of Councilman Dexhart. When things come to a head, she goes on Pawnee Today with him to disprove the rumors. Dexhart has no problem with the scandal, and even tries to get Leslie stuck in it by claiming she has a mole on her rear. Rather than staying quiet and essentially proving him right, Leslie willingly takes down her pants on TV and Dexhart is proven wrong.
• "Hunting Trip":
  • This exchange:
    Ron: Attention person who shot me in the head. I will find you, and I will TEAR YOU APART!
    Ann: Ron. Bed.
    Ron: (meekly) M'kay.
  • Another, kind of gross, minor one: When Ron offers everyone some chewing tobacco, Leslie enthusiastically accepts some. Instead of being squicked out by it, she's spitting like a pro at the end of the scene. Gross, but no less a Crowning Moment of Awesome for someone who probably never chewed tobacco before.
    Leslie: S'why they call it 'chew' and not 'swallow.' Am I right, Ron?
    Ron: Yes, you are right.
• "The Possum:" Mark spends the entire episode shooting down Ron's refusal to bring his woodshop up to code (which he needs to do so Mark can sign off on his plans to extend). First is his abject refusal to just fudge the job and sign off, sight-unseen. Second is when he refuses to buy Ron's obvious lie that he'd done it, telling him outright to get out of his office. Then, finally, after he shows up to help Ron bringing it up to code:
  Ron: (to camera) I am bringing my workshop up to the Swanson Code. And if the Swanson code happens to overlap with the City Government Code-
  Mark: (offscreen) SHUT. UP.
  Ron: (flinches and stays quiet)
• "Flu Season":
  • Leslie, delirious with the flu and barely able to walk, escapes from the hospital to give a masterful speech to the Pawnee Chamber of Commerce drumming up support for the Harvest Festival. An awed Ben says in a talking head:
    "That was amazing. That was a flu-ridden Michael Jordan at the '97 NBA Finals. That was Kirk Gibson hobbling up to the plate and hitting a homer off of Dennis Eckersley. That was... that was Leslie Knope."
  • To a lesser extent, the fact that Ann stayed nice and professional and did not once lose her cool for her whole shift as April abused and annoyed her while sick.
• Ron telling off Tammy 2 in "Ron and Tammy 2".
  Tammy 2: You're not even a man anymore. Oh, and by the way, last night, I faked four out of the seven.
  Ron: So did I.
• "Media Blitz": After spending the entire episode humiliating himself during interviews because of the Ice Town debacle, Ben finally pulls himself together and delivers this response to someone calling Pawnee Today claiming that he ran seven towns into bankruptcy:
  Ben: Okay, first of all, why does everyone in this town use AltaVista? Is it 1997? And second, I am a budget specialist; I went to those towns because they were bankrupt, and now they aren't. And yeah, I screwed up when I was eighteen, but who doesn't do dumb stuff when they're eighteen? Joan?
  Joan Callamezzo: I stole my gym teacher's husband.
  Ben: ...So there you go.
  • What really sells it is that Joan has been gleefully mocking Ben throughout the episode and now looks and sounds visibly uncomfortable and embarrassed.
• "Harvest Festival" showed that Ron Swanson is a man who would instantly solve everyone's problem just to shut them up.
  Ron: All of you be quiet. Andy, she's mad because you said "awesome sauce" instead of "I love you too". April, he loves you. Stop being a child. Tom, you're clearly at fault here. Blaming Jerry won't save you. Jerry, we both know you were shotgunning funnel cakes instead of watching Li'l Sebastian. So everyone apologize to everyone else!
• "Indianapolis": After Dennis Feinstein callously rejects Tom's cologne idea, Ben sees Feinstein's car outside of the Snakehole Lounge (which has a window partially rolled down), grabs Tom's "Tommy Fresh" cologne and dumps the contents into Feinstein's car.
  Ben: He'll be smelling your dreams now.
• "Jerry's Painting": Moral Guardians are pressuring Leslie to destroy the painting Jerry made of a topless Greek centaur goddess that resembles Leslie. Leslie, who loves the painting, offers to remove it from public view and just keep it at her house, but the Moral Guardians will have none of it. In the end, she presents them with what she claims is the painting repainted to have Tom's face and torso instead of hers, which satisfies them. The episode ends with a Talking Heads bit of Leslie in her office.
  Leslie: There were many goddesses in ancient Greece. Some of them were lovers. Some of them were fighters. (camera pans back to show both paintings on her wall - the original one, and the supposed alteration) And some of them were tricksters!
• In "Eagleton," Ann goes to pick Leslie up from jail, where she's ended up after getting into a fight with her former best friend. Ann gives a very insightful, understanding summary of Leslie's emotional situation, before concluding:
  Ann: And just say the word and I will beat her senseless with a baseball bat.
• "Road Trip": After Ron took the opportunity to educate a young girl who was supposed to write a paper on why the government matters on libertarian values and his anti-government views, the girl's mother storms in the next day to chew him out, and she actually makes him squirm.
  Mrs. Burkiss: Lauren was supposed to do a paper on why government matters. This is what she wrote. (takes out the paper, which only has "It doesn't." written on it)
  Ron: (laughs) Well said.
  Mrs. Burkiss: Is this a joke?
  Ron: No, ma'am, I legitimately believe that. I'm a libertarian.
  Mrs. Burkiss: Oh, that's nice. Well, she is a fourth grader, and fourth graders aren't supposed to have their heads crammed full of weird ideas. They're supposed to do cute reports and get gold stars.
  Ron: I'm very sorry. I was only -
  Mrs. Burkiss: And you ate her lunch? And you gave her a land mine?! Really?!
  Ron: Well, it seemed appropriate at the time.
  Mrs. Burkiss: How?
• "The Bubble": Ron explains to Chris why the changes he made to the Parks and Rec department aren't working and making everyone miserable. Before agreeing to a compromise of keeping the circular desk Chris made him use for a week while the rest change back to normal, Ron demonstrates great insight to his employees.
  Ron: Tom only performs when there's someone to impress, so marooning him on 'Freak Island' isn't helping anyone. And you made April assistant to everyone? You know who April hates? Everyone. And Jerry can only function when no one's looking. You shine a light on him and he shrinks up faster than an Eskimo's scrotum.
• "Ron & Tammys": A drinking contest is held between Ron's mother and his first wife Tammy 1 and the winner gets Ron to stay with her. They drink the Swanson family's mash liquor, a Gargle Blaster concoction that can melt a snail's shell, is used for burning warts off mules, and whose "only legal use is to strip the varnish off of speedboats". Wanting Ron to stay at the office, Leslie joins in and gets drunk after a couple of shots. April tries to sub in for Leslie, takes one sip, spits it out, and collapses. Finally wanting to end this and decide his own fate, Ron takes the jug in one hand and chugs down the rest of it with no problem in one go.
  • This is also a retroactive one for Tom's Snakejuice drink from back in "The Fight", which actually succeeded in making Ron drunk in the first place.
• "Meet n Greet": A small one, but when April sees how uncomfortable Jerry is with seeing his daughter Millicent getting hot and heavy with Chris at the Halloween party she and Andy are hosting, April successfully steals Chris' car keys without him even noticing until it's too late.
  April: Try solving this, genius. (tosses the keys into the trash)
• "Smallest Park":
  • A very small one, but Jerry, of all people, is able to get Tom to stop fooling around with a bunch of ludicrous ideas to make the Parks and Rec department "cooler" and more "hip" (like a reality show for the Park Rangers, among other things) when they're just supposed to make a new font for the department's logo. Even better is his closing line.
    Jerry: Plus, wasn't dreaming big exactly what got you in trouble with your old company?
  • Ann finally calls Leslie out on being a steamroller.
• "The Trial of Leslie Knope": Tammy 2 was going to take the opportunity to slander Leslie. Chris then reminds her that she is under oath, and if she lies, he will fire her and have her prosecuted. Tammy 2 proceeds to leave the room in a hurry.
  • The fact Chris managed to take down Tammy 2 with one sentence. Taking her down is impossible for Leslie, with Ron and Diane being the only ones able to subdue her and/or get her to back down normally, and even then they don't always succeed.
• "Bowling for Votes": Ben punches out a drunken Jerkass who called Leslie a "bitch". Leslie even says right afterward that it was "awesome" and kisses him.
  • And then Leslie not only refuses to let him resign to protect her image, but also defends him to a crowd and stands by him, saying that the guy had it coming, and making a joke about it to lighten the mood. And this actually wins several voters over!
• "Lucky": Leslie bombs an impromptu interview by showing up drunk. However she is saved by the tape of it being lost in airport luggage. The Stinger reveals that the airport staff, whom Leslie has done much for in the past, purposely threw it in the trash.
• "Live Ammo": Leslie finds herself in an impossible situation after the release of the next city budget, with three scenarios emerging after she protests the Parks Department budget getting slashed and City Council re-configures their budget: the original situation, an animal shelter having to close down, or Ann losing her job. No matter what happens, she loses. So she decides to offer Jen Barkley the chance to use the Newports' money to save the shelter and use it in advertisements:
  Jen: I wasn't born yesterday. You've got to have an angle. This is a home run for us. We're going to dominate the news cycle for a whole week.
  Ben: Well, you can have this week. We'll take the next one.
  Jen: Oh, yeah? What makes you so sure?
  Leslie: Because in a week, we have a debate. And your guy, Bobby Newport, is going to have show up, and he's going to have to open his mouth. And I'm going to kick his ass.
• "The Debate": Leslie's speech during her campaign in response to the Newports threatening to leave Pawnee and take their candy business with them if Bobby Newport doesn't get elected.
  "I'm very angry. I'm angry that Bobby Newport would hold this town hostage and threaten to leave if you don't give him what he wants. It's despicable. Corporations are not allowed to dictate what a city needs. That power belongs to the people. Bobby Newport and his daddy would like you to think it belongs to them. I love this town, and when you love something you don't threaten it. You don't punish it. You fight for it, you take care of it, you put it first. As your City Councilor, I'll make sure that no one takes advantage of Pawnee. If I seem too passionate, it's because I care. If I come on strong, it's because I feel strongly, and if I push too hard, it's because things aren't moving fast enough. This is my home, you are my family, and I promise you, I'm not going anywhere."
  • Made even better by Bobby Newport's reaction:
    "Holy shit, Leslie, that was awesome!"
• "Bus Tour":
  • When the van rental business owner is being a very difficult Jerkass and refuses to let them have the shuttles (because he was bribed by the Newport campaign), Donna gets back at the guy by backing her Mercedes into his car, framing him for rear ending her car. With Ron and Tom being more than willing to lie on Donna's behalf, they threaten to call the police on him unless he gives them the vans. He agrees to.
    • Even better, the business owner asks Ron why he would lie to the police, as he'd previously said "a man's word is sacred". Ron's response is that he's willing to bend on this principle "because you're an asshole".
  • Andy spends the entirety of the episode trying to identify out the mysterious figure who attempted to hit Leslie with a pie but hit Jerry instead. He eventually notices how weird it is that someone aiming for Leslie would have hit Jerry instead, as they were several feet away from each other—logically, they would in fact have been aiming for someone else. Andy then comes to the conclusion that Ben was in fact the target, and immediately decides to find a list of everyone Ben has ever fired in order to find the culprit. He correctly concludes that it was Joe, the sewage worker who Ben previously fired for texting photos of his privates to the women of the local government. He is unable to stop Joe from finally hitting Ben with a pie later, but still: Andy, of all people, shows actual cleverness, analytics, and deductive reasoning, and figures out the whole thing on his own from the get-go.
• "Win, Lose or Draw": Leslie winning the City Council seat.
• Ben taking April to task for her childishness while working as his intern in "Soda Tax":
  Ben: Look, you may not take this seriously, but this job is important to me. And by the way, you should take it seriously, because I asked you to come work here because I thought you'd enjoy it and I think you're smart, but you have to have some semblance of professionalism, and I need you to give, like, even a 15 percent effort!
  April: ...Twelve percent.
  Ben: Fiftee—for God's sake, I'm asking for fifteen percent effort, it's not supposed to be a negotiation!
  • April, as a result of this conversation, threatens the lazy intern Ellis into getting him to do work for Ben.
    Ellis: (chatting on the phone) Yeah, I love cupcakes.
    April: (grabbing the phone) Ellis hates you. And he has herpes. (tosses the phone into the trash)
    Ellis: What's your problem?!
    April: My problem is you, Smellis. Ben told you to finish the website, and if you don't do it, I swear to God, I'm gonna murder you in your sleep. I know where you live. 14th Street, right? I'm gonna get a melon baller and scoop your eyes out and eat them, and your congressman uncle's gonna have to buy you a dog to drag your eyeless face around. Do you understand me?
• "How a Bill Becomes Law": Tom pushing Councilman Jamm into the pool (fully clothed) to stop him from telling some school children about the deal Leslie made to help them.
  • To top that off, Tom follows Leslie's lead and jumps fully clothed into the pool himself. This is someone who once spent an impromptu water balloon fight cowering under a desk for fear of getting his designer suit ruined.
• "Ben's Parents": Ron and Ben's father reaching for the last shrimp at the party. Yes, Ron Swanson and Mike Ehrmantraut staring each other down.
• In "Pawnee Commons", two Jerkass designers from Eagleton came in with a cruel joke of a model for Leslie's park. Leslie's voice gets really low and her eyes become filled with murder.
  Leslie: You have five seconds to get out of here, or I will rip your throats out.
  • Followed by an equally furious Ben throwing the model in a dumpster, destroying it in the process.
• "Ron and Diane":
  • When Ann refuses to let April, Andy, Donna and Tom into Jerry's party, April tries to just push past her and go in anyway. Ann effortlessly holds her back.
    Ann: (laughs) You're so weak, really? (April grunts loudly) I'm barely even doing anything. (genuinely concerned) Are you iron deficient? Let me look at your palms.
  • When Leslie tries to warn Diane about Tammy II, Diane tells Leslie that as a middle school Vice Principal, she knows how to deal with a hormonal psychopath. The end of the episode confirms this.
    Tammy II: Hey Ron, why don't you take off these handcuffs so I can put you into these handcuffs?
    Diane: Yes, please Officer, get her out of those cuffs. I want this to be a fair fight. [gives Tammy a piercing look]
    [Tammy looks away from her with an Oh, Crap! look on her face]
• "Two Parties": Leslie and Ken Hotate teaming up against Jamm and Kathryn Pinewood, culminating with Ken using his trademark White Guilt-inducing weapons on Jamm. Jamm and Pinewood had attempted to begin construction on a Paunch Burger on Lot 48 before the time Jamm and Leslie had agreed to have their proposals ready for what should be done with the land. Leslie desperately buried Wamapoke artifacts to make it look like it was Wamapoke land (and therefore halting construction there). After realizing that what she did was wrong and apologizing to Ken Hotate, Ken stops her from revealing what she did to Jamm and Pinewood, instead chastising them for trying to weasel their way out of what they agreed to. To top it all off, he threatens that if they do anything like this again, he'll "revisit" the contracts of the Paunch Burgers in the Wamapoke Casino. Pinewood and Jamm back down immediately.
• "Leslie and Ben":
  • Ron's friends decided to have a sudden wedding, but they can't find wedding rings in time. Ron does what any person would do: he rips a lamp out of the wall, melts down the metal of the sconce, and forges a pair of rings by hand. The whole thing took him about twenty minutes.
    Ron: People who buy things are suckers.
  • Jamm, bitter at how Leslie undermined his attempts to sabotage the emergency response drill in the previous episode, drunkenly crashes Ben and Leslie's wedding, harassing everyone and throwing stink bombs everywhere. Ron takes him out with one punch.
    • To add to this, Ben was about to lay into Jamm, only for Ron to stop him because he shouldn't get himself into trouble on his own wedding night, and Chris and Andy jumped out of their seats, clearly ready to clobber Jamm themselves. Really, the only reason Ron got the honor was because he was physically closer.
  • Also, the police keep Jamm in his jail cell for the whole night.
  Officer Skorggel: I think we have a pretty clear picture of what went down. Sleep it off in the cell, councilman.
• "Bailout": Ann getting a reluctant April to sing Cyndi Lauper's "Time After Time" with her and Donna suddenly joining in.
• "Partridge":
  • Leslie is furious that the people of Ben's hometown invited him to receive the key to the city only to attempt to publicly humiliate him for Ice Town once again, and this occurs:
    Leslie: I would like to point out that we drove here all the way from Pawnee, Indiana — a city with some class, by the way — and sure, my husband made an honest mistake twenty years ago, but it was very meaningful that you were going to finally be able to forgive him!
    Citizen: If it's so meaningful to him, then where is he?!
    Leslie: He is in the hospital, sir! He has a calcified rock lodged in his penis! Frankly, Ben Wyatt is the best thing to come out of this crap town! [...] Ben Wyatt is better than all of you because he cared about this town and he tried to help it! You know what? Screw you, Partridge! And a sled is a stupid mascot!
  • Jamm tries to sue Ron over punching him in "Leslie and Ben", so Tom and April assemble a file of the lies he told, threaten him with perjury charges, and top everything off by Tom faking an injury in Jamm's office, beating Jamm at his own game. It may be the only time that Jamm actually admitted defeat.
    Jamm: (On the phone) Yeah, it's me... We got Jammed.
• "Animal Control": Andy finally snaps and calls Feinstein a dick.
• "Article Two": Patton Oswalt's character's filibuster about what the new Star Wars movie should be like. All filmed in one take, and likely improvised. Observe.
• "Doppelgangers": As bizarre and intense as Craig is, there's a reason the Parks department chooses to only keep him after the Eagleton merger: he is ridiculously competent at his job.
  Donna: (on the phone) I guess we can make a switch to Bermuda grass. It's only 80 cents more per square foot?
  Craig: (overhearing) WHAT?! Gimme, gimme, gimme. (takes phone from Donna) You want me to put Bermuda grass in a continental climate that's a six on the Beaufort scale? In a park with zero drainage?! I want Kentucky bluegrass, I want a 10 percent discount, and I want you to apologize to my best friend Donna! (hands phone back)
• "Gin It Up!": Ben of all people forces Ron to reconsider his refusal to leave his children more than fifty dollars of his vast fortune:
  "It doesn't matter how much money you leave your kids; what matters is that you teach them the right values. But if something horrible happens and you want your kids to be left alone with no safety net just so they can learn some kind of weird lesson, then by all means, leave your fortune to the wild boar who gores you to death."
• In "Filibuster", Leslie gets two in succession: first for completing the titular filibuster and then for pouring out a pitcher of margarita on Councilman Jamm's head.
  • At the middle of the episode, she learns that the Eagletons are going to vote against her, which means that giving up and allowing Jamm to pass his bill would actually be in her best political interest. She keeps the filibuster up anyway, as ensuring every citizen has the right to vote is more important then her political aspirations.
• The entire "Rent-a-Swag" arc is one for Tom. He comes up with the business concept on the fly after attempting to sell some of his old clothes at the town's garage sale fundraiser and hearing a woman complain about how her son quickly grows out of the nice clothes she buys him. Unable to get a loan from the bank, he's able to persuade several of his friends into investing and opens up his store to great success. Even once Dr. Saperstein opens a competing store to drive him out of business, Tom still remains enough of a threat that Saperstein is willing to offer a buyout. At the negotiating table, Tom is able to increase the offer to a $20,000 profit and a 5% stake in Saperstein's store, giving everyone a hefty return on their investment capital and Tom plenty of seed money to begin his career as a finance mogul.
• "Fluoride":
  • Donna's spot-on analysis of April and choosing of her spirit dog:
    Donna: You're beautiful, yet cold and aloof. You pride yourself on being a loner. You do not obey, you choose to cooperate, and when you stop baring your fangs to pick a mate, it's for life. And you're fiercely loyal to your pack, which makes you a rare black Siberian husky.
  • Tom using his swag and marketing skills to sell the Eagleton water supply to Pawnee, getting another one up on Jamm.
• Jennifer Barkley's speech to Leslie in "Second Chunce".
  Jennifer: Now you might win. You're smart, Ben is smart, you might win. But why would you want to?
  Leslie: Because it's my dream job.
  Jennifer: Then dream bigger! Look, you love this town. It's being run by monsters and morons? Get a better job! Rise above their heads. Affect change at a higher level. Don't be the kid that graduates high school and hangs out in the school parking lot. Be the woman who moves away, climbs the ladder, and then confidently comes back and has sex with her hot old English teacher just for kicks. [...] Look, Pawnee has done you a favor. You've outgrown them. You've got talent, and you've got name recognition. Which means that you have a bright, wide-open future with a thousand options. State Senate, federal jobs, even congress! All of these are doable for you. And you can trust me because I don't care enough about you to lie.
• "Chris and Ann": A heavily pregnant Ann grabbing Kathryn Pinewood into a headlock.
• "Moving Up": The Pawnee/Eagleton unity concert features Ginuwine (who is, in fact, Donna's cousin), The Decemberists, a Mouse Rat reunion and Letters To Cleo!
  • Culminating in a rendition of "5000 Candles in the Wind" by all of the above, plus a sax solo by Mr Duke Silver!
• "2017": Leslie getting in the running against Ron and his construction company despite bidding nothing.
• "Ron and Jammy": Councilman Jamm finally getting the nerve to tell Tammy 2 off and end his relationship with her. Also, Leslie repeatedly slapping him in the face to snap him out of Tammy 2's hold on him, purely for the Catharsis Factor.
• "Gryzzlbox":
  • After spending the entirety of the episode refusing to get involved with Leslie's crusade against Gryzzl's data mining tactics because it didn't involve him personally and he found the fact that people (inadvertently) agreed to it wasn't illegal, Ron shows up at Ben and Leslie's door at the very end of the episode with a shotgun in one hand and a disabled Gryzzl drone in the other. He "shot it out of the sky" because it invaded his son's privacy (his son is four and doesn't own a Gryzzl device). In the middle of a lightning storm. Bad. Ass.
  • The citizens of Pawnee supporting Leslie to get Gryzzl to stop invading their privacy. After 6 seasons of them dismissing Leslie, for them to unanimously get behind her is an awesome moment for her.
    Citizens: (chanting) WE'RE NOT AGAINST YOU ON THIS! WE'RE NOT AGAINST YOU ON THIS! WE'RE NOT AGAINST YOU ON THIS!
  • Craig gets a small one after April discourages a bunch of potential applicants from taking an internship with the Parks department, chewing her out for being ungrateful and self-centered.
    Craig: April, you spent the last ten years doing amazing things with this Parks Department and learning from the greatest teacher in this or any business, Leslie freaking Knope! You'd be a check-out girl at a gas station if it wasn't for that internship! [...] You're lucky to have worked here, no matter what you want to do with the rest of your life, and I think you know that.
  • Ben calling out Gryzzl's datamining on live television on the fly:
    Ben: What Gryzzl is doing with our private information may not technically be illegal, but it's definitely not "chill".
    Roscoe Santangelo: Whoa, that's a serious allegasche, homie. We are hella chill, and frankly, if you don't like our vibe, you don't have to use our shiz.
    Ben: Well, we kind of do. I mean, the Internet is no longer optional; it's a necessity for everyone. And I think you do know that datamining isn't "chill", because you snuck it into the twenty-seventh update of a five-hundred-page user agreement. A person should not have to have an advanced law degree to avoid being taken advantage of by a multi-billion dollar company! You should be upfront about what you're doing and allow people the ability to opt out.
• A great one in "Ms. Ludgate-Dwyer goes to Washington": Ben gets together a team of experts to help fix April's resume in hopes of getting her a job they think she might want. This includes Donna, Craig, and most importantly, in his own words:
  Ben: Oh, you wanna photocopy? You guys wanna do all the mindless work? Yeah. I didn't think so. (Ben picks up the phone as the camera zooms in) Get me Garry Gergich.
• "Pie Mary" has a few thanks to Ben and Leslie:
  • Ben decides to enter the Pie Mary (a pie contest with the candidate's wives) to subvert the Stay in the Kitchen attitude held by the contest and to change the idea of what a pie is by making a dessert calzone. Shaking up traditions regarding gender and pies? That's amazing.
  • Ben stating that Leslie shouldn't have to apologize for being her own person and having her own ambitions just to appease voters, even if it costs him his political future.
    Ben: Sorry, but this whole thing makes me queasy. I love how independent my wife is and because of that I will not let her speak... that came out wrong. The point is, Leslie is a great mother, public servant, all-around person and I am tired of everybody constantly telling her that she's making the wrong choice. (passes the mic to Leslie) You can say whatever you want. I couldn't care less about the political consequences.
  • Leslie telling off everyone for scrutinizing her as a candidate's wife and for all the Stay in the Kitchen-type questions that working women and women in politics (whether as partners, advisers, or candidates) are asked.
    Leslie: I'm sorry that the spotlight is on me and not on Ben, because he's going to make a great congressman. Second, the Male Men? You're ridiculous, and men's rights is nothing. Third, I am now going to give you permanent answers to all of the silly questions you’re going to ask me and every other woman in this election over the next few months: 'Why did I change my hairstyle?' I don't know, I just thought it would look better, or my kids got gum in it. 'Are you trying to have it all?' That question makes no sense! It's a stupid question. Stop asking it. 'Do you miss your kids when you're at work?' Yes, of course I do! Everybody does! And then, you know, sometimes, I don't.
    Ben: And, by the way, no one's ever asked me that question. No one ever asks me "Where are your kids?" or "Who's taking care of them?" (Whispers to Leslie) By the way who is taking care of the kids?
    Leslie: My Mom babe, everything's fine.
    Ben: So Leslie doesn't fit your personal idea of what a candidate's wife should be. So what? That's good, because there shouldn't be just one idea anyway.
    Leslie: It's great if you want to bake a pie and it's great if you want to have a career. That's great too, do both, or neither. It doesn't matter, just don't judge what someone else has decided to do. We are all just trying to find the right path for us. As individuals... on this earth.
    (People cheering and booing)
• In "Two Funerals", after being mocked by others for the entire series, Garry becomes MAYOR of Pawnee.
• "One Last Ride":
  • A flash forward shows that Leslie is able to achieve one of her childhood dreams: becoming governor of Indiana.
  • Garry being elected the official Mayor of Pawnee at the end of his interim run. And then staying in office until he passed away at 100.
  • It's also heavily implied by the Secret Service-looking bodyguards accompanying them at Garry's funeral that either Ben or Leslie became President of the United States of America.

---