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Recap / Parks and Recreation - S02 E19

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Ron: David Meyers, the Jewish guy who works at City Hall, once told me something. A "schlemiel" is the guy who spills soup at a fancy party. A "schlimazel" is the guy he spills it on. Jerry is both the "schlemiel" and the "schlimazel" of our office.

Jerry's name is chosen out of a hat to be the one to refill the hummingbird feeders in the parks. Jerry always gets stuck with this job because the others put his name in the hat instead of their own. Later, Leslie gets a call from Ann – Jerry is in the hospital with a dislocated shoulder. When everyone shows up at the hospital, Jerry says he was mugged while he was in the park. Feeling responsible for Jerry's situation, Leslie assigns the Parks employees jobs related to park safety while Ron decides to teach everyone self-defense.

When Jerry gets back to the office, he just wants things to get back to normal. Leslie tells the other employees that there will be no more joking about Jerry. When Jerry does a presentation, he makes many goof-ups and the other employees barely manage to resist laughing at him.

Leslie and Tom meet with Carl, a park ranger. Leslie, Tom, and Jerry tour the park with Carl so he can show them the problems with the park. When they reach the mugging site, Carl explains that there is no money for helping the rangers effectively protect people.

Ron teaches the other employees self-defense. When he has Andy in a hold, Andy passes out while trying to break free.

Leslie goes on Pawnee Today to tell Jerry's story and inform the public that the government is failing them. City Manager Paul is angry over the television appearance, but informs Leslie the stunt worked and the mayor is offering $2,500 to help fix the park. Also, city council has set aside money for the park, and there will be a press conference the next morning to announce it.

As the press conference begins, Jerry confesses to Leslie that he wasn't mugged. He actually dropped his breakfast burrito and then he slipped and fell into the creek, and he was embarrassed to tell his co-workers, so he made up the mugging story. Leslie angrily relates Jerry's story to Mark, but he stops her short when he points out that Jerry was too scared of his co-workers to be honest with them.

Ann visits Andy at the shoeshine stand to see if he's okay from what happened last night. April arrives and Andy gives her a vegetarian muffin, her favorite treat from the cafe. Surprised that Andy got something for someone other than himself, Ann wonders if Andy suffered a brain injury.

Before she's set to go on air, Leslie discovers Carl was offended by her statements about the failures of the park security and he plans to show footage of Jerry falling into the creek on Pawnee Today. Leslie negotiates with Carl to not show the footage, promising to give the park security a new cart. When they go on air, they talk about how much they enjoyed the film Avatar, much to the anger of Joan Callamezzo.

The office goes back to mocking Jerry, but with less venom than before, while Jerry confides that he doesn't really care because he's just two years away from retiring on a full pension and enjoying a peaceful retirement.

Tropes

  • Actually Pretty Funny: After Leslie finds out that Jerry had been mugged, she feels bad about how cruelly everyone treats him and tells the others to be nicer to him. However, when they make cracks about Jerry, she can't help but laugh. It doesn't help that he's a magnet for embarrassing things happening.
  • Answer Cut: When Leslie asks Jerry why he lied about being mugged, he asks Leslie to think about what Tom hypothetically would've said if he knew the truth.
    (cut to Leslie sitting at Tom's desk and imitating him)
    Leslie: "Damn, Jerry! You jumped in a creek for a burrito?! What would you do for a Klondike bar, kill your wife?!"
  • Butt-Monkey: This episode really cements Jerry's status as the main butt of jokes. He's well aware of it too and is sometimes scared to be honest about his own mistakes because he knows everyone will mock him for it.
  • Call-Back: After Ron knocks Andy unconscious during the self-defense class and Andy recovers, Ann tries to coddle Andy and offers to make him pancakes like she did while he was recovering from his broken legs in season 1.
  • Cold Turkeys Are Everywhere: When Jerry comes back to work after his mugging, Leslie decides, to the annoyance of everyone else, that it's too soon to make fun of Jerry like normal. Cue Jerry doing a million snark-worthy things, like having a timeshare in Muncie, having several Malapropers, and ripping his pants open and farting.
  • Hypocritical Humor: After everyone else admits to putting Jerry's name in the hat, Leslie says she puts her own name in the hat. But she also puts in twenty slips with Jerry's name on them.
  • No Indoor Voice: The park security guy, Carl, is loud and obnoxious, and he doesn't even realize it.
  • O.O.C. Is Serious Business: Ann wonders if Andy suffered a brain injury after seeing he got a muffin from the cafe as a treat for April.
  • Precision F-Strike: Joan Callamezzo rants at Leslie when Leslie and Carl turn her show into a discussion about Avatar.
  • Shout-Out: Carl likes to discuss Avatar.
  • You Never Did That for Me: Ann is shocked when she sees Andy bought April her favorite muffin for her as a treat, as he never bought her any gifts during their relationship, becoming more than a bit jealous.

 
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