- Leslie: Tom, come over here and talk about how great I am.
Leslie hires Tom's company Entertainment 720 to promote her campaign at a meet and greet for local business owners where she hopes to court their votes for her race for City Council. In particular, she hopes to get the endorsement of Martin Kernston, President of the Pawnee Chamber of Commerce and owner of Kernston's Rubber Nipples. Tom then receives a call from his business partner, Jean-Ralphio, who is crying on the other side of the line.
April and Andy are having a Halloween party, but they forgot to tell Ben. When he finds out, he's not happy, but he's not used to confrontation, so he simply avoids them and makes passive-aggressive comments.
When Leslie and Tom arrive at the event, Leslie is dismayed that the locale is covered with advertising for Entertainment 720 and images of Tom's face with hardly any mention of her.
Chris arrives at Andy and April's party without Millicent, because he thought that having Millicent here with him would make Jerry uncomfortable. When Jerry tells him it's okay, Chris immediately invites her. During the festivities, Ron finds that the bathroom faucet is leaking, along with other stuff in the house falling apart due to poor maintainence. Ron decides his wedding present to April and Andy will be to fix the broken things in their house and enlists Ann's help.
Leslie meets with various business owners, including Martin Kernston. However, Tom steals Kernston away to discuss E720 with him, further angering Leslie. She confronts Tom, who apologizes. However, the apology doesn't satisfy her, so she tells him she doesn't need his help.
Ben assures April and Andy that he is not attending the party. Andy senses that Ben is mad, but Ben denies it, going back to his room to work.
Back at the meet and greet, Leslie gives a speech to the Chamber of Commerce, but it's interrupted by Tom's flashy E720 presentation upstaging her and turning off the crowd and Kernston. Leslie tries to do damage control, but Tom invites everyone to the E720 mobile hot tub.
At the party, April notices Jerry is uncomfortable at seeing Chris and Millicent getting hot and heavy all over the place. Ann finds herself enjoying learning how to do DIY home repairs with Ron. Meanwhile, Andy confronts Ben again, insisting that he talk about why he's mad. After Ben refuses to directly tell Andy that he is angered by the party, Andy wrestles with him and puts him in a headlock, refusing to let go until Ben admits that he is mad.
Leslie apologizes to Kernston, who explains that he doesn't like flashy presentations or the kind of business that E720 does and therefore he will not be endorsing Leslie's campaign. An angered Leslie confronts Tom, who is sitting despondently in the E720 limo hot tub. He confesses that E720 has gone bankrupt and Leslie's meet and greet was his last-ditch effort to acquire clients and save the company.
After being dragged all over the party, Ben finally has enough and accidentally breaks Andy's nose when he tries to free himself. While at the hospital, Ben finally opens up and says that he wants to be consulted when things happen at the house and airs his grievances. Andy is happy that Ben stopped beating around the bush and was directly honest, and agrees to inform Ben about any future plans going on in their house from here on out.
Leslie takes Tom to JJ's Diner to discuss the failure of Entertainment 720. He apologizes again and tells Leslie that he had prepared a video for her campaign. At the office, Tom plays the video, a biography of her life and achievements, for Leslie. She loves it. Tom also makes up for ruining the meet and greet by convincing (and bribing) Kernston to meet with Leslie again.
As the Halloween party ends, Ron expresses his gratitude to Ann by giving her a brand new toolbox. Chris and Millicent meanwhile are about to leave together to spend the night at Chris' place, but their plans are derailed when Chris can't find his car keys. April had stolen them earlier in the night and tosses them in the trash.
Tropes
- Arson, Murder, and Jaywalking: Among the issues that Tom mentions in his video are Watergate, the Vietnam War and Peter Gabriel quitting as the leader of the band Genesis.
- Beware the Nice Ones: Leslie is so mad at Tom, she almost drowns him in his hot tub.
- Birds of a Feather: April and Andy both have talking-head scenes where they talk about fighting with their siblings, and how the experience taught them to stand up for themselves. (They're discussing the subject in the context of the problems Ben and Jerry are having, but it also applies to Leslie and Tom's subplot.)
- Call-Back:
- Food and Stuff was previously mentioned during Ron and Chris' hamburger competition.
- Sue's Salads (as well as Leslie's distaste for it) was mentioned back in "Harvest Festival". The photo on Tom's video of Leslie and Lil' Sebastian is also from that episode.
- Orin makes a reappearance from April and Andy's wedding and still freaks Ben out.
- Tom states that Lil' Sebastian would vote for Leslie if he was still alive in his video.
- Chekhov's Gag: At the beginning of the episode, Andy pretends to have forgotten to buy fake blood capsules when preparing for the Halloween party, only to have concealed one in his mouth. Then, near the end of the episode, Ben elbows Andy in the face, releasing the fake blood. Of course, this is a Bait-and-Switch gag because Ben actually did break Andy's nose.
- Dramatically Missing the Point: Tom believed that "You need to spend money to make money" was a literal saying. He thought that, simply by blowing money, somehow there would be a return, so he and Jean-Ralphio wasted all their money senselessly without making any actual investments, leading to the downfall of their business. To make matters worse, Tom turned down clients in an attempt to play hard to get and pretend he had important clients; as a result, he refused to take clients in the first two weeks of business.
- Extreme Doormat: Ben. While he's certainly capable of putting his foot down in his work, he's easily walked all over outside of it and isn't confrontational.Ben: My family is very non-confrontational. My parents' method of problem-solving was to kind of keep everything bottled up and just subtly hint at what's bothering them.
- Foreshadowing: Tom receives a call from a crying Jean-Ralphio early in the episode; as it turns out, the call was to tell him that their company has gone bankrupt.
- Gosh Dang It to Heck!: Leslie states it takes a lot for her to call someone a "butthead" and doesn't use it much for not wanting the insult to lose its impact, before stating Tom's being a real dick.
- Halloween Episode: April and Andy host a party and several characters dress for the occasion.
- Hidden Depths: Tom genuinely cares for Leslie, and if his company wasn't failing, he would have bent over backward to help her out with the meet 'n' greet. In the end, he makes up for it by making a video about Leslie that brings her to tears as well as convincing some local business owners to give Leslie another chance. Leslie even mentions that deep down, Tom is a great guy.
- Hit Me, Dammit!: Andy grabs Ben into a headlock and drags him all over the house party, refusing to let him go until he finally admits he's annoyed with the party and is actually quite glad about having his own nose broken by Ben since it was the first time Ben asserted himself.
- Humble Hero: Leslie has a hard time selling herself to some of the business owners due to her humbleness and actually talks bad about herself in an attempt at doing so.
- It's All About Me: Tom attempts to hijack Leslie's meet 'n' greet to promote Entertainment 720. This was a desperate attempt to save his failing business.
- Know-Nothing Know-It-All: Played for laughs in Ann's case - she knows what she is saying is nonsense and she doesn't know a lot about house maintenance as she pretends to know in front of the party, but it feels nice to act like she does.
- Make-Out Kids: Chris and Millicent's PDA at April and Andy's Halloween party. It makes Jerry uncomfortable.
- Mr. Fixit: Ron does a whole bunch of fixing jobs on Andy and April's house, while also teaching Ann how to do so.
- Passive-Aggressive Kombat: Ben does this when expressing his annoyance about April and Andy throwing a party. Andy finds it annoying and forces Ben to be more direct. This was how his parents acted back then, and unsurprisingly, this led to them divorcing bitterly.
- Pet the Dog: April, upon seeing how uncomfortable Jerry is at seeing Millicent get hot and heavy with Chris, steals Chris' car keys so he won't be able to take Millicent back to his place to have sex with her.
- Running Gag: People in Pawnee don't like salads.
- Sexy Whatever Outfit: Averted with Ann's eggplant costume, and openly defied with April's, which can best be described as a half-inflated sumo suit. Played straight with Millicent's costume, which has her looking like a sexy forest nymph.
- Shout-Out:
- Among the items in April and Andy's "toolbox" is a cartridge for a Sonic the Hedgehog game.
- Tom tries to pass himself as Mark Zuckerberg in an attempt to show that Entertainment 720 has important clients.
- Chris spends the episode dressed as Sherlock Holmes, and Jerry as Mr. Potato Head.
- Ben is briefly shown using a Sabre printer.
- Sticky Fingers: April must be quite stealthy and quick, as she's able to steal Chris' car keys without him even noticing until it's too late.
- Too Much Information: Chris is insistent on keeping Jerry in the know about everything he and Millicent are doing, including when they have sex. Naturally, Jerry is disgusted with this.
