AshI need to start with a recurring dream I have, where a famous person I admire recognizes me, and then I immediately say something so stupid I wake up cringing. This whole cold open is that dream, filmed.
JohnYou dream about being recognized by famous people. Genuinely.
AshConstantly. Last one was a chef. I told him I loved his soup and then I couldn't remember any soup.
JohnWhich soup?
AshExactly. There was no soup.
JohnSee, Leslie doesn't even get the soup part. She gets recognized and her whole language center shuts off. Joe Biden knows her name while Ben is still mid-introduction.
AshBen's mid-sentence. Ben Wyatt from Congressman Murray's office, he starts, and Biden cuts across it. Hey, Ben, Dave told me you were coming by. Then he turns to the woman next to him.
JohnAnd you must be Leslie Knope, he says. Welcome.
AshHer reply isn't a sentence. You're, my name just came out of your mouth, she says. That barely qualifies as syntax.
JohnWell, yeah, it did, Biden answers, like it's a normal thing that happens to people.
AshThis isn't happening, she says.
JohnThis isn't real.
AshTwo flat denials of a thing occurring directly in front of her. He is standing right there. He said her name out loud. That's the whole cold open, a woman refusing a fact that is currently touching her hand.
JohnWelcome back, scriptnerd superfans. I'm John.
AshI'm Ash. We've got a vice president cameo as an engagement gift, a soil brochure with a fan base, a man named Jerry whose real name is not Jerry, and a mentorship that turns into a knife fight over one parking lot.
John"Leslie vs. April," season five, episode seven. Let's walk it start to finish, because this week is about who gets to want something out loud, and who gets punished for wanting it too well.
AshStart with the gift, since Ben clearly thought this through. A meeting with Leslie's celebrity idol, arranged the hard way.
JohnIs it a waffle tower, she asks. A little better than that, he says. Claudia Welters. How did you do this? Called in a few favors, he says.
AshA few hundred favors, he corrects.
JohnTwo orders of magnitude on the spot. And that correction is the tell. Ben isn't bragging about romance. He's bragging about logistics. The gift is the labor of arranging it.
AshBiden's aide sets the tone early, ahead of the man even walking in. You don't let anything happen to him, he tells someone off camera. He is precious cargo.
JohnPrecious cargo.
AshThat's motorcade language, the phrasing you'd use for the nuclear football, aimed at a guy walking a councilwoman down a hallway. Funny on first pass. A little grim once it sinks in.
JohnBiden's actual lines to Leslie are short and generous. On behalf of the president and myself, he starts, and she cuts in to say she's flattered but there's no way she could take Secretary Clinton's job.
AshNobody offered her that job.
JohnNobody. She invented it in her own head and then declined it out loud.
AshI'm confident you could do that job or any other, Biden says, humoring the invented premise completely. Okay, I will, she answers.
JohnShe just accepted a cabinet position that does not exist, in front of the man who didn't offer it to her.
AshHe moves past it, bless him. The reason you're here, he says, is you've done a great job in your town and in Indiana. Congratulations on your public service.
JohnThat's the whole meeting, content-wise. One sentence of real praise, buried under Leslie malfunctioning.
AshYou're very welcome, she tells him, three separate times. You're very handsome, she adds, which answers nothing he said.
JohnDid he ask?
AshHe did not.
JohnOh dear. He wraps it fast, too. We'll see you tomorrow, he says on his way out. She hears a promise. Everyone else in the room hears a pleasantry.
AshHere's a thought I can't shake, though. A celebrity cameo bought with a few hundred favors is, once you strip the romance off, proof that access to the state is a private good, passed hand to hand. Ben got Leslie into that hallway because he knows a guy who owes somebody something.
JohnSo the gift is a bit of a Trojan horse. It reads as romance. The mechanism underneath is the exact insider access Leslie's career claims to oppose. And honestly I think the show agrees with her more than it agrees with you.
AshShe'd never see it that way in a hundred years.
JohnTo her it's just Ben being wonderful.
AshCut to Ben's day job, since he's already engineering his exit from it. It's the same accounting firm I almost joined last year, he tells someone. Great package. Three weeks vacation, matching 401k, a pretty sweet windbreaker.
JohnI'm getting married, and I wanted a good stable job, so I'm going back to accounting, he says. Call me Bond, municipal bond.
AshThat joke killed at the accounting firm, he adds. Which is the saddest possible endorsement of a joke. A man reporting that his one bit worked at the one place on earth built to laugh at it.
JohnPoor Ben.
AshPoor Ben. Tom's circling the second Ben sits down at a desk. Well, well, well, if it isn't Mr. Looks and Professor Books, he says, then he hands off half his own bit. He's Looks. Of course you do, Books.
JohnFun fact, Tom says. Ben just got an amazing accounting job. Regular fact, I have to go to a meeting. Un-fun fact, my uncle just had a stroke.
AshThree facts covering a career, a calendar, and a medical emergency, all in one breath.
JohnAll in one register, too. That flatness is the whole Tom operating system in miniature. Career news, a scheduling note, a family emergency, every item weighted the same. None of it is information. It's runway for the pitch coming next.
AshAnd here it comes. I have a new company and could use your help on the math side, Tom says. What's the new company, Ben asks. Stacks on stacks on stacks on stacks. Pass. I'm kidding, it's real.
JohnKids grow out of their clothes, Tom explains, so parents don't want to buy them nice things. I'm gonna rent my upscale clothing to middle schoolers, because I'm roughly the same size as the average Pawnee twelve-year-old.
AshThat's actually a really great idea, Ben says, and he means it. And I'll defend Rent-A-Swag. Structurally the concept is sound. It's just being pitched by a man who measured himself against a sixth grader for market research.
JohnRigorous methodology.
AshAirtight, honestly.
JohnMeanwhile the real plot kicks off at April's desk. Washington has more dog parks per capita than most cities, she tells Leslie. Pawnee has two, and one's an active parking lot.
AshCan you say per capita again, Leslie says. I want a picture of you saying per capita. Stop, April answers. I am so proud of you, Leslie says.
JohnNow stand next to the screen and think about the strong female role models in your life, Leslie tells her, staging a photo for Orin's flyer under cover of the pitch meeting. Gross, April says. She's right. She usually is.
AshApril came to me with an idea to build a dog park, Leslie says elsewhere, beaming. I recognized her potential a long time ago. I am so proud of her, I could cry.
JohnAnd that line is a landmine with a five-minute fuse. Her pride is genuine. It's also premature. She hasn't heard the one detail yet.
AshAfter reviewing all the options, April says, I found that the best location for the dog park is Lot 48, the one behind Ann's house.
JohnNo, no, no, no, no, no, Leslie says. That's six no's in a row. Wildly disproportionate to a piece of real estate.
AshI've been trying to put a park there for four years, she explains. That lot is mine. I don't want to whip out the legalese, but I got dibs.
JohnOut of the entire legal vocabulary available to a sitting councilwoman, the word she reaches for is dibs.
AshDibs.
JohnDibs.
AshA schoolyard claim laid over four years of municipal groundwork, as if calling it first at thirty-something works the same as calling it first on a swing set.
AshWhat we're gonna do, she tells April, is take your enthusiasm, bundle it up, find a new place for a dog park. Doesn't that sound fun?
JohnIt sounds terrible, actually. It's the exact redirection Ron's about to explain to her ten minutes from now, except she's already running it on April, ahead of ever asking him how it works.
AshQuick stop at Andy's plot, since it's running the same hour and it's the purest joy in the episode. Something is different about my computer, he says. Aha. It's gone. A game is the foot.
JohnPart of the police academy exam is investigating a crime, he explains. A month ago he told everyone in the office to steal something from his desk so he could practice. Let's do this.
AshWait, did you guys take my glasses too, he asks, genuinely thrown. They got my sunglasses too. I was in Miami last weekend.
JohnHow do you spend your time in Miami, he asks the office. Maybe fencing stolen computers? Yes, I sold your government computer on the black market for a hundred fifty bucks, someone answers. Andy takes it straight. You just gave yourself away.
AshThen he interrogates Jerry. Been looking at your file all day, Jerry, if that even is your real name, he says. It's not, Jerry answers. My real name is Gary.
JohnWell, Gary, if that even is your real name, Andy continues, unbothered by learning this man's actual identity mid-sentence. Somebody stole my computer. If you're a criminal, you have to tell me legally, or it's entrapment.
AshI'm sorry, Andy, it wasn't me, Jerry says. Oh, man, really, Andy answers, then catches himself. Okay. So we know it's not Jerry, unless he was lying to me. I can never tell when people are lying to me.
JohnFile that away. Jerry-is-actually-Gary and I-can-never-tell-when-people-are-lying both come back to matter later this hour.
AshBack to Ron, since Leslie's about to walk in with a question she can't quite bring herself to ask directly. Thank you for agreeing to see me, she says. I didn't, he answers. You just walked in and started talking.
JohnI don't have time for a history lesson, he tells her. So she pivots into a cover story about a guy in Public Works, Ricky Jordache, a real thorn about removing parking meters.
AshHe's new, she says. Used to be a slacker, realizing his full potential now. He's smart, and beautiful, and I think of him as a daughter, but that's crazy, since he's a man named Ricky.
JohnRicky Jordache lives for exactly one speech and then he vanishes forever. A whole costume Leslie built so she wouldn't have to say April's name to Ron's face.
AshRon doesn't need the costume. Here's my question, she finally says. How did you used to slow me down when I was becoming too me-ish?
JohnSometimes I'd just give you busy work, he says. I once had you put together a brochure about different kinds of Indiana topsoil.
AshThat soil brochure was not busy work, Leslie protests. People still refer to Mulch Ado About Nothing, she says, citing a fan base of apparently nobody but her.
JohnMulch Ado About Nothing. She's defending a pamphlet she is realizing, in real time, was a management tactic aimed at her. That's a very specific kind of betrayal, learning your proudest early work was a leash.
AshAnd if you were particularly amped up about a project, Ron continues, I'd take you to JJ's and distract you with waffles.
JohnThose were distraction waffles, she asks. I thought they were friendship waffles.
AshAnd this is the joke I keep turning over. A distraction waffle is the softest labor discipline imaginable. Breakfast food deployed to metabolize a subordinate's ambition a beat ahead of the moment it inconveniences the person managing her.
JohnBreakfast food can serve many purposes, Ron says. Which is either the most honest line in the episode or the least honest.
AshBoth, probably. Ron never denies it.
JohnHe just refuses to treat it as a bad thing. Input waffle, output docility, and Leslie only now discovers she was the output.
AshHere's where I plant a flag, and you're going to hate it. Ron's waffle management is the single most humane labor practice in this entire show.
JohnOkay, hold on. Make that case, because I don't buy it yet.
AshEvery other manager here uses humiliation, or Jamm-style manipulation, or outright threats. Ron's method costs one plate of waffles and half an hour. What she gets back is full attention, a shared table, someone actually listening to her talk about topsoil. He diagnosed that being listened to was the thing burning her out.
JohnAnd here's where I push back hard. It is still deception. She thought it was friendship. It was management wearing friendship's clothes, and the fact that it felt nice doesn't launder that.
AshSure, but what's the alternative you'd prefer? A write-up. A performance improvement plan. Ron chose the version where she left fed and calm.
JohnI'd take the write-up. At least a write-up is legible. She could have grieved it and moved on. Instead she carried a warm memory of friendship waffles for years, and the warmth was the trap. That makes it worse.
AshThat's a real point. The warmth is what makes it work and what makes it a con.
JohnThat's my whole objection. It worked because it was real. It also worked because Ron needed it to.
AshBut what if this person, this Ricky, who is real, Leslie asks, doesn't like waffles or anything?
JohnEverybody has something they're passionate about, Ron tells her. Figure out what it is, express interest, divert his attention. He's handing her the manipulation playbook.
AshQuick stop at Human Farm, since it's Leslie running that exact playbook in the field. Howdy, neighbors, welcome to human farm, Orin says. Here's your animal feed. Please don't feed the animals.
JohnLeslie brought April there to distract her, and for a second it almost works as pure spectacle. Wow, this is really cool, someone says. I like the statement it's making, that we're all in cages. Yeah, it's actually about death and the city, comes the reply.
AshI think we should do more stuff like this, Leslie tells April right after. Pawnee needs an amazing arts program. Maybe you should just drop everything and coordinate it.
JohnI'm not stupid, April says immediately. What is that supposed to mean, Leslie asks. It means the only reason you brought me here is to distract me from the dog park.
AshCaught in ninety seconds. And that's the joke that pays off the whole Ron thread. Ron's method ran for years on Leslie without her noticing. Leslie tries the same move on April and gets called out mid-pivot, still talking. The real generational bit is right there, April reading the manipulation faster than Leslie ever could.
JohnBecause she learned to read people as armor years ago, and Leslie has never once hidden enthusiasm about anything, including her own cover stories.
AshYou hate this show, Leslie tries. I love this show, April answers. What's your favorite part? The heavy-handedness.
JohnThe show cheerfully insulting itself, and April the only character allowed to.
AshShe's not wrong about the show, or about Leslie. I have to go talk to Councilman Jamm right now, April says, and Leslie's whole face changes.
JohnWhy are you talking to Jamm, Leslie asks. Because I told him about the dog park, and he loves it, April says. He's gonna support my motion, and he gave me a really cool dental mirror to check my molars.
AshOur dispute aside, Leslie warns, you should be careful with Jamm. He's a snake. Yeah, like I should trust you right now, April answers.
JohnAnd she's right. Leslie's spent two days lying to her. Why would the snake warning land?
AshQuick side trip to Tom's other pitch, since Ron isn't the only executive getting told no this week. Tom goes after Sweetums directly. An alliance between Rent-A-Swag and Sweetums could be mutually beneficial, he tells Ms. Wicks.
JohnIt's a much better idea than the last one you had, she tells him, meaning his escargot service, Snail Mail. So you want to partner up and make history, Tom asks, then adds that she's made history plenty of times, as the world's most beautiful CEO.
AshSmooth.
AshI'm really sorry, cutie, she tells him. The company's laying low, due to a small mishap. The Sweetums molasses vat exploded. Homes flooded slowly. People died.
JohnPeople died. Delivered as an aside, in the flattest tone imaginable. A mass-casualty industrial disaster reduced to a scheduling inconvenience for a candy conglomerate.
AshAll press is good press, Tom offers. No, this was bad press, she corrects, dead flat. We're starting a nonprofit to restore our name. Any interest running it, she asks, and he assumes she means the job's for him.
JohnYou want me to run your nonprofit wing, he asks, delighted. Bobby Newport is my stepson, she says, but the work you did on Leslie's campaign was amazing. Your name's on our short list.
AshSo it's a no to me on all fronts, Tom says, catching up slowly, and you're offering Ben a job. Yeah, she confirms. Cool, cool, he says. Fastest rejection ever absorbed in the same breath it lands.
JohnAnd it happens a second time at the local TV station. Tom and Ben go in to profile Rent-A-Swag, and the show passes on the business entirely. Then they recognize Ben.
AshWe're launching a new political chat show, and we need correspondents, they tell him, having watched his campaign work. Tom brought Ben along as backup and watched Ben walk out with a broadcast offer instead.
JohnNotice the shape. It's identical to April's. Every institution this week sorts people into who gets taken seriously and who gets redirected or laughed off, mostly with no relation to the actual idea.
AshBack to Andy, since it escalates fast. City Hall was robbed, he tells someone, treating a second stolen computer as confirmation of a genuine conspiracy rather than a second prank.
JohnI can't tell if you're lying to me, he tells a colleague. Really, someone asks. I think, he answers. He is guessing and praying it passes for a hunch.
AshLike a real crime, he says. That's even better. Real joy in that line. A man thrilled his fake investigation might have become a true one.
JohnWhich brings us to the council meeting, agenda item 280B, a motion to build a dog park on lot 48. Ms. Ludgate, you have the floor, Jamm tells her.
AshI believe that municipal lot 48 should be a dog park, April says. Boo, someone answers. Boo.
JohnIt sounds like there's considerable opposition, Jamm says immediately, so I'm sorry, you should go now. Really, April asks, and someone tells her she just heard one hag booing.
AshLadies, let's keep this civil, Jamm says, then pivots the entire meeting on a single sentence. How about no park? Who here thinks parks are stupid? Let the record show everyone's raising their hands.
JohnPawnee's favorite fast food joint, Paunch Burger, needs a new location, he continues. I move we sell lot 48 to Paunch Burger for a nice profit. You don't have to be Asian to do math that simple.
AshYou told me you wanted a dog park, April says. And Jamm's reply is the whole episode compressed into two words. Uh, psych.
JohnThat's not fair, she says. You lied to me. You just got jammed, he answers, a phrase he uses often enough that the room has a groan queued up. I hate when he says that, someone mutters.
AshThis is a familiar sitcom shape, cousins everywhere. The operator flatters an idealist into public support, then reverses on the record for profit. Most versions play that reversal as a single shock on a single target.
JohnThis one splits the damage across two protagonists, and that's the smarter build. Jamm betrays April in front of Leslie. Then the two of them absorb the fallout by tearing into each other instead of him. Cheaper villain victory, way more expensive friendship.
AshMuch more expensive.
JohnWay more expensive.
AshI told you Jamm was a snake, Leslie says the second they're alone. It takes a snake to know a snake, April fires back. So now I'm a snake, Leslie asks. Yeah, April says. You deceived me for two days. You eat mice.
JohnI don't eat mice, Leslie says.
AshYes, you do, April insists.
JohnAnd then April just chants mouse eater at her three times running, which is the schoolyard method of winning an argument through repetition instead of evidence.
AshEnough, someone cuts in. You are friends and coworkers. In this office, we treat each other with respect.
JohnWhich gets us to the Octagon, Ron's fix for two grown women calling each other rodents, which is to lock them in a room. Get out, Jerry, April says when he wanders in. This is private, Leslie adds. Sorry, guys, he answers, backing out.
AshWe are not leaving here until you two figure this out, someone tells them. Ron, guard the door. Yes, sir. Nobody gets out of the Octagon.
JohnQuick cutaway. What's the play, officer, Andy asks, still in cop mode. You gonna bug a few phones? Put out a dummy computer, fill it with explosives, take him out.
AshWe're not doing any of that, comes the answer. I love your enthusiasm, but we don't have money for a massive investigation.
JohnYou're just gonna fill out this stupid report, he asks, wounded. As a future cop, I cannot let this guy go.
AshLook, man, this is what most police work is, he's told. Writing stuff down. It's paperwork, never superhero time. And that stings more than it should, because it's true, and Andy knows it.
JohnBack inside, the reconciliation moves fast once Ron forces it. Leslie, admit you haven't been the greatest role model, someone says. I don't care, Leslie answers. Orin's my role model.
AshApril, admit you've been a little selfish, comes the counter. All I wanted was for you to show the enthusiasm you showed for your dog park, and when you did, I blew it, Leslie admits. I'm sorry.
JohnFine, April says. I'm sorry I outsmarted you at every turn. I have a lot to learn from you, and I'm sorry I disrespected your stupid dream. Which is possibly the most affectionate insult in the series.
AshAnd this is where the whole labor relationship under the friendship gets exposed for one scene and then buried under an apology instead of a fix. Watch the sequence. Leslie spent four years accumulating a private claim on public land through unpaid overtime, and she called that accumulation dibs. That word pretends ownership is just who touched the ball first, when what it really describes is years of uncompensated after-hours planning nobody at City Hall asked her to do and nobody paid her for. Then she trained her own replacement so well that the replacement clocked the same lot as valuable inside a single afternoon and moved on it, with none of Leslie's sunk cost and none of her hesitation. And the apology at the end patches the friendship and touches none of that. The lot still belongs to whoever can out-hustle the other for it next week. So April out-Leslie-ing Leslie isn't the mentorship failing. It's the mentorship running to completion.
JohnI'll grant the shape of it, but I don't think you've hit the real wound yet. The lot was never the issue. Leslie's anger was about being replaced by her own methodology years ahead of schedule. It's professional mortality showing up early, wearing April's face.
AshSay more.
JohnLeslie taught April to spot an opportunity, move fast, and never back down when someone senior says no. She built a machine for wanting things. The horror isn't that the machine turned on her. It's that the machine is better than the original. The lot is the pretext. The clock is the point.
AshThat's sharper than where I started. The lot is the excuse, the mortality is the wound.
JohnTook me the whole rewatch to land it.
AshA lot of love in this room, someone observes, watching the apologies stack up. I'm very sorry. Me too. I love you very much.
JohnI don't want to do this in front of her, someone adds, which is the funniest possible reaction to two people being sincere in public.
AshEmbarrassment as the only correct response to raw affection.
AshSince you're such a genius, what do we do now, Leslie asks. Neither of you want Jamm to win, comes the answer, nor do I, because if there's a Paunch Burger in my backyard, I'll eat there every night. That's no good.
JohnSo let's stop playing dirty with each other and start playing dirty with Jamm, someone proposes. It's uncool, not illegal, technically, but it's a dick move. I love it, Leslie says.
AshWhich gets us to the lawn invasion, dogs and kids staged on Jamm's own property. What the hell is going on, he demands. No dog park in his neighborhood, no human park either, so they all needed a place to play.
JohnMy front lawn, he says. That's right, and they'll keep using it until there's an actual park nearby. Get that thing off my gnome, he adds, spotting a dog mid-act. He is dry-humping my garden gnome. Stupid beast.
AshWe just need more time to design our park, someone tells him, and if you ignore us, this is your life now. I'll call the police, he threatens. Sic the police on kids and puppies. Great photo op.
JohnFine, he says. Gentleman's agreement.
AshThe terms take one breath to set, both plans go to a vote in ninety days and winner takes all, and the whole standoff closes on the single word deal.
JohnNow call off the actual dogs, he adds. I want that hula hoop off my Corvette. Right now.
AshOne more jab on the way out. Hey, Jamm, you just got knoped, someone tells him. And ludgated. Nice try, he answers. Didn't work. You just got jammed. His own gloating phrase, handed back to him deflated, and he refuses to feel it as justice.
JohnOf course he does. He's incapable of registering a loss as a loss.
JohnOkay, let's get to work, April says right after, moving on without a single pause. Do you never take a second to enjoy things, someone asks. I just said, let's get to work, she answers. How else do people enjoy things?
AshThat's April's whole arc in one exchange. Incapable of celebrating a win without immediately converting it into the next task. Either exactly what Leslie taught her, or exactly who she always was under the deadpan.
JohnAnd the episode won't let you decide which. It leaves both live on purpose.
AshBack to Ben for the close, since his resignation runs the same clock as everything else. I know you changed your mind last time, someone tells him at the firm, but we're thrilled you changed it again. Thank you, he says. Me too.
JohnThis is our best office, they tell him. Great view of the billing department. Hey, Sharon, someone calls out. Shh. Sorry. She's fun, they add, apologizing for a coworker in the same breath they sell stability as the whole pitch.
AshIf there's anything we can do to make you happier, just let us know, he's told. This is great, Barney, he answers. Thank you. But I have to quit again.
JohnIs this a classic Ben joke, someone asks, hopeful. It isn't, he says. I need to move my life in another direction.
AshThis is disappointing, comes the reply. Again. Maybe someday we'll find the formula that gets you to work here. Formulas are my formula for moolah, Ben answers, one last accounting joke on the way out.
JohnLeslie's been saying I should do something I love, and she's right, he tells someone. I'll help Tom, or try that TV thing, or work for the Sweetums foundation. Life is short. Why be an accountant, other than the stability and the health plan and the above-average pay.
AshSo set the Biden meeting next to the Lot 48 fight and refuse to treat them as unrelated plots sharing a runtime, because they rhyme exactly. Both start with someone handing someone else the precise thing they think that person wants most. Ben gives Leslie an idol to worship in the flesh. Leslie gives April a real project to run, the thing April's wanted since she showed up hiding behind the deadpan. And both gifts detonate the moment the recipient wants the thing too completely, past the point where the giver can still steer it. Ben can't put Biden back in the box once Leslie's accepted a job nobody offered. Leslie can't put April back in the box once April's found the one lot that happens to be Leslie's obsession. That's the point where encouragement stops being generous and turns dangerous. You've handed someone a tool sharp enough to use on you, and then you watch them pick it up. Ron's the control group. He never gave Leslie a project big enough to threaten his own turf. Soil brochures and pastries, all contained, all deniable as management.
JohnWhich is a much bleaker read on Ron than the one you were selling me twenty minutes ago. The humane manager and the manager who keeps his protege small are the same guy.
AshThe same guy. That's the trap of the whole episode.
JohnBen, meanwhile, walks away clean. Nobody handed him a threat. He just discovered the stable job was never going to be enough for a guy who spent his morning arranging a vice presidential cameo for fun. The one person who gives a gift with no strings is also the one person nothing blows up on.
AshConvenient for him.
JohnThat's the discourse for this one. A meeting with the actual vice president that produces one sentence of real content and several minutes of a woman losing basic function. A soil brochure recast, years later, as evidence of a management campaign. A man named Jerry who was never actually named Jerry. A council vote won by staging dogs and children on a man's own lawn until he agrees to a rematch he still thinks he'll win.
AshIf the long history of the distraction waffle reveals one thing, it is that we have more questions than we have answers.
JohnHere's mine for the room. If the kindest version of management still requires deceiving the person you manage, even gently, even with syrup involved, was it ever really kindness, or just control efficient enough that nobody minded being controlled?
AshI don't have a clean answer either. Maybe Ron's waffles worked because Leslie wanted to be diverted as much as she wanted to keep pushing, and April hasn't reached the age yet where any part of her wants the diversion at all. Give it a few years. There might be a plate of waffles waiting for her too.
JohnWe hope you've enjoyed the discourse. Until next week, scriptnerd superfans.