Most television series have to keep a deliberate pace — not a lot can change so as to keep the same equilibrium, cast and tone — probably so someone tuning into a rerun out of order won’t be completely confused.
So nothing happens in a huge, time jumping way, usually until a show comes to an end. So we can jump ahead many years on the “How I Met Your Mother Finale” (a ploy better done on the “Six Feet Under” finale). New jobs can be taken, doors closed, babies born — all giving the viewer the imagined future of a characters we see for the last time.
But the finale of “Parks and Recreation” Monday, which was better than most series finales, did all that while indicating it would be back next fall anyway.
It was a great present for fans — a show so big that the appearance of Michelle Obama was in many ways one of the minor things about the hour.
Instead it brought back a lot of favorite characters while adding some great cameos. We would have been happy enough with the opening of Tom’s restaurant and the staging of the Pawnee-Eagleton Unity Concert, which featured The Decemberists, Ginuine (introduced as Donna’s cousin), Letters to Cleo (previously identified as a Ben favorite), Jeff Tweedy and Yo La Tengo (appearing as the Indiana in-joke Bobby Knight Ranger, playing “Sister Christian” over and over in the clothes of the basketball coach).
The emotional climax is when Andy’s band Ratmouse reunited to sing once more their anthem to the town’s late hero, Lil’ Sebastian, the mini-horse. But then there was all that other stuff. [Spoilers ahead].
In a flurry of activity you’d expect on a series’ final show, all these things happen: Leslie accepts the National Parks Service regional midwestern job, she convinces them to have her office in Pawnee, in the third floor office that Ron had just lovingly renovated. Jump three years ahead, and she’s firing the most incompetent employee (Jon Hamm in full “Mad Men” regalia), keeping Jerry (now named Terry!), has triplets who are now three years old, and is meeting Ben, dressed in a tuxedo, who is about to take Leslie down the elevator for an important meeting.
So what’s that all about? Is Ben a millionaire from his successful nerd game he developed (and with which he secured the town free wifi?), or is he an overdressed maitre’d at Tom’s restaurant? Are they going to strike a deal that will change their lives again (privatizing the parks department?). The main question is how whatever comes next will have anything to do with “Parks and Recreation,” the department where the show was originally set.
Maybe nothing. After all, by now Tom has moved on to another job, Chris and Ann are married and have moved on to another city, what’s to keep the main characters from further new horizons? Only that title. If it keeps the same tone and many of the same characters, I’ll keep tuning in no matter what.