Political Satire Show: Parks And Recreation

Parks and Recreation is a political satire sitcom about a Parks and Recreations department in the city of Pawnee, Indiana. Many of the events portrayed in the show are based on real life ones, and the cast has moments where they perform “interviews” with invisible, non-existent cameramen (mockumentary-style). To go along with this show’s style, the focus would be Pokémon Go in 2016. To best understand the relationships between the characters at the stage they would be in this episode, the best episode to watch would be Season 5, episode 9 (Article Two).
Cold Open
Leslie Knope walks into the Parks Department office, only to discover Jerry Gergich on the ground unconscious, a broken coffee cup nearby and Tom Haverford hiding under the coffee

table in the center of the room. When asked what had occurred, Tom admitted that he had made April angry, and she had threatened to get him back. In fear, he gave Jerry his coffee only for Jerry to pass out. Just then, a dart flies out from Ron’s office to hit Tom in the neck, and he passes out. It was April, with a tranquilizer dart, and she admits that her plan was to knock him out and draw penises on his face. Leslie attempts to find a way to reprimand, gives up and leaves, remarking that April needs to check on Jerry. As she leaves, Andy Dwyer walks in and exclaims, “You got him”, totally ignoring and in fact stepping over Jerry, who snores.
A Plot: The Game
Leslie, though now a councilwoman for the city of Pawnee is still the deputy director of the Parks Department at heart, is ecstatic to discover that people are going to the local parks more often due to the app Pokémon Go.

However, when she visits the park to see all the people is angered that literally everyone there is staring at their phones. Doing her homework, she discovers that Pokémon Go is a gaming app that allows the player to go out into nature and walk around catching little creatures called Pokémon or hatching them from eggs by walking. Trying to better understand the obsession, she asks that everyone in the department download the game. Jerry accidentally downloads a virus and spends the rest of the episode without a phone; Ron Swanson refuses to use an iPhone, and thus cannot play on his flip-phone. Ben Wyatt enjoys the game, having played Pokémon games in the past, and sets out to try to convince Leslie that there are worse things. Andy, trying to understand the game, throws his phone at a squirrel and asks, “How many points is that worth”. Leslie goes through the week barely playing, but growing more and more attached until by the end of the week is no longer focused on anything but the game, shirking her duties as a councilwoman by actually playing at her desk (she of course is not alone, Councilmen Jeremy Jamm and Bill Dexhart also play and wear hats with their team symbols). Eventually Ben, Ann Perkins and April have to work together to wean Leslie off

the game, which at this point has her wearing a jacket, shoes, and hat all with her team Mystic’s logos and has covered her office in posters. Leslie realizes her mistake in playing on her own when she trips over a rock while staring at her phone and falling into “mud”. At the end, the “too cool” April reveals she has been playing, and has a bunch of Ghost-type Pokémon (“they fit me”) as well as two Arcanines that she has renamed Champion and Andy. She almost blushes as she says “What, they’re both important and Andy is doglike... puppy-like... whatever!”
B Plot: The Competition
Chris Traeger is uninterested in gaming apps, but Donna Meagle and Tom are obsessed, going so far as to join teams and buy accessories associated with their teams. Eventually able to convince Chris to join them, the three set up a bet: whoever catches the most Pokémon by the end of the week doesn’t have to pay for lunch the following week. After agreeing, the three go their separate ways; Chris goes to the park and on daily jogs to catch the creatures on his runs and meet the step requirements to hatch eggs; Tom sits at home funneling money into the game for in-app purchases like lures and incense to draw the Pokémon to him, incubators for multiple egg hatching (puts his phone on a Roomba so he doesn’t have to walk), and more; Donna plays smart, playing the game while she goes on errands and walks to work and back to home. At the end, its revealed that Donna has won because she caught the most of the same Pokémon while the others struggled to catch a wide variety of Pokémon. She won through a loophole, and remarks “Meagles play to win. We play smart, we play dirty, and that’s how we win. It is also why we no longer have Meagle Game Nights”.