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Tuesday Night TV Roundup: Parks & Rec, Mindy And More

While Sundays are once again soon to bring us Downtown Abbey, Girls and The Walking Dead all in one night, Tuesdays are making a grab for the TV Night Of The Week crown with a lineup that may make you decline social activities in favor of yoga pants, a bottle of pinot and your tube. (If that sounds too specific, it’s because that is precisely what I did Tuesday night, like the telenovela obsessed old lady that I am inside.)

Thanks to not one but TWO premiere episodes of Parks and Recreation, this past Tuesday night brought three straight hours of pure escapist comedy/teenage drama that also included Pretty Little Liars, New Girl and The Mindy Project. Here’s a roundup of all four.

Pretty Little Liars

Yet again, PLL proved that it makes absolutely no sense anymore but is still mindlessly entertaining. Questions/thoughts that arose from last night’s episode:

  1. Why the heck did Toby’s family have some random knife that Mona might have been stabbed with?

  2. Since when do kilns look like giant freezers?

(image source: TV.com)

  1. Wait, which one of Ezra’s exes is this college admissions lady who Aria is now totally going to have to lie to all season?

  2. Hannah WOULD ditch a college tour without a second thought.

  3. Wait, Ezra bought the coffee shop and made it a bookstore WHEN?

  4. No one cares if Emily can or cannot cook. This catering subplot is a waste of airtime.

Etc.

Parks And Recreation

A couple years ago I bingewatched the first three seasons of Parks and Rec after a friend recommended it to me and laughed so hard I nearly cried at too many episodes to count. With characters like Jean Ralphio and Ron Swanson, how can you not? Not to mention that Amy Poehler is a hilarious feminist beautiful tropical fish, and Chris Pratt, whom I have had a crush on since being obsessed with Everwood in high school, is amazingly adorable and endearing as Andy Dwyer.

So when last season ended by jumping ahead several years, skipping huge chunks of the characters’ lives, it reeked of show cancelation – it was the old “let’s jump ahead in time to give these characters the fully developed futures we always wanted because we have to cancel the show soon” gambit. I was disappointed.

Last night, I was still disappointed. I’m not sure what this time jump is going to accomplish, other than satisfaction for the writers and creators to know their characters ended up wherever they wanted them to by the end of the show’s run. Maybe they’ll prove me wrong, but last night’s episode took once effortless character relationships and unnecessarily complicated them. We don’t need a whole season’s worth of watching the old gang get back together when they could have just stayed together and gotten into more shenanigans in the first place.

New Girl

Ever since Nick and Jess got together and Nick and Cece broke up, this show hasn’t been the same. It still isn’t the same. That is all.

The Mindy Project

Last night’s Mindy episode firmly set a pattern for her character – she’s easily drawn into the moment with exes when they want her back, and she ends up temporarily willing to risk a ticked off boyfriend to get the full story on what the old/new love interest might have in store.

Take her meeting Casey at that party in Season 2 even though her current lawyer boyfriend at the time didn’t want her to go. She thought it wasn’t a big deal; he dumped her. She once left a medical conference to meet up with the douchebag who cheated on her, hoping for an explanation. And in last night’s episode, she kept talking to a hottie (played by Lee Pace) she deflowered in college when he basically lays it on thick and tells her she made him the man he is and he’s never stopped wanting her, even after Danny’s old friend tells her she’s behaving like his ex with the wandering eye. And then she doesn’t tell Danny about it.

It’s perfectly normal and realistic to keep things to yourself in a relationship, including conversations with exes. But when that kind of thing becomes a pattern, it can come back to bite you in the ass, which gets me thinking that some bumpy terrain might be ahead for Mindy and Danny.

Also, whoa, who knew Lee Pace was so hot? Guess I’m late to the game on that one.

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