Saying goodbye is never easy. It means leaving something — maybe something you care about — with the knowledge that you’re not going to see it again. Or if you do see it again, it’s not going to be the same. Parks and Recreation is a show that feels like a friend. Luckily, it’s the kind of friend that understands that leaving is a part of life and knows how to break it to you gently.
In some ways, Parks and Rec has been saying goodbye since Ann Perkins and Chris Traeger left in season 6 to start their life and family together. Ann’s a character who’s always been a little prescient, but in a good way. She’s observant and sensitive, and she knows how to care for the people around her. And when she’s ready to tell her best friend that she’s planning on leaving, she stuffs her full of good things to soften the blow.
Leslie’s reaction then is fairly characteristic of fandom’s normal response to painful changes and of the grieving process in general. She denies that Ann is leaving, gets angry at her, tries to bargain for a replacement or different solution, goes through a whole ball of depression, and then finally learns to accept it. Ron Swanson sums up what coming to terms with a friend’s leaving means if you want to keep the friendship: “That you love her and you understand that it’s her life, and geography will never change your feelings.”
Leaving doesn’t mean that you care about the people you’re leaving any less, and it doesn’t mean that what you had wasn’t good. It just means that a good thing is ending. And while that can be painful, it can also mean more good things for everyone involved.
For example, between seasons 6 and 7, Parks and Rec took a three-year leap into the future to 2017. This has always been a show about building up for the future, so it makes sense. This is the world that Leslie Knope helped create. But it’s also a goodbye. We left them during the hiatus, and their lives moved on. And in a lot of ways, their lives became better. Leslie headed up the Midwest Parks department; Andy started a kids show; Ron started his own company; Donna grew her real estate firm; Tom expanded his restaurants; and, April gained the drive to realize that she wasn’t happy with her job and to go after a better one.
In the finale, the show took an even bigger leap into the future. Leslie ran for governor of Indiana; Andy and April had their first kid; Garry made it to his one hundredth birthday; Donna and her husband started a non-profit; and, Tom’s restaurant chain failed but became the start of a successful book series about failure. Because of their relationships with each other, they got back up when they fell and were there to support each other. And that might be the actual meaning and purpose of friendship.
So season 7, in illustrating and addressing those changes, really became a love letter to the character development and themes of the show. All of these people we’ve grown to love have gone places and become better off than they were at the start of the show. Parks and Rec is a show about one person trying to make other people’s lives better and her success. And the thing about happy endings is that…well…they end.
I have a teacher who says that if you want to understand the meaning of a work, you have to look at its beginning and its end. Parks and Rec started as an Office-style mockumentary with slightly unlikable characters that were very, very human and dysfunctional and American. It ended with much more likable characters who continued to be human but also figured out how to make what they had work for them. Ultimately, I think that could be what the American dream is truly about.
Goodbye, Parks and Recreation. We’ll miss you, and we look forward to what comes next.