Forever in the Good Place

 The real question, Eleanor, is what do we owe to each other?

It takes Forever more than one episode to reveal where it is going – it starts as a show about a woman who may be considering divorce, or some other radical change in her life, to being a show about a woman attempting to find a hold on life after the passing of her husband of many years, due to a tragic accident caused by her attempts to change the routines of their marriage, to a show about a woman who has died, and found her husband in the afterlife, and instead of pondering the meaning of it, finds herself in precisely the same routines that she was trying to break to start off with. It’s a circle, for June (an absolutely fantastic Maya Rudolph, finally starring in her own show), that begins and ends in the suburbs, except these new suburbs are no longer the sub- to any existing urban area, and the day-to-day life with her loving husband, Oscar (Fred Armisen) is now, presumably, going to continue on forever. 

is about what it means to spend a lifetime with another person, by extending that period of time into an assumed eternity not bounded by death. It is an interesting way to ask that question, considering that June and Oscar are so different, and at very different points in their life when they pass. Oscar seems endlessly content with the life they have built, the comfort and quiet loveliness of their routines, the care that he puts into everything he does. It may seem boring from the outside, but it comes with a warmth that is later perfectly translated into the architecture and interior design of their forever home, which presumably perfectly represents the meaning of their marriage. June has moments – from the first episode on – where she seems to ponder the life that could lie beyond these routines, beyond having the same meal lovingly cooked and prepared for her over and over again, beyond going to the same lake house for their shared holiday. It isn’t that she doesn’t love Oscar – it’s a more profound question about whether this is all her life holds for her. She attempts to break out of it by suggesting a ski holiday that costs Oscar’s life (this is still a comedy, so it seems almost inevitable that Oscar will find some kind of tragic end, considering how unprepared either of them are to face the slopes) while June is off flirting with her old life, and a guy who looks like the many guys she dated (and who treated her poorly) before she met Oscar. 

A year after the passing of her husband (a reveal that is interestingly handled here, as a conversation leaves is open whether it was a divorce – something that could have been the result of what we’ve seen before just as well – until June is made to spell it out for a sales assistant) June is trapped in the same life she had before, minus the warmth that Oscar provided. She hasn’t begun anything new, instead she hates her job and consumes single-serve individually packaged wine glasses on her couch. Her friend tries to zap her out of her depression, but it doesn’t work. She tries to break out herself, but eventually runs away before a life-changing job interview. It seems absurd that she ends up being offered that precise job a few days later, when all the other people in her company are convicted of fraud – an unlikely, cosmic coincidence, the kind of event sure to free her from the cage of her grief and inability to move on – except on the way to her new life in Hawai’i, June chokes on a macadamia nut and dies. 

Lives cut short by hilarious and unexpected deaths is one of the gimmicks that The Good Place, another after-life show, uses, and in both shows, one of the main features of the characters awakening after their sometimes embarrassing (mundane freak accidents) deaths is their lack of grief over the life they have lost, because in a way, the life they encounter after death is either better, or not much different, than the one that they had before. June finds Oscar, who has been waiting for her, in a small suburb that looks like the world they are both used to, but where everyone else hasn’t been given the chance to enjoy eternity with a partner. Nothing in her life is changed significantly from before, when they were both alive-married – they still have the same rituals and routines, day-in-and day out, except that this spells out eternal happiness for Oscar, while for June, a sense of being unfulfilled creeps in even more than it did when they were still alive. 

The core question at the centre, and the heart, of Forever is one of balance between the challenge and excitement of the new, of constantly learning more about yourself and growing as a person, and the comfort and happiness of sharing a life – a life set in its ways – with a partner. June never answered this for herself when she was alive, and because she never confronted it – or because Oscar never let her, always avoiding those conversations – she has brought these issues with her, in their presumed happy forever. Oscar is perfectly content to do the same things every day because he enjoys those things, while June finds every activity that is endlessly repeated boring, especially because she gets good at new things so quickly. 

Every decision for something, or someone, is always a decision against all the other possible paths. June is now confronted with the idea that those decisions that she made will carry her into a forever, that she will never have the opportunity to question who she could have been had she not chosen to be the person who is with Oscar over all the other people she could have been. Oscar doesn’t ask the same question (in part because he isn’t the focus of this story, but also because he is fulfilled in this life, so he doesn’t want to change it, or himself). Their shared new life in this forever – in Riverside – is like an even more concentrated, focused version of their life before, with all outside distractions removed. Except – not entirely – because soon, a new neighbour moves in next to them and she seems to magnetise June. 

I’m still undecided if the character of Kase (Catherine Keener) works, considering that her main purpose in Forever is to be Oscar’s opposite. Where he is warm and gentle, she is offputting and radical. Where he is quiet and content, Kase rages against the restrictions of Riverside, or the idea that the afterlife should be an even more boring version of what her life already was. It may even be worse considering that Forever isn’t the story of Oscar and June, but merely of June, so both Oscar and Kase only exist to offer June two radically different versions of how life could be lived much in the way in which Riverside and the newly revealed Other Possible Place Oceanside are presented as two radically different models of dealing with memory and identity. 

Riverside is nostalgia, is repetitiveness, but also the comfort of the known. Oceanside – where all roads lead – is forgetting the past, but also all that tethered a person there, including other people. It’s a radical experiment in finding the new boundaries of existence post-life, instead of cultivating the same interests and activities of before. Where the inhabitants of Riverside trim their roses, mow their lawns, and play endless games of lawn bowl, the people in Oceanside jump in front of trucks and set their faces on fire. It doesn’t make much difference either way – because nothing ever changes – but the new experiences turn Oceansiders into people who are letting go of their lives before, who are forgetting who they’ve lost, who are embracing this other, new life. This doesn’t make them better people – in Forever, they come across as the arrogant aristocracy compared to the boring suburbanites of Riverside – but they do offer a very different life to June, after she decides to leave Oscar and find out what her attraction to Kase and all she represents means.

Not that this attraction is explored in any meaningful way beyond offering an opportunity for Oscar’s best new friend in the afterlife (a teenager who died tragically in the Seventies, and is forever stuck there) to tease him about his wife’s gayness, because the idea that this could be the thorn in June’s side, the thing that has that made her marriage even before both their deaths into an increasingly subtly unsatisfying  affair, isn’t really where the show is going with this at all. Kase does represent a path that June never chose, but it is more in regards to herself – allowing herself to embrace new talents, to explore, to try new things – than in choosing Kase as a partner. In a way, it always seems inevitable that June will come around, at some point, to the idea that the true issue with her marriage has always been not taking Oscar seriously, or not allowing him to be the resourceful person that he always was. 

I think the most beautiful story that Forever manages to tell isn’t about June and Oscar at all – it’s about Sarah and Andre, two real estate agents who meet each other at the wrong time of both of their lives, who are meant to be together but keep missing each other, until it is too late. They discuss the great issues – whether marriage should be forever, two people fixing what is broken and growing with each other or one person, unrestricted by forever bonds to be whatever they can be in life – wether humanity is ultimately moving towards better, or worse – and they would clearly make each other happy, except it doesn’t happen that way, because it’s not the path that they end up choosing. The episode doesn’t answer the question of whether they were still happy in the lives they did choose – they seem to keep finding each other, regardless. It also never answers the question of whether Andre would have found June waiting for him, or if they both would have been with their spouses, in an afterlife like June’s and Oscar’s, or if, like everyone else in Riverside, they would have been on their own. 

The Good Place has a much wider scope in interrogating what it means to be a good person, and the limits of changing and becoming different. I think ultimately, in both cases, it isn’t just about what we owe to each other, or that we exist in part as a reflection in other people’s minds, but also, about what we owe to ourselves, in the sense or remaining open and capable of change and growth. The Good Place is at its best when it portrays how people, even when they are individually terrible in different ways (selfish, ignorant, envious, indecisive) become better when they help each other and are made to comprehend each other’s pain.  This is the very optimistic idea at the core of the show, that the empathy, love and support creates a community that will inevitably, in the end, result in each of these people (Chidi, Eleanor, Jason, Tahani) being better than when they started out with (and as an aside here, I think The Good Place is particularly good for portraying characters who have always thought themselves as truly good realising they aren’t – as great as Kristen Bell is as Eleanor, I think the harder work here is done by William Jackson Harper and Jameela Jamil), much in the same way in which it was love and mutual respect that turned a character like Ron Swanson in Parks and Rec into a loveable person, whereas a realistic portrayal of a libertarian confronted with Leslie Knope’s concept of what politics should be and do would have been a much more dire affair. 

And why not take into account that 2018 seems such an unlikely time for not one but two shows to exist that are so optimistic about what communities and relationships between people can create and change. Forever embraces June’s search for more, but it doesn’t quite go as far as to ridicule the safety and comfort that Oscar represents, and the beauty that lies in creating a life of routines and a shared language together. I think disregarding that these two love each other would have been cynical, as would the idea that they cannot change in tandem with each other, as long as they both recognise the need for change and growth. But maybe, it is almost impossible to take the same position that Michael finds himself in – where humans suddenly appear almost lovely in their ridiculousness, rather than terrible in the small and great horrors they inflict upon each other. 

Or – as much as Parks and Recreation was the show for the period of time it happened in, I’m not really sure that The Good Place and Forever, as good as they are what they do, are exactly what we need right now to make sense of this unflinching existential terror.

The Good Place (2016-), created by Michael Schur, starring Kristen Bell, William Jackson Harper, Jameela Jamil, Manny Jacinto, D’Arcy Carden, Ted Danson.

Forever (2018-), created by Alan Yang and Matt Hubbard, starring Maya Rudolph, Fred Armisen, Catherine Keener.

Doing what you love with the people you love: looking back on ‘Parks and Recreation’

I’ve often called Parks and Recreation my happy place, a show that reliable cheers me up and has frequently been a source of comfort during difficult times. This is why I’ve barely written about it – what the show is, above everything else, is a feeling, a complex light and very unlikely emotion. I loved Parks and Recreation a lot, and I am endlessly glad about its seventh season, which is one of the few examples of a story, told in serialized form on television, being told the way it was intended to and finished with all the grace and dignity that it deserved. It’s such an unlikely ending – a victory lap, clearly, both for everybody directly involved in making the show and the fans who stuck with it, coming back every week – considering that for several seasons, Parks always ended in a finale that could have worked as a final point for the serial as a whole, just in case. Other shows would have struggled with that format, but it served Parks incredibly well, and those final episodes for each season are not just the high points, but also always a culmination of everything that the show did best. They are celebrations, and at the same time, open up all the possibilities for how the story could continue (both in terms of careers and personal relationships) – and in many ways, this final final episode isn’t any different. It’s been frequently compared to Six Feet Under, with the time jumps and the scenes from a future years ahead of all the characters, but the decisive difference between seeing the last few moments in the lives of each character (which was a perfect way to end a show that was about the inevitability of death and how it affects lives) and seeing them at important stages in the future is just that: everything is still possible (except for Jerry Gergich, who has truly lived life to the fullest of its possibilities, and is therefore fondly remembered in death). One Last Ride fulfils all the promises but never closes the doors, ultimately creating the best possible outcome – Pawnee, and all its residents, will still be there, even if the stories are no longer televised, and Leslie Knope’s arc continues beyond the end of the show. It’s the best way to end a show that was so very much about creating a whole lively world, filled with individuals in all their more or less loveable weirdness. Short of the luxury of just continuing into eternity (which seems to be true for the Simpsons – Springfield was often mentioned as a blueprint for Pawnee), it’s the best way to do this. 

It opens up the future, and it makes memories of the past even fonder, even of season one, before the show realized that Leslie Knope (and Amy Poehler) were its biggest strength, not a weakness. Looking back, it seems absurd to think that anyone ever considered it a good idea to base a show on the premise that we are laughing at Leslie Knope, rather than cackling with her, and it is all the more magical how completely the show eventually managed to overcome that initial weakness. It’s hard to think of Parks and Recreation just in terms of one strength (it had – almost – all the strengths), but the two things that stand out above all is the idea that these central characters cared so much about each other and what they did, and when they were in danger of not caring enough, Leslie reliably stepped in to remind them of how important they, and therefore their place in the world, were, and how much that mutual love and respect can be transformative both for a place and the people in it, even if Pawnee never ceased to be the chaotic, ridiculous place that it was always meant to be, at its best and worst during public debates. Leslie insisted that the Parks and Recreation department, so inherently linked to the place, could make a difference in everybody’s life, could create a better place, and as thankless as that realized ambition mostly was (Leslie Knope never got a Buffy Summeresque prom speech from the town of Pawnee), the fact that Ron Swanson loved her, despite their radical ideological differences, speaks volumes. It also speaks volumes that Parks and Recreation chose to tell the story about a radical libertarian and someone who genuinely believes that government can do good in people’s lives when it gets involved becoming friends, and respecting each other so much that the ideological difference doesn’t matter – or that Leslie’s arguments, and her ability to connect the people she loves with the causes she loves, manages to transcend these differences. Considering how unforgiving and seemingly impossible to overcome the line between the different political parties were during the same time that Parks completed its seven year run were, the premise at its centre almost seems utopian. 

At the same time, it never shied away from being outspoken and sarcastic in a devastating way about the present, calling out the ridiculousness of the so-called man’s right movement, the power of corporations, the dangers of a political process dominated by money. The show also succeeded in making politics personal: Leslie Knope never seeks power for the sake of it, she seeks it as an idealist, with her goals mapped out in her head, and as the show and her career progressed, she got better at comprehending other people’s ambitions and strengths. One of the best arcs of the show is April Ludgate’s self-realization, and Leslie’s learning curve in trying to be supportive of April without either unsuccessfully trying to shape her into something resembling herself, or smothering her. Regardless of what position Leslie Knope ended up having that justified her having Secret Service protection at Jerry’s funeral (I like to believe it was the presidency, because it’s what I believed the show was going towards for seasons before it actually happened), one of her biggest successes is realizing that April will never be a younger version of herself, but someone who has her own, different kind of ambition, and a strong desire to realize herself in a job that does not constantly frustrate her. April was often used as a role model for not caring (wrongly, since even early on, one of her best moments – the 15 layers of irony – was all about calling someone else out for not caring enough), but in fact she cared so much that the process of figuring out how to best put that ambition into practice, how to find a life that would allow her to grow and affect change, took up most of the later seasons of the show. 

Another strength of the show, taking characters seriously while also using them for their comic potential, without allowing that humour to undermine them. Tom Haverford and his business ventures, never fully hiding the fact that his ambition for success and money was a way of hiding a deep insecurity. Andy Dwyer, slowly remaking himself into a sort of fully grown man after living in a pit with only rats for company, occasionally wiser than everyone else. Ron Swanson, more stubborn than everyone else – so much that one of the greatest arcs of the final season was about how he loved Leslie Knope too much, so that his inability to put that love into words created a terrible conflict lasting for months. 

This is what Parks and Recreation is, and will always be: a show about community, caring too much, a show refuting the idea that cynicism is the only way to approach the human condition, a show about friendship and love and the transformative power of building something together, regardless of whether it is only a tiny park in the backlot of your best friend’s house or a whole national park where your other best friend can go canoeing undisturbed by the terrors of modern life. 

Parks and Recreation, 2009-2015, starring Amy Poehler, Nick Offerman, Aubrey Plaza, Rashida Jones, Chris Pratt, Azis Ansari, Retta, Jim O'Heir, Adam Scott, Jay Jackson.

Parks and Recreation

If everyone in government were like you, I would probably still work there. –Mark

I don't care if you hate what we do, I love it enough for both of us. -Leslie

Leslie has a lot of qualities I find horrifying, but the worst one by far is how thoughtful she can be. - Ron

In my desperation over being so ridiculously incapable of putting together even one coherent paragraph on Parks and Recreation, I slowly worked my way backwards through the show. I re-watched season three, hoping that the essential first sentence that had escaped me would finally just appear out of nowhere. It didn’t, so I went back another year, and then finally I started at the beginning. The first, six-episode long season is widely considered the show’s weakest: almost every single first season needs a couple of episodes to find its tone, for its actors to grow into their characters and the writers to really convey who these people are and what they want, and how they relate to each other. The thing is though, that in retrospect the first season fits in perfectly with how the show later developed: Leslie Knope (Amy Poehler) starts with the same level of enthusiasm for government work, the same ambition to rise high while providing essential services to the citizens of Pawnee, but compared to the Leslie of the third season, she is unfocused, goofy and awkward. She sometimes makes terrible mistakes, especially regarding the publicity work when she first gets her sub-committee to transform a pit into a new park. I think if I’d ever written about the first season of the show alone, Reese Witherspoon’s Tracy Flick might have come up as a comparison. But Leslie evolves as a character; she grows with the challenges she faces, and the one thing that is probably the most important: the people who surround her grow with her, and the changing dynamic with them (and the sudden yet meaningful friendship with Rashida Jones’ Ann Perkins – “Oh Ann. You're so sweet and innocent and pretty.”) enables her to become so good at her job, to overcome her initial issues, to learn how to navigate the (tiny but essential) political landscape of Pawnee. In the beginning of the show, Jerry, Tom, Donna and especially Ron aren’t swayed by Leslie’s enthusiasm, they do their job with varying degrees of indifference and regard her as a nuisance – until they slowly start to cherish Leslie’s qualities, support her and start to contribute to her projects. This is one of the greatest things about Parks and Recreation. Too many shows start with characters fully formed and the only thing that changes in the course of the seasons is the romantic relationships, and maybe sometimes someone dies or disappears, but on Parks and Recs, characters evolve. They become more focused and find outlets for their passions. They realize their talents. They form unlikely friendships and romantic relationships that change them, and even though it’s a brilliant ensemble show with a perfect cast, the catalyst for almost all of this is Leslie, her enthusiasm, her beliefs, her idealism, her loyalty. She quickly eases her way into the viewers’ hearts the same way she does with the people that surround her. 

It would be more appropriate to write a paragraph about Leslie, but I’ve kind of decided that I want to talk about April Ludgate (Aubrey Plaza) first, because in my head the way the show handles her character contains everything that makes it special. April starts out as a nineteen-year old intern, completely disinterested in government work and with a sarcastic attitude towards everything Leslie cares about and does. Most other shows would take her perspective as an opportunity to provide a running commentary on how ridiculous Leslie is – how much she cares, the thing she does to realize her projects – April would be the outsider and role model for all the viewers with a similar worldview, another stereotypical disaffected teenager. Instead, the show allows her to grow. The turning point for her character comes halfway through the second season (in Galentine’s Day). April attends a concert Andy (Chris Pratt) holds in an old people’s home, and April’s friends take it as an opportunity to make fun of everything and everyone they see. Instead of joining in, April grows increasingly irritated, until she finally declares: “God, why does everything we do have to be cloaked in like 15 layers of irony?” For me, that statement entails everything that makes Parks and Recreation so special, and it’s even more relevant because April is the one making it: it's an incredibly positive show (so much, in fact, that the initial things on my note pad were rainbows and sunshine and flowers…), but more than that, it’s not a cynical show. Like Leslie, it’s enthusiastic and overflowing with passion and idealism. Sometimes it pokes fun at its own characters or at some of the things they care about, or at some oddity of the community in Pawnee (Li'l Sebastian! He’s a tiny horse, not a pony!), but this is never done in cruel or mean way, but playful. It comes from a place of love and understanding that these quirks are what makes us human, without falling into the equally dangerous trap of defining the characters over these quirks and forgetting to give them depth as well. Tom’s (Aziz Ansari) main interest in government work seems to lie in making useful connections he can later use for becoming successful, he seems inherently self-interested, but the show allows him the space to grow: this very quality turns out to be very useful for the department’s projects, and his enthusiasm for making plans ultimately makes him a likeable character. Andy starts as Ann Perkins’ deadbeat boyfriend, bound to the living room couch after falling into the pit, a man-child with no discernable passion except his music – but he turns out to be a genuinely talented musician whose band has a place in the community of Pawnee, and his endlessly excitable nature and his enthusiasm for everything makes him a valuable team member, which he finally becomes. Andy starts as someone’s boyfriend with no job, but by the end of season three, he’s a married man with an unlikely career without having to give up on music. 

This is what makes the Parks and Recreation department a bit of a utopian paradise: it allows those who work there to realize their potential, whatever it might be, without having to give up on who they are at their core. Ron Swanson (Nick Offerman) is a die-hard libertarian deeply and utterly convinced that government, ideally, should be “one guy who sits in a small room at a desk, and the only thing he’s allowed to decide is who to nuke. The man is chosen based on some kind of IQ test, and maybe also a physical tournament, like a decathlon.”, but despite his beliefs, he also knows that the department would fall apart if it wasn’t for Leslie Knope, who has the exact opposite political beliefs to his (governments should provide services for people). He stands up for her when her job is in danger but the show doesn’t force him to change his beliefs in the function of government, it just portrays how two people with opposing views can work together as long as they respect each other, without any of the hatred and ridiculousness that currently dominates the political landscape. 

Leslie: Do you remember what you said to me five years ago when Eagleton offered me that job and I asked you for your advice?
Ron: Do whatever the hell you want. What do I care?
Leslie: Right, but then after, when I pressed you, what did you say?
Ron: I believe I said that I thought we worked well together, and that I might disagree with your philosophy but I respected you. And I said that you'll get a lot of job offers in your life but you only have one hometown.
Leslie: Yes, that's how I remember it.

Pawnee itself is a character on the show. As the seasons progress and we see the characters navigate the landscape of the town, we also slowly learn how it functions, as some local personalities return (journalists, hosts on local radio and television shows, the obligatory religious nutjob). The town Leslie cares about so much has many strange characteristics and people inheriting it, and the town meetings never resemble a respectful and reasonable discussion on issues that matter (“What I hear when I’m being yelled at”, Leslie says, “is people caring loudly at me”), and they sometimes have questionable ideas about what’s important, but the show always manages to convey the love Leslie feels for this community along with the ridiculousness (and on the other hand, I’ve never lived in a town but my mum’s hometown had a guy living like a native American, an almost civil war over the length of grass and teenagers constantly getting into horrifying accidents when driving their mopeds while drunk, so Pawnee doesn’t seem that far-fetched to me). Pawnee might not be as wealthy as its rival neighbouring town Eagleton, but what it lacks in wealth it makes up in community. In the third season, Leslie overcomes a looming government shutdown and a budget freeze by organizing a harvest festival – the future of everybody’s job depend on its success – and the project becomes a signifier for what Leslie can do: she inspires her colleagues, we learn that people in the community do favours for her simply because she is Leslie Knope, and they know that she never uses them selfishly – and finally we see what this kind of passion and devotion can accomplish. 

Leslie: Look, we’re not just pencil pushers. We are a reflection of the community, and we believe that we can strengthen that community. Because in the end, the reason why we’re all here, is to bring people together.

The third season is Parks and Recreation’s best so far, and it’s probably one of my favourite seasons of any television show ever. We see Leslie’s attempts to organize the harvest festival, to save her department and to do meaningful work despite the lack of money through the eyes of Ben (Adam Scott), a state auditor sent to make budget cuts. Ben starts as a character with no real interest in Pawnee – it’s just his job (“Pawnee isn’t special”), and he clashes with Leslie who considers him a threat to the department and the town itself (“This is a party with my friends, and you're trying to fire all my friends” / “These are real people in a real town working in a real building with real feelings.”) – but as the season progresses and Ben witnesses what the department accomplishes under Leslie’s leadership (even though Ron is technically her boss…), he falls in love – with her passion, with her idealism, and ultimately, with Pawnee. Parks and Recreation connects the two beautifully: Leslie is who she is because she cares about her work, about her community, the two things are intertwined, and Ben changes through his appreciation of her, and his look on the town itself changes as he starts to see it through her eyes. 

Ben: The advantage is that it’s a wonderful city. I’ve been to forty some-odd towns in Indiana, and Pawnee is special. The people are passionate and kind and they love their city. They take pride in their work. It’s a very special place. […] Pawnee is a really special town. I love living there. And, um, I look forward to the moments in my day where I get to hang out with the town, and talk to the town about stuff. And the town has really nice blonde hair, too. And has read a shocking number of political biographies for a town… which I like.

This is just a couple of things that I love about the show: The friendship between Leslie and Ann would deserve an essay of its own, so would the beautiful way in which April’s and Andy’s relationship has evolved (I absolutely adored the way their sudden marriage ended up feeling so genuine and heartfelt and beautiful, instead of falling into some tired cliché), Ron Swanson’s subtle support of every single person working in the department and especially his relationship with Leslie and Tom, the way the show maps the landscape of Pawnee with its reoccurring locations (The Snakepit, The Bulge), the way the show portrays the irrational aspects of politics (the gay penguin wedding!) – but in the end it comes down to the fact that Parks and Recreation is a wonderful, heart-warming, day-saving show. It's balloons and puppies and rainbows. And waffles.