The Master Plan (Parks and Recreation)

Did You Know?

• A producer's cut of the episode, with eight extra minutes of deleted scenes and additional footage, was featured on the official NBC website.
• The DVD release included a commentary track for "The Master Plan" featuring Nick Offerman, Adam Scott, Dean Holland, Michael Schur, Harris Wittels and producer Morgan Sackett.
• The episode introduced Natalie Morales as Lucy, Tom's new girlfriend.

Plot

Leslie is buzzing with excitement as she gets ready to unveil her parks department budget proposal, which she calls the "master plan." But city manager Paul drops a bombshell: because Pawnee is drowning in debt, every budget proposal is on hold. The governor is sending in state auditors to sort things out, which terrifies Leslie, who expects brutal cuts. Ron, on the other hand, is thrilled, since he opposes all government spending, and he and Leslie start butting heads.

Meanwhile, April is about to turn 21 and celebrates at Tom's favorite club, the Snakehole Lounge. Andy is trying to work up the nerve to ask April to be his girlfriend, but he's worried about their age gap—he's 29. Ann and Mark have broken up, and over lunch, Mark is baffled by the split. He thought everything was perfect because they never argued.

Ann sets him straight: the lack of conflict meant there was no passion, and she points out that Mark isn't used to long-term relationships and exaggerated how strong theirs was.

The state auditors, Chris Traeger and Ben Wyatt, show up. Chris is ridiculously upbeat about fixing the budget, but leaves the grim details to the more grounded Ben. Ben announces that every department will need to slash spending by 40 to 50 percent. Leslie explodes at him, and Ben fires back that the city's poor management is to blame. At April's party, Tom strikes out trying to pick up women, while Leslie and Ann get sloppy drunk together. Andy and April seem to be hitting it off, but when Andy grabs a drink for April, a drunk Ann starts flirting with him. April gets jealous and flirts with Tom's annoying buddy Jean-Ralphio to make Andy jealous in return. Andy thinks he misread everything and gets upset, and April later regrets her move. Ben shows up to make peace with a drunk Leslie, but she just yells at him again.

The next morning, Ann can't remember who she made out with at the party. She eventually finds out it was Chris, who is interested in her. Tom goes back to the Snakehole Lounge to settle his tab and meets the bartender, Lucy, who teases him about his failed pickup attempts. They hit it off, and Lucy gives him her number, which makes Tom ecstatic. Leslie apologizes to Ben, and he invites her for a beer. As they start getting along, Leslie learns that Ben was once the mayor of Partridge, Minnesota. He was only 18 when elected and famously ran the town into the ground, making national news. He became a state auditor to prove he could be responsible and revive his political career. At the budget meeting, Chris and Ben reveal that Pawnee's crisis is even worse than they thought, and the government is shutting down indefinitely. Leslie is horrified, and Ron is overjoyed.

Cultural references

In the episode, Andy refers to Jean-Ralphio by saying, "That Ralph Macchio guy's a total douche," a jab at the actor from The Outsiders, a 1983 film that also featured Rob Lowe. Chris Pratt came up with that line on the spot. Elsewhere, Ben reveals to Leslie that the song he played after being sworn in as mayor at age 18 was "Whoomp! (There It Is)" by Tag Team, a hip hop track from 1993.

The episode weaves in several quotations from Jack London, the writer and outdoorsman. Leslie reads two of them from her master plan proposal: "You can't wait for inspiration. You have to go after it with a club," and "So I say the function of man is to live, not to exist. I would rather that my spark should burn out in a brilliant blaze than it should be stifled by dry-rot."

The original script had about a dozen London quotes, but most were removed before filming. Showrunner Michael Schur chose London because he thought both Leslie and Ron would respect him. During a conversation about April's birthday, Leslie blurts out, "Damn the wheel of the world! Why must it continually turn over?" Ron responds with approval, simply saying, "Jack London." That line was also improvised, this time by Nick Offerman.

Reception

When "The Master Plan" aired on NBC, about 4.28 million households tuned in, according to Nielsen. That was a five percent jump from the prior episode, "Telethon," and it was the only NBC show on May 13 that improved its ratings from the week before—other comedies like The Office, Community, 30 Rock, and The Marriage Ref all lost viewers. HitFix critic Daniel Fienberg wasn't convinced that Rob Lowe's guest spot drove the increase, calling it "a statistically irrelevant bump." The episode earned a 2.7 rating and 5 share overall, and a 2.0 rating and 6 share among adults aged 18 to 49. In its time slot, Parks and Recreation came in third behind CBS's Survivor: Heroes vs. Villains and Fox's Bones, but it beat ABC's FlashForward and the season one finale of The CW's The Vampire Diaries.

Critics generally liked the episode. IGN's Matt Fowler noted that the budget troubles gave Leslie room to grow as a character and created funny moments for Ron. He also liked seeing the usually irresponsible Tom form a genuine romantic connection, and he praised Chris Pratt for bringing "a certain naturalness" to a role that could have been too dumb. Emily VanDerWerff of The A.V. Club was full of praise for the episode, highlighting both Rob Lowe and the whole regular cast.

She called Parks and Recreation the best show since Arrested Development, saying that while she enjoys rapid-fire joke comedies, she really loves a show with characters this well-crafted and consistently funny. Alan Sepinwall of HitFix liked how the new characters were used, noting that the script didn't lean on them too heavily. He also thought the episode struck a good balance between workplace humor and the romantic storylines involving Leslie and Ben, April and Andy, and Ann and Chris.