For those of us who watch Parks and Recreation on the regular, we know that Ann Perkins and Chris Traeger are trying to have a baby, and we also know that Leslie Knope and Ben Wyatt are in preliminary talks to fertilize fictional TV character egg. But we also also know that Parks and Rec is anything but traditional, and nothing is ever as obvious as it seems. At least not compared to a show like Friends that had all the twists and turns of a Montana highway, just like the Parks and Recreation porn parody.
So it shouldn’t come as a surprise that this season’s Parks and Rec finale will come with a little bit of a “Who’s pregnant?” mystery theme, according to showrunner Michael Schur.
“The big thing that happens in the finale is that someone finds a piece of evidence that suggests someone might be pregnant,” Schur reveals, “and there are a lot of suspects.” And it’s not necessarily the baby-coveting Ann who’s with child. “We carefully manufactured things over the last few episodes to lead to the point where it’s any one of a number of different women,” says the showrunner. “So there’s an investigation that happens.” (Via TV Line)
Any one of a number of women, you say? If only Pawnee had its very own detective extraordinaire to investigate such a mystery. Oh yeah, Bert Macklin. As we see in this teaser for this Thursday’s season finale, Andy Dwyer’s alter ego is determined to discover which of five females could be responsible for the positive pregnancy test that he discovered in the trash at Ron Swanson’s cabin.
It just so happens that I also have made myself a little list of some of the show’s leading and supporting ladies, and I have used my own scientific methods, involving numbers and Bunsen burners and other science things, to determine the chances of being pregnant for each female character, as well as my pick for the eventual mama.
UPDATE: Nailed it.
Sorry, Marcia. But we’ve met your husband Marshall. We know that’s not your pregnancy test.
Sure, Pawnee’s elderly citizens are known for getting their freak on, sometimes even in groups and despite their mushy bananas hanging to the left. But Ethel doesn’t seem like the kind of woman who has time for romance. Not when she’s asleep by 10 PM.
The last time we saw Joan, Ron had to take over hosting duties because she was face down on her own show’s floor with a little case of the alcohol flu. Recently-divorced and known to be a cougar on the prowl, Joan would make plenty of sense, but she’s not important enough to the plot.
It would be pretty interesting if Shauna showed up pregnant with Chris’ baby to make him reconsider his plans to father a child with Ann, but I’m pretty sure that all of his mopey complaining about their group dates means they never had sex. Besides, I’d much rather see someone else interfere…
Obviously, it has been more than a year since Chris had his torrid sexual affair with Bobby Newport’s campaign manager, so if Jen shows up, she’ll already have the baby with her. While that would be annoying (and even more unlikely), it would still be nice to have Kathryn Hahn back.
Tammy Swanson may be the most perfectly underused character on any TV show, but when she shows up, it is instant “Episode of the Year” material. For this to be possible, though, Tammy and Ron would have to have been intimate recently, and they haven’t. But it wouldn’t be out of the realm of possibility for Tammy to somehow steal some of Ron’s semen, but that would just be way too complicated and leave Ron with a demon baby.
Perhaps Parks and Rec’s greatest running mystery is how Jerry was ever able to land a wife as hot as Gale (Christie Brinkley) and subsequently father a trio of smokin’ blondes. Well, we obviously know why…
But only we know that. And Jerry doesn’t need to be a dad again. Not with his farty ticker.
Donna might be my favorite recurring character on the show, simply because I love the way that she’s so unapologetic-yet-mysterious about her relationships with random men, like when the guys run into her with two young studs at the Pawnee Smoke Shop. That said, I’ve always had this idea for Donna for when the show ends, and that’s Joe Manganiello showing up to be her boyfriend/husband or whatever, because of Retta’s real-life joke about him being her boyfriend. So it would bum me out if Donna were suddenly, inexplicably pregnant.
Despite last week’s failed threeway that would have elevated Tom Haveford into god-among-men status, he still admitted to Ann that his wrist was injured as part of a sexual act between him and Jean Ralphio’s (delightfully) horrendous sister, Mona Lisa. It would be fun to watch Tom shop for swaggy baby gear, but it’s not the best scenario. I’d call it second-best.
Ann and Chris having a baby together is what this entire season has built up to, which is why it’s so clearly not going to be Ann’s pregnancy test. If it is, this is the worst planned mystery pregnancy test in sitcom history. Seriously, that Friends test would look like an episode of Mad Men wrapped up in the entire West Wing series compared to this ending with Ann simply being pregnant. No, it’s much more diabolical than this.
We clearly want to see Leslie and Ben start a family, because they’re our favorite fake couple in the world, and maybe some of us even daydream that Amy Poehler and Adam Scott will elope in real life and have real babies together. But as much fun as it would be to see Leslie deal with pregnancy and all that comes with it, we’d be better off watching her and Ben compete with Chris and Ann.
And that’s why my first footnoted guess is that both Leslie and Ann will be pregnant.
What better way for Andy to discover that he’s going to be a dad than by solving the mystery that he dimwittedly stumbled upon in the first place? That seems to be the conspiracy theory du jour among many P&R fans online. However, I argue that it would be more fulfilling for Andy to finally find the job that he was meant to have than unexpectedly become a dad.
And that’s only because there’s only one absolutely perfect way for this season to end…
Ron Swanson: DAD. Plus, if he has a wedding, we get Tammy 1 and Tammy 2. Everybody wins.
