(S6Ep21) Moving Up: Part 1!

You guys, this is the big one. SO MUCH HAPPENS!!!! Cut scenes, replaced scenes, BTS from the cast themselves, Michelle Obama?! AND the Department of the Interior's Resident Bad Boy stops by, I mean..... this is truly a Parks and Rec DREAM. Thank you, writers, cast and crew, for this gift of an episode. :) 

Thank you to Joe Souza for sending in WONDERFUL voice memos, no one knew you were sick, and you were perfect! ahhh!!! 

SOURCES: 

Vanity Fair Article: https://www.vanityfair.com/hollywood/2014/04/parks-and-recreation-finale#:~:text=a%20coy%20hint%20about%20the,Ed%20was%20hired%20or%20something.

Alcatraz: https://www.bop.gov/about/history/alcatraz.jsp

Thomas Hucker (Ron's woodworker mention): https://furnsoc.org/fs22/speakers/tom-hucker

Joe Souza! (Liam Bonneville, Resident Bad Boy): https://www.imdb.com/name/nm1318675/

LET'S MOVE! (MICHELLE OBAMA QUEEN): https://letsmove.obamawhitehouse.archives.gov/

Michelle Obama on Good Hang with Amy Poehler: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dMmCb2hq1OA

Michelle Obama Podcast: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/imo-with-michelle-obama-and-craig-robinson/id1532956108

Merging Towns (Virginia): https://virginiamercury.com/2018/07/18/with-annexation-off-the-table-officials-studying-ways-to-prod-struggling-cities-to-merge-with-counties/#:~:text=Martinsville%20might%20be%20further%20along,than%20the%20cities%20they%20contain.

Shana Hagan (Cam Op for Parks! and Cinematographer Queen): https://parkpalspodcast.buzzsprout.com/1663456/episodes/9915666-our-conversation-with-shana-hagan-aka-camera-operator-tweep

Transcript

Holly Constant (00:04.158)
Okay, well, are you ready?

Madi (00:07.981)
I'm ready. Let's kill it.

Holly Constant (00:09.29)
Okay. All right, everyone. We're doing it. This is crazy. This is the finale. It is nuts. So insane that we're finally here.

Madi (00:18.411)
Yeah, it's the last finale if you think about it because our next one will be the series finale. So it's last season finale. Yeah, it's crazy.

Holly Constant (00:24.752)
Yeah, yeah, that's true. Last season, I guess. Yeah. Well, so quick follow up from the last episode, one in 8,000. I said that I would check if Dean Holland ever was a cinematographer because I think that I had mistakenly said that, of course, he was a cinematographer. He edits and directs. He does all the things. But it looks like he hasn't had that actual role credited to him. I'm sure he's had a hand in it and everything. But he's a very prominent producer, director, and of course, editor, like I said.

But he has never been credited with the role of cinematographer that I could find. Someone else tell me if I'm wrong because I'd be happy to be proven wrong because he definitely seems like he could do that. But yeah, that's not completely true what I said last week or last time.

Madi (00:57.72)
Mm-hmm.

Madi (01:09.465)
So, for those of us that are not all the way versed in that kind of stuff, what does a cinematographer do?

Holly Constant (01:10.909)
Yes.

Holly Constant (01:20.572)
my gosh, great question. I really wanted to get Tom McGill on here to discuss this because this is, he's a cinematographer for the last couple episodes, but the cinematographer is technically a director of photography. So if you hear the term DP, that's what director of photography is. They're also cinematographer. There's like a whole union and everything that you can join, but basically they're responsible for how the show looks.

Madi (01:30.04)
Mm-hmm.

Holly Constant (01:45.158)
and feels, so they deal with the lighting, they take photos to make sure like is the lens right, they set up a lot of like the framing for where the light's gonna hit exactly. So if you see, like we actually, if you remember Mike Trim, who was a cinematographer that we interviewed, or Michael Trim, whatever he wants to go by, we interviewed him and he was talking about how he was not really used to the cinematography on parks because there wasn't that much.

cinematography detail going on, because it was a documentary. But that's not to say that it wasn't a lot of work, because the mockumentary style, you want that harsh light, that fluorescent office lighting. know what I mean? Whereas the cinematography that he was used to was like a Madonna music video, where he was making sure that all the lights were really vogue looking and spectacular and fantastical in a way.

Madi (02:27.191)
Mm-hmm.

Madi (02:32.638)
Hahaha!

Holly Constant (02:39.966)
So that's what the cinematography is about. And actually, the Oscars, if you watch the Oscars, the first lady cinematographer won for Sinners. I believe she was a cinematographer. And she is responsible kind of for taking pictures of all the cast and making sure that their skin matches with the light and how the light matches with the sun and the dirt in the background of whatever was going on in the Sinners will be a...

Madi (02:48.206)
Mm-hmm.

Holly Constant (03:05.764)
lit in a way that shows the feeling of like this is this rustic, like old timey country, you know, what's the word I guess I'm looking for like foresty plantation energy. So that is, yeah, and dark, that's a good word. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And that is what they are responsible for. They play such a hand in it. And Shana is, Shana Hagan, who we interviewed as well.

Madi (03:11.799)
Hmm.

Madi (03:18.253)
Okay.

and dark, right? It was like kind of dark energy.

Madi (03:32.63)
Yeah.

Holly Constant (03:33.732)
is a cinematographer. She was a camera operator on Parks, but she's a cinematographer for Somebody Somewhere on HBO. So good. You guys absolutely have to watch it. It is emotional and heavy, but the cinematography there was really great too, because she was taking pictures and like those like internal or not internal external shots of like the town and stuff. A lot of the times the cinematography has a hand in that too, because they want you to get the feeling of what this town is. And it really sets the scene for like

how you're viewing it. They're in control of how you as the viewer see this project and see this world that they're letting you step into.

Madi (04:11.863)
Yeah, great explanation, super clear. And I think most of us have no idea every step that goes into putting a show or a movie together.

Holly Constant (04:22.173)
Isn't it crazy? It's so wild, all the things that have to come together for that. And then, you know, the cinematographer is working with the director pretty heavily as well, because the director has a vision too of how he wants, he or she wants, or they wants to be seen, you know what I mean? So it is wild that, yeah, you're just looking at this, like the square of your TV and not realizing that all this emotion and energy is coming through because of so many different people's visions. Wild.

Madi (04:23.746)
Yeah.

Madi (04:34.509)
Okay.

Madi (04:50.56)
Mm-hmm. That's crazy. Yeah.

Holly Constant (04:52.839)
So like that's why I was saying that Dean could have absolutely had a hand in it because he's such a good editor, but I feel like that's not that wasn't his role. So just wanted to clarify that. Great question. OK. All right. So this episode is called Moving Up. my gosh. Crazy. Biggest thing they've ever done. And to be honest, I wrote a little note that I am a little nervous to review it because I feel like pressure and stress that.

Madi (04:55.883)
Okay.

Holly Constant (05:18.093)
you know, to just get it right because it's such a fantastic episode. Like, I really feel like I could have taken off work for this, for this to review these because of how many hours I spent on it. So I know we'll miss things for sure, as you know, humans are wont to do. But hopefully you can take the fandom and just kind of run with the things that we've given you. But this is like every Parks fan's dream. Like everything is coming together. All of the people that we've ever seen, I feel.

Madi (05:21.387)
Mm-hmm.

you

Holly Constant (05:46.002)
have come on in this episode. Aubrey Plaza actually has an interview that I found regarding season six finale. And she says it's kind of like a Parks and Rec nightmare, which honestly is a great, like if you can, that's a good metaphor for me. Cause like it's literally all these rando, crazy carnival type characters coming in and like also with like demons too, Tammy and Jam and everyone coming out to play. Like, so I thought that was a really funny little metaphor that she used.

And Tammy and Jam aren't even really in the first part. They're in the second part, which is insane. And then she also related it to the Simpsons where all the random characters come out to play. So I thought that was a really interesting metaphor, Which we have a lot of Simpsons crossover in Parks people, so that makes a lot of sense. OK, so season six, episode 21, original air date, April 24th, 2014, insane.

Madi (06:18.441)
Mm-mm. Yeah.

Madi (06:27.987)
Yeah, for sure.

Madi (06:33.558)
Yeah, absolutely.

Holly Constant (06:43.101)
that this was so long ago, but also not that long ago. You know what I mean? I know, it's insane. And it really makes me think about the people that message us back. I'm like, thank you so much for reaching back into your vault of memory for 12 years ago. I'm surprised you remember anything. It's crazy. Yes, yes, which I think is a testament to some of them, how much they loved the show, because they just like go right back into it. It's amazing.

Madi (06:46.187)
Yeah, yeah, 12 years.

Madi (06:58.941)
Yeah, some of them are so detailed too. It's impressive.

Holly Constant (07:11.235)
So anyways, this is credit. I just wanted to cover the like length of the finale. So technically it's credited on IMDB as two separate episodes because technically it is. It's like two episodes on one air date. And I believe how that's the syndication worked when this was in by syndication. mean, how they put it out on TV to all the different networks, like regionally or whatever.

So because it's so long, we will obviously split it into two episodes as well. So they went ham. They brought in everyone, like I said. And like I said, also, I posted this on social media as well. But I usually have it down to a system. But this one took a longer time because I feel like in the first six minutes, they mentioned so much shit. And I was like, my god, my god, pause, pause, pause every five seconds. But.

Madi (07:59.369)
Yeah.

Holly Constant (08:03.429)
And I'm guessing this took a couple weeks to shoot because they did one week in San Francisco. We do see San Francisco. And then they do the Unity concert another week. And I can't imagine the logistics that you have to pull off to get the Unity concert together because the interviews that I was reading, it was truly like a true music festival. They had actual tents, actual vendors. They did not use CGI like they did in Harvest Festival. All those extras are real. The stage was real.

Madi (08:08.652)
yeah.

Holly Constant (08:31.293)
The signs were real. Like all of this was like a true, you know, Coachella for a party. Yes, the musicians were real. That hologram was CGI. I will say that of Lil Sebastian. Obviously. But yeah, I mean that, but that to have.

Madi (08:37.342)
And the musicians were real.

Madi (08:44.042)
Yeah. Fair, fair. Yeah. But think of that coordination. Yeah.

Holly Constant (08:51.585)
Absolutely. It's crazy. then the travel plans for these bands and the communication. And we'll talk about it a little bit later on. But the idea that Andy is in charge of all of this really freaked me out. And I was like, my God, this is amazing to see the growth because he really does like you see little tidbits of him actually having like professional communication with these people. And I was like, my God. But so it's both meta and not because I feel like the the actual

Madi (09:09.64)
Yeah.

Holly Constant (09:18.631)
planners and casting and all that kind of stuff had so much to do in this episode, which is amazing. And the next thing I want to do before we get into each episode or each scene is that I did find an article. So there was a little bit of confusion on whether this was actually supposed to be a series finale. A lot of fans were like, wait, why did they put everything in here?

were they meant to wrap everything up? Because it does kind of wrap everything up at the end. You're kind of like, I mean, it's a cliffhanger in a way because Ben's wearing a tux and you're like, what's going on? But it could have ended on this, if you think about it really, on this season or on this episode. So I was just going to read this article from Vanity Fair that I found and I'll post it in the show notes. You guys should read the full article. It's really fun. But anyway, this is what it says.

Madi (09:49.341)
Yeah.

Holly Constant (10:10.535)
To the untrained eye, last night's Parks and Recreation might have looked like a series finale. Leslie found a way to switch jobs, but stay in Pawnee. Tom finally found a successful business venture outside the Parks Department. All the characters were content and happy. And then a surprising three-year time jump revealed them even better off in the future. And indeed, executive producer Mike Schurz says all these plot lines had initially been meant to wrap up the entire show until...

NBC all but promised them one more season and they had to come up with a way to leave us on the edge of our seats until fall. yeah, crazy, right? So Mike Schur is saying, okay, so, wait, sorry, were you about to say something?

Madi (10:47.292)
Wow.

Madi (10:54.323)
That I was going to clarify. So the network had said, okay, we're going to let you do season seven, but it wasn't like in writing.

Holly Constant (11:04.405)
Yeah, essentially like Mike Scherr and the writer and Aisha and Alan Yang who wrote this, which I'll get into. are, Aisha is quoted, Aisha is the baby store girl, the Dale Earnhardt baby store girl that I always mention. But she is quoted as saying like, we always kind of write like.

Madi (11:06.096)
Okay, wow.

Holly Constant (11:24.881)
we might not get another season. Like that's kinda, you know, cause it's just so fickle, the entertainment industry, you just never know if you're gonna get another season. And a lot of times, even if it isn't writing, sometimes they're like, well, nevermind. Like we're just not gonna air it cause it's not getting the money that we want or whatever fucking reason, you know what I mean? And so they always wrote as if they were going to end with the hope that they would have another season and they could finish it out. But this one in particular, yeah, they wrote it thinking that they were

Madi (11:31.464)
Mm-hmm.

Madi (11:40.957)
Yeah.

Holly Constant (11:53.854)
pretty much gonna wrap it up and then Ebby C was like, well, we will promise you another season actually. And they were like, okay, so let's finish away to wrap it up. And they did a great job. I mean, it could go both ways. Like I could definitely, like we just said, you could absolutely see the elevator reopening in season seven, even if you hadn't seen it before. Like that could be where your mind goes. But if you never saw another episode of Parks, you'd be like great way to end. You know what I mean?

Madi (12:06.685)
Yeah.

Madi (12:21.53)
Yeah, agreed.

Holly Constant (12:23.353)
Mike Schur says, is quoted here as saying, we were given really every assurance that we would have another season. So at that point we were like, well, we can either radically reconceive all these big story moves that we're doing to try to leave things more open-ended, or we can just figure out a way to take everything that we've got that we like and throw a crazy wrench into the works. And then out of the brainstorming session came the idea that we would jump into the future, quite literally into the future. And I just thought that was more interesting. So it didn't seem right to screw everything up.

Madi (12:54.373)
Yeah, it's the right call. It's different too.

Holly Constant (12:58.205)
Totally. I think, I mean, I know I'm biased, but I really do feel like this is one of the best season, or yeah, season finales of TV. And they just wrapped it up in such a great bow, but like, at the same time, could have opened it too, to like have that next season. So I think they did a really good job.

Madi (13:18.94)
Yeah, I agree. And like the acting of it too, and like the growth that you see in the characters in the very end, right? Like you're saying, you could be like, that's so cool. They all ended up like happy and doing like growing, right? But then when you watch the first episode of season seven, you're like, my gosh, we're gonna see what they're actually doing. So very cool.

Holly Constant (13:23.569)
Yeah.

Holly Constant (13:39.762)
Yes, yes, which I think we don't get a lot of the times with series finales. You're like, wait, but what happened? I do this with books all the time. I finish the book and I'm like, I know it was supposed to be open-ended, but tell me what happens. Like, what did you, the author, and the author's like, well, that's for the audience member to come up with. And I'm like, no, I want to know what you thought.

Madi (13:44.284)
Yeah.

Madi (13:48.327)
Yeah

Madi (13:56.592)
yeah, yeah, I can't do very many of those. Yeah, it's hard.

Holly Constant (14:02.095)
So funny. And then the last bit of the Vanity Fair article says, even though it looks like Leslie Knope will get to stay in Pawnee forever, our time in that town is indeed close to an end. Elsewhere in the massive, utterly fascinating conversation with Entertainment Weekly, admits it's fairly likely that next year will be the last. The natural rhythm of the show and the big creative jump we take at the end of this season certainly suggests that we're moving in that direction. So.

Madi (14:30.8)
I do.

Holly Constant (14:30.821)
we're getting to the end and he knew, which like, I mean, makes total sense because he thought that it was basically gonna be over in season six. So what a crazy surprise. I'd love to talk to Mike Schur and ask like, were you excited that you got an extra season or were you kind of like, it's like this big anticlimactic moment of like, I thought I was done now, which I know that everybody would, the whole cast loves this show and loves being on this show. And I think the crew did too. So I'm sure everyone was like, it's still excited, but it's like,

Madi (14:50.896)
Yeah.

Holly Constant (15:00.123)
you thought you were kind of done and wrapped up and now you're like, shit, now we got a whole other season to produce.

Madi (15:05.765)
Yeah, well he had already started Brooklyn Nine-Nine at this point though, right? So he had a whole other show he was also...

Holly Constant (15:09.358)
Right, correct. Yeah.

Yeah, yeah, totally. And Dan Gore created that with him, who was also a Parks dude. And I don't believe Dan Gore is in the writers' room anymore. I think he also directed a couple, maybe two. I can't remember, maybe not. But he definitely wrote some Parks. I think he's kind of doing that, while Mike Schur at this point, anyway, was still show running. And show running is basically stage managing, meaning you are doing everything.

Madi (15:14.865)
fathering.

Madi (15:18.928)
Right.

Madi (15:34.106)
Uh-huh.

Holly Constant (15:39.361)
everything and like making sure the logistics are all running well. So Mike Schurr is still on board for Parks at this point. I don't know for next season if he's show running. I think he is. I can't remember though. So I'll look that up in season seven. But that's kind of what happened with The Office because Toby or what's his name in real life? my gosh.

Madi (15:58.99)
My brain is going to say Toby Flinterson, but it's Paul Lieberstein.

Holly Constant (16:01.405)
There you go, Paul Lieberson. Because Paul Lieberson took over show running when Mike Scherr left to go do Parks. So this is kind of weaving in and out of who is taking care of what. yeah, it's really, it's crazy. The logistics that go into this is just something that no one ever thinks about and they do such a good job because you can tell that.

you know, was like we audience are not supposed to know that stuff. You know what I mean? Like we're just supposed to have a good time and they really succeeded in that.

Madi (16:33.446)
Agree.

Holly Constant (16:34.151)
But yeah, I thought that was crazy. I thought that was wild, that this was supposed to kind of sort of be the end. And then Embassy was like, but you get another season. So, so cool. So this was written by Aisha Muhar, like I said, our Dale Earnhardt Jr. baby store lady, and Alan Yang, our bass player of Mouse Rat, who gets to come back at the end of this episode. And then directed by Mike Schur, AKA Moe's from the office. I don't mention that enough, you guys.

Madi (16:36.944)
Yeah.

Madi (16:44.89)
So cool.

Madi (17:01.36)
Yeah, I know. my gosh.

Holly Constant (17:03.941)
We haven't talked about that enough. But if you watch The Office, that is Mo's. Mo's is Mike Scherr. Mike Scherr is Mo's.

Madi (17:11.364)
And he's just the most perfect Moe's. It's just, every time I see him, like, especially in that episode where Jim and Pam go stay at the beet farm and he's just running next to the car. I die. I'm like, that guy's one of the most intelligent people in the world.

Holly Constant (17:13.373)
He's so good. Oh my god.

Holly Constant (17:21.964)
yeah, uh-huh. my god. It's crazy.

and then just like jumping over all the cars and the school bus and stuff and it's just like that's so funny that they gave him that. my god. Yeah so all these people are pros and people I have spoken extensively about so I don't need to do a breakdown and I thought it was just hilarious that at this point I'm just like putting the most minimalist thing that they have on their resume to describe them but I still love it so.

Madi (17:34.138)
at the end.

Yeah, so good. What a legend.

Madi (17:59.503)
Yeah, absolutely.

Holly Constant (18:00.592)
Okay, so I finally have summary written in, which I'm sorry I stepped on your toes a little bit with the Vanity Fair article explaining a little bit of it, but it's not gonna be the same. So let's just listen to yours and forget about

Madi (18:04.505)
Alright.

Madi (18:08.712)
no.

Madi (18:14.542)
Yes. Well, and I only did a summary for the first half so that like, know what we're going to talk about. then so everybody will get the second half summary when we put the second episode out. Okay. Leslie, Ben and Andy head to San Francisco. Leslie continues to struggle with her decision to take the national parks job. Cones of Dunshire makes a surprise appearance and Tom tries to open his new restaurant in time for the Unity concert.

Holly Constant (18:17.542)
Yeah, that's perfect.

Holly Constant (18:41.787)
Yay! Okay, great. my gosh, so much shit even in that like small summary. my god. San Francisco, are you kidding me? Okay, I do want to say since, huge, since we are doing kind of just covering everything, I do want to play some trailers that I found, promo trailers, background trailers from Amy Poehler, Adam Scott, Aziz, and Donna. I just think that it would be really interesting and good for us to set the scene.

Madi (18:45.761)
I- For real.

Yeah, huge.

Holly Constant (19:09.667)
of what we are about to see, especially Amy's, I really like it. So I'll just go ahead and play those, let me find it.

Holly Constant (20:31.005)
Sorry, there was these pauses in the middle, but there's still a lot left.

Holly Constant (23:26.333)
Okay, that was it. my God, I love hearing Amy Poehler talk about it, talk about parks. It's so cute.

Madi (23:37.89)
Oh yeah, you can tell how proud she is. I love, I was just gonna say I love hearing all the sound checking in the background.

Holly Constant (23:40.601)
Yeah, and go ahead.

Holly Constant (23:46.002)
Me too, exactly, that's what I'm saying. It's like a legitimate music festival happening right there. my God. And I love how she is talking about how she blackmailed Jett and Yuin, that was really fun. But I love that she brings up the crew, like how hard the crew worked in that one week to put together that full episode. That is so crazy, my God. Okay, let's listen to Adam Scott's, if I can find it.

Madi (23:51.232)
Yeah, it's awesome.

Madi (23:58.827)
Yes.

Madi (24:02.849)
Yeah.

Madi (24:06.54)
Yeah.

Holly Constant (27:54.557)
Yay! I love it.

Madi (27:57.945)
You can hear Amy Poehler yell, In the background. So funny.

Holly Constant (28:01.022)
Yeah, oh My god, it's so good. I might cut some of that down. I don't know but I like hearing all of it It's so fun to me. Yay Yeah, and I agree that yeah if anyone Leslie can handle it and as we saw Ben was kind of freaking out about having triplets So yeah Okay, um Just a couple more. I was the next one is Aziz aka Tom. I really liked his

Madi (28:09.941)
Yeah.

Madi (28:17.982)
Yeah, true.

Holly Constant (31:44.125)
Yay! I love hearing Aziz speak as himself and not as Tom.

Madi (31:49.306)
Yes, yeah, it's refreshing for sure.

Holly Constant (31:52.208)
Yeah, and great point about Leslie overwhelming one child to have all her love spread over three kids is, yeah, that's classic and that's good, that's true.

Madi (32:03.422)
I had never heard of, I'd never thought about that and it's so accurate.

Holly Constant (32:07.299)
Yeah, I know. I never thought about it either. And yeah, that is Astute. Knows his character well that hopefully he doesn't have to babysit. my god. Okay. Last one is Breda, aka Donna.

Madi (32:16.338)
Yeah.

Yes. So funny.

Holly Constant (36:32.157)
does she mean by social media? Do you know what she's talking about? I didn't see any deleted scenes or anything. I mean, I would just assume as a fan that she probably has some sort of social media TikTok presence. So I could see that. But yes, I agree with her that I would love to see more of Donna and Tom at spas and just like, you know, treating themselves. That would be so fun.

Madi (36:35.91)
you

Madi (36:45.35)
Yeah.

Madi (36:57.049)
That's kind of what they do, so...

Holly Constant (36:59.185)
Yeah, they're really good at it. yes, love. OK, so those were all the trailer promos. Thank you for listening to that. I will say I wanted to see Dennis Meinstein. I was waiting for him to come up. I don't know why they didn't bring him back.

Madi (37:01.679)
I like it.

Holly Constant (37:18.779)
Because he's famous and he could come to Tom's Bistro. Maybe it's because we burned that bridge. I don't know.

Madi (37:23.604)
Right. I mean, it very well could be. But Ben's not there.

Holly Constant (37:26.575)
Or maybe Jason Manzoukas wasn't available. I don't know. But I feel like he's rich and has money, so I feel like he could have come. But it's fine. Whatever.

Madi (37:31.919)
Yeah, true.

Madi (37:39.355)
Yeah.

Holly Constant (37:40.893)
All right, well let's move forward. So we start this episode in San Francisco like we heard from everybody. They are actually in San Francisco. This was not like a set or anything like that. They flew out there. We're with Andy, Ben, and Leslie, and we're looking at Alcatraz, which Andy thinks Michael Bay created for the movie The Rock.

Madi (37:58.851)
Yeah, my gosh.

Holly Constant (38:01.19)
Which, by the way, I know most of you probably already know this because we have a smart audience, but just in case you did not know, Alcatraz has been around long before Michael Bay.

Madi (38:11.983)
long, long before. Like it was created, it became a prison, not a national, but it became a federal prison in 1934.

Holly Constant (38:19.067)
Yes.

Holly Constant (38:23.421)
Right, yes, oh my gosh, I did a whole little breakdown on Alcatraz, which is one of the reasons why it took me so long to do this episode review, but it's really interesting. So yes, it's located in San Francisco Bay, evolved from a 19th century military fortress, which I did not know, that's what it started as in the 1850s. And then, like you said, the federal prison was in 1934, was when it converted, that ended in 1963, and then it...

Madi (38:29.72)
Yeah.

Holly Constant (38:50.749)
turned into a famous tourist site. And it is known as The Rock. I did not know that that was like a nickname for it. It held notorious criminals due to its maximum security and escapable design. And it is now a national historic landmark, which Leslie is able to see that that's like one of the things that the parks covers.

I do have a couple of websites that I'll post in the show notes if you want to read about it. several well-known criminals such as Al Capone, George Machine Gun Kelly, Alvin Karpis, which is the first public enemy number one, and Arthur Doc Barker did time on Alcatraz. So most of the prisoners incarcerated there were not well-known gangsters, but prisoners who refused to conform to rules and regulations at other federal institutions. And they were considered violent and dangerous. And they were considered escape risks.

So that makes sense. Also, I did not know, this is dumb of me I guess, but Machine Gun Kelly, the artist, got his name from this criminal. I did not know that. Did you know that?

Madi (39:50.457)
huh. I didn't, I didn't either until you said it out loud and I was like, all right. That's yeah.

Holly Constant (39:54.043)
Isn't that crazy? Wild!

And it's the name Alcatraz is derived from the Spanish word Alcatraces. I'm sorry, I'm saying that very white girl, but Alcatraces. In 1775, the Spanish explorer Juan Manuel de Ayala was the first to sail into what is now known as San Francisco Bay, and his expedition actually mapped the bay and named one of the three islands Alcatraces. And over time, the name was Anglican.

Madi (40:08.715)
hehe

Holly Constant (40:27.845)
transformed to Alcatraz. While the exact meaning is still debated, Alcatraz is usually defined as meaning pelican or strange bird. So maybe there were some pelicans or strange birds on this little island. And then in 1850, a presidential order set aside the island for possible use as a United States military reservation, which is what we talked about, and the California Gold Rush, which was the resulting boom in the growth of San Francisco and the need to protect San Francisco Bay,

Madi (40:42.019)
Maybe.

Holly Constant (40:57.507)
led to the U.S. Army to build a citadel or fortress at the top of the island in the early 1850s. And the Army also made plans to install more than 100 cannons on the island, making Alcatraz the most heavily fortified military site on the West Coast. So together with Fort Point and Lime Point, which are two points on the actual island, Alcatraz formed a triangle of defense.

Madi (41:12.954)
Well.

Holly Constant (41:21.265)
designed to protect the entrance to the bay, and the island was also the site of the first operational lighthouse on the west coast of the United States. I love a lighthouse knowledge moment. And then by the 1850s, the first military prisoners were being housed on the island. So it was military prisoners first before federal prison for these criminals. And while the defensive necessity of Alcatraz diminished over time, meaning that the island actually never fired its guns in battle,

Madi (41:30.659)
Wow. Yeah, me too.

Holly Constant (41:50.846)
just wild to me. Its role as a prison would continue for more than 100 years. And then in 1909, the army tore down the Citadel, leaving its basement to serve as the military prison. And then in 1909 through 1911, the military prisoners built the new prison, which was designated as the Pacific branch US disciplinary barracks for the US Army. And that's where it later became known as the Rock. So

Madi (42:17.643)
Okay.

Holly Constant (42:18.461)
I feel like it's very interesting. then the last thing, I know I'm going on and on, this is last thing I promise. The US Army used the island for more than 80 years from 1850 until 1933 when the island was transferred to the US Department of Justice or DOJ as a lot of people know now for use by the Federal Bureau of Prisons and the federal government had decided to open a maximum security minimum privilege penitentiary to deal with the most incorrigible inmates in federal prisons.

and to show the law-abiding public that the federal government was serious about stopping the rampant crime of the 1920s and 1930s. 1920s, as you know, 1930s was like mob vibes, all that kind of criminal activity going on. So that is the history of Alcatraz, and I'm sure you could read more in the articles if you're interested, but that's a little breakdown for you.

Madi (42:56.665)
Hmm.

Madi (43:10.86)
Yeah, crazy, I've never been, I really wanna go and take a tour.

Holly Constant (43:14.861)
Yeah, I've never taken a tour either. I've been to San Francisco and I've seen it from afar, but we didn't do the tour. That would be really interesting and scary. There's probably ghosts and hauntings and all the things. I bet they do. I wonder if they do like a Halloween moment. I bet they do. Like ghost tours. my God. That would be crazy.

Madi (43:22.742)
Yeah. Yeah.

Madi (43:29.584)
I'm sure they do a Halloween moment. Yeah. So cool. We went to a prison tour in Ireland and it was just really interesting to hear like the history of like what somebody did to go to prison there and like what was a day in the life like. But yeah, my nerd moment here is that Alcatraz actually also influenced the creation of Azkaban in Harry Potter.

Holly Constant (43:46.523)
Yeah.

Holly Constant (43:56.37)
yeah, totally. And it looks like it too. When you watch Harry Potter, it looks like it. It's in the middle of an island or in the middle of the ocean or whatever. Nobody can escape. You know what I mean? Well, except for the Dementors can break out and help Bellatrix escape. Whatever. It's Semantics. But yeah, that is interesting. Okay. Moving on.

Madi (44:00.158)
Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Madi (44:08.632)
except for... yeah. Yeah.

No big deal.

Holly Constant (44:21.487)
And he can't tell if Ben was trying to sleep because he had a mask over his eyes, which I thought that was hilarious. I couldn't tell what those were. So oblivious. And then Leslie has a talking head here and she says that this might be the craziest week of her entire life. She's six days away from the Unity concert, pregnant with triplets. She's deciding whether or not she should take this job. And she's speaking at the National Parks Conference where Michelle Obama is giving the keynote. my God, like I said.

Madi (44:27.286)
Yeah.

Holly Constant (44:51.707)
That, I mean this episode is just bringing out everybody. mean, Michelle Obama has never been on the show, but I mean, to add her that Leslie's like fangirled them, if you will, fandom, fangirling. my God. Absolutely. my God. It's insane. When you hear that, you're like, well, there's no way they're gonna bring her on the show. Like, and then you get a glimpse of her and you're like, my God, I can't believe they did that. She's so good too. And she,

Madi (44:54.935)
That's so much.

Madi (45:00.055)
Mm-hmm.

Madi (45:04.567)
I think we should all fangirl over her.

Madi (45:13.469)
Yeah, yeah, you're like, that's insane.

Holly Constant (45:20.731)
I don't know if anyone else listens to Good Hang with Amy Poehler, but Michelle Obama was interviewed by Amy Poehler and they talked about this episode and it was really funny. And they did a really good job of discussing Park's history, so definitely listen to that when you can.

Okay, so now Andy says that they need to break into Alcatraz, but not through the tour because that's exactly how they'll be expecting him to break in.

Madi (45:46.857)
Yes, I have that note too.

So good.

Holly Constant (45:52.41)
I know. So Tom is opening his restaurant in six weeks. This is the hardest he's ever worked on anything, he says, which I don't think is completely true because he worked hard on Rent-A-Swag, but I do get that this is probably harder, so I get it. But come on, Tom, you're not that sleazy guy anymore. Don't say that you don't work hard on stuff. You know, he's going back into his old patterns.

Madi (46:02.101)
He did.

Madi (46:10.175)
Yeah. Yeah. And he's, he's, you know, questioning himself a little bit, but then he still jumps into the fire. But yeah, I mean, you think about Rent-A-Swag was he already had the inventory. It was his clothes. It was just finding the space and putting together a good business plan and pricing and all that stuff. Like now he has to find a chef. What kind of food is he going to order, like make? Where is he going to get the, the supplies? Should he get his produce from the same place as the meat place? Like.

Holly Constant (46:16.828)
Mm-hmm.

Holly Constant (46:22.491)
Yeah.

Holly Constant (46:37.926)
Right.

Madi (46:38.528)
There's a lot more that goes into this. I agree with you. He definitely worked hard on Rent-A-Swag, but he might be a little bit more overloaded with this endeavor.

Holly Constant (46:48.603)
Yeah, totally. Yeah, so he is true that this is the hardest he's ever worked, I feel. But then when he says, I've never worked hard at anything, I was like, okay, that's a bit too far. But yeah, you're right. No, this is a big thing and restaurants are insane. There's so many logistics to go through. that's, mean, he is really pushing himself and you can see it too. They do a good job of showing how hard he's working here.

Madi (46:59.27)
Yeah, true. You have.

Madi (47:10.518)
Mm-hmm.

Holly Constant (47:13.629)
Our investor is back and says he wishes he could be open for a Unity concert to get all the buzz and you know get people in. I do love this investor guy. I think this character slash this actor did a really good job with kind of like intimidating but you also really want to impress him but you're also kind of scared of him like but he's also kind of nice you know.

Madi (47:32.68)
Yeah, yeah, definitely a myriad of emotions in the interactions with him.

Holly Constant (47:38.706)
Yeah. And while this conversation is happening, Tom is like, well, why don't we open in, you know, however many weeks for the Unity concert? Like, who cares? And April and Craig, get their, the camera pans to them and you see their look that they're flabbergasted. Like, there's no way six days or six weeks to six days. No, that's a huge time chunk of things that need to happen. Like, that's insane.

Madi (48:04.418)
yeah, that gave me so much stress when he was like, no, yeah, we'll do a soft open. And especially because like I get what he's trying to do, right? Like this is a great opportunity to be open for the Unity concert. But the investor wasn't really pushing him to do it. He just said like, it would be great if we could. And so it makes me sad how this kind of ends where it's like, okay, but you...

Holly Constant (48:07.547)
Mm-hmm.

Madi (48:33.098)
You didn't push him to do it.

Holly Constant (48:35.361)
Yeah. Yeah, I know. It's like such a mixed bag because Tom is so excited about it. So I love seeing his enthusiasm and his excitement. And he's like, yeah, sure, whatever we can do it. But he's not thinking straight or not thinking about the logistics. Like April says the sign doesn't even say Tom's Bistro. It says Tom's by they're not even done painting. Never mind. That's fine. We're ready. But I mean, the chairs aren't finished. The you know, the menus haven't been printed yet. Like and also you have to be

Madi (48:42.356)
Mm-hmm.

Madi (48:55.658)
Yeah, we're ready. Yeah, I love her.

Holly Constant (49:04.505)
you know, aware of the wiggle room that you need in case anything does fuck up, like the menus when Jerry tears that to shreds, you know what I mean? Like, there, it doesn't, yeah, it's just, yeah, it's stressful. I do love Craig's line of, me Kristen because I'm wigging out right now.

Madi (49:13.503)
Yeah.

Madi (49:19.722)
Yeah.

Madi (49:24.051)
Yeah, so good. Such a good call to Kristen Dweg. I love it. Yeah, I think if Tom had like reigned it in a little bit and said, okay, it's a soft open, we can still make improvements afterwards. Like, you know, and just done like a really nice paper printed menu. didn't have to be a book, right? Like, I think he could have he could have found ways, but he was just so excited. And he was so proud.

Holly Constant (49:27.846)
I know.

Holly Constant (49:45.297)
Yes.

Holly Constant (49:52.378)
I know.

Madi (49:53.993)
So.

Holly Constant (49:55.17)
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, totally. know. And he doesn't seem to have anyone else that's giving him options or having another person to bounce ideas off of right now. feel like all of his friends are just being workers, which is great and helpful. But no, he doesn't have someone that's like, OK, well, what if we do this, this, and this instead of the crazy things that you're talking about? You know what I mean? To meet in the middle. So yeah, I could see how he keeps going on and on.

Madi (50:18.964)
Yeah.

Madi (50:24.679)
Yeah, he doesn't have a business partner.

Holly Constant (50:26.685)
Yeah, yeah, exactly. And he's channeling his Leslie, which I do love that. This is absolutely what Leslie would do, I feel. So he's definitely learning from her. But yeah.

Madi (50:37.512)
Absolutely he is.

Holly Constant (50:39.837)
Yeah, the idea that putting McDonald's out of business is not super realistic, not a great goal, but you know, stay positive, that's fine.

Madi (50:48.999)
Yeah, especially since it's not the same food, Tom.

Holly Constant (50:52.259)
Right. And it's a whole other thing. Like, fast food is not the same as yours.

Madi (50:58.377)
Yeah, no.

Holly Constant (51:00.625)
So now we're at the conference and there's a name tag that says Lester Knopf that Leslie thinks is hers. Come on guys, get it together. But then turns out there really is a Lester Knopf that shows up. my God, that is so funny. I love that. What a nice surprise. my God. Sad news though, I did look up this Lester Knopf fellow. He passed away in 2022. No.

Madi (51:08.863)
Yeah.

Madi (51:13.949)
I know I love that. I love that too.

Yeah.

Madi (51:26.644)
rest in peace.

Holly Constant (51:28.701)
Rest in peace. He is played by the actor Patrick Gilbert. He was an actor and production assistant known for Yumi and Dupree, which I never saw, but that was a movie. Hawaii Five-O and Spanners. He died on September 4th, 2022 in the USA. So thank you so much for doing that because we love Lester Knapp.

Madi (51:37.982)
was, yeah.

Madi (51:48.902)
Yes, go Lester.

Holly Constant (51:50.523)
And shout out to production assistants everywhere because they get shit done and get very little credit.

Madi (51:55.74)
Yes.

Holly Constant (51:57.978)
Then we see Grant is there. Leslie has been ducking his calls, sadly avoiding him because she doesn't know what she wants to do. And Grant is like, okay, well, join me for lunch. Like, you know, we could talk about it. And Leslie's like, no. But then Liam Bonneville is gonna be there. The Department of the Interior's resident bad boy, which we mentioned a couple times when Grant first showed up. So that really gets Leslie's gears going.

Madi (52:17.854)
Yeah.

Nice callback too. Yep.

Holly Constant (52:22.109)
Great callback. And I love that we're actually going to meet him and see him in the flesh. She needs to get her autograph book so that she can be prepared to meet him.

Madi (52:30.525)
Yeah.

Holly Constant (52:33.091)
Side note, Grant is played by Brady Smith. think that I did a whole break. I did. I did a whole breakdown on him when he first came in, but I've been exchanging emails with him and I'm pretty positive we're going to get to interview him. So I will keep you guys posted on because I want to do a full interview with him because he's been in so many episodes and he was such a huge part of Leslie, you know, moving up as this episode states. So I really want to talk to him about all of the processes and stuff like that. And did he I don't think they.

Madi (52:45.222)
nice.

Holly Constant (53:01.767)
went to San Francisco, I think this portion was filmed in LA. But still, who knows? So yeah, I'll keep you guys posted on when we do that. Okay. And yeah, which is perfect because by that time we'll have reviewed most of his episodes anyway, so that way we can dive deeper. Then we get our first Grizzle mention. So crazy that this doesn't happen until the end of season six. I mean, well not, it's not the first mention. Yeah, they mentioned him in the prom.

Madi (53:26.821)
Yes. Well, yeah.

Holly Constant (53:31.217)
But like, now we're actually, but like we don't actually know what Grizzle is. Yeah, and she says in the prom, like the Grizzle dump or whatever the fuck, which is like the streaming music service. So like it was such a throwaway line and now we're actually learning what Grizzle actually does. So it's crazy though that we don't see them until the end of season six. So they really only have like season seven to, but there's such a part of Park's lore. Isn't that crazy? Well, it's like when.

Madi (53:33.587)
This is our first visual.

Madi (53:53.426)
Yeah.

Madi (53:57.617)
Yeah, it's nuts.

Holly Constant (53:59.642)
Yeah, when you think of like even certain characters that were only in it for like two episodes or even like maybe one scene, but they're so recognizable and you're like, my God, how are you not more?

Madi (54:07.175)
Yeah. Yeah. my gosh. Yeah. Agree. I'd love to hear like hear did the grizzle comment. Was that just like an offhand? They didn't think they were going to do anything about it. And then they like recalled it in the writer's room or did they know that grizzle was going to be a thing? Like very interesting.

Holly Constant (54:25.693)
Yeah, I want to know too. That's a great question. I honestly, yeah, I kind of had that note too where I was like, they always have note cards of like things that they've mentioned before when they're trying to pull ideas out. I don't know, man. I feel like it was so long ago that they didn't know that they were going to have this visual of it, but maybe they did. Yeah, that's a great question.

Madi (54:48.38)
Yeah.

Holly Constant (54:49.925)
I do have a list of questions for Mike Schurr if I ever do get to talk to him. So I'll have to add that in. Let me just make a note so I remember. I'm serious. Or maybe Amy Poehler knows. Whichever one I talk to first, I don't know. Yeah. Grizzle question, Mike Schurr. OK, great. Or Amy. Or whoever. Or whoever. OK. Yeah.

Madi (54:56.816)
Yes, for sure.

Madi (55:05.508)
It's the dream. Make it happen. We're going to make it happen.

Madi (55:16.434)
I just, just emotionally, I'm picturing us on a video call with Amy Poehler and I would, I would cry so hard. I wouldn't be able to stop the tears.

Holly Constant (55:27.453)
my God. I do think, I know, I know, I would be really insanely shocked. I video, I think I would be more crazy if I was in person with her because the energy of her would just overwhelm me and flood me with emotion. I'm not saying, I know, or I'd like want to like touch her or like reach out my hand and like just, are you there?

Madi (55:49.041)
You'd wanna hug her.

Holly Constant (55:57.214)
But I do, mean, not that I wouldn't be insane over a video too, like let's be real, come on. But I do feel like, and I don't know, I mean, I'm not, I still would be emotional, but I do feel like this podcast, interviewing Perd and interviewing like all these people and directors and crazy, like Shawna has prepared me to not go insane, but also,

I would go little insane.

Madi (56:28.067)
Yeah, yeah, we would be emotional.

Holly Constant (56:32.495)
Yeah, well, and it's because also Amy Poehler, like, you know her status and Mike Scherr, you know her status in relation to the show. You know what I mean? Like, everyone had such a huge part in it. I think not knowing that certain people were so famous, like, for example, Brian Stack when I interviewed him, I knew he was famous in, well, famous in small circles because he's a writer on Conan and Colbert and all these things and has like insane sketch, you know, things that I am just such a huge fan of.

Madi (56:40.048)
Mm-hmm.

Madi (56:58.341)
Yeah.

Holly Constant (57:02.033)
But I think I didn't, I don't know. I think it's like I was in denial or something and I shocked myself into believing it's not that big a deal, whatever. And then now that I think about it, really think about it after it's over, I'm like, I just interviewed Brian Stack. I can't believe that I got to do that. That is literally insane. And he is the nicest, most sweetest, smartest dude in the whole world. And so I feel like with Amy though, I would already kind of have that insanity going into it.

Madi (57:29.53)
Yeah.

Holly Constant (57:32.146)
my god. Anyways, well, we're manifesting, so that's all I have to say.

Madi (57:35.621)
The dream. Yeah.

Holly Constant (57:38.238)
Okay, let's see. Okay, so they're meeting with Grizzle, Andy and Ben are, which is a tech company in San Francisco. They're giving away free wifi to a few cities across America and they're pitching Pawnee, which I think is a great idea. It would be a great gift for this new town. my gosh, then Eagleton could pay off some of their debts and not have to pay for internet. Amazing, totally. my God, I related to this so hard as a

Madi (57:59.819)
on wifi, which is expensive.

Holly Constant (58:07.815)
person from a small town that does not have access to wifi. And you might be thinking, how do you not have access to wifi? That's insane. Matty, you already know this, because I've like explained and ranted ad nauseum about it. But people still in this country do not have fucking wifi, okay? And there are satellite internets, which is great, but Starlink, I don't want to support Elon Musk. And...

It's, but like you have to do that in a way. have T-Mobile now, which is also a satellite thing. And I think they use Starlite satellites. I don't think it's like owned by them, but like, I think they use some of their satellites. like, but you have, you have to do it. Like just like in Ben's speech or whatever, when he says internet is no longer optional, it's like, that is a fact. It is not just for TikToks. Like, yeah.

Madi (58:53.38)
Yeah, it's not. Yeah, you can't work. Yeah.

Holly Constant (58:58.405)
You can't work, you can't send emails, you can't pay taxes, you can't like do anything that you have to do as a human. And I just can't believe that some of the things, like what I also have, what we had is Verizon, but it's like the dial-up version, well not dial-up, it's like a thing above dial-up, like it still uses a phone line, which is why it's so slow and which is why it wouldn't work for me working from home. Like what I'm using right now is the T-Mobile thing, but it's capped at a certain limit. So I have to be very careful about

Madi (59:25.144)
Yikes. Yeah.

Holly Constant (59:27.409)
how much I use it and sometimes I'll use my phone's personal hotspot as well because that even works better than the Verizon thing. And I called Comcast and they said that they would dig a line for $12,000. Just me, just my house, not the whole suburb. Yes. And I was like, you know what? I bet I could get.

Madi (59:34.533)
Yeah.

Madi (59:46.192)
$12,000, Holly.

Holly Constant (59:52.478)
You know my neighbors and stuff they need Wi-Fi. I don't know what the fuck they're using. So I'm sure that I could do that and But then I was like, but I think $12,000 was just for one line it's not for the whole subdivision and then they said that The houses aren't close enough together, you know how in subdivisions the houses are so close and I was like But there's that made sense back when I was growing up because there was probably like six houses back here now There's more they've added more and it's not it's a private road

Madi (01:00:11.002)
Yeah.

Holly Constant (01:00:21.393)
which also could be something, but we are on a main artery that connects to so many highways. So it's not as if we're like desolate, like out in Montana where nobody is, you know what I'm saying? Like it's not just a homestead. Yes, we're in the boonies. Yes, we're in the sticks. Like the forest is right outside, but like there should be internet. And so Starlink is really the only option for a lot of people. And so there's really like no moral way to have wifi, I feel.

Madi (01:00:22.128)
Madi (01:00:31.097)
Right.

Madi (01:00:34.511)
Yeah.

Holly Constant (01:00:51.073)
And what's so crazy is that I can go 15 minutes up the road in opposite directions and to the closest towns and they have Wi-Fi. What the fuck is that about? So sometimes I'll go to the library if my internet's fucked up or if I ran out or whatever. And it's just like, I think about kids in school, they only use internet now. How are they doing homework? How are they researching whatever they need to do? And quality of life even. Like, everything's TV is on streaming.

Madi (01:01:13.668)
Yeah.

Holly Constant (01:01:18.831)
It's so wild. And so there's this new thing called Firefly, which I did some research on, which is where the electric company, it kind of reminds me of Grizzle, honestly. Not completely, but like, it's just like a workaround in a way where the electric companies are like working with this new internet company to use the power lines.

Madi (01:01:23.801)
So, okay.

haha

Holly Constant (01:01:39.528)
for high speed internet, which is great, but my county doesn't have that accessibility yet. And I think it has something with the electric companies like having a monopoly on certain regions of our county and stuff. And there's some people getting it, which is like really great that that's even an option for some of these people that are up in the mountains and stuff like that. But it's just such a clusterfuck because I'm like, I know there's logistics that go into it. I understand there's like 9,000 things, but I just feel like our county in particular, A, doesn't want change.

Madi (01:01:39.938)
Okay.

Madi (01:01:45.135)
Hmm.

Madi (01:02:01.763)
Yeah.

Holly Constant (01:02:08.123)
B, it would probably cost money, taxes. Like these Pawnee bitches would come to the city council and complain about like, well, you're raising my taxes or you're raising whatever the fuck fees for this. And I'm just like, in order to move forward, you do have to sometimes spend money. And you also have to think about it, which is again, this is, I'm almost done with my rant, but again, this is like people resisting against like the socialist idea that we're all in this together. We could all pay.

Madi (01:02:11.982)
Yeah.

Madi (01:02:22.957)
Yeah.

Holly Constant (01:02:36.317)
and split the price for everyone to succeed. But here with this capitalistic, like small town shit, it's like every man for himself. You get your own shit. You stay off my land. All this kind of thing. And it just, it trickles down to every facet of life. And it's so weird. So I think about this Parks episode all the time. Especially that trial thing that Ben says. Like I think about it.

Madi (01:02:55.043)
Yeah.

Holly Constant (01:03:02.621)
all the time because they said that in fucking 2014 or I guess 2015 was the trial but 2014 was this episode and we're in 2026 and yet some people still don't have that. Are you being so for real? And then I think about how people can't move forward or learn or educate themselves because they have to go somewhere else. It's just like, or work from home is not really an option or whatever the quality of, it's just so wild to me. So sometimes you do have to use the not moral thing.

Madi (01:03:11.022)
Right.

Madi (01:03:28.013)
Yeah.

Holly Constant (01:03:30.941)
and get Starlink or whatever because there's just no other option. It's a monopoly.

Madi (01:03:34.956)
Yeah, yeah, no, absolutely. And I think it's a good representation of with some parts of our country that are operating at like highest, highest level with the highest level tech with the with the highest internet, my fastest internet, whatever. And then we still have parts of the country that, like you said, don't have it. It's crazy.

Holly Constant (01:03:53.567)
Mm-hmm. Yeah. And like you think about what you do, again, not just like streaming and stuff, but you think about like paying bills or, yeah, like I said, paying your taxes, how we communicate with people via email, all that kind of stuff. And yes, you can use data. You can use your cell phone data for a lot of that stuff. But how much easier would it be if you could have access to internet, you know?

And sometimes in these areas, you don't have good service, regardless of what your internet service is, because we are out here in the sticks. You know what I mean? So sometimes that doesn't even work. And I still know old people, but I don't think this is like a small town thing. I just think it's like a generational thing. I do know like some old aunts and stuff that still pay their checks via, or still pay their bills via check in the mail, which I find hilarious, because that's what they want to do and that's totally fine. But yeah, I mean, I guess I don't know why no one else

Madi (01:04:38.723)
Yeah.

Holly Constant (01:04:47.408)
Is it just T-Mobile and Starlink that have satellite internet? Like, why is Elon Musk at the top of this fucking...

Madi (01:04:55.833)
chain.

Holly Constant (01:04:56.496)
Yeah, why isn't anyone else doing that? You know what I mean? It's so weird. But anyways, so I had a whole, already said it. I wrote like a whole script for myself to say all of these things. So I'm trying to figure out where I left off because I didn't really need a script.

Madi (01:04:59.669)
Yeah, I can tell you, yeah.

Madi (01:05:15.285)
Yeah, no you didn't. You did great.

Holly Constant (01:05:17.278)
America is so funny. almost forgot that I even wrote the... Because I reviewed this a long time ago. You guys are getting a little bit of how the sausage is made. And so I almost forgot that I wrote the $12,000 thing. I thought I was just ranting in that second. But no, I wanted you all to know that apparently.

Madi (01:05:34.253)
It is insane.

Holly Constant (01:05:36.127)
Yeah, mean, yeah, it's just, it is insane because I feel like the mental health that I had to experience when I got back here, like I only cried twice when I moved and they were both because of internet because I work from home and it was just like, I was so behind at work because I just couldn't get it to work. then, yeah, so for the, I think for like probably two months, every week, a couple days a week, I would go to Starbucks because it was just like, this is not good. And then sitting nine hours at a fucking Starbucks, that's no good.

Madi (01:05:49.823)
Yeah, overwhelmed.

Madi (01:06:04.588)
Yeah.

Holly Constant (01:06:04.71)
Every now and again, it's fine, but if you need to. But yeah, it's just, it's wild. And then that means that people can't have companies out here. Like what if you do work from an office and you want to open a business here and create more for the economy and you can't like all POS systems are run off of the internet.

Wild. So thank you all for listening to me. And I have gone to a couple of town hall meetings and I have talked to that Firefly thing that's doing the electric lines, but it just feels like a dead end because they have, they don't care and they don't have the resources to like fight this. You know what I mean? And I'm just a person. I don't know what I can do except for shell out $900 million.

Madi (01:06:27.637)
nuts.

Madi (01:06:37.803)
Yeah.

Madi (01:06:48.756)
Yeah, which also isn't realistic.

Holly Constant (01:06:50.302)
Yeah, also like I Say this a little bit later on but I am so fed up with like the rich people getting the perks Why do they want Akron or like tiny like bigger towns than Pawnee to get the free shit? Okay, like it's so annoying to me like they already have the resources I'm sure okay. Give it to someone who actually needs it

Madi (01:07:07.307)
Yeah.

Madi (01:07:11.126)
Right.

Yeah, agreed.

Holly Constant (01:07:15.218)
So anyways, so that's that. And I do love this commentary on tech companies, like it's the cloud for your cloud. Like no one knows what they do. my God. Me too.

Madi (01:07:26.058)
Which makes no sense.

I love that Ben brought Andy. Like he's his new little like right-hand man when he does any of these kinds of things and makes me happy that he's giving giving Andy like he's learning from Ben you know he's given him opportunity it's really cool.

Holly Constant (01:07:46.736)
Yeah, I agree. Yeah, it takes you back to London and like them working together on this for sure.

So they're meeting with the workers from Grizzle now. And I think this was right around the time too, when like the WeWork and like the flowing work structures and Silicon Valley and stuff was kind of like, you know, up and coming where a lot of people have like those third workspaces nowadays. And so Silicon Valley started in 2014, I believe, which is when this parks episode came out. And then I don't know if you remember, I have a funny...

kind of crossover where Modern Family, did you watch Modern Family a lot? Like would you be familiar?

Madi (01:08:25.611)
I might be familiar. haven't watched the entire series and like consecutively, but I've seen episodes from every season.

Holly Constant (01:08:30.566)
Okay. Okay. So there's this part where modern families sell or in modern family where Pritchett's closets sells to another tech company because they want to like expand and grow and stuff. actually Ben Schwartz is the leader of that. It's called Ezra Vision. And this is the whole thing too, where the older generation, Jay Pritchett, who owns Pritchett's Closet is like,

you know, I don't want you guys like playing ping pong in the background and I don't want you guys like having this free flowing thing and games and like food and all this stuff. And it's kind of similar vibes. So I feel like it's really interesting to around this like five to 10, well, five to eight year span to see all of the comedy shows kind of do like pinpointing this work structure, because that's kind of what was happening at the time. I think that's really interesting.

Like how culture mimics TV and TV mimics culture, you know, all that kind of stuff.

Madi (01:09:29.419)
Yeah, fascinating.

Holly Constant (01:09:31.422)
okay. So this scene, okay, I was talking to you a little bit about this, how they cut a lot of the scenes in Peacock, or on the original version, and now Peacock has a lot of the scenes that were cut are now available to the public, essentially. So if you're watching this on Peacock, some of this shit was not originally aired.

And the scene here with Andy is absolutely deleted where the person getting their hair cut and Andy is like, just anyone can get their hair cut. Can I cut someone's hair? And he runs off. That was not in the original air and it is so funny.

Madi (01:10:05.533)
Yes, know. Holly messaged me when she first started reviewing it and she was like, I cannot wait for you to see which scenes aren't in the original. And so I made a point that every time I saw one, have it all caps like, it's added. And that's what I have here is like, I don't remember any of that. And the end part where the person spins around and the haircut's insane. I was like, I would have for sure remembered that happening.

Holly Constant (01:10:21.36)
Yes! Yes.

Holly Constant (01:10:34.184)
Totally, yeah. And sometimes I get mixed up because I'm like, I've seen this episode so many times, but for some reason I forgot it. So I always check and it's definitely not on the DVDs. Or it's in the deleted scenes of the DVDs or whatever. So it absolutely was added in, which is so fun because I think The Office was doing that too with the super fan episodes or whatever. But I don't think Parks made a huge deal of it like The Office did. They have a whole branded super fan episodes.

Madi (01:10:47.403)
Mm-hmm.

Madi (01:10:53.598)
Yeah.

Madi (01:11:00.875)
Yeah.

Holly Constant (01:11:01.554)
But Peacock is just adding in random ass things, which I think is funny and cute.

Madi (01:11:07.283)
agreed. don't know if Parks has done it with everything either because you've brought deleted scenes here before and I'm like, those aren't in the series. Whereas now if I listen to Office Ladies from their original run through, they're bringing up scenes and deleted scenes and I'm like, I've seen that now because it's in the super fan episode.

Holly Constant (01:11:11.624)
Yeah.

Holly Constant (01:11:15.047)
Right.

Holly Constant (01:11:25.712)
rate.

Right, totally. And I feel like it's towards the end of the season too. It started in season six because there was a whole moment where they're doing talent show auditions for the Unity concert and that was not original aired. Like all of Martin Houser, Housman, whatever, the Wood Eye guy comes back, Perd comes back, all these contortionists and stuff like that. That was not originally aired. That's where Peacock added that. So I wonder if it's season six that they started adding it in. I don't know.

Madi (01:11:48.308)
Yeah.

Madi (01:11:57.618)
Yeah. Yeah. I'm about it. Yeah.

Holly Constant (01:11:58.376)
I love it. I love seeing extra scenes.

So this lady from Grizzle is Lylan Bowden. Bowden, shoot, I don't know how to say her name. Lylan Bowden, Bowden. And her character name is Sam Nutt. First name Sam, last name Nutt. She's awesome. She's been in the comedy world for a really long time now. She worked on the mystery comedy series Murderville, slash like Who Killed Santa? That's the one with Will Arnett and Jason Bateman. She is also in Shrinking on Apple TV with Jason Segel. She is the quote dead mom, they call her that.

Madi (01:12:13.546)
cute.

Holly Constant (01:12:33.107)
and they do flashbacks with her, which you've got to start watching Shrinking. You would love that show so much.

Madi (01:12:38.826)
That's what my dad was just saying too. So, and it came up on one of our searches of like what to watch. So.

Holly Constant (01:12:41.137)
It's so good.

Mm-hmm. It's so, so good. The new season is really good, too. Oh, my God. I love that whole cast and the writers and all the things. But, yeah, she comes back a couple times for flashbacks and things, and she's great. She was also in a 2017 TV series called Andy Mack, which looks really cool. Very, very popular, according to the internet. A lot of people know her from that. She was also in NCIS, Conan, lots of UCB stuff, Upright Citizens Brigade, which was an improv team that...

Amy Poehler is associated with slash created. So she has a lot of sketch experience and improv background. So she fits right in, which is amazing. And then the guy who's in the scene is Blake Anderson and his character name was Mike Bean. So they have the last names of these grizzle people. Yeah, Nut and Bean. And you guys probably all know Blake Anderson from Workaholics, which is a great Comedy Central show. So funny.

Madi (01:13:28.402)
Nut and Bean.

Holly Constant (01:13:38.01)
He created the show with his co-stars Adam Devine and Anders Holm. And Adam Devine, another Modern Family reference, he was on there. He played Haley's boyfriend, which I loved him on Modern Family. my God, I just love him in general as an actor. I think he's fantastic. He's so good.

Madi (01:13:53.787)
I agree. He's hilarious. And I also think he and Hailey should have been endgame, so I was upset about that.

Holly Constant (01:13:57.599)
Oh, I know, I go back and forth. I go back and forth. I have a hard time deciding. They were so good together. Oh, dang. But I love Dylan too. He's such a weirdo. He's such an Andy. He's such a golden retriever. But anyhow, yeah, so he, oh, he's also in Righteous Gemstones. Again, this is Adam Devine and not Blake Anderson who is actually in part, you know, the show that we're talking about, but I do love Adam Devine.

Madi (01:14:05.79)
Yeah.

haha

Yeah.

Madi (01:14:25.895)
Yep.

Holly Constant (01:14:27.518)
Anyhow, yes, so Blake Anderson is a writer and producer. He's also very big background in improv and sketch, working a lot in voiceover as well, which I did not know and does a lot of cool indie films. He was in a movie called First Time Female Director that Chelsea Peretti actually wrote and directed, which I really need to watch. Amy Poehler, a bunch of comedy legends are in it and Chelsea Peretti, of course, as you know, from Brooklyn Nine-Nine, but also she wrote The Smallest Park.

on Parks, which is one of my favorite Parks episodes. So it's all connected in this comedy world, which I love to see. And he and his Workaholics co-stars are actually on tour right now. I think they were playing in Vegas recently. There's something going on with the cruise that they did. I don't know if it was like a, I don't know what that was about, but it's on social media. So you can do your own research on that part, but they are on tour if you are interested in seeing them and they have their own podcast, which I cannot remember what it's called. what's it called?

It's called This Is Important, which is hilarious. But yeah, everyone has a podcast, so I'm surprised that I didn't already know that.

Okay, so they mentioned grizzledump, which is one of the lines that they had in the prom episode when Tom is playing the old music for the kids, which we talked about, and Tom's like, oh my God, what's grizzledump? What's grizzledump? And this is when Ben says that Pawnee is a great candidate for free wifi because they lead the country in online pizza ordering. They go to the library just to order pizza, which reminded me of me going to the library to do work. I was like, can you imagine if I went to the library just to order pizza?

Madi (01:15:54.92)
That's so funny.

Madi (01:16:00.356)
Yeah. my gosh. That's so good.

Holly Constant (01:16:05.353)
my God, such a good line. Instead of just going to get the pizza yourself, that's probably the same amount of distance. my God, hilarious.

This is where I had my note of why would bigger cities need Wi-Fi like shut up so dumb I get it from a marketing standpoint, but like get out of here

Madi (01:16:26.181)
I also no shade to Ohio. I lived in Ohio for a minute, but I said, why are we using Ohio as the standard?

Holly Constant (01:16:33.485)
Hahaha!

Holly Constant (01:16:38.078)
It's so funny, like to your point, guess, like it's funny because all these cities are not like huge. It's not New York, LA. You know, that's what's the joke is so, we're thinking Akron. my God, hilarious.

Madi (01:16:42.533)
No!

Yeah, he's... Yeah, we're, what does he say? We're more a Dayton than an Akron. But it's like those, like you're not saying Columbus or Cincinnati? What are we doing?

Holly Constant (01:16:51.876)
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Holly Constant (01:16:57.56)
It's so funny. You're so right. my God. That's such a good line and such a good observation. Yeah. OK. So Blake Anderson's character, I'm really over him. like we don't like to say the word no because it's counterproductive to the creative mission. So we're just going to say no, bro. Like, whatever. Get out of here. You're on my nerves, which was the whole point. I get it. And he was like barefoot. Did you notice this? He did not have shoes on.

Madi (01:17:05.305)
It is so well done.

Madi (01:17:19.751)
I hate people who do that.

Madi (01:17:23.93)
I did not notice. Good catch.

Holly Constant (01:17:26.556)
Yeah, go back and watch it because I was really annoyed with him. I was like, stop it. This frat bro energy is not it. Like, get out of here.

Madi (01:17:29.199)
Yeah, that's...

Madi (01:17:34.023)
side note because of how weird it is. There's a lady at our gym. She's an older lady. I don't think that excuses what's happening. But she does like the squat machine where you like sit and you put your legs up here barefoot.

Holly Constant (01:17:50.2)
No.

Madi (01:17:53.669)
Like she works out like flip flops and then she takes her flip flops off to put her feet up barefoot and do the squat machine, Holly.

Holly Constant (01:17:59.809)
my God. People don't understand gym etiquette, okay? People really feel like they're in a different universe at the gym. I feel like the things that I see online are like, they are not in society or have not been an active human citizen of the planet Earth.

Madi (01:18:05.763)
Yeah.

I know.

Madi (01:18:15.928)
Yeah. Yeah, they're like, standards don't count here, so it's fine. Yeah. Yeah.

Holly Constant (01:18:21.31)
Ew, and I bet she doesn't even spray it down. It'd be one thing if you wiped it down afterwards, but then people just walk away. No, not unacceptable, ma'am. Okay, moving on. yeah, okay, so this is where I had to note that why did you even have him come in then? If you were just gonna say no, like.

Madi (01:18:27.834)
Yeah. Gross, I agree.

Madi (01:18:42.576)
For real? What a waste of a trip.

Holly Constant (01:18:44.836)
Right, like why are we even having this meeting just so could say no in person? That's weird. I guess like he was trying to make his pitch and then they were gonna say no, but it sounded like they had their mind kind of made up. Like how is this better?

Madi (01:18:54.374)
They did. Because I don't think he even really got to give his pitch. They didn't even make it to like a conference room or to sit down and talk about it.

Holly Constant (01:19:02.637)
100%. And yeah, I agree with Ben of the whole line he has where, how is nah bro better than no? Okay? Me too. And then this is where we cut to Andy fucking up this person's hair.

Madi (01:19:09.582)
Yeah. Yeah, I'm glad he said it.

Madi (01:19:19.334)
So good.

Holly Constant (01:19:20.136)
So good. Okay, so now we are moving on to the third floor back at City Hall. Did you have anything else before that though? Okay. The third floor is so beautiful. Like this was only six episodes apart from each other, but Ron found this floor on the wall episode, and which I know TV time is differently, but typically the audience has led to kind of believe that it's week to week or like couple weeks or whatever per episode, but six weeks to do the whole floor, like.

That's almost just two months to do all of this. Are you kidding me? That's insane. So, I mean, I know Ron can do it because he loves this and he's really like efficient or whatever. But also this is where I noticed that the number six is really prominent in this episode. We have, first of all, season six. Okay. Then we had six weeks till Tom's Bistro, six days till the Unity concert. And now...

Madi (01:20:07.078)
you

Holly Constant (01:20:15.366)
six episodes between the wall and this episode where the third floor is complete. And I was like, I know they didn't, I don't know if they did that on purpose. I'm sure they did not, but it seems spiritual to me. But the six means the devil. So I don't want to think that.

Madi (01:20:15.383)
Mm.

Madi (01:20:22.81)
Nice catch on that too.

Madi (01:20:29.582)
Yes.

Madi (01:20:34.586)
That's true. If there were only three of them.

Holly Constant (01:20:39.164)
Yeah, we need to find a fourth one. Cause I did just list the, wait, season six, six weeks. wait, I think there is four. So six weeks till Tom's Restro, six days till the Unity concert, now six episodes between that and it's season six. So okay, there's four. We're safe. This is where Tom is asking Ron to make the chairs instead of July. Like that's insane. Ron makes a joke saying, my chairs take time. Who do you think I am? Thomas Hucker?

Madi (01:20:41.733)
Yeah.

Madi (01:20:46.064)
six days.

Madi (01:20:55.046)
Okay, we're safe. It's fine.

Holly Constant (01:21:09.126)
And this is another, my God, yeah, he laughs and it's so cute. It's a very Ron moment. And yeah, that's a big ask for Tom to ask him to do that.

Madi (01:21:10.842)
He laughs.

Madi (01:21:20.058)
Yeah.

Holly Constant (01:21:21.756)
That's crazy. So this is another deep dive moment that I took way too long on, but I think it's worth mentioning that Thomas Hucker is actually a real person. He is a woodworker and furniture designer based in New Jersey. I will post his website. It looks very amazing to me. This is also where I found a website like talking about the furniture maker and it's kind of like a group of like conferences and things you could go to.

But before I do that, I'll do a little breakdown on Thomas Hucker. So he's a first and fifth generation German craftsman working in the traditional European manner. He studied with Jair Osgood at the Boston University program in artisanry, which we love Boston. He later received his master's at the Domus Academy in Milan, Italy. And then since 1990, he's been supporting himself in this shop located in Hoboken, New Jersey. So if anyone's in New Jersey, go and visit his shop.

Madi (01:22:03.812)
Mm-hmm.

Madi (01:22:08.622)
Cool.

Holly Constant (01:22:17.598)
He recently was teaching furniture design part-time at the New York School of Interior Design. And he's actually going to be part of a conference on June 10th with the Furniture Society, which is this is where that's the organization I was talking about. It's a furniture organization that has all these like meetups and it's across the country. Like I'll tag them honestly. I think I already did in my first post that when I was talking about reviewing this episode, but it's really interesting. It's the thing that he's teaching is a portfolio review.

And he is, it says, it's not just for students. It's a 30 minute one-on-one session providing makers or furniture makers a chance to receive critiques on their work from leaders in the field. And each day offers a different lineup of reviewers. The website says, this is a great opportunity for makers at any stage in their careers to engage in an in-depth conversation about their work and process with the reviewer of their choice. I think that is so cool. For furniture makers, who would have thunk it?

Madi (01:23:12.312)
That is really cool.

Yeah.

Holly Constant (01:23:16.51)
And that there's this whole society, I mean, this is like real. Ron's whole obsession and he talks about the Word Worker magazine and all this stuff. Like this is real. This is not just like the show made it up. You know what I mean? Like it's not, it's niche. It's not like popular, but it's real. And I really respect it. The last thing I'll say is that Thomas Hucker's topics slash strengths are listed on this website. And it says number one, how to, like what he's going to review you on.

Madi (01:23:25.358)
Yeah.

Madi (01:23:33.508)
But it exists, yeah. Very cool.

Holly Constant (01:23:46.226)
Number one, how to survive and not lose your sight of your artistic goals. That's really good. Number two, balancing craft with design, which I know Ron would appreciate. Number three, embrace living outside of your comfort zone. I think those are great tenants to have.

Madi (01:23:54.744)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Madi (01:24:01.782)
Agreed, that's great.

Holly Constant (01:24:03.934)
But yeah, I'll tag the furniture society. I think it's a really interesting thing and you can find all these different events within your area. It's not just like in New Jersey or New York or whatever, like it's all over the place. So you can find where they're doing events near you.

Madi (01:24:19.202)
Yeah, that's great.

Holly Constant (01:24:20.69)
Okay, thank you for all listening to that. Okay, so Ron says yes to this chair moment, crazy amount of time to get all the work done because he wants to do another project. And then now we're back at the conference. Do you have anything before we get there?

Okay, so Grant is introducing us to everyone. We're now at the table of legends in the Parks Department. Rebecca Veruvian is played by the actress, producer and casting extraordinaire Maura Sodin. She has been in quite a few things, Criminal Minds, Mad Men, the original Matlock, not the reboot, New Girl, 1600 Penn, like a ton more.

Madi (01:24:59.522)
Okay.

Holly Constant (01:25:03.182)
And I wanted to read her bio too because it's super cute. It says, she gained experience as an assistant to director Paul Bogart on NBC's Golden Girls and later found herself as a post-production supervisor on Fox's Totally Hidden Video. She became a staff producer doing infomercials and then later moved to Wild West Media as a commercial producer. As a casting director, she's cast over 200 commercials, infomercials, and industrials.

And she was also production manager. So like she's been all over the place. And she has created a really great career for herself. looks like the last acting credit she had was 2018. So I'm not quite sure what her journey looks like in front of the screen right now. But Rebecca Veruvian is amazing. So I did talk to her via email and she does want to send in things, but I think that she

Madi (01:25:34.113)
Yeah, wow.

Holly Constant (01:25:58.205)
We just didn't sync up our timing. So hopefully for the next episode, we'll get her. Also, voice memos can be tricky for some people. So I'm trying to just get her to help us. Or I'm trying to help her to help us. But that was nice that she emailed back. She is interested. So I just have to follow up. So that'll be good.

Madi (01:26:11.715)
awesome.

Mm-hmm.

Madi (01:26:19.139)
Awesome.

Holly Constant (01:26:20.284)
Okay, she says that, Leslie says she made a poster of Rebecca Veruvian's face dunking over Charles Barkley. my God, that is a hilarious detailed bit.

Madi (01:26:32.514)
That's so funny. I love that.

Holly Constant (01:26:34.224)
I also love Rebecca's line of, my god. Like, Morissoden did such a good job of like, my god, are you a serial killer?

Madi (01:26:39.744)
Yeah.

Madi (01:26:43.883)
Yeah.

Holly Constant (01:26:47.626)
There is a funny goof here if you feel like you want to go back and watch it. Rebecca's name tag changes from being outside her jacket to inside her jacket multiple times. So they cut some stuff and then the continuity was lost. But I didn't really notice it until I saw the background research. So it's fine. OK, so exciting news. Liam Bonneville is here. And we got. Wait, what?

Madi (01:26:55.938)
Mmm. Yeah.

Madi (01:27:05.73)
Yeah.

Madi (01:27:11.616)
And he read her proposal.

Holly Constant (01:27:15.302)
He read her proposal! my God, he saw that it happened. I know, that was a great callback, great closure for Leslie. They show that flashback of her going to the Department of Interior in DC. my God, and to know that it was read by her hero is amazing. And also the fact that she gets to say, like, that's already underway, ho. Like, you missed your chance.

Madi (01:27:18.026)
It makes me so happy!

Madi (01:27:36.084)
Yeah, I wasn't waiting for you.

Holly Constant (01:27:39.601)
Yeah, 100%. I love it so much. So he's played by the actor Joe Souza and my god, he sent in voice memos. my god, so exciting. Before I get to the voice memos, I want to talk about what he's done. Most recently, he was in a podcast called We're Alive Descendants. He was also in The Rookie, The Rookie Feds, which is the full version.

Madi (01:27:49.143)
Nice.

Holly Constant (01:28:02.451)
He was in the 2020 version of Saved by the Bell, 9-1-1, American Crime Story, Fresh Off the Boat, so fun. So many things that I did not mention. He's a great journeyman actor here. Also so funny, I saw that he had a musical review of a show, which I think they recorded, so it's technically like credited as a movie on TV or whatever, but it was live. And they called it, or it's called Naked Boys Singing, and he sings in that, and it's so fun. It's a musical review of gay experiences as told through song.

stage choreography and full male nudity. Joe Souza, amazing. I'm gonna have to find that somewhere. I don't know if I can. my God, amazing. Okay, so let's go ahead. I have not listened to these yet, so I'm so excited to be surprised. Let's listen to the first voice memo where I asked him how he got the job and all that.

Madi (01:28:33.837)
my gosh.

Madi (01:28:38.763)
full frontal.

Holly Constant (01:31:33.618)
Yay, that's awesome. And I did ask him a question, like specifically saying like, how did it feel to be named that character, like Liam Bonneville, resident bad boy of the Department of Interior. So that I think that's like the third one or whatever. I just want you guys to know that he wasn't just like putting on airs, which he seemed good at and it was great anyways, which I loved. But I definitely, I specifically asked him to answer that question.

Madi (01:31:35.433)
Very cool.

Holly Constant (01:31:59.251)
Cause I was like, my God, we're talking to our idol here. Leslie's idol here. Okay. Here's the second one.

Madi (01:32:03.451)
Mm-hmm. Yes, for real.

Holly Constant (01:35:15.836)
Yay, I love that. my gosh, wow. No, I did not notice that he had the flu or seemed sick or anything like that. And it is lucky that his scene, he's just sitting there. So that's nice. And just kind of like being mysterious anyway. that, I mean, that sucks though to not be able to really stand. I can't imagine how like painful that was and you know, how painful maybe mentally too of like, shit, I gotta get myself together.

Madi (01:35:21.469)
Mm-mm.

Madi (01:35:27.004)
Yeah.

Madi (01:35:33.288)
Yeah.

Madi (01:35:42.158)
Yeah, well yeah, and it's like a once in a lifetime opportunity and you're like, I'm not at my best. That sucks.

Holly Constant (01:35:47.749)
Mm-hmm. Yeah. Well, it looked great and it worked. It definitely worked and like the outfit that they gave him to like definitely fit with the bad boy. It was like a leather jacket or something with his like dark hair. It worked very well. And yeah, I love that location breakdown of the Pasadena Hotel. Yeah, so that does confirm that the rest of the people were not in San Francisco. That was just an Andy, Ben and Leslie thing. So that's

Madi (01:35:51.452)
It did.

Madi (01:36:02.076)
Nice. Yeah, it did.

Madi (01:36:16.538)
I'm sure that helps with the logistics.

Holly Constant (01:36:19.134)
Totally. So it seems like maybe all they filmed there was the parts like truly at the Golden Gate Bridge, you know, and in the Redwoods. So good. Yeah, I love that note about Amy. Like, she's such a professional. And I think she would be the first to say like, yeah, I need a minute to, you know, get myself together, whatever. Because, yeah, she does have like 9000 things to go on, especially for this episode. Oh, my gosh, like.

Madi (01:36:26.919)
Yeah, yeah.

Holly Constant (01:36:46.076)
Wow, she's in so much of it and is responsible for so much of it. So yeah, that makes total sense. Awesome.

Madi (01:36:47.238)
Yeah.

Madi (01:36:51.965)
And like he said, she's producing too, so.

Holly Constant (01:36:54.748)
Right. Okay, let's listen to the next one.

Holly Constant (01:38:38.938)
Yay, that's amazing. my gosh. Absolutely. What a dream. What a thing you could put on your tombstone. Made Amy Poehler laugh.

Madi (01:38:41.252)
You should be proud.

Madi (01:38:46.606)
Yeah. Yes. For real.

Holly Constant (01:38:51.224)
I love that and I love that he's just like he sounds excited to telling us these secrets and stories I really love that so much. my god

Madi (01:38:55.854)
Mm-hmm. Yeah, agreed. So nice.

Holly Constant (01:39:01.222)
All right, let's listen to the next one.

Holly Constant (01:40:24.016)
my gosh, that is really funny. It seems like there's a lot going on with the name tags, because that's what Rebecca Veruvians was messed up too. But also, I could see Mike Schur saying that to have it upside down, like, who cares? Whatever. He doesn't even care that he's here and that he's famous in the Department of Interior world. Like, whatever. my god. But at the same time, to Joe's point, it's like, but he also works for the government in this bureaucratic thing.

Madi (01:40:26.042)
Yeah.

Madi (01:40:31.567)
Yeah.

Madi (01:40:41.786)
Yeah.

Holly Constant (01:40:51.45)
space so maybe he's not as cool as he thinks he is but he's just cool in this small circle. I don't know. And also yeah totally the fans go crazy with finding those kinds of little Easter eggs well not even Easter eggs but just like goofs mess ups like they pick apart each episode like second by second so like we do in a lot of ways. So the fans will definitely figure that out and then try to

Madi (01:40:57.039)
Yeah.

Madi (01:41:09.733)
Mm-hmm.

Holly Constant (01:41:14.406)
create some backstory to it when really it probably doesn't mean anything at all. We've done multiple times. Love that. Yes. I think we are. I think we create very believable circumstances for mess ups in the show. We give them a lot of grace, which that's what fans do. Or they should do anyway. I don't think there's any really merit or like.

Madi (01:41:19.557)
Yeah.

Madi (01:41:23.94)
We're good at that.

Madi (01:41:33.262)
Yeah.

Holly Constant (01:41:41.82)
point in criticizing your favorite thing. Like I do criticize the Anne plot line. I will give you that. I do do that. But I think that's at least it's constructive for the most part. Because I know Amy just talked about this too where writers get so many notes and then it's just like so mean in a way. Like they just get this feedback and there's no like they don't give a solution. The person that's you know.

Madi (01:41:49.192)
huh.

Madi (01:42:07.832)
Hmm, interesting.

Holly Constant (01:42:08.594)
giving the feedback, it's not constructive, it's just straight up criticism. And it's just like, well, you didn't do this right, you need to fix it kind of vibes instead of like, what if we did X, Y, Z instead? Which makes total sense. In any business, you should do that. You know what I mean? Like it's not just acting or entertaining or writing or whatever, but like especially in those circumstances when you don't have the skill to do that, like you can at least offer some sort of solution. Like even if it's not fully fleshed out, know? But anyway.

Madi (01:42:17.935)
Yeah.

Madi (01:42:22.072)
Yeah.

Madi (01:42:36.538)
Yeah.

Holly Constant (01:42:38.662)
Okay, so this is the last one. Thank you, Joe Souza, so much. This is so exciting.

Holly Constant (01:44:54.172)
That is so cute and so nice

Madi (01:44:56.758)
Thank you, Joe. Yeah, those are great. And he's got a great like voice for a podcast or anything like that.

Holly Constant (01:45:02.104)
Yeah, that was what he's in a podcast right now. Well, I mean, it's not recent, but that was one of the things I mentioned that he was in. So, yeah, that would totally make sense. And, Joe, if only I was responsible for creating these spin offs and had the producers ears, I would 100 % fight for that. That would be so fun. I also think that Liam Bonneville could absolutely have come back for season seven to give some sort of like structure or advice to Leslie.

Madi (01:45:09.282)
Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yeah.

Madi (01:45:16.12)
No.

Madi (01:45:26.168)
Mm-hmm.

Holly Constant (01:45:31.57)
I don't know. But I mean, Leslie's got her own thing that she has to deal with, so I get it. But yeah, I 100 % agree. And those were such great voice memos. How exciting. my god. I cannot believe, I mean, I can believe it, but it's amazing that we got to meet Leslie's idol in Liam Bonneville and that the writers brought him back. And by brought him back, I mean, they're giving the face to a lot of what we've talked about. Like same thing with Genuine. You know what I mean? Like we talked about Genuine, but now he's actually going to be on the show. What the fuck? This is crazy.

Madi (01:45:41.432)
Yeah.

Madi (01:46:00.46)
Yeah, yeah, I love it.

Holly Constant (01:46:01.106)
Amazing. Well, thank you so much, Joe. We really appreciate it. We'll post all your information in the show notes and tag you and all the things so that everyone can follow and watch the movies. I love Margaret Cho. And yeah, another Modern Family crossover. We were talking about Modern Family earlier, so that's funny. OK.

Madi (01:46:12.088)
Mm-hmm.

Holly Constant (01:46:19.354)
Okay, so let's see. okay. So Grant says, you know, you're treating these people like your idols, but they could be your peers. And I think that that's a really important line because Leslie is not really seeing it that way right now. Like she's stuck in this box that she's built for herself. Plus like, of course the idea that she can go even bigger than Pawnee is insane to her because we know how much she loves it and how much it's kind of her end game. So I think it's really interesting that Grant points this out to her.

And he says he needs an answer by tomorrow. And so Leslie's like, I mean, I'd be insane not to because at this point, I mean, and I do this too. I think a lot of people do this where she's just making excuses not to take it. Like she's thought it through. She's been logical. She did all of her pros and cons, I feel. But right now she's just kind of scared. And it's just like the fear that's holding her back because

It's not as if this is coming out of nowhere. Like she's had time to think about it. She has all her binders, you know, all that kind of stuff. So, but it's hard. Yes. A hundred percent. I agree. my God. But speaking of idols, this is the part where we all freak out collectively. Michelle Obama comes in and are you freaking kidding me? I wrote this in all capsules. Like this is incredible. Truly top Amy Poehler moment of all time. Like.

Madi (01:47:16.438)
No, yeah.

Madi (01:47:20.194)
He's given her plenty of time.

Madi (01:47:41.014)
Yes.

Holly Constant (01:47:41.158)
the way that she reacts to Michelle Obama. You are from Chicago, so you like it.

Madi (01:47:45.324)
Yeah. This is, this is how I imagined myself meeting Amy Poehler.

Holly Constant (01:47:51.376)
Yeah, yes, the rules would be reversed.

Madi (01:47:54.55)
Yes. my gosh. But like, just, I think we reflect on this even more now because of the current situation we're in, but she is Michelle Obama, such a class act and just amazing. She's beautiful. She's intelligent. She like her spirit is beautiful. Like she, the way she holds herself and talks to people and yeah, I just

Holly Constant (01:48:09.682)
Mmm.

Holly Constant (01:48:16.836)
Mm-hmm.

Madi (01:48:24.083)
I absolutely loved her when she was the first lady and I continue to just idolize her as a person and people make jokes all the time. mean, Barack would make jokes. Obama would make jokes about how like she was really running the show, right? Like, so yeah, I just love her. I cannot believe they got her on the show while she was a sitting first lady. amazing. Yeah. Love it.

Holly Constant (01:48:42.343)
I

Holly Constant (01:48:46.032)
Literally insane. my God. Second to all of the things that you said, I totally agree. I, yeah, I did a little bit of a breakdown on her too because, I mean, it's not a ton because there's just so much to cover and you should really read her books. my gosh, it's really, really good. Her books are fantastic. The first one's Becoming and the second, or maybe that's the second one. Regardless, I read Becoming, I haven't read the other one yet. And they're so fantastic.

Madi (01:49:02.081)
Yeah.

Holly Constant (01:49:13.938)
discussing her family, how important they are. She has a podcast also with her brother that I can't remember the name of, but I'm sure if you just typed in her name, it'll come up. And it's really good. I've listened to a few episodes. It's really, really good. And they go on other people's podcasts too and talk about their relationship. But we find out that Michelle Obama works with Grant in the canon of the show all the time because they incorporate her program, Let's Move, into the national parks, getting kids outside, hiking, rock climbing, so beautiful. And again,

Same thing for me that you said here. I was like, my God, she is just creating such a legacy and doing so good for the country, such good for the country. Like I said, she is on Good Hang with Amy Poehler and she told a story of how like Amy spit or something in this scene. And luckily Michelle Obama did not remember, but it's a must, must listen. So I'll post that in the show notes too so you guys can listen. But I don't actually think this is like where I get really like.

almost not emotional, also just like really passionate about this because I don't think people understand how important and huge Let's Move was. This premise changed the country. It really did for kids across the nation. The premise to help kids be healthier and to fight childhood obesity, one of the guidelines was that kids need to be exercising, moving, playing for 60 minutes a day and for adults at least 30 minutes.

Madi (01:50:20.493)
my gosh. Yeah.

Madi (01:50:26.304)
Mm-hmm.

Holly Constant (01:50:38.058)
There's even a portion on the website, the website's fantastic, I'm gonna post that too. It has since been closed because of, you know, we are not in that administration anymore sadly. But there's even a portion in there that says, that sounds like a lot, but on average kids spend seven and a half hours on video games, media, entertainment, all that kind of stuff, screens. So, like it's not a lot in comparison to the amount of time that you're just sitting there.

Madi (01:50:57.963)
Yeah.

Holly Constant (01:51:04.254)
And under there, under Let's Move, there was also the portion called MyPlate, which is still used today as a cornerstone of nutritional guidance for kids. She started the Every Kid in a Park program, which was under Let's Move, and it provided free access and program events for parks around the country. It also created a standard for school lunches and vending machines had healthier choices. And this is from their website. I just copied and pasted this one, this.

portion, combining comprehensive strategies with common sense, Let's Move is about putting children on the path to a healthy future during their earliest months and years, giving parents helpful information and fostering environments that support healthy choices, providing healthier foods in our schools, ensuring that every family has access to healthy, affordable food, and helping kids become more physically active. There's also a website about how much sugar the average child slash teen has compared to processed foods and all that.

compared to how much time we spend on screens. And it just really fostered such a healthy relationship and accessible for not only the kids, but for the parents. There's like worksheets for both the parents and the kids to like help you understand how to do this. Because being a parent is obviously so hard and there's so many things to think about. And so you have to have those resources to be like, what can you do? She was also in schools herself. Like she visited schools, she visited parks, she was so involved.

Madi (01:52:12.02)
Yeah.

Madi (01:52:25.813)
for her.

Holly Constant (01:52:28.152)
it really relates back to Leslie's first initial thesis where she was trying to cut sugar from the Punchburger sodas or whatever, which I thought was such a fantastic callback there. And then, you know, Leslie starting the farmers market. Like, there's such a big reason why Leslie is such a huge fan of this and why it incorporates so well into the show. But as part of this research, and I knew it a little bit, but as part of the research on Let's Move, it almost makes me emotional because

They criticized her so much for making this Let's Move program. comparing to now's administration, this fuck all bullshit about making kids healthier when they literally cut funding for school lunches and cut funding for resources and health initiatives makes me so angry because why are we not giving the same criticism to fucking RFK who's cutting vaccines, literally killing children,

Madi (01:53:02.858)
Yeah.

Holly Constant (01:53:26.81)
with his vaccine mandates of measles and all these outbreaks and stuff. Like, it just blows my mind that he's cut scientific research and is not receiving near enough the criticism that he needs to, versus Michelle Obama, who is actually having all of these scientists and doctors and nutritional guidance and research from actual professionals in the industry, and changed our country, like changed our children's behaviors and nutritional guidance.

Madi (01:53:53.715)
Yeah.

Holly Constant (01:53:56.984)
and she's the one being like criticized? No, that's not to say of the people. know I'm like, there were people that were very much on board with this. So it's not to say that everybody was, but the fact that there was such criticism really grates on my nerves because she changed and helped us so much.

Madi (01:54:09.279)
Mm-hmm.

Madi (01:54:19.859)
Yeah, I agree. think the fact of the matter is if you look at her, her intention, her intention was let's make kids healthier. Like how do you go against that? And then you add in all the research and everything. And it's just the chaos.

Holly Constant (01:54:32.262)
Right.

Yeah, and this whole like one of the totally chaos. One of the criticism was that it was government overreach in our schools and stuff. And I was like, you want to talk about government overreach? Are you fucking kidding me? Don't tread on my don't tread on me. My fucking ass. They are treading all over you like you might as well on your license plate have tread all over me, daddy. You know what I'm saying? Like it's insane. And the actionable items that instead of bashing everyone else and bashing our

Madi (01:54:50.459)
I can't. I can't.

Madi (01:54:57.307)
Yeah. Yeah.

Holly Constant (01:55:04.732)
bashing our systems, she was trying to change it, which, and she did change it. And I just think I'm so proud of Parks and Rec for having her on there. I'm proud of Michelle Obama. And I just, I really respect her in such a way. I mean, even before this research, but now that I see, and that's all it takes you guys, it's a little bit of research and you will find what you believe in and what you support. God forbid you fucking Google something and find the real facts. Insane, right?

Madi (01:55:07.783)
Yeah.

Madi (01:55:27.805)
God forbid.

Madi (01:55:35.077)
I just, yeah. Yeah. I mean, you know how I feel about so many of these things coming from a research-based field initially. Just the anger, like Holly has listened to many angry rants via voice mail around all of this stuff. And yes. And so,

Holly Constant (01:55:36.925)
my god.

Holly Constant (01:55:44.638)
100%.

Holly Constant (01:55:51.313)
And vice versa. It's crazy. I at the yeah, thinking about how the country has backslid in this way and how far it's going to take us to get back on track is very disheartening. I know it's possible. There is hope out there. If you're in Virginia, by the way, vote for the redistricting plan that happened. Early voting has started. So get on it.

which has nothing to do with let's move, it just has to do with our country moving forward and like I see the potential of America, like America is such moving up, America, come on, we can do this. my God. Okay, so that's Michelle Obama, thank you so much to the writers for giving us this beautiful gift of Michelle Obama coming on to Parks and Rec, it's amazing.

Madi (01:56:21.445)
Moving up.

Madi (01:56:25.491)
Full circle.

Madi (01:56:30.194)
Ugh.

Madi (01:56:37.169)
And we love you, Michelle Obama. And if you would like to come on our show, please come on our show. Thank you.

Holly Constant (01:56:41.97)
Thank you so much, goodbye. Love you. And yeah, just a reminder too to go to your parks. mean, it doesn't even have to be a national park. Just go to your local park, dude. Support it. It's like such, it's so worth it.

Madi (01:56:44.083)
You

Madi (01:56:48.999)
Yeah. my gosh.

Madi (01:56:54.162)
Yeah.

It's, mean, I'll just throw out there too. Like I didn't appreciate our parks until I had a kid. And it, it makes me wish I had taken a book to a bench at a park before we had Kili. Cause now I have to run and chase them everywhere. But it's just, it's so beautiful that like our local governments have given us grass to, and sidewalks so we can go on nice walks and strolls in the midst of nature. It's so peaceful.

Holly Constant (01:57:03.048)
Totally.

Holly Constant (01:57:09.175)
Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Holly Constant (01:57:24.702)
For free, for free 99 Hello and like playgrounds that are up kept for the most part for your kids. Like yeah, there's a park down the street that we go to walk at, my mom and I. And it's like, there's a baseball field, playground, a soccer field. There's like a little museum in there cause like they did gold rush stuff there. Yeah. And like, it's great. So highly recommend, highly recommend. And yeah, that's a great point.

Madi (01:57:26.397)
For free!

Madi (01:57:31.667)
Playgrounds. Yeah.

Madi (01:57:39.283)
Yeah.

Madi (01:57:48.029)
So cool. Yeah.

Holly Constant (01:57:52.456)
that kids, yeah, I see kids there all the time, like after school hours or whatever, like with their parents. Yeah, it's a great, great option. Okay, so moving on. Andy's gonna skateboard down this huge San Fran hill, and we're all scared for him, but then he just pushes it down, like just to skateboard, not him, on it. Andy loves it.

Madi (01:58:11.185)
This yeah, he's all for it. This always reminds me of the whiskey scene from hot rod

Holly Constant (01:58:18.494)
yeah! What way? my god, so good. Yes. So here's this big moment, okay, where Leslie makes her decision. She tells Ben, finally, that she is going to take the job. She can make a difference. There's so much of the world to see. And Michelle Obama, think, was a huge part of that. She doesn't say it explicitly. She just says she met Michelle Obama. Like, no big deal, whatever. She says that at the end.

Madi (01:58:22.683)
saying what, what, what weird, so good.

Huh.

Madi (01:58:42.555)
Yeah.

Madi (01:58:47.19)
Yeah, just like lead with that next time.

Holly Constant (01:58:48.548)
right. Exactly. So, and yeah, I think that was a big deal. and I don't think that was on purpose on Grant's part. think Michelle Obama was just walking around, but the, but still that really helped. And Grant, love the way that I think Brady is his name. I love the way he played that too, where he just was like, yeah, that's Michelle Obama and you could be with her. Like it's, it really isn't out of reach, you know? It's so good. Yeah.

Madi (01:59:10.607)
Yeah.

Madi (01:59:14.235)
Right. Yeah, your dreams are closer than you think they are.

Holly Constant (01:59:18.63)
So good. Okay, so now we're back at Tom's Bistro. We've got 10 tables booked for the soft opening. No staff. So April's gonna be in charge of service. I literally wrote, no, not April who has no charm or like bedside manner to talk to customers. my God. Crazy.

Madi (01:59:35.6)
Yeah, this is where I start going, Tom, here are your red flags of why you wait. Because you see how successful you could be. This is such a cool space. Taking a look at it with stuff actually starting to come in it and everything. This could be such a cool, vibey restaurant. Please don't ruin it by rushing it.

Holly Constant (01:59:44.318)
Mm-hmm.

Holly Constant (01:59:58.597)
I know, know. And then, my god, Craig and Donna have to work together for the wine tasting portion because Craig doesn't have his like smell senses or whatever the fuck, because of the dust from the chairs. That's not gonna go well, because Donna clearly says she doesn't want to be yelled at. that's, nope.

Madi (02:00:14.073)
Yeah. But Tom's like, please don't stick to that policy. Like, cause he's just going to lose it.

Holly Constant (02:00:18.489)
Right.

my God, and then the icing on the cake, Jerry Larry comes in with these menus. They all have pictures of his dog's rectum. They really do a good job of yanking us back and forth on whether or not we like Jerry Larry because I was so mad at him. I love Jerry Larry because I'm ugh, I'm rooting for the underdog. You do a good job. But fuck, why couldn't you proofread that? Why didn't you see that you sent the wrong fucking pictures?

Madi (02:00:34.903)
I know.

Madi (02:00:39.835)
Poor guy. Yeah.

Madi (02:00:48.933)
Yeah, it's like, it's basic. Ugh, buddy.

Holly Constant (02:00:53.054)
could happen to anybody. That's the thing, like anybody really could have done that, but the fact that it's Jerry Larry makes you think like, did you even work on this? Did you even try?

Madi (02:00:58.211)
makes it yeah yeah yeah it makes it worse for tom too

Holly Constant (02:01:05.15)
because he did all that paperwork for the tent stuff. That's what I mean by they jerk us back and forth because I'm like, you did a really good job being detail oriented that was way more involved than these menus. How did you mess this up? Hopefully they can get their money back.

Madi (02:01:18.235)
Yeah.

Madi (02:01:22.101)
Jerry, Larry, Terry is all over the place, all the time.

Holly Constant (02:01:22.888)
But this remind-

all the time. Yeah, exactly. That's his MO. He's just sometimes good, sometimes he's not. But this reminded me of the time that Leslie tried to print her campaign sign and it was a link to the photo instead of the actual photo.

Madi (02:01:37.668)
That's what I thought of too. Yeah, so good.

Holly Constant (02:01:40.504)
Using, yeah, this is so funny. What did she say? Like using human, basic human logic. Yes, thank you. But that is not what I wanted printed and that employee is so good. It's like.

Madi (02:01:45.572)
Basic human logic.

One could surmise.

It's, yeah, it's just one of my favorite. Because that line crosses my head all the time, but you can't say it out loud.

Holly Constant (02:02:04.816)
And people don't have basic human logic a lot of the time. yeah. So now Tom says that April's gonna have to list all the menu items from memory. It'll be more classy anyway. Like, my God. And then Ron broke a chair because it looked too perfect. Like this is not going well.

Madi (02:02:07.088)
Don't they don't? Yeah.

Madi (02:02:18.572)
No!

Madi (02:02:24.174)
Yeah, it's because Tom's asking a lot of his friends here and I know that they're going to help him. Part of me is like, Ron, why? Why would you break a perfectly good chair? Let it make it through the opening and then you can replace it. But Tom's also getting really mad at them that they're not finishing stuff in time, but he also shortened their deadline by like five weeks. So.

Holly Constant (02:02:40.574)
100%.

Holly Constant (02:02:50.011)
Right.

Madi (02:02:51.064)
I'm really torn where I'm like, Tom, you need to have some grace with them because you're asking a lot. also like Ron logically, like keep the perfect chair.

Holly Constant (02:03:00.49)
Mm-hmm. Yeah, it's all a cluster. That's I mean, it's all bad. It's a perfect storm of circumstances. OK, so now back at Grizzle, we're still trying to convince Grizzle to give Pawnee free Wi-Fi. I love how passionate Ben is about this. Like, I need a Ben in my town to fight for free Wi-Fi for me. Maybe there are somewhere and they're behind the scenes. I should really look into that. But

Madi (02:03:22.977)
Yeah.

Holly Constant (02:03:30.13)
Them leaving Pawnee really puts a fire under him, I think, to get this done. This is gonna be his claim to fame legacy situation, which really makes sense. And then we get this amazing surprise, again with the callbacks. This is exactly what we were talking about when the series, when this season finale brought back fucking everything. Cones of Dunshire comes up, amazing. We did not expect it to come up. They say someone gave it to them and they don't believe him.

Madi (02:03:36.388)
Yeah.

Madi (02:03:50.606)
Yes.

Madi (02:03:54.392)
Yes.

Holly Constant (02:03:59.913)
that he invented it when he's the architect. And I love, I know I've said this before, I just love Confident Ben. It's so sexy.

Madi (02:04:11.639)
I know it is and he plays it so well. Adam Scott plays it so well. different like transitioning from dorky quirky Ben to confident like I'm the architect Ben.

Holly Constant (02:04:22.606)
Yes! Yes, it reminds me of when he has calzones at the accounting office and like turn again with the cones of dunchire and he turns back with the wink and I was like, my God, Ben, don't look at me like that. You're getting me all tingly. And then this line too, when he asks, when the grizzle guy asks like, you want to be the corporal or the warrior? And he's like, neither, I'm the maverick.

Madi (02:04:31.534)
Yep.

Yeah.

Madi (02:04:40.26)
man.

Holly Constant (02:04:48.892)
And they're so in their characters at this point. It's like really amazing to watch, like all of the Grizzle people and Adam Scott. It's really, really well done.

Madi (02:04:56.704)
Yeah, they all do a great job.

Holly Constant (02:04:59.208)
So now back at the conference, Leslie's giving a presentation called Merger, She Wrote, which I love, Logistical Challenges in Mid-Range Municipal Consolidations. Sounds like a lot of mumbo jumbo, but if I'm honest, I did research it because I was like, did they just throw a bunch of government vocabulary words into one sentence? Like, is that real? Which yes, they did technically, but it's not like word salad. This is a real title that would be used in the merging of cities, which I have more research on that later. We'll get to it.

Madi (02:05:16.354)
Yeah.

Holly Constant (02:05:27.154)
but Leslie says six to 12 months is her timeline for the fully integrated merger between Pawnee and Eagleton. And we have an audience member that starts laughing. Well, I say audience member, but she's like in the conference. And Leslie's like, I know, I think it was a good presentation. Like, is that why you're laughing? What's going on? And then this lady drops this bomb on her that says like, this is not right. Your timeline's all off. There's no way you'll be able to pull this off in six to 12 months.

Madi (02:05:44.888)
Yeah.

Madi (02:05:50.498)
Yeah.

Holly Constant (02:05:54.654)
This actress is played by Jill Basie and she's in two broke girls horrible bosses to grace and Frankie I love all those shows like great work here and Let's see. most recently she was on it's Florida man, which is an HBO show I did reach out to her and her reps replied back saying Thank you for the kind words about Jill's appearance, but she's not available to participate But really wants to thank you for the invitation and all that kind of stuff. So that was nice at least that I got a response

Madi (02:06:20.504)
Okay, yeah.

Holly Constant (02:06:22.982)
And they just said thanks again for considering her. So yes, well done to her. She's so cute and she's so good laughing because she looks like this cute little lady and then she kind of has this critical moment where you're like, that's coming out of nowhere. But she's right. I mean, I do think that we've all been a little bit of denial in a way, myself included, thinking that she could just do the Unity concert and then it would just be done.

Madi (02:06:39.53)
Yeah. Yeah.

Madi (02:06:47.438)
ever.

Holly Constant (02:06:53.766)
That's what we would anticipate. Obviously there's going to be structural changes and all that kind of stuff, but we were kind of just thinking the Unity concert would at least get the town on the same page, and then the logistics are gonna have to follow. But this feedback is shedding some light that this might take a really long time. And if she sticks to her plan, her plan, of leaving when the merger's complete, she might never leave. You know what I mean?

Madi (02:07:06.488)
Mm-hmm.

Madi (02:07:17.868)
Yeah, absolutely. I like this because it's kind of a reality check. think there's a lot of TV shows that run in TV timeline, movie world timeline. And so this call out of like, hey, in the real world, this is how long it takes is really, I think it's, I don't know, it just makes everything feel more real and more settled and obviously creating more conflict for Leslie.

Holly Constant (02:07:33.116)
Yeah

Holly Constant (02:07:38.844)
Mm-hmm.

Holly Constant (02:07:43.709)
Yes, that's a great point. Yeah, very refreshing to see like, uh-oh, this is not gonna work maybe, question mark, and like what do we do here? Great writing too to keep it going and to keep us, like we thought, like yanking us back and forth, like we thought she was gonna take it, she met Michelle Obama, my god, and now she's like, fuck, maybe not, you know? Let's see, so yeah, I wrote that this lady is harsh but kind of sadly maybe has a point and.

Madi (02:08:11.872)
Yeah.

Holly Constant (02:08:11.902)
because she was in charge of a merger, started in 2004, and now it's 2014. So, well, like, again, if I'm going with the TV timeline, so 10 years, and Leslie's thinking it will take half a year to a year, yikes, that's a lot of, a lot more time. You know? And yeah, that's so funny. I wrote that cavalier is not a word I'd use for Leslie either, but just to be sure, I wanted to make sure what it meant, and the official definition is a nonchalant.

Madi (02:08:29.281)
Yes.

Holly Constant (02:08:40.542)
careless or arrogant attitude, often suggesting a disdainful disregard for important matters or others' feelings." And I was like, yeah, that's not Leslie.

Madi (02:08:49.526)
Yeah, no.

Holly Constant (02:08:51.836)
Side note, funny tidbit, as a noun, refers to a gallant gentleman, a knight, or specifically, a royalist supporter of Charles I in the English Civil War. It also commonly refers to the cavalier King Charles Spaniel dog breed.

Madi (02:09:06.7)
I don't know why my brain thought it was a medieval word, but that's kind of, yeah. Yeah.

Holly Constant (02:09:07.878)
Interesting.

I mean, it's a royal word, so somewhere in the same vein. But then Leslie says, well, I have a system. It will work with my system. But then this other guy at the presentation says, well, I had a system too. But then the economy hit, and they lost their cityhood. And his town turned into an unincorporated territory. And he's like,

hey, you need eight to 10 years minimum to see this through. And then with the combination of saying like, you need hands on work when she's planning on not being there, like what a wrench in the plans. Like she was ready to go.

Madi (02:09:43.947)
Yeah.

I forgot he said eight to 10 years.

Holly Constant (02:09:48.24)
Yeah. Yeah. So with her, with the other lady saying 10 years and him saying eight to 10 years. my God. And then unincorporated territory, which like is the worst nightmare for Leslie.

Madi (02:09:50.667)
Oof.

Madi (02:09:57.046)
Which, yeah, yeah, I mean, now it's just like, she's in fear. She's gonna go into fight or flight mode.

Holly Constant (02:10:02.534)
Exactly. Panic mode. Yeah. And I did want to look. OK, so I looked this up very briefly because I wanted to know if this was true about the time frame. Like, is that real? And most articles I found now, granted, I looked up like three articles, but most articles I found did say that six months to several years, six months is like a very small like, you know, this is not this is not that much work kind of vibe. But that six months is like on the

positive minimalist side, you know what I mean? Like several years is really going to be what it is, depending on how involved it is. And with Leslie, like you can probably feasibly shave off a year tops because she is so organized and her work ethic is like unmatched and quite frankly, a little unhinged, but it's definitely going to take longer than a year, which is what she had the plan for. And ironically, I found an article about a Virginia town. Like this does happen more than we think.

Madi (02:10:34.379)
Yeah.

Madi (02:10:50.902)
Ha

Holly Constant (02:11:01.466)
merging towns. So I'm going to post this in the show notes, but just briefly, like a little key takeaway thing. Merging towns is a complex process that can take from six months to several years to finalize. And it involves negotiations, legal and fiscal, which we've kind of gone through, but I didn't think about the legal one. We've done the fiscal stuff with all of Eagleton's bills. In real world context, such as in Virginia,

Madi (02:11:19.829)
her.

Holly Constant (02:11:25.47)
these discussions often arise to address financial stress in smaller cities with merging surrounding counties being a long-term solution. And I was like, oh my god, that's crazy. This happens more than I think we think about. The fact that I even found multiple articles explaining this, that's wild. So the key takeaways that I found was that mergers are rarely fast. They're usually longer than you think.

Madi (02:11:37.141)
Yeah.

Madi (02:11:42.079)
Yeah, to have that.

That's what I'm saying.

Holly Constant (02:11:54.377)
The process depends heavily on the complexity of merging services, tax bases, and political negotiations, which is so true, the tax thing, because that's regarding property. Like if you were to sell or buy houses, like now, that's a whole thing. Like the parcel of your lot is way more involved in how you file that and index that online for registers of deeds offices for your deed to be filed. That all depends on your tax parcel.

Madi (02:12:07.307)
Mm-hmm.

Madi (02:12:21.451)
Mm-hmm.

Holly Constant (02:12:21.552)
which is crazy political negotiations of like, who's going to run which part of the town and then the structural changes to the local government and how you're going to merge both city halls. Cause we didn't even really get to that part. We haven't even talked about like, yes, we had, we'd had the doppelgangers. We had those people and there were some layoffs and things like that. But the people that were left, we haven't really discussed like where they're going into each part except for Craig, you know? So think about all the people that Eagleton has and who they have to merge into the town. It's, it's a lot.

Madi (02:12:42.699)
Mm-hmm.

Madi (02:12:50.891)
And it is, yeah, lot of logistics.

Holly Constant (02:12:53.374)
Yes, so the fellow that talked about the unincorporated territory is played by Barry Ford and he was so great, but sadly again, he passed away in 2017. So a lot of rest in peace people for Parks this episode. He died just three years after this aired, which was so sad, but he was so good. He was a native Californian. He has a range of dialects, which is fun. He did a ton of theater. He started acting in 1945. Amazing.

Madi (02:13:01.834)
Madi (02:13:05.535)
Yeah.

Madi (02:13:10.324)
Yeah.

Madi (02:13:19.486)
Wow.

Holly Constant (02:13:20.242)
He was in the Green Hornet TV series in 1967. Looks like a bunch of 60s, 70s action movies. Felony Squad, Combat, Hogan's Heroes. In modern day, he was in the movie, or the show Blackish. Great journeyman actor, and he was 84 years old. Which, in this episode, he was 84. And I was like, you seem so spright and like, fully capable of everything. And he also worked in internet and video games.

Madi (02:13:23.764)
Okay.

Madi (02:13:34.858)
Mm-hmm.

Madi (02:13:41.779)
Yeah.

Madi (02:13:45.599)
Yeah.

Holly Constant (02:13:49.754)
If you play video games, was in the game Dungeon Siege III or Dungeon Siege III. His character is Dapper Old Gent. That's his character name. And then online it says he died from undisclosed causes, so I'm not really sure how he passed away, but well done. We respect and applaud you.

Madi (02:14:08.712)
Mm-hmm.

Holly Constant (02:14:10.97)
Okay, so now at Tom's Bistro, we're at the soft opening and people are there, which is great, but Donna and Craig are having a moment and Craig basically acts like he's drunk all the time, feel. Like, getting angry, then expressing his love and like, I'm so mad at you, but I love you. A man without a palan, is it a man? I love you, Donna. And then the chairs aren't ready, like, God.

Madi (02:14:21.983)
Yeah.

Madi (02:14:29.002)
man.

Yeah, he's so much.

Madi (02:14:37.335)
it's insane.

Holly Constant (02:14:38.278)
And then they're really making a meal out of how terrible and incompetent Jerry is. Like, I was really rooting for him, but then he breaks all the glasses and then he breaks a chair. The investor sees this and it's awful.

Madi (02:14:51.207)
Yeah, it's just downhill from here.

Holly Constant (02:14:54.3)
Yes. Also, like all the stemware that he's gonna have to replace, that's so fucked. But you kind of do see like Tom being a good manager slash owner where he's like, you know what, it's fine. And then coming up with things on the fly of A, it's good luck to break glassware on the first day and B, like it will be more classy for April to recite the things. Like that was a good solution if it was anyone but April, I feel.

Madi (02:15:02.353)
So expensive.

Madi (02:15:16.777)
Mm-hmm.

Madi (02:15:21.287)
Yeah, for real. Yeah.

Holly Constant (02:15:24.774)
Okay, so did you have anything before we move on from that scene?

Madi (02:15:32.039)
That scene was just them preparing for the like, this is, I'm just making sure I'm not missing April actually interacting with the, okay, okay. Just want to make sure. In my head, I can't remember if that's all in one scene or if we take a, we go somewhere else and then come back. So, sorry.

Holly Constant (02:15:38.756)
Okay, no, we haven't gotten there yet.

Holly Constant (02:15:46.375)
Yeah. No, no, no, you're fine. Okay. So now we're going to heated Cones of Dunshire game. Everyone is watching. Love all this random ass terminology, resource gems, shaman, all this stuff. I love this shot of Ben and looking over his cones. It's so fierce. It's so good. So Game of Thrones vibes.

Madi (02:15:54.355)
her.

Madi (02:16:05.297)
It is... It's very... Yeah. Yeah, he's in control. You can tell.

Holly Constant (02:16:11.59)
Absolutely. Okay, this is the part that I was shocked by. This is when I texted you about there were an added scene, cut scene, replaced scene. This was a straight up replaced scene. was not, they had two versions of this apparently. And it is completely different from what was originally aired. And the original air is the best. This was the part that I was looking forward to because it's one of my favorite Adam Scott moments.

Madi (02:16:18.248)
Okay.

Madi (02:16:25.053)
Okay.

Holly Constant (02:16:36.702)
So on Peacock, okay, you know, this guy thinks he's won, he thinks he's the best because Ben has no more resource gems left and he's laughing, everyone's with him and we think, you know, this bully, the grizzled man got away with it and he offers his hand and says, Ben says, like, I'm offering you a draw and the other guy doesn't take it. So Ben's like, okay, whatever you asked for it, you had the chance. And then he wins by bringing his humble farmer to the cone. Now, do you remember the original version?

Madi (02:16:54.45)
RRRR

Madi (02:17:05.157)
No, but I did, I could tell that this was not, this was not right. He does talk through his, his moves, right? In the original, but I don't remember him. He doesn't offer him a draw.

Holly Constant (02:17:06.169)
my God.

Holly Constant (02:17:09.672)
Something was off.

Yeah. Mm-hmm.

Right, the draw was not there. Okay, let me play the original Cone's Cut. This is the original one.

Madi (02:17:20.135)
Right?

Holly Constant (02:17:36.7)
He's staring out at the cones.

Holly Constant (02:18:17.596)
The cone is knocked off and he wins. That is, that to me, there's no question that that one is better.

Madi (02:18:19.695)
Yep.

Madi (02:18:25.575)
I 100 % agree with you. This whole scene, like I didn't know that it was cut and replaced, but this whole scene felt off to me. was like, that, well, I knew the handshake was new, but like I couldn't put a finger on it. So the fact that you're saying that it was actually completely cut out and replaced by a different scene makes me feel much better because I, yeah, I remember in this, in the one that I watched on Peacock, he says, just roll or he says, go ahead and roll. And Ben's like,

Holly Constant (02:18:44.413)
Mm-hmm.

Madi (02:18:55.563)
I will or whatever and that felt off to me too, but I couldn't I was I couldn't place why it felt off So yeah, this is just so badass that way the way you just play

Holly Constant (02:19:01.491)
Yeah.

That's exactly what I was thinking, because it goes with that fierce shot of him looking at the cones. That makes so much more sense. And then this soft, creepy, all-knowing laughter that he's a king in Game of Thrones. And him just knowing so much more than this guy, because he truly is the fucking architect. How dare you say that I didn't invent this? It's just so much more Ben, too. Like, I don't really understand why you'd offer a draw anyway, just to make the other guy feel better. Like, you wouldn't...

Madi (02:19:11.079)
over

Madi (02:19:27.143)
I'm sorry.

Holly Constant (02:19:31.548)
be able to get the free wifi if you offered him a draw and he took it. Like, cause it seemed genuine, like it didn't seem like I'll offer you a draw bitch. like, he's not expecting him to take the draw. He like expects him to take the draw in a way I feel. And I just felt like this, the one that I just played the original is the alignment with like the character of Ben. So yeah, don't know the backstory of why they did that.

Madi (02:19:35.289)
Okay.

Madi (02:19:40.506)
Yeah.

Madi (02:19:55.483)
Yeah, me either. Interesting.

Holly Constant (02:19:56.763)
I will say, yes, very interesting. I will say I did find online that this draw moment, like the one that they ended up airing is a near line for line remake of the final scene in searching for Bobby Fisher, which is when the protagonist Josh offers his nemesis to draw that he refuses before going on to beat him. And I've never seen that before. I'm very sorry. But if you have seen that before, you'll probably see the similarity and maybe a writer was like paying homage to them at a point. I just feel like it's still

Either one paints Ben as the better guy regardless. So like, don't know why they did that. It's so interesting. So I was like, my God, I caught something. Yeah, weird.

Madi (02:20:29.563)
Yeah.

Madi (02:20:34.735)
Yeah. Fascinating. Very weird. And we end with an ad too.

Holly Constant (02:20:39.304)
So that would be another question. And end with what?

Madi (02:20:44.091)
We end with another ad too where Andy's gonna go back to the haircut.

Holly Constant (02:20:48.132)
yes, yes, yes, exactly, they build on that. That's, yes. Yeah, so that would be another Mike Schur question. All right, so back at Tom's Bistro, our investor guy is clearly seeing how poorly this is going. April's bad at serving. I think this is the part where the Lamborghini, Bucatini, all that kind of stuff comes in. Right, and then.

Madi (02:20:56.027)
Yes.

Madi (02:21:08.549)
Yes, Ferrari.

I can't.

Holly Constant (02:21:15.472)
Larry makes it even worse and comes over and starts talking about how Lord Sheldon's anus is going to be fine.

Madi (02:21:17.863)
Yeah.

Madi (02:21:21.775)
Somebody should just sent him home.

Holly Constant (02:21:23.614)
Seriously, great point. That is what you should have done. Like, just get out of here. And then Ron's chair wasn't finished drying, so now this investor guy's suit is destroyed. Thankfully, he's walking out, so we don't have to say anything to him about it, but my God. And it is good that Lord Sheldon's gonna be okay, but damn, save that for later, homie. Like, what are you doing?

Madi (02:21:40.673)
Yeah, that's not in right now news. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Holly Constant (02:21:44.03)
And yeah, again, this is where Mitch is like, you don't know what you're doing. Even though he totally does, he just overshot. And I mean, as an investor, I feel like that's perfectly within his reason to be like, I can't put all my money in this if this is how it's going to go, you know?

Madi (02:22:01.433)
Yeah. But on the other hand, I also like in my head, I totally also agree that there is this side of like, yeah, this is how my money's being spent. I'm out. But the other side of me is like, you, you didn't ask any questions about like, well, why didn't it work? You know, there wasn't any like help to try to figure it out. Sometimes there's like silent investors where you just give the money and you can pull out, but this felt more like a, should have been a partnership where it's like, Hey,

Holly Constant (02:22:11.197)
Mm-hmm.

Madi (02:22:31.182)
This is a clear sign to me that we're not ready for the Unity concert. So let's just shoot for our original, our original opening date. cause yeah, to just completely walk out on him when we knew that this was a stretch. That's okay. I also have a note about that. Like what is the contract? So, but I think there's some meaningfulness to it too, about having him walk out and that Tom does it on his own in the, in the next part. So.

Holly Constant (02:22:38.493)
Yeah.

Holly Constant (02:22:43.44)
Yeah, also I wonder if they signed anything.

Holly Constant (02:22:49.498)
Yeah, yeah, 100%.

Holly Constant (02:22:57.042)
Mm-hmm.

Holly Constant (02:23:00.381)
Yeah.

Madi (02:23:00.985)
There's a toss up there. get the story behind it, but I'm also like, bro, you're just going to walk out.

Holly Constant (02:23:06.0)
Yeah, I know, I'm thinking of like the Shark Tank investors. This is what the Shark Tank investors would do. They would absolutely just be like, no, you fucked up, goodbye. I just feel like they would, because my mom watches that show in the background and I hear some of them and I'm like, you're in the, okay. Like that, guess that's what it's about.

Madi (02:23:07.481)
So, mm-hmm.

Madi (02:23:17.401)
Yeah.

But yeah, no, and I think that's like the perfect marriage of both of our sides of it is that a lot of times those sharks are giving advice too. They're helping them be successful. But if they're seeing signs of like, you're not even doing your part or you're not taking my advice, then they pull out. So it makes sense. But.

Holly Constant (02:23:33.178)
Right. Yeah.

Holly Constant (02:23:43.077)
It sucks. Yeah. Bummer. Bummer for Tom. It sucks. It just all went so sadly. This reminds me also of when Erin in the office says that she's taking an Italian class and it's just like where she goes to an Italian restaurant. So far I've learned linguine or whatever pasta name. OK, so now we're headed to the airport.

Madi (02:23:49.475)
Yeah. Yeah.

Madi (02:24:01.239)
Yeah, so funny.

Holly Constant (02:24:06.438)
And Ben is saying that apparently the Cones of Dunshire game has spread. It's all over the internet. It's all over major cities of the country. And Ben is bummed. But we, the audience, know this is a nice foreshadowing moment about the copywriting because he will eventually get that. So we'll circle back to that. And then Pawnee will get the free wireless because of the game. So that was a really nice closure moment. We love that.

Madi (02:24:19.097)
Mm-hmm.

Madi (02:24:27.631)
Yeah.

Holly Constant (02:24:29.564)
We can both leave with good conscience, but Leslie is super bummed because she can't leave Pawnee now with this difficult merger that she's responsible for. But also like she saved a town. I just wish that she'd recognize that too. Like you did a big thing. Like you're not really leaving it to fend for itself. Like you have people there that would help you. But I get what she's saying. Like, so now she says that she has to turn down the job. Yeah, it does.

Madi (02:24:35.951)
Mm-hmm.

Madi (02:24:43.171)
Yeah.

Madi (02:24:53.346)
Yeah, it feels like her baby. Yeah.

Holly Constant (02:24:59.394)
my god, this part I feel was cut too where she says, Leslie says, why haven't we gotten to human cloning? And he talks, and she talks about Dolly the sheep. I was like, my god, I love that. Are you familiar with Dolly the sheep? Okay.

Madi (02:25:05.699)
That what? Yeah.

Madi (02:25:10.22)
Yeah. yeah. And I can't believe it was 20 years ago when they filmed that.

Holly Constant (02:25:14.512)
I know, insane. my God. Let's see. Okay, this taxi driver. Side note, this is another thing I really loved about this episode. my God, so many things. This taxi driver is definitely the same taxi driver as the limo driver when Andy takes April to prom. And Andy thinks all the things are free and the limo driver has the no, it's not, it's not free. But my gosh, that episode, if you remember, I was trying to figure out who the hell this guy was because there were so many different like,

Madi (02:25:26.82)
Mm-hmm.

Madi (02:25:32.878)
So cool.

Holly Constant (02:25:44.05)
discrepancies on IMDB, having a picture of a dude and then the name was wrong after I researched it. But this, have gotten closure. This is Doug Smith. I'm so glad he's in the episode so I could have this moment. he, I was getting it confused because I think I had called him Doug Jones at one point. And Doug Jones is the creature actor, not.

Madi (02:25:45.892)
Mmm.

Madi (02:26:02.372)
Mmm.

Holly Constant (02:26:05.182)
And regardless, this is Doug Smith who is on the crew for Parks and I just think I got the name Smith and Jones confused because they're both so common because I feel like there was a Jones last name in another actor. Anyway, I cleared it up and this is Doug Smith. So I love that he got to come back. I also love that he had some cut scenes that were actually aired in the Peacock version or some cut lines rather. So I really love that.

Madi (02:26:17.817)
Mm-hmm.

Madi (02:26:33.153)
Yeah, so good.

Holly Constant (02:26:34.342)
And this is again, where Ben's like, we're not leaving until we make a decision, which I believe is also cut because when Amy says, or when Leslie says, we'll miss our flight, like it's fine, whatever, or no, Ben says this. And I actually love that they did this because I definitely, as an anxious airport person was like, how are you keeping on circling around in here? Like you guys are not gonna make your flight. So I'm glad that they mentioned it.

Madi (02:26:40.131)
Mm-hmm.

Madi (02:26:56.065)
Yeah. Gout.

Madi (02:27:01.214)
man.

Holly Constant (02:27:01.246)
know this is the best solution to pressure her, like putting her on the spot like that, I don't know.

Madi (02:27:05.537)
Yeah. Yeah, I don't. Yeah, that, definitely was added. had that note too, but I agree with you. But I do like that he, he's like, we're going to go, we're going to go look at this thing. Like I love that idea. I don't love the, we're not going back to Pawnee until we have an answer.

Holly Constant (02:27:18.236)
Yes, taking her out of context.

Holly Constant (02:27:22.81)
Yes, he has a solution like we were talking about before. He's not just like fix it. He like shows her how to get to the solution. Yes. Great point. OK, so back at Tom's bistro, Ron is like, OK, whatever you screwed up, who cares? Like you tried to shoot the moon and it didn't work. His pocket square says billionaire. Love that. And Tom says he's going to quit. And he explains that, you know, when he was in kindergarten, whatever the hell, he just took his ball and went home.

Madi (02:27:25.015)
Yes.

Madi (02:27:51.501)
Yeah.

Holly Constant (02:27:51.963)
when he lost in grade school. And then this is where April makes up for her bad service, like, and uses her lying for good, essentially, by calling a bunch of reviewers and saying the soft opening of Tom's Bistro went really well and they should all come on Friday. Which I do love that April brings it back here because, and I love seeing them all stick up for each other because I do feel like April sucked in that moment for a little bit when she was serving. Like, I know that's in her character, but I was like, ugh.

Madi (02:27:55.052)
Ugh.

Madi (02:28:02.252)
Mm-hmm.

Madi (02:28:17.761)
Yeah.

Holly Constant (02:28:21.266)
dear. Which in some of that's Tom's fault. Like even Donna could have done that. Like somebody else could have done that. That was a client facing thing, you know what I mean? That April might not have been the best at. But and this is kind of also another part where I think it's great that Leslie had a lot of influence on Tom because it's a big deal to do all of this with your friends and the friends showed up for each other and are working together and

Madi (02:28:26.967)
Yeah.

Yeah, agreed.

Holly Constant (02:28:49.05)
April's right that he deserves a real shot. Like this wasn't a real shot, honestly. Like it was half-assed, as you've said. But we deserve to see where it goes once we try for real, you know?

Madi (02:28:55.159)
Yeah.

Madi (02:29:01.41)
Yeah, yeah. That's also added. And yeah, and I'm like, Ron, you knew he was working in a budget you should have chosen. Like you should have gone to Home Depot. You didn't need to go chop trees down. What are we doing?

Holly Constant (02:29:02.398)
And $16,000 for chairs? Oh my god.

Holly Constant (02:29:08.444)
Yes, I agree.

Holly Constant (02:29:17.49)
That's crazy.

my God. So back at the cap. Yeah, Ron would never do that, though.

Madi (02:29:26.134)
Yeah, true. He has standards, his standards. Yep.

Holly Constant (02:29:30.61)
So back in the cab, the taxi driver has some cut lines that we talked about where they definitely did not air this in the original version. So that's really fun. And he's kind of making it worse because he can see both sides. Like how can you not take the job, but also how can you leave where you put roots down? I thought that was funny.

And then this was the part that I remember like originally airing where she's like, I'm just gonna die here in this cab at the San Francisco airport. And side note, this was filmed at the Burbank airport in Los Angeles. So if anyone lives near that, it's super fun and cute. And you can have a little history if you drive by there or if you have a flight from there, that's where Amy and Ben were.

love this part of Amy doing such a good job acting like she really has that look on her face of like I hate this I cannot decide this is kind of like eating her alive like what the hell do I do and then this is where Ben says to drive here and we know where he's gonna go so that's very exciting

Madi (02:30:17.558)
Yeah.

Madi (02:30:29.408)
Yes.

Holly Constant (02:30:31.262)
And he's on Endor from Star Wars. They're at the Redwood Forest. George Lucas used these for his, um, for Star Wars. And it's also a fun fact that there's like a gag reel, um, where a Wookie comes up to like chase Ben. It's so funny cause I don't know who it is. must have been one of the crew members or something that did that as a prank, but I thought that was so funny to see in the gag reel.

Madi (02:30:32.393)
yeah.

Madi (02:30:44.214)
Yeah.

Madi (02:30:49.068)
That's so funny. my gosh. Yeah, I want to go to the Redwoods so badly. It looks so beautiful.

Holly Constant (02:30:55.134)
Mm-hmm. Yeah, it does. think, I'm trying to think. I feel like I did that during Yosemite, but it was just like a small portion. I don't think I went exactly where they went. I don't think, but yeah, I would love to go back and just remember it as an adult, because I feel like I was younger. Okay, so, okay, so I was wondering, now we're at the San Francisco Bridge, where Ben decided to take her.

Madi (02:31:05.762)
Mmm.

Madi (02:31:14.754)
Mm-hmm.

Holly Constant (02:31:23.874)
And I was wondering why they didn't originally come here in the first place. Like maybe they didn't have time with the conference in Grizzle, but I was like, you're in San Francisco. Like, why haven't you been here? But maybe they did as a backstory and they just didn't film it. I don't know. It's okay. But the real reason why we're here at the Golden Gate Bridge really is magnificent. And Ben reminds her that she's been thinking about this in the abstract, but like think about what it actually means. Like you're actually standing in National Park.

Madi (02:31:37.214)
Yeah, good question.

Holly Constant (02:31:51.921)
in a national park and you would be in charge of this whole region. And Ben is so good here. Adam Scott is really good here. And the writers, like all that combination of the crew and the cast coming together is so beautiful. It's such a wonderful speech. Like helping anyone you love to really imagine it tangibly instead of just thinking of it like abstractly, if you can, which is not always an option, but if you can go to the actual place that you'd be working, living, doing the thing, like.

Madi (02:31:57.802)
Mm-hmm.

Holly Constant (02:32:18.128)
It just is really nice show of love and solidarity there, I think. I actually would really like to listen to Ben's speech, and I recorded it because I think it's so beautiful. So let's just listen to it really fast.

Madi (02:32:22.696)
Yeah, agreed.

Madi (02:32:29.844)
Yay!

Holly Constant (02:33:37.758)
my god. Like, fucking mic drop. That was so good.

Madi (02:33:39.132)
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, beautifully done. He should see how much he knows Leslie and what's important to her.

Holly Constant (02:33:48.53)
Yes, and to remind her also of what she herself has said. I think that's a really a good friend, a good spouse when you can be like, you said that you wanted to see more and like, this is your chance because we get so stuck in that box of like, I can't make the decision. And so it's really beautiful that he reminded her of that and that the map is there to represent visually. Like this is the places where you would be. This is where your name would be.

Madi (02:34:00.916)
Mm-hmm. Here's your opportunity. Yeah.

Holly Constant (02:34:15.774)
which is nice that Rebecca Veruvian's name is on that little plaque thing. It's really cute for the San Francisco region. But yeah, just super well done for that to wrap up her decision.

Madi (02:34:22.014)
Yeah.

Madi (02:34:29.758)
Yeah, absolutely. And I like that she's pulling the trigger. She's calling, she's gonna do it now, she knows this is the right decision, and she's gonna figure everything else out. But she's not gonna let the decision continue to hang there.

Holly Constant (02:34:36.412)
Yes. Yeah.

Holly Constant (02:34:43.516)
Right. And also I was thinking too, like, I know she can't be as hands on as she wants to, which is what those people at the conference were saying, but like she is, Indiana is a part of the Midwest. So like she can still take a look at how the merger is going. She can still pop in like, or be on the emails, advise, be a consultant in a way. Like again, I know that that's wishful thinking because she's going to be so intense with her current duties or like her new duties or whatever, but like it's not as if this is just going away. You know what I mean?

Madi (02:34:50.643)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

Holly Constant (02:35:12.296)
Like she can't ever talk to anyone ever again about how things are going, you know what I mean? But it is the hands-on work that she wants to do. So like I do understand her thoughts there. And then this phone call to Grant, it's Lepster Canop. I love you, bye.

Madi (02:35:12.531)
Yeah.

Madi (02:35:15.997)
Right, absolutely.

Holly Constant (02:35:31.838)
So good. All right. then we have, okay, so this is rounding out this episode. So we have the Larry Jerry Leslie moment. This is cut from the original two. Did you catch this? Okay, because this was like, what the fuck? I was like, no, I don't remember this. Leslie wants to practice telling people that she's leaving and she wants to practice on Larry because it doesn't matter really, like for Larry.

Madi (02:35:31.935)
Priceless. Yeah. Love it.

Madi (02:35:44.68)
Yes.

Madi (02:35:54.047)
His response isn't going to impact her the way everybody else's is.

Holly Constant (02:35:59.272)
Correct. That's exactly right. And this would be a good practice run. And Larry thinks that he's getting fired, but then Leslie starts crying because she gets too emotional with the news and she can't get the words out. And Larry takes that as Leslie loving him, being around too much so she can't fire him. And then April comes in crying because she wanted Larry to get fired and so she's crying over still having to work with Larry. Why didn't you fire him?

Leslie's moment too of like, no, that's not even close. When Jerry Larry says that reason why he thought he was called in. my God. That was good. I wish they kept that in, but I get it for timing reasons. So the call is where that first episode like originally ended. And then we get to the second part. But like I said, it was two episodes. like, and it was aired on the same night. I don't know if I mentioned that back to back.

Madi (02:36:29.223)
Yeah.

Madi (02:36:36.542)
So funny.

Yeah, yeah, absolutely. It's so funny.

Madi (02:36:46.056)
Mm-hmm.

Madi (02:36:54.152)
Back to back.

Holly Constant (02:36:55.695)
Yeah, so, and it might've actually been like all one episode, you know what mean? Like I don't know if they cut in between parts actually, the way that this is. They may have, but I couldn't find that portion, but just know that it was all on the same night. It was not like two weeks. Okay, well those are, yeah, thank goodness. my gosh, we needed that. Okay, well those are the end of my notes. Did you have anything left?

Madi (02:37:07.176)
Mm-hmm.

Madi (02:37:12.892)
Yeah. Thank goodness.

Madi (02:37:22.158)
Savannah My Notes as well. I'm excited to round out season six.

Holly Constant (02:37:23.971)
my gosh. Like I said, you guys, I could have done four episodes on, like we could have split the first part into two episodes, and this next episode next week into two or three episodes to be completely honest, because there's just so much fucking things, and I don't want to cut anything out. Like I don't want to not play those trailers or not play certain people's like.

Madi (02:37:39.388)
Yeah, it's a lot.

Holly Constant (02:37:47.099)
voice memos or random Alcatraz shit I found because I just think it's really fun and important so hopefully you guys can just like pause this if you need to and listen to the next one and hopefully our passion for this show shines through because this was amazing this series season finale almost series finale was truly such a gift that they gave us

Madi (02:38:07.473)
Yeah, it's beautiful.

Holly Constant (02:38:09.671)
Well, don't forget to rate, review, subscribe. Go vote if you have elections in your state, Virginians. If you are a Virginian, look up your shit. Follow FairElectionsVA on Instagram if you are interested. Or if you're not a Virginian and you just want to know what's going on, you can do that too. There are midterm elections coming up too. And I know you guys think that voting doesn't really matter, but it does. It does. This one especially, because we've got to do something. Sometimes it feels like the world is just ending.

Madi (02:38:30.653)
Mm-hmm.

Holly Constant (02:38:39.591)
Truly. But we'll try our best.

Madi (02:38:39.973)
Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Madi (02:38:45.083)
Yes, we will. Get out there.

Holly Constant (02:38:48.573)
Well, thank you guys so much. And yeah, speak up. Like I really think it's important to speak up. Use that retweet function or repost function on your Instagram. Post on your stories. I know you guys think that social media is not going to turn the tide, but it will. So you need to be posting on your social media so that people know. And you need to be doing that for yourself as well so that you're informed. OK, I know you need to take a break from social media sometimes, but we need to post some stuff so that people are aware and informed. It's just the way of the world these days.

Okay, well thank you guys so much for listening and we hope you have a great week!

Madi (02:39:21.501)
See you next time.