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But above all, as the department’s rallying around Leslie showed, it shares a theme with its NBC predecessor: the idea of interdependence and community, the sincere belief that people pulling together—whether a group of friends or a city department—make each other better.

In a show about a city bureaucracy, you could argue that this is a political statement, because Ron Swanson aside, the show does believe that government, for all its absurdities, can help people. But it’s a liberal attitude only in the small-l sense; really, like FNL, the show shares an attitude out of works of ’40s-era Americana works like It’s a Wonderful Life. Namely: we need each other. We need each other’s help, but we also need to help each other, because, as Leslie Knope much like George Bailey learns, those acts of helping in themselves make you better. That could play corny, but it’s really bold; after all, there are a million forces in contemporary life, from different political camps and nonpolitical ones, that encourage people to be cynical and dismissive. It’s easy to become bitter and sour; it’s harder to find a non-cloying way to sprinkle a little sugar. Or at least salgar.

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James Poniewozik on my favorite show (at least until Doctor Who comes back next year and hopefully makes River Song less pathetic [I have a lot of feelings]) Parks and Recreation, and its ties to Friday Night Lights (which I have never seen [I know]) and Frank Capra (at the end of this episode I turned to Kevin with the kind of lump in one’s throat that is actually painful and said “Every episode of this show is like a mini Frank Capra movie”). Anyway, best show on television. Cal-cu-later!