The Possum Parks and Recreation

Ann Perkins. What's happening, sweetheart?

Just waiting for April. She's taking care of my house while I'm away, so...

That's great. Happy belated Valentine's Day.

Valentine's Day was a month ago. Why are you giving it to me now?

Whatever. Happy early Valentine's Day.

I saw this and I thought of you.

Hope you keep that somewhere special.

OK. This is one of those nanny-cam teddy bears, isn't it?

What? No. It's a regular, camera-less teddy bear.

Just put it in your bedroom, don't even think about it.

It's a robot bear. It's programmed to snuggle!

I'll take it.

Donna, there's a camera in it.

I know.

All right. That's basically it. Water the plants, get the mail.

Can I read your mail?

-No. Please, don't.

-Fine.

Oh. And here are the keys, and remember...

I know. Don't let Tom make a copy.

That's right. Good.

'I'm paying April 50 bucks to watch my house while I'm away.'

I would have asked Leslie,

but I've seen the way she takes care of her house.

Plus, there's always been a little distance between me and April.

And I thought this would maybe,

I don't know, give us a chance to get a little closer. Maybe even...

I don't like Ann.

..become friends. Who knows?

Leslie, this is Evelyn Rowshlind, from the mayor's office.

Oh, hello! I've always dreamed of you.

-Excuse me?

-Meeting you.

-What can I do for you? Have a seat.

-I prefer to stand.

OK.

I have kind of an odd favour to ask.

Mayor Gunderson was playing golf last week at Pawnee Municipal,

-and he brought his dog and...

-Rufus.

We all know Rufus. Everybody loves Rufus.

He's a great dog. Continue.

Well, they were out on the sixth hole

-when suddenly, out of nowhere...

-Rufus was bitten by a possum?

Yes. How did you know that?

It was Fairway Frank.

Fairway Frank is this awful possum

who lives near the sixth hole of the public golf course.

And he's actually number three

on the Parks Department's Most Wanted Pest List,

right behind the bats, who like to poop on the bell tower,

and Poopy, the raccoon who poops all over the high school cafeteria.

Shouldn't you take this up with Animal Control?

Let's be honest. Animal Control

-is not the most effective branch of our government.

-They're a bunch of burned-out morons.

Well, you have the reputation as a person who gets things done,

so we'd like you to form a little task force,

find the animal and put it down.

-A task force?

-Needless to say,

the mayor will be very grateful for your help.

Ma'am, the next time we speak,

we shall be dancing on the grave of a possum.

-Great.

-Ron will show you around.

Right this way is the exit.

Yo, police!

No, you're not. Coffee!

You always know what to bring me.

I only ever bring you coffee.

And it is my very favourite non-alcoholic hot drink, except for hot tea.

And hot orange juice, weirdly delicious.

Anyways, thank you so much.

I need it. I got a really bad case of shoeshine head today.

Andy recently diagnosed himself

with what he calls "shoeshine head."

It's when you shine too many shoes

and the fumes create a thunderstorm in your brain.

Cures include coffee, cheeseburgers

and napping on the floor.

Mark Brendanawicz!

Hey, Ron, what's up?

I have a woodshop, and I'm planning a little expansion.

Need my buddy, Mark the city planner, to sign off on the plans.

Sure, I just need to schedule an inspection.

That's not really necessary.

Yes, it is. But you'll be fine

as long as you don't have any code violations.

You don't have any code violations, do you?

Nope.

Eugene! Boy, we have a really important job for you.

We'll get to it first thing Monday.

Today's Wednesday.

Look, this is not a request.

We're acting under direct orders from Mayor Gunderson's dog.

Office. I need your two best guys

to join me and be part of my task force.

That would be Harris and Brett.

But they're not here.

-Isn't that them, there?

-Nope.

-Hey, Brett.

-Yeah?

-Dude.

-Listen,

that stupid possum is on the golf course again.

Would you rather I capture it myself, and then just call you,

-so you can come and pick it up?

-OK.

Hey, guys. Cool! Hey, you want your ball back?

Want your ball back? Come with me.

Oh, man!

How you know my name, homie?

-Stop, man!

-Stop hanging yourself.

-I'm going to hang yourself.

-Stop hanging yourself.

It's quite a crack team you've assembled, Leslie.

Yeah, well, there's five of us and only one possum.

How hard can it be? Excuse us! Task force coming through!

Task force clear. Resume golfing.

I used to love Tiger Woods because he was a great champion.

But after that sex scandal? The man is a god!

Hey, Mark.

-Welcome to my haven.

-Thank you.

You are the first non-me to set foot in this building in ten years.

Ron, none of this is up to code.

Sure it is. It's up to the Swanson Code.

There's no drainage. Doesn't seem to be any ventilation.

You've got hazardous chemicals over here.

Yeah, which only I'm breathing.

It's the same liberty that gives me the right to fart in my own car.

Are you going to tell a man that he can't fart in his own car?

There is a basket of oil-soaked rags above a wood-burning stove.

Good thing I've got a fire extinguisher, which, I can assure you,

is totally up to your precious code.

This says it should be recharged June of 1996.

Those dates are arbitrary.

They're like those expiration dates that the government forces companies

to put on yogurt and medicine.

Observe. Watch yourself.

Yeah.

SPLURT

OK. I'll replace this. Happy?

How long do you think it would take me to learn golf, Leslie?

I could teach you. I have a 16 handicap.

But, you know, it takes a lot of practice.

You have to get up early, hit the range, practice reading greens.

Yeah, I don't want to do all that.

I think I just want some of those dope pants.

Oh, my God!

Oh, my God! It's Fairway Frank! Wow. OK.

All right. Tom, I want you to very slowly...

Move! Get out of the way!

25, 26, 27, 28 violations.

Come on, Brendanawicz, relax.

Let me make you a canoe.

Well, I don't need a canoe, Ron. I need you to fix this place up.

So, I'll give you 24 hours.

OK, we may only get one chance to catch this thing,

so we have to play it smart.

You two, flank the left. I'll flank the right.

Andy will come in to...

SCREAMING

Andy!

I got it!

-Oh, my God! Task force, engage!

-I got him!

-He's got it.

-He's good.

-I got him.

-Come on, you cowards!

Let me see his face. Let me see his face!

That's him! That's him! We got him!

It's OK. He's on my neck!

-OK, OK, OK, OK!

-He's on my neck!

It's all right, it's all right. All right, it's OK.

You're next, Poopy.

Very impressive, Leslie.

Oh, thank you. I had a great task force.

I was just the simple mastermind who planned the whole operation

and executed it to perfection.

-This is Andy Dwyer, he actually caught the thing.

-Mr Dwyer.

Please, my friends call me Andy Radical.

No, we don't.

By day, Andy Dwyer, shoeshine-ist.

By a different time of day, Andy Radical, possum tackler.

And by night,

I do whatever I want. No job.

We think that this is a great PR opportunity.

So, we've arranged for a reporter from the Journal to stop by to interview,

get some pictures of the team.

Task force. Great!

And next time you need a special favour from the mayor's office, give me a call.

Oh, my God, I will! I need so many special favours.

-Which one should I choose?

-Well, you don't have to choose right...

How about an extra recycling can? No. Laminated bus pass? No.

What time do you usually go to sleep cos my best ideas usually come to me at night?

-Let's stick to business hours, shall we?

-Yeah, all right.

See you in hell, buddy.

Am I sure the possum we caught is Fairway Frank? Yes.

Am I quite sure? No. Am I sure enough? Maybe.

If it wasn't Fairway Frank, would I feel badly? Of course.

Could I live with myself? That depends.

As a city official, it's important that I ask myself a lot of questions.

Does doing so help me make decisions?

Uh...

-Oh, hey, Shauna.

-Hi, Leslie.

-Hi! Andy, you remember Shauna Malwee-Tweep, from the Pawnee Journal?

-How could I forget?

You wrote the article when I fell in the pit.

And then afterwards, had sex with Mark

and everyone talked about it.

So, you're on the golf course, and you see Fairway Frank.

Well, we see a possum that we believe to be Fairway Frank.

So, for right now, let's just refer to it as a possum.

Let me explain something to you, Tweep.

When you're in a situation, you don't have time to think.

So, I thought to myself,

"Don't think, Andy, act."

So, you weren't thinking?

Not at all.

I cannot emphasise enough how little I was thinking.

Were you scared?

No. No, I wasn't. Well, I...

I lived in the pit for the better part of last year,

and made some vermin friends.

You know what? "Friends" sounds stupid. Colleagues.

They are bad at sharing, but they are good at tag.

Well, your family must be very proud.

What does your girlfriend think? The nurse.

I broke up with Ann. Yeah. Shortly after she kicked me out

and told me we wouldn't be together anymore.

Well, maybe this article will change her mind.

What now?

I hadn't even thought of that. Wow.

Of all the things I thought would bring us back together,

catching a possum was never on that list.

Well, let's go take some pictures of Fairway Frank.

Of the possum.

Seriously, man, when you wear these clothes,

you just feel better than everyone else.

You know?

Yeah.

-Busy?

-No. What's up?

Just wanted to tell you, I understand that city codes exist,

and I know why they exist.

And I understand that you enforce them.

OK. OK. Good talk.

Can you sign off on my plans now?

Did you get everything up to code?

Yup.

No, you didn't! You clearly didn't!

It's my property, my land, my shop.

Ooh. Tommy needs a banana. You guys good?

Ron, you're asking me to do a bad job

at my job, and I'm just not going to do that.

So, if you don't mind, would you please just get out of my office?

Ooh. Silly me. There was this little pom-pom

on my glove and it fell off. Have you seen it?

Could you help me look for it real quick? It should be on the ground somewhere.

When I was putting it up. See.

-So, how's your hole?

-Excuse me?

The pit. Lot 48.

Oh, we're making really good progress on the park.

In fact, there may be some big news on that front coming soon,

all because of this very important business card.

So, this isn't a really big story, right?

Nobody cares about this very much.

Well, Fairway Frank did bite the mayor's dog.

So, this could be on the front page.

# Fairway Frank You're going to die

# You're going to fry, oh, yeah

# You guilty son of a bitch

# You're going to fry When they flip that switch. #

Hey, April, can I talk to you about this situation with the possum?

-No. OK.

-Hypothetically, if you were going

on a mission to, say, catch a guilty whale.

And while you were catching the whale,

you saw something else that may also be another whale,

and you were like, "What?" But then you thought, maybe it's not a whale.

Maybe it's a big fish. Maybe it's a submarine with a face painted on it.

The point is, if I kill the first whale, am I technically a murderer?

-I don't know what you're talking about.

-I saw a second possum!

There was another possum!

Wait. Andy's in there talking to a reporter,

literally kissing his own biceps

and you're telling me he might not be a hero,

but just some jerk that goes around tackling random possums?

No. I've gotta help Leslie find the truth.

Not because I'm pissed at Andy, which I'm not.

Because I care so deeply about possums.

Because they're so adorable.

April! Did you see my photo shoot?

I think I nailed it. I fell off the stool once

when I was trying to look serious, but I'm OK.

That's cool. I'm really happy for you.

You are?

Man, our happy reactions are super different.

So, he said he's going to e-mail me the photos in, like, six hours.

Do you want to wait with me?

Yeah, that sounds good, but I can't

because I have to go do something that actually matters.

Fairway Frank's been haunting the sixth hole for a while now.

-You must know him pretty well.

-Sure do.

I've chased that little sucker off more times than I can count.

Can you just take a look at these photos

and make sure that it's Fairway Frank?

Yup, that's him.

Mr Campopiano, those are photos of three different possums.

Huh.

You guys want something to drink?

KNOCK ON DOOR

Hey, boss. There's a possum wandering around on the 14th green.

-Should I call Animal Control again?

-Yeah.

Oh, my God. Those idiots are here from Animal Control.

They're going to take it away. OK.

We need more time to figure out the truth.

I have an idea. I'm going to distract everybody

and you get that possum out of here.

Can you do that, April? Can you get the possum out of here?

Can you sneak it out of here? April, can you do it? Can you?

-Please, April, tell me you can do it!

-Yes. Yes, I can do it. God.

I can't kill the possum, because it might be innocent.

I can't let the possum go, because it might be guilty.

I can't make a good soup, can't do a handstand in a pool,

can't spell the word "lieutenant."

There's a lot of can'ts in my life right now.

Let's make it happen, Captain.

Don't call me that.

You know what smells?

Help! Help, my arm looks like it's bleeding!

Holy cow! Leslie!

Oh, boy. Oh, look how much it's bleeding. Everybody look at it.

Everybody look over here!

I need everyone's full attention during this.

-That's a lot of blood.

-It is, it's so...

-It's ketchup!

-Is it?

-Jerry. Jerry.

-Yes. It's ketchup.

TV: 'Sentry duty is usually approximately one hour long.

'Baby meerkats do not start foraging for food until about one month old.'

Do you know them?

What do you mean that Fairway Frank is not here?

Here's the thing, Evelyn,

we're not sure that the possum we caught is, in fact, Fairway Frank.

Leslie, whoever it is, it's a possum.

And the sooner it's dead, the sooner the mayor can do what he wants with it.

Does he want to have sex with a dead possum?

-No!

-No.

He's not a monster.

He wants to stuff it and hang it above the urinal

in his office bathroom so that little flecks of pee can get on it forever.

Ew!

Now, Leslie, you did a great job,

and the mayor knows that you did a great job.

Now, where is the possum?

I'm sorry, but he's somewhere you'll never find it

and he's going to stay there until the truth comes out.

And I will not reveal his location, no matter how much you ask me.

But I'm going to stop talking now because I'm afraid

I may accidentally say where it is, so please go.

This is interesting. They put down a raccoon

that bit a jogger in a park in Staten Island.

-Wow.

-And in Walnut Creek, California,

they put down a duck that bit a kid.

But security footage later revealed that it was actually a goose.

-That's great.

-No, it's awful, Tom.

How would you feel if you killed an innocent duck

and let a vicious goose waddle free?

PHONE RINGS

-Tom Haverford.

-'Tom! It's April,

'I'm at Ann's house and the possum's loose! I need your help!

-'It's chewing on everything! Don't tell Leslie.'

-You got it.

The possum got loose at Ann's house.

Oh, my God!

April! April, it's Leslie Knope, from the Parks Department.

Stop ringing the doorbell, it's making him mad.

Oh, my God! How did this happen?

I let it out of its cage because it needed water,

and I thought it would just drink out of the toilet or something,

but then it ran off and I couldn't get it back in.

He did that, too.

-Oh, boy.

-Yeah, and then I opened all the doors

because I thought it would just go outside, but it won't leave the house!

It must love tacky pictures of flowers.

OK, OK, OK. I'm going to fix this. Let me just think for a second.

-Uh-oh.

-What?

Where is it? I can't see it! No! OK, where did it go?

-I don't know! I don't know.

-We just go outside. Let's just go outside!

Get in here!

I haven't even started yet.

I know.

Thought you could use some help.

Those city planning guys can be real pains in the ass.

OK. I just want you to know

that I still don't think city codes...

Ron, shut up.

Would you, please?

I'm taking a half-day off to come and help you out

because you're my friend, so just shut up.

No, I am bringing my workshop up to the Swanson Code.

And if the Swanson Code happens to overlap

with the City Government Code...

< Shut up.

I know there's a door there, but I kind of feel like it's going to chew through the door

-and jump on my face and bite me.

-I know!

-What if it's in here?

What if it laid eggs in the bed?

-OK, there are no eggs!

-You know, we should've killed it.

-It's so huge. I'm going to call Andy.

-No.

-Yeah. He tackled it once before, he can do it again.

-No, please don't, OK?

He's going to be pissed at me. I already ruined his big day,

and it's my fault that it's in Ann's house,

who he's obviously still in love with.

I just... I don't

want him to be mad at me, OK?

Oh. April.

He'll forgive you.

-You think so?

-Yeah.

We don't have to call Andy.

We can just call Animal Control.

OK.

And, April, any time you want to talk about boys...

Oh, my God! Stop!

THEY SCREAM

PHONE RINGS

Yo. So, I feel like you were mad at me yesterday

and I don't know why.

So, I made a list of everything I did

and I'm going to try not to do any of them again.

Also, I got you this coffee.

And then there's this. Fourth paragraph down.

"But Dwyer had some help catching the possum.

"I wouldn't have been able to do it without a caffeine boost

"from the amazing April Ludgate.

"She gave me the liquid courage I needed to wrestle that beast to the ground."

Well, Miss Knope. I have to say I'm very disappointed.

You didn't have to say that, you could've just thought it.

What did you do with the possum, exactly?

Well, I'm proud to say that it's somewhere

the mayor can never pee on it.

It's OK. Honestly. I mean, look.

When I retire and I'm attending some gala

honouring the first three female presidents in history,

myself and two other women I've inspired,

I want to be looking back at my distinguished legacy

and not thinking that I owe my career to some possum.

And I want to be wearing a huge, beautiful, blue hat!

-Thank you so much.

-Sure.

It made me feel happy that I knew somebody was here taking care of my house.

-Cool.

-So, did the neighbours give you any problems?

-No.

-Anything in...

-Possum.

-There was a possum.

We captured a possum, it got out and it might have laid eggs in your bed.

-What?

-And it went into your laundry and your kitchen, and it touched all your bras

and I'm so sorry. It's our fault.

We captured it and it ran around and it was a possum. OK? April, run!

Run, April. Sorry, Ann! I love you!

-I'm going to go.

-I think that would be best.

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