Parks and Recreation just closed up one of the major early storylines of its final season, but spoilers direct from the showrunner indicate that there could be more time-jumping excitement between now and the show’s conclusion.
The seventh and final season of the popular comedy is set three years after the last season’s finale. Leslie Knope is now the head of the Midwest branch of the National Parks service, occupying an office in the same building where she once led the Pawnee parks department.
But the show opened to some drastically different circumstances. Leslie and her curmudgeonly friend, Ron Swanson, were now bitter rivals, with viewers given little explanation other than vague references to a project called “Morningstar.”
The ambiguity didn’t last long. In this season’s fourth episode, titled “Leslie & Ron,” the two finally hashed out their differences and Ron revealed the source of the rift. Three years earlier, he had decided to quit his job and planned to ask Leslie if he could work with her in the National Parks service. But Knope stood him up on their meeting, and Ron instead went into the private sector, starting his own development company.
Ron later built the Morningstar luxury apartments, and in the process bulldozed the home of Leslie’s friend, Ann Perkins.
With the two clearing up their differences and seemingly resuming their friendship, Parks and Recreation is now moving full steam ahead toward what looks to be another conflict . Leslie is trying to convince the Newport family to leave 25 square miles of prime land (valued at $90 million) to National Parks, while Ron’s company is representing the faux-Facebook company Gryzzl, which wants to build its headquarters there.
It’s unclear where the action will go, but show runner Michael Schur has given a hint about when it will go. In a Parks and Recreation spoiler revealed after the last season finale, Schur said there is still more time-jumping in store for the show.
“A very small but important part of that scene is when [Leslie] says: ‘Cancel my trip to South Dakota. We’ll all go next month,’ ” Schur said of the Season 6 finale.
“This is her life now. She’s jetting off all around the country and she’s on site and managing huge projects. She’s going to be doing a lot of travel in the future.”
Fans who want to see if the Parks and Recreation spoilers come true won’t have to wait long. With its January start date, the final season of the show is moving quickly toward its conclusion.