Amy Poehler's Rich Dickette Brings New Life To 'Rich Dicks'

Do you ever feel like loving Amy Poehler is...boring? Like, of course you love her. Everyone does. She's quick, she's smart, she's a feminist icon, she rehabilitated the Golden Globes from the state Ricky Gervais left them in (and they weren't such great shakes before him, either). She's Leslie Knope. She does everything right. Being her fan is so obvious. But that's exactly why I was so excited to see her in the latest Kroll Show, not just stretching away from the character that's made her famous, but playing someone Leslie Knope would try to get thrown in jail.

It's easy to forget it now, halfway through the sixth season of Parks & Recreation, but there was a time when Amy Poehler wasn't known for playing comic characters of unerring moral rectitude — quite the opposite, in fact! When she was first on SNL, I wrote this 2 Stars 1 Slot story (almost twelve years ago, jeeeeeeezus) comparing her to Amy Sedaris and praising both of them for the lack of vanity with which they committed to their sketch characters. On SNL, Poehler had no problem being unappealing — if not gross — for the sake of a joke. Even if she didn't transform herself physically — as when she played, for instance, Dennis Kucinich or Michael Jackson — she would find the petty, grasping essence of characters like Sally Needler, half (with Seth Meyers) of a couple whose savage public fights are preambles for their just as savage public sex. No one is going to mistake Poehler's SNL characters for heroines (...her Hillary Clinton excepted, I guess).

Over the years, we've become accustomed to the kind, big-hearted world of Parks & Recreation, arranged around the goofy, earnest protagonist who's certainly a lot closer to the real Amy Poehler than is, for instance, Amber, the one-legged hypoglycemic, and I wouldn't trade those years for anything. Parks is a wonderful show, and Leslie is a wonderful character — so good that I'd pretty much forgotten how great Poehler's comic range actually is. Enter Winnie Shawn!

Poehler makes her Kroll Show debut playing Winnie — excuse me, she's changed her name to Heath — sister to Jon Daly's Wendy. Heath has taken up with Wendy's best friend Aspen, though it doesn't seem like the two are meant to last: she needs him to tell her when he's inside her; she never stops texting while they're having sex, which he does while keeping his ankles crossed; when he tells her he wants to "put a baby in" her, she informs him that she can't ruin her blood line by having a baby with a Jewish boy; and in the middle of putting together an early YouTubeulogy for her not-quite-dead-yet Grandpa Goobie, she gets wasted on molly and makes out with her brother. Winnie/Heath is not a great person, but she does make the "Rick Dicks" format a lot more fun to watch than it was last season. Maybe it's sexist of me to find the drug-seeking, servant-abusing exploits of a couple of wealthy monsters to be something of a one-note premise, but adding Winnie/Heath to the mix — with her insincere interest in long-suffering Consuela, her internet "breark," and her Flowers In The Attic vibe — made it feel brand-new to me. This is the Poehler I remember from our youth (and by "our youth," I mean when she and I were both in our early thirties): either creating or being presented with truly disgusting characters, and gleefully going all in.

One of the strengths of Kroll Show has always been its repertory company of guest stars, particularly Jenny Slate, Chelsea Peretti, and (obviously) Daly. Maybe Poehler would have appeared in the show's second season even if she wasn't dating Kroll IRL, but she is, so I hope that means he'll take advantage of their relationship and deploy her more. Pretty Liz's niece, Denise, could probably use an even dorkier BFF. And Dr. Armond certainly needs a scrappy, Linda Kenney Baden-ish lawyer to defend him on his murder charge.

Basically: more Amy Poehler, less Tess Broussard. And way less Andy Milonakis.