The Childless-By-Choice Community Could Do Worse Than Have Jen Barkley As Its Official Spokeswoman

Will Ben win his Congressional run before Parks & Recreation wraps its short final season? I can't honestly say that I care. Given how much, often, and wildly these characters change jobs, it wouldn't surprise me if Ben ends up leapfrogging the House of Representatives and going straight to President. But no matter how Ben's run goes, it will have been a worthwhile storyline for the show to pursue because it has brought Jen Barkley back to Pawnee.

Like Tammy 2 before her, Jen is the kind of character we seldom see on Parks & Recreation: an unrepentant jerk who does what she wants and doesn't care who or what gets destroyed in the process. Proof of her amorality lies in the very thing that brought her to Pawnee in the first place: the City Council candidacy of the completely unqualified Bobby Newport, Leslie's opponent. Only an operator as skilled as Jen could make that race at all competitive, even though by her own admission she'd been "phoning it in pretty hard" -- she's just that good. Forget Bobby's debate threat to move Sweetums operations to Mexico if Leslie won: Jen went on Perd Hapley's show and pitted Leslie against puppies! Let's be real: Leslie should have lost that seat well before she did.

And when Leslie actually did lose her seat and ponder running again, it was Jen who had to parachute in (once Ben paid her to) and set Leslie straight about aiming higher than a do-over of a job she didn't particularly like much the first time. Leslie could trust Jen when she built up Leslie's profile and accomplishments.

The three-year time jump has, as my esteemed colleague Mark has noted, changed the Parks we've known, mostly for the worse. But the biggest change in Ben and Leslie's personal life -- the addition of their three apparently uncontrollable children -- has given Jen yet another point of comparison by which she can judge herself superior: she doesn't have kids, and apparently every second she spends near Leslie and Ben convinces her anew that she's made the right call in life.

RIGHT?! Up top, my childless sister!

The second of this week's two episodes was pretty great for a lot of reasons, from the return of Ben's weird calzone obsession to Leslie's disgusted dismissal of The Male Men, a local men's right's group: "You're ridiculous, and 'men's rights' is nothing." Does the context matter? No: it's just true.

But my favourite moment of the episode is the one that makes me -- a country-dwelling leggings-wearer -- think that I could hang with Jen...you know, if she were real. Meeting with Ben and Leslie at their house, Ben notices that she's wearing a plastic poncho over her clothes. She cheerfully explains: "Oh! Because every surface area in your house is sticky. Last time I was here I found a melted crayon. On my blazer." To their credit (ish), Ben and Leslie don't try to defend themselves or their shitty kids, which is a good thing, because one of them is about to run out of a doorway, assaulting her with paint and proving Jen AND ALL CHILDLESS PEOPLE right.

You sweep that poncho, Queen! Then go sleep with Chris again! Ann might not like the idea at first, but if anyone can talk her into it, it's you.