The Model-UN-delegates-to-lovers pipeline

No shocker: these two nerds are perfect for each other

This week’s Park It is coming at you live from one of my favorite places on earth: the Outer Banks! I’m here for a week with my family and friend Natalie and I couldn’t be happier. I’ve said it before here, but I’m the happiest version of myself in a bathing suit and jean shorts. Despite being an absolute bitch to travel to (most people don’t realize the Outer Banks is basically the skinniest snippet of land ever, accessible only by one bridge), I love this place. I’m working some this week, reading Lorne Michael’s biography, writing Park It, and eating an obscene amount of peel and eat shrimp. Heaven!

This week’s episode is all about Leslie, Ben, and Model UN. Nice little rhyme there. No surprise to anyone here, Leslie and Ben were both avid Model UN nerds in high school, so them being invited to Pawnee Central High School’s conference is a dream come true. They’re chumming it up at the beginning, making alliances between Denmark (Leslie) and Peru (Ben), and basically showing these kids who’s boss. But of course, things inevitably go awry because Leslie and Ben are still broken up, despite lots and lots and LOTS of mutual pining. Ben gets upset when Leslie starts prioritizing taking photos for her campaign over Model UN, so she (Denmark) declares war on the rest of the delegates. In retaliation, Ben starts a motion to condemn Denmark, which every other country but Botswana seconds. The situation further escalates until Leslie and Ben are basically the only people left in the room, armies of very upset kids storming out en masse.

Loyal Parks watchers know that Leslie and Ben get back together very soon, so even though it’s painful watching them bicker, there’s a near-term payoff. Their break up, while criticized by many fans as sensationalist, is critical to the show and to them as a couple: not only does it show us exactly where Leslie’s priorities lie (public office), but seeing how miserable they are apart gives us that much more conviction that these two belong together for the long haul.

The whole point of this episode is to show how perfect these two are for each other and how torturous it is for them - and everyone around them - to hide their feelings. There’s this great opening scene where Ben walks into the Parks office and finds Leslie with her collection of all 193 countries’ flags spread out. We cut to a talking head of Leslie, where she says “this year, I’ve been asked to run Pawnee Central High School’s model UN conference, and if I don’t make it awesome, they may cancel it. I wonder if I’m gonna make it awesome?”

We then cut to a talking head of Ben: “Oh yeah, I didn’t really do Model United Nations in high school, so ….. OH WAIT, I SUPER DID.”

these two cocky motherfuckers

It’s like they’re speaking a different language when they’re talking to one another. They’re total nerds, they have so much in common, and they belong together. Yes, they have shared interests, but most importantly, they have a shared level of ambition. Leslie’s ambition to run for public office is what breaks them up in the first place, and rightfully so. Leslie wouldn’t be Leslie if she had sacrificed that dream for a man. Ben gets it, even though it tears him apart. He’s gotten it since the first day they met, when they’re sitting in a bar at 10:30 in the morning and he goes “well, you want to run for office someday, right?” and Leslie says “yeah, how’d you know?”

But Ben has ambition too and we see the first real inklings of it in Model UN. He wants to win. He wants to be the best. He wants the rest of the world to fall in line with his Denmark-Peru alliance. In short, he speaks the same language as Leslie. He doesn’t just see her ambition and support her; he matches it with his own. Importantly though, he wants to do all of this with Leslie at his side. He wants to win via a geopolitical alliance. If that’s not a metaphor for their relationship, I don’t know what is.

I do think that having these two break up was an important choice the showrunners made. It doesn’t mean I like it! But fantastic news - the wait for them to get back together (and stay together this time) is almost over. Just give me one more week :)