Parker Posey’s been all the rage the past few months, thanks to her stint on White Lotus. “Piper, no!” and “where’s my Lorazepam” have both gone so viral, we’ll be including them in casual conversation for years to come. My TikTok feed is basically only these videos:
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My mom’s from North Carolina, and now I’m wondering if I should leverage her accent to go viral as well. I’ll ride her coattails.
Funnily enough, over here on Park It, it’s ALSO Parker Posey week. She’s the guest star of season 3, episode 12!
She stars as Lindsay Carlisle Shay (what a name), Leslie’s ex-best friend, former Pawnee Parks department colleague, and current Parks Director over in Eagleton, Pawnee’s much nicer, much stuffier, much bougier rival city.
As a backstory on Lindsay Carlisle Shay, she took a job as Eagleton’s Parks director after Leslie turned it down. According to Leslie, she “went to work in Eagleton, fixed her deviated septum, and lost 35 pounds, and lost something else … what was it again? Oh yeah. Her soul.”
Here’s what I’ll say: Parker Posey’s never not iconic, and Lindsay Carlisle Shay is no exception. This woman waltzes back into Leslie’s life in her tweed pantsuit, Kate Spade purse, and Bump-It and just stokes chaos the entire episode. She’s responsible for building a fence in the middle of a park that just so happens to straddle the Pawnee and Eagleton border. It also just so happens the Eagleton side is a little bit nicer than the Pawnee side. I can’t find a good photo of it, but squint at the background of this photo. See the green grass and nice picnic tables? Great. Now imagine this baseball diamond, sans baseball diamond. Just a patch of dirt. Thaaaat’s Pawnee!
In addition to meeting Lindsay Carlisle Shay, this episode serves as our first real introduction to Eagleton. I’ve always loved the dichotomy of Pawnee and Eagleton. Eagleton apparently was founded back in the 1800s, when the “wealthiest Pawnee settlers” went and formed a new town, realizing they hated Pawnee. Eagleton’s this cash-flush, country club version of hell, where the citizens and employees are soul-sucking, money hungry, and decked out in head to toe Lily Pulitzer.
The lengths the writers went to to lean into this!! Some examples:
The Eagleton public forums are held in a country club with a custom crepe station
In the Eagleton “jail,” prisoners are given a full charcuterie board as a snack
All attendees of the Eagleton public forums leave with gift bags, which include iPhones
Because of Eagleton’s candy factory, the air always smells like vanilla
When a citizen in Eagleton talks during the public forum, everyone claps for them
The Eagleton jail also has complimentary gift bags
Whenever I picture Eagleton, I basically just picture everyone in Pawnee like this:
People like Tom, who love nice things, can’t help it! They know Eagleton’s soulless, they know Eagleton only loves Eagleton and wants to keep all outsiders out …. but the pie just smells soooooo good.
Lindsay Carlisle Shay is a synecdoche of Eagleton. She’s the spirit of the town incarnate, and she’s the perfect foil for Leslie. This is unfortunately Lindsay’s only episode, but we’ll get much more of Eagleton in the episodes to come. In later seasons, Pawnee and Eagleton even merge!! Take that Lindsay Carlisle Shay. And thanks for your service Parker Posey.
Something I love about rewatching shows is spotting guest characters who didn’t mean anything to me the first time around. Maybe it’s because I’m older now, maybe it’s because I’m listening to different podcasts or seeing different people on TikTok than I was the first time around, maybe it’s because the actor’s skyrocketed to fame since their days as a guest star. Whatever it is, it keeps rewatches feeling fresh, no matter how many times you’ve seen a certain show. You never know who might mean something to you the next time around.
I had this experience recently with Hacks, in the season 3 scene where Ava tricks a bell hop into saying Deborah’s yellow dress is ugly. And I recently learned it’s Pat Regan from Seek Treatment! And same with Grey’s Anatomy (I just started a rewatch…seriously dangerous game I’m playing). Demi Lovato’s a patient in season 2!! She tries to scratch her eyes out!!
This recognition happens all the time with Parks and Rec, which had a seriously star studded lineup of guest stars over its seven season tenure. We’ve already had Paul Scheer (the Kaboom! guy from season 2), Will Arnett (the misogynistic MRI technician who gives Leslie an MRI mid-date), Louis CK (tough one), Will Forte (Twilight guy who chains himself to Leslie’s radiator), and Justin Theroux (Leslie’s boyfriend who she tries to charm with a dinner party). And now Parker Posey. That’s not even citing the heavy hitters that come in later seasons.
It’s like an Easter Egg hunt of guest stars, and in my opinion it’s what makes a rewatch all the more fun. When you know episode plots so well you could recite them in their sleep, watching someone like Kristen Bell pop up out of nowhere in season 5 — also as a rival from Eagleton, funnily enough — keeps me on my toes.
It’s also strangely heartwarming, in a way. Seeing an actor like Kathryn Hahn in a series long Parks and Rec arc when we know that, fifteen years later, she’ll be one of the biggest actors in the world, makes me feel a little bit like I’m looking back at a high school yearbook. We knew them back when.
We knew Victoria Ratliff back when she was Lindsay Carlisle Shay. And Leslie knew Lindsay Carlisle Shay back when she was just a girl who loved public service.
In other news — Hacks season 4 just dropped! Should I attempt a watch along here on Park It? Maybe I’ll do it via voice memo installation….
What an incredible coincidence! Queen PP forever!