Cancel your plans ‘cause the Parks and Recreation season premiere is tonight, and one out of one person writing this article agrees: It is the best TV comedy you will see all month!
Plus, there's Heidi Klum's face.
"When I met Heidi, I spent a lot of time improvising, just talking about her face," Amy Poehler told me during a break on the P-Rex set in Los Angeles. "It is the first thing you think of when you meet her, so I just kept saying, ‘Look at your face!' And she was very nice and I think she had a good time."
In tonight's season opener, with guest star Heidi Klum, the cast is heading to London. "Leslie gets an award," Poehler explains of her character, "a fancy award, and she has to go to London to get it. It's really exciting and she meets all these female politicians from other countries and she sees how well they are treated. Heidi plays a politician from Denmark."
Another highlight? "It is really, really fun to see Ron Swanson in London," Adam Scott (Ben) teases." And that is all I need to say."
Fans of Ben and Leslie should know that the couple is just as ridonkulously loveable as always, and they'll be growing even closer this season with Ben stepping in to help Leslie fight to keep her job. (Remember there was a push to have her recalled in last May's fifth season finale.)
"Ben and Leslie are great," Scott promises. "The whole recall election is tough but Ben sort of steps back into his old campaign-advisor role, which is fun to do."
And Poehler, as a producer on the series, says she sees no need to have Ben and Leslie anything but happy for the time being. "With this couple, we have really earned them being together," she tells me. "And now that they're together, it's just really fun to see them married. So often in shows, they often stretch for 10 years ‘Are they gonna kiss or not?' So I like that we were like, let's just get them married! So that's been super fun and you'll find this season that Leslie and Ben have to work together to figure out how to save the jobs that they love."
Something else Amy is personally fighting to keep? The lovely Rashida Jones. Despite the announcement last month that Rashida and Rob Lowe will be leaving Parks and Recreation, Poehler insists: "I am going to tie Rashida down like that movie Misery and I'm not letting her go anywhere!" And, joking aside, Poehler isn't ruling out a return for Rashida. "I don't think Ann will ever be that far from Pawnee, to be honest. Nobody ever quite leaves. But their storyline of them making a baby, it's been a lot of fun, and to think about how Leslie is going to deal with Ann moving. So there are some really good episodes coming up."
Oh, and I almost forgot: The moment that made me laugh-cry on set! Jim O'Heir of "Damnit Jerry!" fame (he says people shot that wherever he goes), took me completely off guard when he gave us this serious tease: "Jerry has a little bit of a life-altering thing happening." Followed by this: "As we know, Jerry has a huge penis. And what they do is they take a third of his penis, and they're able to use that for burn victims and they just rub the tissue they took. And 250 burn victims have been helped."
I mean…I can't. Watch the video clip for his delivery. It's pretty brilliant.
By the way, for anyone who is as dumb as rocks as this particular Parks and Recreation fan, you might not realize that the show did explain why Jerry has such a hot wife (as continually questioned by a dumbfounded Adam Scott on the show)—the hot wife of course being played by Christie Brinkley:
"In season three, episode one it was established," O'Heir explains. "A doctor literally looked into the camera and said ‘Jerry has the largest penis I've ever seen'. So that [explains] the hot wife." O'Heir also says he hopes Brinkley will be back this season and that shooting with Heidi Klum was awkward because she stalks him.
Your final amazingly awesome fun fact we gathered while on set: Adam Scott is not only a huge fan of quality TV like Breaking Bad, but also Orphan Black (they were shooting that week with guest star Tatiana Maslany) and…The Bachelor. Yes, The Bachelor which airs on ABC and is hosted by Chris Harrison. That one.
"I have never missed an episode," he told me. "I am not kidding."
Mind. Blown.
And your mind will be blown by how outstanding tonight's Parks and Recreation premiere is. Check it out, and prepare to be giddy!